Building proficiency with Wordpress.org - a guide for journalists from MMJ

I'd like to introduce you to the second in a three-level programme of tuition on using Wordpress as a publishing platform for journalism, to which you have free access until 26-03-2012.
The three levels correspond to the levels common across the whole Multimedia Journalism: A Practical Guide learning programme
We covered level one, Getting Started with Wordpress, here.
The focus there was on Wordpress.com. Now we are looking at Wordpress.org.
If you are new to Wordpress, and want tuition on how to:

• Find your way around the Wordpress dashboard,
• What themes are and how to choose one,
• Add posts and pages to your site,
• Add and remove widgets and other basics,

then you should check out Getting Started with Wordpress.
You’ll need to be a subscriber to MMJ to gain access. To become a subscriber, buy the textbook, in either paper or ebook form.
You’ll find it on Amazon.co.uk at around £25, and at Amazon.com for the US at around $40.
Becoming a subscriber gives you full access to the extensive supportive website that complements each teaching unit in the book, plus access to the now 45 Masterclasses, which are up-to-the-minute tutorials in a wide range of key developments in multimedia journalism.

So what do we cover in level two, Building proficiency with Wordpress?

The focus now is on Wordpress.org. If you need to know the important differences between .com and .org, you’ll find an explanation here.
Here we cover:

• Choosing a host and downloading Wordpress.org to your computer
• Choosing, downloading, unzipping and activating a theme in Wordpress.org
• Recommended themes for creating magazine and news sites on Wordpress
• Essential adjustments to make to your Wordpress account
• Plug-ins you should add to your Wordpress site to boost functionality.

 It is intended to add a third level of tuition, Professional Standards with Wordpress, in the future.
That level is likely to include tuition on:

• Using FTP to administer your site
• How to run a news site and newspaper using Wordpress
• Essential plugins for newsrooms
• Building a mobile app on Wordpress

Next: Choosing a host and downloading Wordpress.org to your computer