Want to build an attractive, sophisticated blog or website—without having to learn any special coding? WordPress is the answer you're looking for! WordPress is one of the world's most popular Web design tools because it's free, it's easy to use, and it produces professional results.

In these lessons, you'll get hands-on experience with this powerful tool as you create your own WordPress site and blog. As you walk through the process from start to finish, you'll find out how to use WordPress to create pages and posts, add images and videos, change a site's look and feel, and include user-friendly features. You'll discover the ease of using WordPress design themes to express your creativity, and you'll see how much fun it is to be part of the vibrant WordPress online community. 

In addition to mastering the technical elements of WordPress, you'll learn how to organize a blog or website, create appealing content, and achieve better positions on search engine results pages. By the end of this course, you'll be able to confidently use WordPress to create a blog or a personal, business, or organizational website.

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such, we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work, including the final exam.

No software purchase or installation is necessary. You’ll receive instructions for registering for and accessing your free online account at WordPress.com, where your site will be created and hosted. WordPress runs on any Windows operating system from Windows 98 to Windows 7 and on all versions of Mac OS X. You’ll need to have Internet access; e-mail; the Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox Web browser; and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads   by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader). No specific knowledge or skills are required, just a general familiarity with the Internet.

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be John Agress.

John Agress has been active in the computer world since the 1980s and has been developing and designing websites for more than a decade. He was among the first designers to recognize that WordPress, which was originally created as blogging software, can also produce content management websites that can be updated as easily as sending an email. He loves helping his Web design clients take control of their WordPress blogs and websites. John graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Communication Studies and spent many years as a radio and television news anchor, writer, and producer.

“ This is my 4th ed2go course and John was by far the most responsive instructor to date. He spends the time to address everyone's questions and to ensure that we become comfortable with a most daunting subject. I highly recommend this class to anyone that has a interest in the subject. ”

“ This class was extremely well done. The instructor, John, did and excellent job in teaching the material. ”

“ This was a great class! ”

“ John is one of the best online instructors I have ever had. I would highly recommend him to anyone wanting to learn. He is patient and quick to respond to students’ questions or concerns. ”

“ This was an excellent course, as it helped me to become familiar with WP -- something that would not be possible from just reading a book. ”

“ Excellent course, excellent instructor. This was my first online course and I didn't know what to expect. I was wondering, "How can you raise your hand if you have a question?" But John answered questions/concerns in a timely, constructive manner, which I appreciated. The course is well-organized. Probably one of the best organized courses I've taken and I've taken a plenty! ”

“ Thank you for creating a course that has given me valuable information and helped bring me back to educating myself. This has been an excellent experience and I will tell anyone interested in creating a blog pr website about the course. ”

“ I really want to let you know how great I think you've been as an instructor. The depth and length of your responses have been phenomenal. Your knowledge of the subject and your ability to put your students at ease with a subject that overwhelms most of us is exemplary. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am not now an expert - but I do have the confidence that I can get in there and tackle the world of web design. ”

“ This is really the best class Education To Go has to offer. You are the best instructor and you make it fun! ”

“ I definitely got what I needed out of this class. My primary objective was to learn how to work with a self-hosted WordPress website/blog that I took over for a client. Previously, I was intimidated by WordPress because I had never worked in it. This class gave me enough knowledge and confidence to dive into the existing WordPress site and start making changes to it, as well as set up my own self-hosted WordPress site which I am integrating with an existing, traditional website. Even though my objective was outside the scope of the class, the material you covered and the conversations in the Discussion area gave me what I was looking for. ”