Using Sliders to Create an Educational WordPress Site
Are you trying to create an educational site, one that either promotes your academic project or actually functions in teaching visitors something? There are many ways to go about this, but one asset that may help you is a slider.
Sliders can display a slideshow of images or text. This may seem simple, but educators can use it display charts, link to certain pages, or even to create their own mini-presentation. If this sounds helpful, read on to learn the ways you could use a slider on your educational website.
Using Informational Sliders
Sliders are great for expressing information with images, and they can do it in a lot of ways. As WordPress doesn’t have this functionality by default, you’ll need to use a slider plugin such as Soliloquy. Soliloquy comes with several addons which allow you to customize sliders further. Just keep in mind that some of these addons may require purchasing a certain plan.
Create a Mini-Presentation
With the functionality of stop and play buttons, captions, and even transition effects, it’s entirely possible to create a small presentation with a slider. You could use this functionality as a learning platform by itself, or perhaps give students a quick refresher on what they just learned.
Don’t forget that you can import PDF files and retain all styling and formatting. This is a viable way to create small educational presentations. Visitors will appreciate the extra animation and interactivity a slider can offer.
Informational Sliders
Want an elegant way to show students charts or other info in the lesson? Or maybe you’d like a staff reel introducing your company? Sliders are a compact and effective way to convey visual information. If you have your lessons online, you can use them right in the post wherever you might need a slideshow — no more distracting rows of images.
Don’t forget about video sliders. If you want to organize multiple video tutorials into a slider playlist, you can do that too.
Link to Other Pages
Sliders can link out to other pages when clicked. They make great navigational elements. Instead of having links to your lessons scattered haphazardly across a page, have them scrolling elegantly in a slider.
You can also put a button on your images, to make it more clear that it’s an interactive element. When a user clicks the button, they’ll be sent right to the page you specified.
Featured Posts
A great way to keep people informed is with a slider that shows your latest blog posts. Stick it in a sidebar or on your homepage, and anyone who visits will be able to jump right into learning. You can also choose certain posts or categories to display instead if you want your best posts or lessons to be seen first.
Combine With Themes and Plugins
On their own, sliders are helpful when creating a learning website, but they may not be quite enough. However, combined with the right plugins and themes, you’ll have a wide array of education-specific features at your disposal. Alongside plugins like LearnPress or SlickQuiz, Soliloquy sliders will only enhance your site’s functionality.
Sliders for Education
While sliders themselves may not be enough to create an educational website, they’re an invaluable tool in a lesson. Informational websites for a school can benefit from sliders as well. Soliloquy can be customized with CSS and HTML, so with enough technical know-how, you can go even further than the options this guide suggests. The sky’s the limit.
Now over to you: will you be using a slider on your educational website? We’d love to hear about your plans! And feel free to connect with us on Twitter and Facebook for more tips, tricks, and tutorials about sliders, WordPress, and web design.
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