WPlecturer

This article includes the main Characteristics of WordPress, but are more.  WordPress is the most popular CMS.  WP is easy to learn to use and to maintain, with a lot of FREE plugins, Themes, and very big Community support.

The Most Important Characteristics of WordPress are :

It is FREE

Joomla & Drupal are also FREE.

WP is Popular

-- more than 43% of Web

It is very easy to learn

--- Easy to learn

It is very easy to use

--- Easy to use

It is Secure

--- Secure (third party plugins have bugs)

It needs Cache Plugins

--- Needs Cache plugins

Joomla & Drupal includes Cache functionality

Written in PHP

--- written in PHP, HTML, CSS, JS

Joomla & Drupal are also written in PHP

it uses its own Framework

---  has its own framework

Templates are using mainly Bootstrap

--- templates using Bootstrap or other Frameworks of CSS

New editor Gutenberg

-- new editor + Use React JS

Blocks the Javascript Library React JS

-- Pages and Articles are using Blocks written in ReactJS

It has a lot of plugins & Themes free and paid

--- it has a lot of free Plugins & Templates

Joomla has less and Drupal has also more than Joomla

It uses Child Themes

--- it uses Child Themes for local template customization (so that to not overwrite the local modifications from the Theme update)

It uses an SEO customizer

-- it uses permalinks for SEO optimization + plugins

It is light

– --it is light (fast)

We can optimize and secure by .htaccess and plugins

--- it is needed for SEO, Optimization & Security to edit .htaccess

some more Characteristics are:

A lot of sites have a Security problem

---because  of not updating or bad plugins are not secure

--- It has more than 80% of sites hacked every year (not updated sites and bad plugins)

big Community support

--- big community support

--- it has many articles, forums, online free and paid tutorials

It is mobile-friendly

--- mobile-friendly

It has a very popular e-commerce solution

Using WordPress you can create

1. any app developing your own plugins
2. Blogs were the 1st use of WordPress, before to became a CMS
3. Magazines / News sites
4. e-shops with the FREE WooCommerce plugin or other Paid
5. social communities, by using the Free BuddyPress plugin (or another Paid) and a Pro Theme
6. Learning Management Systems (LMS or Online Schools)
7. apps that are needed booking (like Dentist Office)
8. Bridge with WordPress at the front and Moodle LMS at back
9. Sites for Marketing promotions
10. Authors and Writers Sites
11. Real Estate Sites
12. Doctors, Lawyers, and more sites
13. Sites like Amazon, Quora, e.t.c.
14. Job sites
15. and many more

WordPress is the best FREE blog platform. If you know how to code you can use it to write many apps. It is relatively easy and many NOT  Web / IT educated people use WP to create sites.

Introduction 

Joomla is less popular compared with WordPress, and a little difficult. In this article are the main Characteristics of Joomla, maybe to be more. This is a fast picture of this CMS. It has less support but you can find whatever you need. On the other hand, Drupal is still more difficult from the three. Joomla has its characteristics as every CMS. It is a matter of choice, every CMS has friends, and at the end of the day, the important is to have done your work with love, because love gives quality. I am using Joomla for this site. So follow the Characteristics of Joomla in a list format.

Joomla is less easy comparing with WordPress

-- less easy 

some other characteristics of Joomla are:

It has a smaller portion on the market than WordPress

--- popular (2.1% CMS market)

It is free

--- Free

It is secure

--- Secure 

It includes Cache Functionality

--- Includes Cache functionality

It is proper for communities

--- proper for communities

some other characteristics of Joomla are:

It is written in PHP

--- written in PHP, HTML, CSS, JS (it uses MVC model)

Joomla has templates written in Bootstrap

--- templates using Bootstrap or other Frameworks of CSS

Comparing with WordPress, Joomla has fewer Plugins & Themes

--- it has less of free Plugins & Templates

Joomla does not use Child Themes, it uses Overwrites

--- it uses Overwrites for local template customization (so that to not overwritten from update)

It contains SEO technology

–- it uses URL configuration to create SEO URLs

some other characteristics of Joomla are:

Via .htaccess we can optimize, secure and add SEO functionality

-– it includes SEO functionality , Optimization & Security to edit .htaccess

Joomla has few sites hacked

–- Only 3% of sites hacked (2018)

Joomla, comparing with WordPress, has smaller Community Support

--- less  community support

It is mobile friendly

-- mobile-friendly

It has extensions

-- for webshops

-- Learning Management Systems (like our site)

-- and more

Introduction on Tips Building an LMS

This is the last article on Online Education. I will underline some important areas that you must investigate if you want to run an Online School. The best Tip on building an LMS is to be always a student of your area of expertise, you must work hard and you have to know it.

The most popular free LMS is MOODLE. It can be integrated with WordPress via Bridge software. Here are the links:

Link to moodle.org

Link to Bridge of WP

other Tips on Building an LMS are:

General Tips on building an Online Education Site (LMS)

• You must study what competitors do.
• You need to speak with an Accountant for taxation
• You need to speak with a lawyer  for "Terms" and "Privacy" pages and other topics that a site is needed according to low
• And of course, you can have parallel courses on many educational sites.
• You must use many other sites, communities in order to promote your course (Facebook, YouTube, e.t.c).
• You must optimize your site, and build an SEO friendly site.
• you must be patient
• see what others do
• in your area of interest, you must study and know the majority of info
• to offer what the people need (solve problems in areas of big interest)
• validate the content, what is asking the market?
• do not forget the family
• do a little gymnastic
• have main targets  and minor (keep a diary)
• if a task is difficult then break it in smaller tasks
• to take feedback (how many see your article/course, with Google Analytics is away)
• how may stars give to your course?
• communicate with students to learn what is not good for them
• all we do mistakes and we have failures, but we learn and we have progressed at the end. Since a lot of people create LMS sites then everyone can create, the quality is coming with experience, clear thinking, few lessons, and the help of God.
• work with love

others tips on building an LMS are:

You are going to build the site or you are going to hire an engineer?

• Can you build the site, if you have the knowledge do it and refactor it until you make it as good as you can?
• There are many sites with prebuild option, just click and the site is ready, then update, delete, add info.
• Or find a web engineer, to make the site.

What is your budget -Tips on building an Online Education Site (LMS)?

• You need to pay for the LMS software, the domain name, the hosting company, the hosting company of videos, the PayPal or other payment gateway (per sales amount of money), and programs like Video editing and capture for your lessons.
• Some programs we pay one's a year or more years depending on what we want.
• There are also expenses of the Template, plugins/extensions, the payment of web developers, and possible support contracts.

What is your site content -Tips on building an Online Education Site (LMS)?

• You want to produce or/and offer pdf books?
• Do you want to have a blog?   (can you write articles or you will have to pay?)
• What form of lessons are you going to have? (video, text, PowerPoint, photos with text, slides e.t.c)
• Do you want to have an Online Community?
• Do you want to offer support or making projects or writing plugins/themes?

So I wish all the future owners of Online Schools all the best in their efforts to create great sites.

Introduction

How to offer? It depends on the type of Education. If it is about Programming, it is a practical material you must preset practical info. If it is about another topic you may use PowePoint and speak as you speak to one of your friends. You may have music or not, you may have short or big paragraphs or videos or audio. After the article about some budget LMS's, I'd like, in this article, to give some info on how we must deliver Online Education.

There are some basic principles, on how to offer Online Education:

• Do what others do, what is popular, for example, WordPress is very popular
• Validate that the content is popular, now in April 2020 everyone wants an Online School
• Do it with love, start from this that  you love
• keep mental space
• cooperate with one or more person to obtain expertise and gain the needed time to learn
• if you can not do a task  outsourced it
• have time for your family

What is popular in order to know how to offer online education

You can validate the demand of the content by Google (keyword search), or on how many students are following the course in Udemy, e. t.c. There are a lot of services performing SEO research, and you can learn what people want and where. In general, you must solve problems with online education and you must help the people.

Online lessons on how to offer education

First I 'm going to give info about  a school (between others) that gives lessons on how to deliver:

ACS Online School on how to offer Online Education

ACS Online School follows the link. In principle is a good school to learn how to teach, if you are not a tutor.

Education Courses follow the link

Course on Delivering Distance Education follow the link

Udemy, Phil Ediner on how to offer Online Education

There are also a lot of good courses in many other places. I just want to mention the course from Udemy

of   Phil Ediner, it is really excellent.

WordPress

If you are not an IT person, then given that:

• many people for social sciences learn and use it
• it is easy
• it has many plugins and themes
• it is very popular
• many blogs, forums, lessons help to learn
• it is the USA way of thinking

it is good for all

Also you can write code, this is for IT persons

Joomla

This is more advanced, and

• This is for more heavy projects
• With less plugins and themes.
• More difficult
• It is the English way of thinking
• Less popular

It is good for more advanced users

Drupal

At the beginning

At the beginning of Web Programming, programmers were using HTML, CSS, and JS for static sites (this is and now true), and with PHP and MySQL for dynamic content. It was a time consuming procedure and difficult to create APPs, Menus and specific apps. So this lead to the creation of frameworks.

Frameworks

Then we have the creation of Frameworks

CSS Frameworks like Bootstrap and more

PHP Frameworks like Laravel, CodeIgniter, Sympony. CakePHP, WordPress and more

JS Frameworks like Vue JS, React JS, Angular JS and more

A PHP Framework has summary commands and extra functionalities, and is faster to develop PHP Apps using a PHP framework that to write in vanilla PHP ( But in the last case you can create your own framework libraries.

WordPress is . also. a CMS  and a PHP Framework to develop applications.

What is a CMS ?

In contrast, a CMS or Content Management System, is a piece of software that allows you to store, manage and publish said web pages. Most websites use a content management system, but you could make one without a CMS, writing directly in a programming language like HTML and CSS. (Google)

A CMS may be have plugins that add extra functionality and Themes that give the external appearance.

There are plugins that offer

• e-Shops
• Social Networks
• Blogs
• Forums
• Learning Systems
• Security
• SEO
• Marketplace
• and more

Kind of CMS'

It is fast to build an Application in CMS

It is secure

There are CMS, with Database or Not.

There are CMS written in PHP, Java, Javascript Frames (Vue Js,React Js , Angular Js), PHP Frames (CodeIgniter, Laravel e.t.c.) and many more.

At this site, we speak about WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

• Monolithic with PHP template
• Headless or/and decoupled with front app in JS Frameworks

So for a site builder it is easy and fast to create a site.

He must

• make research in the Internet
• speak with people
• buy a Domain
• buy area in a hosting company
• choose a CMS
• use free or paid plugins
• and configure the site

If he can not then is needed a Web Dev.