Creating Forum Posts

When you’re signed in as a Community member, you can start a post by tapping “Post” in the top-right corner of any Forum page and following these simple steps.

1. Select a post type — discussion, story, or resource.

Discussions are for posting questions and getting answers. Stories are where you can share your successes and inspiring ideas. Resources are practical tools that you can share to help other educators start a project, activity, or lesson idea.

💡Pro tip: Think about who you’re trying to reach with your post. What are the circumstances that are bringing them to the Community, and how can your post help or inspire them? Focus your post on connecting with other members and their needs.

2. Give your post a title.

Write a clear, compelling title using common, concise language so other members know at a glance what your post is all about.

💡Pro tip: Make the title of your post a call to action. Lead with the action you want members to take — Learn how to…, Create…, Download…, Inspire…, Discover…, etc.

3. Create the body of your post.

You can add text, images, and videos in the body of your post by using the toolbar seen below. 

The post editor toolbar

Start your post with a short one- or two-sentence description to let readers know quickly what they will find.

Don’t save the good stuff for last! Use an inverted-triangle writing method — lead with the most important information first, then progressively less critical information or context.

Create digestible, info chunks. Break up your post into chunks using headlines, and short descriptions that support the headline. This helps members scan your post for information and quick reference. 

Show don’t tell. Images, diagrams, and videos are worth a thousand words! Media can make it easy to understand content that's otherwise difficult to explain in words. Consider sharing a “finished product” video at the top of your post to intrigue members to read more.

Reach all members. Accessibility features are available when adding images and videos to ensure that everyone can enjoy your content.

🚨Important! As a safety measure, it's important to remember that clear images (or any other identifying information) of student-age children is prohibited in the Forum. Consider masking, blurring, or omitting student faces.

💡Pro tip: Use formatting options and appealing imagery to make your content easy to digest and remember. And don’t forget to add accessibility descriptions to any images you add.

💡Pro tip: Embedded videos with poster images attract many more views than those without. Use the Video Poster Image Template attached below to help you create a still image preview for your video.

 

Example of two video players — one has a play icon over a black field, the other is a play icon over a hand holding seeds
Video players with (right) and without (left) poster images

4. Share things you’ve created by attaching files.

You can add up to five files for other members to download and use. This is optional.

5. Place your post in a topic area to add context.

Pick the topic that’s most relevant to your post. If you started your post while you were in a Forum area, your post will default to that area. You can choose to post it somewhere else by tapping “Change area.”

6. Help users find your post by adding tags.

Though a post can be placed in only one area, you can add up to six tags to contextualize your post. All tags on posts click through to Tag pages, which show all content in the Forum with that tag.

💡Pro tip: As you write your content, the system will use machine learning to suggest tags. You can add these with a simple click, or you can type into the dialog box to find and add tags you think most relevant. Here's a list of all active tags.

7. Show a preview of your content — add a featured image and description.

The featured image and brief post description will appear when your post is shared on social media or curated in the Forum. Posts with featured images attract many more clicks that those without. You can see the difference in visual appeal in posts with and without featured images below.

 

Examples of posts without and with featured images

8. Encourage global collaboration by setting your post language.

Though the Forum interface is in English, you can author posts in whichever language you’d prefer. Setting the post language in the Post language dropdown (shown below) helps enable translation technologies so that Community members can read posts that are authored in languages other than their own.

 

The pulldown menu of all languages available in the post editor

We encourage users to use Safari's onboard translation features to read content in languages other than their own.

9. Take as much time as you need by saving a draft.

If you’re not ready to publish your post, you can save it as a draft anytime and come back to it later. Just go to your profile and tap “Posts” to see your drafts, which you can edit anytime before submitting.

💡Pro tip: Posts being reviewed by moderators can’t be edited, so make sure to save your post as a draft until you’re ready to send it for publishing.

10. Agree to the terms and publish your post.

Once your post is ready, check the box to confirm that you’ve read and agree to the legal terms, then hit the Post button. If your post contains media, attachments, or links, it will go through content moderation.

Editing/Deleting a Post

To edit or delete your post after it’s been published: 

  • Tap the more actions icon next to the post title and choose “Edit.”
  • Or, from the post list in your Profile, tap the blue edit icon under “Actions.”
  • On the “Edit post” page, you can make changes and tap the Update post button to publish your edits, or tap the Delete button to completely remove the post — along with any comments or replies — from the Forum.

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