Creating your blog is easy!

Hello Context of Schooling students,

As early as possible during the first week of class, you will set up your own blog for this course. A blog is your very own personal online journal. It is public, in that I and your classmates can read it and comment on it, but it is your space and you can control most of it. (If you want to make it private so that only" members of this class can read it, we will figure out how to do that together).

Creating your own blog will also introduce you to the blogisphere if you do not know this place already. I hope that you will discover creative educational uses for this online medium. You will see how easy it is to use blogger.com and perhaps it will inspire you to bring blogs into your classroom as well!

To start you own blog, you will go to:

http://www.blogger.com

The big orange box at the top right of the page will direct you to create your own blog on a site called blogspot.com. Follow the instructions to open a free account. Do not forget your username and password: You will need them every time to sign in. As you fill in the information you will be asked to name your blog. This title will appear at the top of your blog. Mine is called "Contexts of Schooling FNED 546 May 2012."

Then you need to choose an address:

http://_________blogspot.com

This will be the web address associated with your blog. You can call it anything you like. Be clever or simple (or both). It's up to you.

You will also need to choose a design template for your blog. Look at the options listed and see what appeals to you. You can even change this later and even find fun, creative templates at sites like PYZAM. Once you have the account set up, you can start posting. A "posting" is an entry on your blog. For clarifications, you can have one blog, but many postings. Give the post a title and compose it like you would any journal entry. When you're finished, hit the button at the bottom that says "Publish Post." Your post will not appear on your blog until you publish it. You can always go back and edit old posts, and create new ones.

Your first post

Your first post should be a short introduction of yourself: Who you are, how is your spring going so far, what you do when you are not in class, (just a short bio paragraph - no big deal). You will post the rest of the entries as they are due (please see course syllabus schedule for dates). Pages 4 & 5 of our course syllabus will be posted in my next entry for easy consultation. In addition, you can post any time you feel like sharing something!

IMPORTANT: When you are done creating your blog, and writing your bio, please come back to this blog, and post a comment with your complete/exact blog address so that I can post it in the link list to the right. Once the links to all your blogs are listed, this blog will become our class blog :-)

Some Tips and Helpful Hints

Once you are in your blog, look at the top right hand corner of the screen. If you click on the word CUSTOMIZE, you will be able to make design changes, create new post, edit old posts, etc...(You can only do that if you are signed into your blog). Once you are in the CUSTOMIZE screen, you can do all kinds of things to make your blog a bit more interesting. Change your font or color, edit a post, change your settings: See the tabs at the top of the screen for all kinds of options. Poke around online and make a lists of websites related to education, diversity, social justice, or anything else relevant and post them to your blog. You can add all kinds of things by ADDING A GADGET from your LAYOUT tab. Just do the best you can with this. If you get stuck, don't fret...I'm happy to help you anytime as you work on getting started. Send me an email or grab me after class. And remember, you can't break it! it's just a blog. Everything can be changed if need be.

Good luck! Bonne chance!

Odile Mattiauda