Blogging

You want to create a blog! Excellent idea! Having a classroom blog is a wonderful way to keep your parents informed about your classroom. You can post notices, class projects, photos, student work -- whatever you want to share.

For Union 28's Digital Learning Challenge 2010/2011, we created a page about blogging and some of the recommended blog hosting sites. One that I like is Blogger. It is a Google application which means 1) it is free and 2) you need to create or already have a Google account. Once you have an account, the hardest part is naming your blog. Think carefully about your blog name because once you create it, you can't easily change it. Something simple and easy to remember would be best. The second hardest part of the process is making sure you write down your webpage address, username and password. Every time you want to make edits to your page you will need this information. Put the information in a safe place! Now you can beginning blogging!

Edublogs has an excellent tutorial - Kick Start Your Blogging. There are 16 steps - 8 beginning activities and 8 advanced. Some of the topics are: Setting Up your Blog, Writing Effective and Engaging Blog Posts to Embedding Media: the Nerves of a Blog! Each activity gives you step by step directions. Most are directed to using the Edublogs site but you can easily do the same in Blogger.