Lesson 1: Create your very own blog

Tip: open all links from this page in new windows or new tabs so that you don't lose track of the instructions. To get a menu which allows you to do this, right-click on the links (Windows) or hold down the Control key while clicking (Mac).

Objectives

In this workshop, you will:

1. Learn about the significance of blogs and what they can be used for
2. Set up a blog of your own with Blogger
3. Make a test post to your blog
4. Experiment with privacy settings and changing the layout of your blog
5. Make a real post to your blog, documenting your thoughts and experiences about this workshop lesson

*Remember ... if you've decided to work on the Learning Web 2.0 project with a partner, you only need to create one blog together.

Why blogging?

Blogs have been instrumental in the change in the focus of the Web from "we go there to read what's already written" (like a library of paper books) to "we write it ourselves". Blogging service sites make it simple and fast to publish and continually update a site on any topic you care to address.

A blog is not just a static source of information, however. It is also a means to engage in immediate discussion with others who are interested in the same thing. There have been free website hosting services for a long time, but the concept and capabilities of blogging software mean you don't need to do the slightest design or HTML coding if you're not up to it.

Here's a short video (3 minutes; sound required) from Commoncraft entitled "Blogs in Plain English":

Watch the video

Why might you want to have a blog? They can serve many purposes. Here are a few examples:

You can make it an informational website on a topic, without having to go through the business of finding web hosting, coding a website or hiring a designer, etc. A blog can be about any interest or hobby you can think of: politics, art, music, crafts, technology, education, business, religion, or even collecting Santa mugs. A blog like this can be a way to find others interested in the same topic, or just your personal soapbox.

Because it's easy to update with new information, you can use it like a newsletter. Blogging is intimately linked with RSS, which is a technology that allows subscribers to your "feed" to receive updates as you post them, without you having to take action to send out a notification. Just post the content, and your subscribers receive it when they check their "feed reader". We'll cover RSS and subscribing to blogs in the next lesson.

You can use a blog as a personal journal, and post about personal topics and your daily life. Although blogs can be locked down and totally private, usually comments from readers are permitted. It's possible to build up quite a social network of people who all read and comment on each other's blogs.



Some example blogs

Here are some examples of blogs on various topics. Take a brief look at each one and read a post or two. Do any of them particularly catch your eye? Keep your thoughts in mind, or make a note to yourself, because you will be talking a little about these blogs when you make your credit post for this workshop.

News and political blogs, such as Newsvine, are extremely common and popular.

Librarian in Black is a blog by a tech-savvy librarian.

Be Hear Be Now is an example of a blog on a specific topic, in this case music.

InfoPeople's 23 Things Blog - This is a similar project to the one your now experiencing hosted by InfoPeople. We probably won't get to 23 things but we'll try. They've moved way past 23 things and so should you. BTW, this project is an adaptation of the 23 things concept started by Helene Blowers at the The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. Read more about it here.

Ten Thousand Days is a general-topics blog, but directed outwards towards an audience rather than being a personal journal.

And lastly, our current President is making a real effort, imho, in the 2.0 world with the White House Blog.

For some folks, blogging is a profession. Here are two blogs about blogging:

CopyBlogger

ProBlogger

Blog authors often display a list of other people's blogs they read as a sidebar on their own blog. This is known as a blogroll. Once you've created your blog, we'll have a blogroll for all the participants in this project.

Setting up your own blog

There are a number of blogging or journaling services out there. For this workshop we have selected Blogger, which is owned by Google, so you need a Google account to make the blog. You can use any email address you like (such as your Palomar email address) to make a Google account. If you already have a Google account, skip to step 6. We'll use your Google account for a few of the lessons in this project, so please sign up for one.

1. Go to http://www.google.com.
2. Click "Sign in" at the top right of the page. (If you don't see the link, but instead see a box prompting you to download the Google Toolbar, close it. "Sign in" is hiding under that.)
3. Click "Create an account now" in the blue box under the login area.
4. Select a user name and password, read the Terms of Service, and click "I accept. Create my account." when you are finished. (You may wish to write down the password.)
5. Check your inbox for the verification email and click on the link within it when you receive it.
6. Now go to http://www.blogger.com. You will be forwarded to a "start" page.
7. At the top right where it says "Sign in to use Blogger", log in with your Google account and read and accept the terms of service.
8. You'll end up at the Blogger "Dashboard". Click "Create your blog now".
9. Select a blog title. This will be displayed at the top of your blog. For example, the title of this blog is "Learning Web 2.0 - Palomar College Library". Since this blog will be your documentation for completing these "2.0" workshops, you might call it something like "[Your Name]'s web 2.0 Class Blog." You can always change it later.
10. Select a blog address. You are actually only selecting the first part of the address, the part that appears before .blogspot.com. Again, for example, the address of this blog is "http://learning20-pcl.blogspot.com/" (that is, "learning20-pcl.blogspot.com"). This can also be changed later. Click "Check Availability" to see if the address you have chosen is available to use. (It may take several tries before you come up with something that is not already taken.)
11. Enter the word verification and click "Continue".
12. Select a blog template that appeals to you (you can change this later) and click "Continue" again.
13. Click "Start blogging".

Pause here for a moment and write down your blog address and password in a safe place that you will remember.

Your first blog post

Near the top left of the screen you will see three tabs labelled "Posting", "Settings", and "Layout". Right now you are on the "Posting" tab, set to "Create" (i.e., make a new post).

The post you are about to make is just a test post to see how everything looks. Put in a title for this post, then click in the "Compose" box and write some text. (You may not always see a blinking cursor. As long as you have clicked in the white box, don't worry; your text will appear.) It doesn't matter exactly what you say; again, this is just a test.

When you are finished, click the orange "Publish Post" button under the Compose box. To see the post, click "View Blog". Hello, world!

The page you are on after clicking "View Blog" is your main blog page. Right now you have only the one post, but if you have more, the column of posts will continue downward, with the most recent post at the top ("reverse chronological order").

Bookmark this page if you think you may forget your blog address. You will need to come back to it later to do other workshops in this series. All of the lessons in this project require a blog post to tell us, the learning community, what happened in each lesson. We're learning this 2.0 stuff together.

Next, we will be customizing your privacy settings and layout, so click the "Customize" link at the top right of the page, then the beige "Settings" tab.

Privacy settings

There are three ways in which you may wish to "lock down" your blog: You can remove it from the Blogger directory and prevent search engines from adding it to their databases; you can restrict who may leave comments; and you can restrict who may view the blog, period.

They are all optional. You can leave your blog public, listed in the directory, and open for comments if you wish. Those are the default settings, so if you don't want to change any of that, you can skip to the "Customizing your layout" section.

How to remove your blog from the directory

Underneath the "Posting", "Settings", and "Layout" tabs, there is a beige bar with links to sub-sections of the settings. You are taken to the "Basic" settings when you click the "Settings" tab, which is where you need to be to make this change.

To remove your blog from Blogger's listings, select "No" from the menu next to "Add your blog to our listings?".
To prevent search engines from indexing your blog address, select "No" from the menu next to "Let search engines find your blog?".
If you make any changes on this page, you must scroll down and click the orange "Save Settings" button to keep them.

How to restrict blog comments

To prevent some or all people from commenting in your blog, click the "Comments" link in the center of the "Settings" tab and make your choice next to the second question, "Who Can Comment?"
"Anyone" means just that; anyone who can see the blog can leave a comment (anonymously, if they wish).
"Registered Users" means people with Google accounts or OpenIDs. (OpenID is a service that allows you to use a single login across various websites.) They must be currently logged in to leave a comment.
"Users with Google Accounts" is just that; again, they must be logged in.
"Only members of this blog" means only the blog authors. Many blogs "in the wild" belong not to a single person, but to a group of some sort, and each of the members can post to the blog. Selecting this setting would mean only they, and not random readers, would be able to leave comments. This setting is the closest to disabling comments entirely, because you are currently the only author of your blog.
If you make changes on this page, you must scroll down and click the orange "Save Settings" button.

How to restrict viewing access

To prevent certain classes of users from even seeing your blog in the first place, click the "Permissions" link at the far right of the beige bar. "Blog Readers" (the second section) is the area where you can make this change.
"Anybody" means your blog is completely public and everyone can see it. If you have removed it from the directory and search engines, people could still access it if they came across the address in some other way (being told directly, a link on another page, etc.).

If you select "Only people I choose", you can send invitations to others to be able to read the blog (semi-private). You can only invite people with Google accounts and they must be currently logged in to see your blog.
The final option is "Only blog authors", which is only yourself unless you add others (private). This is the same as "members of this blog" referred to in the comment settings.
Important: To be able to get credit for doing this workshop online, you must either leave your blog public or select "Only people I choose" and send an invitation to (jbaker4@palomar.edu). We cannot verify your work if we cannot see your blog!
Changes on this page are automatically saved. You do not have to click anything to explicitly save them.

Customizing your layout



Click the "Layout" tab to customize the template you have chosen or select a new template. You can rearrange items on the page in "Page Elements", change fonts and colors in "Fonts and Colors", do it from scratch in "Edit HTML", or pick a new template entirely in "Pick New Template".

Let's look at "Page Elements" first. Click that link if you are not on that page right now.
This section operates on a simple drag-and-drop system. The darker-shaded boxes are movable, and when you pass your mouse over them the cursor will turn to crossed arrows (Windows) or a hand (Macintosh). Try it with the "Blog Archive" box, as in the picture. Click and hold the mouse button, and then move the mouse. A white box with a dashed outline will appear to show where the element will be placed if you release the mouse button.
If you don't like the change, you can simply move the box back, or click the blue "Clear Edits" button at the top. To save a change, click the orange "Save" button.

You can edit some settings for each element by clicking its "Edit" link. Try it on the "Blog Posts" box. This one has a preview to help you visualize what changes you are making. If you decide to make any changes, be sure to click the orange "Save Changes" button. If not, just click the blue "Cancel" button.

If you want to remove an element entirely, click its "Edit" link and then click the blue "Remove Page Element" button. If you don't see such a button, then that element cannot be removed. (For example, "Blog Posts" cannot be removed.)

There's a whole gaggle of page elements you can add to your blog. These are not things that appear in individual posts. Rather, the "blog posts" area is itself just one of the possible page elements.

Click "Add a Page Element" to see what's available. (This link may be in a different place, depending on the template you have selected, or you may see more than one.) You don't need to add anything now; just look at the list. If you decide not to add anything, just click the blue "Cancel" button at the bottom of that page.

Changing fonts and colors

Click the "Fonts and Colors" link in the beige bar (next to "Page Elements"). At the top left is a box containing a list of the various items you can change (Text Color, Page Background Color, etc.).

To change an item, click on it in this box, then click the color you want it to be in the palette next to it. Blogger automatically suggests colors that are already in your blog scheme, and colors that are complimentary, but you can also pick whatever you like.

To change the fonts that are used, scroll down in the box past all the color items. The font options begin with the one named "Text Font". You can change which font is used, the size, and display in bold or italic style.

Click the orange "Save Changes" button if you want to save your changes, or blue "Clear Edits" to discard them. If you make some changes, save them, and later decide you don't like them, you can click the "Revert to template default" link (next to the "Clear Edits" button) to put everything back the way it was originally.

Other features

If you ever want more information about using Blogger's various features, such as all the additional page elements you can insert, you can click the Help link at the top right, then click Help Center to access the basic documentation.

The "Help" link is only visible from the Dashboard or when you are on a page with the "Posting", "Settings" and "Layout" tabs. If you're just viewing your blog (http://myblog.blogspot.com), you'll need to click "Customize" to see the "Help" link. (If you see "Sign in" up there instead of "New Post" and "Customize", it means you're not logged in.)
Blog post for credit

Now it's time to make a real post and talk about the activities you did in the course of this workshop. Click the "Posting" tab, or, if you are looking at the help, go to your main blog address (http://myblog.blogspot.com) and click "New Post" at the top right of the page. (Hint: myblog.blogspot.com is not the address of your blog.)

You must address the following topics in your post:

1. What was your experience with the Blogger user interface? Easy? Confusing? Other?
2. What, if any, changes did you make to your blog's layout, fonts, or colors?
3. What do you think of blogging? Do you think you might actually use your own blog outside of this workshop series?
4. What did you think about any of the example blogs you looked at during this workshop? Were any of them interesting enough that you might want to keep reading them? (We'll work on subscribing to blogs with RSS in the next lesson.)

Bonus question (not required): If you already follow a blog, will you tell us about it? How does help you professionally, socially, intellectually?

When you have published this post, click "View blog", and find the post on the screen. (It will be at the top of your blog posts.) Click its title to go to a page that contains that post alone. Copy the URL from the address bar at the top of your screen, and send that link in an email to jbaker4@palomar.edu.

Congratulations!!! You've finished the first lesson in Learning Web 2.0.

Note: Some of this text was taken, with permission, from the 2008 Learning Web 2.0 project at DeAnza College in Cupertino, California and was written by my colleague Lisa Hatt.