Choice+-+Personal+Blog

=Create and maintain a personal blog=

Blogs, according to blogger.com can be " a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world" A blog, in all its many faces, is a website that is regularly updated by an individual or a group.

Learn About Blogs from these **Helpful Links**
Blogs in Plain English (2.49 minutes)

How To Start a Blog (1.58 minutes)

WikiHow How to Start a Blog

Learning about Blogs and How to Blog

Blogs in Education (10.50 minutes)

There are many companies that offer blogging applications but the one that we will start with is a Google application called Blogger. Other popular blogging platforms are [|Wordpress] and Blogs For Teachers but there are many hundreds of others.

I chose Blogger because Google has put together many free applications that work very well and work well together. Google also has a system whereby once you register for one service (like Gmail) you automatically have a Google account that you can use for many other things, like Blogger, Google Docs, Google scholar etc. We will look at many other services but start with some Google applications.

Setting up your blog with Google's Blogger is free, doesn't require that you download any software and is pretty easy. Go to @https://www.blogger.com/start

Follow the steps listed on that page and use your alias as the name of your blog. If you are logged in to Gmail when you open Blogger, it should recognize that you are already registered with Google and that will make things simpler.You can create many blogs for other purposes but you should start one just for this course.

Blogs have become very popular in education and many teachers are using them very effectively for a variety of purposes. We will be exploring many of theses uses and trying some of them. You will be using your own personal blog as an electronic portfolio for your work in this class.

Of course blogs are like anything else and can be used for good or not so good.

Blogs can be very effective teaching tools if used with skill and imagination.

Technical Specifications

 * Minimum of 10 entries
 * Focuses on a particular topic or area
 * Is personalized
 * Contains links to other relevant sites
 * Photos, or images
 * Generates traffic . . . collect at least 12 followers (classmates, faculty, friends, family)

Caution: Avoid posting anything on your blog that might be personal to other people if just anyone can read your blog (example: Your uncle might object that it's published on the Internet that he is an alcoholic). If something is personal, avoid using last names at the very least, or make up a name for that person. Be wary of unwarranted attention. Blogs are for the world to read. If you want a private blog just for friends, use Xanga or any other password-protected blogging site.