1. BLOG STARTUP

2. What is a blog A Blog (or weblog) is an online journal or ‘diary’ that can be immediately and easily updated. A Blog can consist of a list of interesting web sites, or a diary of someone's thoughts and feelings, or it can be a combination of these. A blog can consist only of text, but it can easily include photos. A blog can be used by one person only, or by a number of people.

3. Getting started: setting up a blog To set up a new blog in Blogger, go to www.blogger.com. There are three simple steps to follow: www.blogger.com 1 Create an account 2 Name your blog 3 Choose a template Click on the arrow ‘Create your blog now’.

4. Step 1: Create an account You will be asked to create a Blogger account. To do so, simply fill in the information. Note: you will need to use a username which is fairly unusual – if you choose a common username (such as ‘Ali’) blogger will tell you that it is not available. This is because someone else already has this username. Once you have decided on your username and password for Blogger, make sure you write it down somewhere and keep a record of it! ‘Display name’ is the name that will appear on your blog posts, and you can put your real name here if you like.

5. Step 2: Name your blog Give your blog a title. We suggest you choose a title that reflects your blog project – for example, “Digital Media TOT” In ‘Blog address (URL)’, put in a simplified version of the above. This is where you will be able to see your blog on the Internet. Make sure you write down this URL so that you know where to find your blog on the Internet later!

6. Step 3: Choose a template Here you can choose which ‘look’ to give your blog. Look at all the available designs, and select one by checking the circle in that template. Before you select the template, you can see the design full screen by clicking on ‘View’ in the bottom right hand corner of each template. Click on the orange arrow ‘Continue’, once you have chosen your template.

7. Step 4: Creating your blog Your blog will now be automatically created, and you will see this screen: Followed by this screen: Click on the orange arrow ‘Start posting’.

8. Step 5: Posting your first message You are now ready to post your first message to your blog. Make sure the title of your message reflects what you write. You can edit your message by using bold, italics, coloured text etc, in the editing toolbar across the top of your message, as in a word processing program. Note that you are in the Posting tab.

9. To add an image to your message, click on the picture icon in the editing toolbar. First make sure the image you’d like to add is in your computer. Then click the picture icon, and find your image. The screen below will appear. Note: You can also add a link to webpage image – if you do this, you will need to comply with copyright law.

10. Click on ‘Examine’ to find the image in your computer, then click on ‘Upload image’. You can also choose a layout for your text with photo (None, Left, Centre, and Right). Uncheck ‘Use this layout every time?’ if you’d like to have a variety of layouts in postings to the blog. Click on ‘Upload image’ to post your message and photo to the blog. You will see this screen while the photo is uploading: And you will see this screen once your photo has been uploaded: Click on ‘Done ’.

11. Step 6: Publishing your first message Your first message is now ready for publishing to your blog: You can preview your message before it is posted to your blog, by clicking on the blue ‘Preview’ link in the toolbar, on the far right. This shows you what your posting will look like once it’s posted to the blog. Once your post is ready, click on the orange ‘Publish Post’ button.

12. You will now see a screen telling you that publishing is in progress, and then you will see this screen: You can now see your blog from the public view by click on ‘View blog’ Note: if you click (in a new window), the public view will open in a separate window, which is less confusing as it keeps the Dashboard and public views of your blog separate for you (see Step 7).

13. This is the public view of a sample blog for the primary blog project Schoolbags:

14. Step 7: Editing your blog One of the tricks to understanding how to use Blogger is to realise that there are two different ‘views’ of your blog: the Dashboard (or control panel) view: only you, the blog owner, have access to this. This is what you see when you log onto www.blogger.com with your username and password. From here you can access your blog to edit and post messages, change settings etc.www.blogger.com

15. the public view: that is, what visitors to your blog on the Internet see. To see this view, click on your blog in the Dashboard, then click on ‘View blog’ in the toolbar. You can also access this view via the URL which you originally gave your blog in Step 2.

16. Step 8: Changing your blog settings From the Dashboard (see Step 7), click on ‘Change settings’. You can now change the title of your blog, and add a brief description of your blogs project for visitors to read. You can leave the rest of the settings as they are. Once you’ve made any changes you’d like to, click on the orange button ‘Save Settings’, and you will see this screen, telling you your changes have been saved successfully:

17. You now need to click on the dark blue ‘Republish’ button to see the changes in the public view of the blog. Note: you can see the public view of your blog at any time by clicking on the ‘View Blog’ tab at the top of the screen.

18. Step 9: Adding members to your blog From the Dashboard view, click on the blue tab ‘Members’ (on the right). You will see your own username as an Administrator of this blog, with your email address. To add your learners (and other teachers) to your blog, click the orange button ‘Add Team Member(s)’.

19. You will now see this screen: You can now add up to three different email addresses in each of the three blank spaces for ‘New User(s)’. In the space for ‘Message (Optional)’ you can add a personal message telling the new members about the blog, but this is optional. To add more than three members, simply repeat this step.

20. Step 10: Confirming new members New members are sent an automatically generated invitation email by Blogger, asking them to confirm that they would like to join the blog. Teachers need to go to their specially created Yahoo! or Hotmail email accounts (see Step 9), and reply to these Blogger emails (watch that these emails don’t end go into the Spam tray – check this too!). While the Blogger email remains unanswered by the new member, his/her status appears as pending, in ‘Open Invitations’:

21. Once the new member has replied to the Blogger invitation email, he/she will appear in the list of members in the Dashboard view of the blog, in ‘Current Team Members’ Teachers/bloggers/expertise involved in the blog can be upgraded to Administrators by checking the ‘Administrator’ box next to their name. We recommend that learners stay as simple members. This way, learners can post comments to the blog via the public view, but do not have access to the Dashboard.

22. Step 11: Who can comment in the blog? You will need to decide who you allow to post comments to the blog. Note: We highly recommend that you only give posting rights to the learners and teachers involved in the blogs project. This means that although the general public can read the blog on the Internet, only blog members can post comments to it. This will protect your learners’ security. From within the Settings tab, click on ‘Comments’ (in blue across the top). Ensure that where it says ‘Who can comment’, that the option ‘Only Registered Users’ is selected. This is the default setting, so you shouldn’t have to change anything.

24. We would also suggest that you change the following settings in Comments, for ease of use: check ‘Yes’ for ‘Show comments in a popup window’ put your email address in the space for ‘Comment notification address’ at the bottom of the screen. This way any new postings to the blog will go directly to your email, and you won’t need to keep checking the blog on the Internet for new comments. All other settings in Comments can be left as they are. Click on the orange button ‘Save Settings’ at the bottom of the screen.

25. You are now ready to start your blogs project with your learners! Good luck!