What is a Blog
A blog or weblog is essentially a journal or diary that is available on the web. Updating or writing in a web journal is called "blogging". Blogs have become very popular over the last couple of years; it is estimated that over 8 million U.S adults now have weblogs. To learn more about the blog craze you may want to ready this Time article 10 Things We Learned About Blogs.Once a blog has been setup it is very easy to update on a daily or regular basis because it requires little technical knowledge. Simply type the text that you want to add to your blog into a web form and click a button. Your new content is published immediately to the web. I have several blogs that I maintain including: a photography blog, a recipe blog, a hermit crab blog, and Rob's baseball blog. I have recently converted a portion of this instructional site over to blog format; the new blog is a resource for my students and it contains my daily lecture notes, tips, and other resources.
Blog Publishing Platform Background
There are many blog publishing platforms available. Some are hosted on third party web sites like Blogger, TypePad, SquareSpace, ModBlog, Multiply, LiveJournal, and BlogEasy. The benefit of these hosted blogs is that setup is very easy; it usually only requires the user to complete a web form. Maintenance is also simple; a few mouse clicks and you can change the look of your entire blog. The possible downside of these blogging platforms is that their features may be limited and the blog is not usually hosted on your own domain. If you decide that a hosted blog is the best option, Stephanie Booth has great information about hosted blogs on her blog, Climb to the Stairs. She tested 13 different hosted blog solutions and provides her readers with feedback on her blogging journey.More robust publishing platforms require the installation of files on your web host. These publishing systems include: b2, Movable Type, Drupal, Greymatter, and WordPress. For these programs your web host must have PHP/MySQL and possibly CGI capabilities. You will need to have some experience with HTML, FTP, CSS, and PHP. You can sign up with livingdot.com and for $9.95 per month you can have your blog hosted on its own domain name. Movable Type installation is free and it is $5.95 to register the domain name.
Regardless of the publishing platform you use, once the blog is up and running it's very easy to add new content or a "post" to your blog. Blogging software uses a web form interface to add content to your site.
For this workshop we will use Blogger. Blogger only requires Internet access and a basic knowledge of how to surf the web. An instructional web site is yours in a matter of minutes, so lets get started!
Creating a Blogger Site
Open up the Blogger home page in your web browser, the address is http://www.blogger.com.
At the Blogger home page click Create Your Blog Now. Read More.........
Complete the Account Information form and click Continue.
Give your blog a title, this should be descriptive. Select a blog address, try to keep this short. Be sure to write down your new blog address; this is the address that you will give to your students. Click Continue.
The Choose a Template screen will appear next. The template controls the colors, fonts, and overall look of your web site. There are many pre-designed templates that you can use. You can click the View icon
to see a more detailed version of the template. After you have found the template that you like, select it by clicking the radio button 
next to the template name. Click Continue.It will take a few seconds to create your blog. Once the blog has been created a confirmation screen will appear.
Click Start Posting.
Adding Content to Your Blog
Type your post title and the body of your post. Here you can put your assignment name in the Post Title and put the assignment details in the post body area.
Formatting Your Content
You can use the formatting toolbar to add formatting to your post.
The formatting tools are pretty straight-forward if you use a word processing program. Select the text that you want to format and click the appropriate format tool. Here is a quick run down of the formatting tools:
 | Select the text and then click the small drop down arrow next to Font. Select the font that you would like to use. You will only have a limited set of fonts available to you: Arial, Courier, Georgia, Lucida Grande, Times, Trebuchet, Verdana, and Webdings. These fonts are common on all systems; this ensures that your site will look the same on all machines |
 | Select from Huge, Large, Normal Size, Small, Tiny |
 | Bold |
 | Italics |
 | Change the color of the font; again, the color set is limited to ensure that the colors look the same on all computers |
 | Use this link to create a hyperlink to another page or another web site. Select the text, click the link button and a new window will open. Type the URL of the site you want to link to. Be sure to include the http://Click OK |
 | Left, Center, Right, and Justified alignment |
 | Numbered and bulleted list |
 | Apply to quotations. Indents text 1/2" on each side |
 | Spell check |
 | Clicking the image icon will allow you to upload an image to the Blogger service from your hard drive or to link to an image on another web site. |
 | Erase/Remove formatting |
to see your post before it's actually published to the world. Publish Your Post
When you're ready to publish your post, click Publish Post. If you want to continue to edit your post later, click Save as Draft.
Your blog is updated and a confirmation screen will appear.
Viewing Your Blog
Click View Blog; a new browser window will appear with your five minute web site! Alternatively you can type your blog address in your web browser address bar. You can see my sample blog here.Creating and Editing Additional Entries
When you return to the blogger editing window you will see a menu bar at the top of the web page. The Posting tab allows you to create more blog entries or edit existing entries.
Click the Posting tab then click Create to add another entry or to edit an existing entry click the Posting tab then click Edit Posts.
When you Edit Posts a list of blog posts will appear. By default the last five posts will appear, but you can change the number of posts that display in the Show box. You can display up to the last 300 posts. You can also search for a specific post. Click the Edit button to edit the post. You can also view and delete posts from this screen.
Changing the Template
If you're not happy with the look of your blog you can change the template any time. This is a nice, quick way to freshen up a boring web site. :)
Click the Template tab and select Pick new. You will notice that there are a lot more templates available for use. Woohoo! Find the template that you like and click Use This Template
. You will be prompted to confirm, click OK. You must Republish your site when prompted. The Template > Edit current menu is used to edit the existing CSS/XHTML code. If you know CSS and XHTML you can fully customize your blog, but that's beyond the scope of this lesson. I do have a lot of CSS/XHTML resources available at my class blog. 
Any time you make a major change to the blog you will have to Republish the blog. Fortunately, you will be reminded whenever you need to Republish your blog.
Click View Blog to See the Changes.
Completing the About Section of the Blog
Click the Settings tab and click Basic
Add a description (this could be a course description) to your blog and click Save Settings at the bottom of the screen. You will have to Republish the blog again; any time you make a major change to the structure of the blog you will have to Republish. From the Settings menu you can make changes to your blog's setup, it's pretty self explanatory. There are links to specific help topics
all over your blog if you need additional assistance. Editing the Links
Your blog will include a list of links that you will want to edit. When you preview your blog you will see the Links list. Click the Edit-Me link to see complete instructions on how to edit and create links or click here. I have also written some simple instructions here.
Editing Your Blog
When you want to edit your blog in the future, simply visit http://www.blogger.com/ and login with your username and password at the top of the screen.
Click Sign In
When you sign in you will be directed to what's called your "Dashboard". From the Dashboard Screen you can edit your profile, change your password, and even add a picture of yourself.
This profile information will appear in the About Me section of your blog, so enter as much or as little information as you like. Most of this information will be public and will be accessible from your new blog. I would highly recommend that you do not display your email address on your blog. Anyone can contact you easily via the comments.
At the Dashboard screen, click the Blog name you want to edit. From this same page you can also create another blog.
You can return to the Dashboard at any time. At the top of the Blogger page in the right-hand corner of the page you should see a menu with links to return to the Dashboard, get help, and to sign out.
Leaving Comments
Students and colleagues can leave comments in your blog. If you view your blog you will notice at the bottom of each post there is posting information, posting time, and the number of comments.
When a visitor wants to leave a comment, they click the 0 comments link (this number will change as comments are added). A form will appear and a comment can be left. By default, Blogger will not allow "anonymous" comments, so your students will have to register for a Blogger account or you will have to change the setting. You can change the comment setup in Settings > Comments.
Styling Your Blog
Check out Photoshop Support's Blog Tutorial for information on personalizing your blog.WordPress.com - The Blogger Alternative
If you are looking for a more powerful blogging solution try WordPress. You can sign up for a free account at http://www.wordpress.com.WordPress also takes about five minutes to install. One of the most useful features of WordPress is the ability to categorize your posts. I create categories (or subject areas) for each of the software applications that I teach. When a student wants to look up posts related to that subject area all they have to do is click the desired category and all the related posts will appear.
Closing Notes
Blogs are a wonderful way to communicate information. Once setup they're very easy to update and maintain. The other benefit of using a blog in the classroom is that your students have the ability to comment on your assignments/posts, this promotes communication and helps to clarify difficult assignments. Besides, your kids will think you're hip if you have a Blog. (Is hip even hip anymore?) ;)If you know HTML and you are interested in a more advanced blogging system, I have a tutorial for a system called WordPress which I would highly recommend. I use it for my personal blogs and my classroom blog. If you would like to learn more about building your own web site with Dreamweaver I have a Simple Dreamweaver tutorial from the WBEA conference in Reno, NV.
If you setup your own blog, please let me know. Leave a comment on my blog with your feedback and a link to your new site. I would love to see how people use Blogger in their classroom. Also if you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment in the blog.
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