Creating a Blogging Community

If you haven’t completed this form letting me know your Blog Site URL, please do so now. I also want to remind you that your “Designing a Learning Environment” project is due today. If you are using a late pass, please hand this in by the end of class.

Blogging

The first conversation we had about blogging took the form of a Chalk Talk. For additional protocols you might think about using in your future classroom, this National School Reform Faculty site has an extensive list of “protocols” to promote brainstorming with a group. Below are some photos from our Chalk Talk. What do you think we might add to this conversation?

I hope you’ve had an opportunity to explore the WordPress dashboard and customize your blog. In case you haven’t learned about updating your profile, I thought we’d start class off today with this short tutorial.

Let’s try each of these functions in WordPress.

• Dashboard functions
• Creating pages (in dashboard view)
• Creating posts (in dashboard view) – let’s practice with past Google Site posts
  • Insert media (photos, video, files, etc.)
  • Creating a link
  • Select different fonts and headings
  • Adding tags to posts
• Settings: Themes Widgets (under “Appearance” menu)

What else would you like to learn about WordPress?

Exemplar Blogs

According to the survey, none of us read blogs on a daily basis (including me). Let’s spend some time today looking for a blog we COULD see ourselves reading everyday. I found a blog that is extremely relevant to my research interests. My husband gets a little obsessed with sports, hockey being his first love. Here’s a blog about his favorite team with the namesake of his favorite player, Datsyuk. My son loves origami and found this one. I even found a link to the 50 Best Blogs for Art History Buffs. Let’s see what you’re able to find that interests you.

If you’re having trouble finding something, or you are interested especially in education blogs, check out these top education blogs of 2012.

Commenting on Classmates Blogs

I’ve created a page with links to all of your blog sites.

I’m going to ask you to leave a comment on a classmate’s blog by Friday (this will be part of your blog project grade). Let’s brainstorm the substance of an ideal comment. You are also welcome to see what past classes were able to brainstorm.

For Wednesday:

Finish creating your Blogger site. Copy and paste your Google Site blog postings (the ones responding the Chapter 1 and the digital generation reflection). If you haven’t completed this form, do so now so that I can make a class list of blog sites. When I have everyone’s site, I’ll post them on our blog so that we can access these easily.

For Friday:

Choose a classmate’s (or more than one) blog and leave a comment. You should reference our brainstormed list of what makes a substantive comment.

***To earn a late pass, create a page concerning a personal hobby and blog about it. Try to include photos to make your post more visually appealing. Hopefully you’ll choose to blog throughout the semester about your hobby. I love to knit and crochet and have often thought of starting a “tutorial” type blog that would help other people enjoy this hobby. Also try creating a category for this blog posting, such as “hobbies”, “knitting”, etc. You can see the how-to page to help you when assigning categories to posts.