Blog Setup

Introduction

Blog is a word that combines weB with LOG. By creating a blog you will have a personal learning environment that you can customize and own.  Blogging also gives students an authentic audience that extends beyond the classroom.  During the IOLS program you will be asked to create blog posts to reflect and discuss course topics but you are free to create additional posts and customize the blog to fit your personality. I'm guessing that many of you are already bloggers yourself or have a few blogs that you read regularly.  The short video (3:40) on the right explains what students can do with blogs.  

 

 

 


Exploration 

Although you will be using blogs this semester as a student, it's also important to think about how you could integrate blogs into your instruction. The following video show you how an elementary teacher has used blogs with her students.  

   Blogging in a 4th Grade Classroom 
   

 

There are essentailly three strategies that teachers use to integrate blogs into their courses. Explore at least one blog from each of the three strategies listed below. You don't have to spend a lot of time looking at the blogs. I just wanted to give you an idea for what they look like and what they contain.

Strategy 1: Students have their own blogs (Click on student names in the right sidebar to see their blogs)

Strategy 2: Teacher creates a blog post and students reply

Strategy 3: Teacher creates blog to push out information to students and parents

Directions and Requirements 

There are lots of free blogging tools that you can use. These directions will walk you through creating a blog using Blogger.  We chose Blogger because if you have a Google Account you automatically have a Blogger account.  It's also one of the easiest to use so it's a good place to start.  However, you can use a different tool if you like so long as you still meet all of the requirements. The main purpose of this assignment is to allow you to play with some of the features of Blogger by creating a post introducing yourself to others.  Once you've mastered the basics you will be able to better blog on course topics in later weeks. 

Step 1. Go to www.blogger.com and create a blog (Link to video tutorial)

Step 2. Create a new post on your blog (video tutorial) that introduces yourself and contains the following: 

For the truly ambitious we created OPTIONAL video tutorials that will show you how to:

Step 3: When you are finished, submit your blog to me using the following Google Form and then click "Submit."