Bworks Blog How-To

Blogging is a way to publish, distribute, and archive your writings, pictures, audio and video. It’s your own easy and free website. Why is it so cool?

Worldwide distribution: Anyone on the planet with an internet connection can access your work. You can now email people links to your blog so they can read/listen/watch what you’ve made.

Commenting: People can also comment directly on your site when they visit. You will be able to respond directly to them through email. In this way, you can create a conversation on issues. You can build a fan base. You can meet new people.

Archiving: All your media will be archived so you can build up a body of work. If you do it correctly, your site will be available on the web for years to come. Over time, your work will continue to be accessible to the public.

By the end of this class you will:

1. learn what a blog is and how it's different than a regular website
2. make a blog
3. learn about making blog entries
4. make a post to your blog

You can then follow these same instructions on your own to add more articles to your blog. Remember that the only way you will master these techniques is to DO IT.

Notes: Even though we are using Windows, you can do the same thing (using the same steps) on an Apple Macintosh computer or linux.

A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of most early blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

The term “blog” is derived from “Web log.” “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

The term blog is commonly acredited to the web-journal pioneer Travis Petler. He coined the term on his personal blog in early September of 1997 while studying at Brown University. His use of the word spread to other college campus' where other weblogs were present.

As of November 2006, blog search engine Technorati was tracking nearly 60 million blogs.

(from wikipedia)

Before we start, please visit at least 5 blogs on the blog handout. Click around, read articles, watch videos, leave comments. You’ll notice that blogging is not like the newspaper or TV. Your attention will be shorter, you’ll want to skim more, you’ll want short items more than longer ones. Write down which blogs you visited here:

You will be signing up for several free services today. Please write out your username and password below. Use this for everything. If you have a google account, you’ll be using that username and password, so write it below. Be careful with your username and password – you wouldn’t want anyone to steal it!

Username:

Password:

You will only need to do this once. (Ever!) A blog is a simple way to make a website. It has built-in features that make it easy to post add articles, pictures and videos.

• You have direct links to each article.
• People can leave comments.
• Your articles are saved in an easy to understand archive.
• You have a feed that people can subscribe to.

All of this is done for you automatically when you create a free blog.

There are many free blogging services, but we’re going to use Blogger because it's the easiest.

1. Go to Blogger.com, Click “Create Your Blog Now”

2. Create a username and password that you will remember.

3. Name your blog. You can always change it later.

4. Choose what you want it to look like by choosing a template.

5. Click Start Posting to make a test post so your blog shows up.

6. Type a title and some content for your first post. Click Publish Post.

7. Click View Blog to see what your blog looks like.

8. Your finished post will show up on your blog.

Congratulations! You are now a blogger.