Blogrolling

As you complete your post for the week of Thanksgiving, checking as you always do the course website for assignments and due dates, be sure to take time to polish your blogroll – the list of links that should appear on the main page of the template you’ve chosen.  This week, your secondary assignment is to add the blogs of all of your classmates to this blogroll.  Follow these directions:

1. Go to your Dashboard.
2. Click on Write: Link.
3. In a separate window, open this blog (the course blog) and go to the Page labeled “Student Blogs III.”
4. Copy and paste the first blog title and URL, then publish the Link.
5. Repeat for the rest of your peers’ blogs.  Include the main blog, as well.

This is due on the same day as your next post.  Remember also that those of you who failed to publish your posts last week (and be sure to click Publish, not just Save, when you do so) can create one now for half-credit.  You must still update again on top of that.

Setting Up Your Blogs

To set up your WordPress blog, do the following:

1. Click here to load WordPress in a separate window.
2. Click here to load the Word document containing all directions.

Follow all directions exactly.  We will discuss your first post more in class, but if you finish setting up quickly, you may begin an introductory post in which you state your blog’s purpose and focus for the next nine weeks or so.  Individually, your introductions will vary.  Speak to me about it in class.

Blogging Guidelines

At all times, you must obey the rules of the school and classroom.  This includes (but is not limited to) the following:

- No profanity or inappropriate language.
- No disparaging of other students, teachers or classes.
- No inappropriate media or links, including (but not limited to) pictures, video or music.

In addition, you may never mention yourselves by full name.  You may never give any personal information, including (but not limited to) your email address, which should be set to private in the settings of your blog.  Protect yourselves while you are online.

Introductions: A Look Back

To begin our study of blogs, we will look at the work completed by some of your predecessors.  This will also demonstrate for you the ability to create Pages, which is one aspect of WordPress blogs that led it to be our choice.

On the right side of this screen, you will find two pages.  The first contains links to all of the blogs created two years ago on the free blogging site, Blogspot.  Brewster blocks this server, so you will not be able to study or emulate those blogs in school; you are encouraged, however, to look at them at home.  The second page contains the blogs from last year’s two sections, which both used WordPress.  These are the examples we will study in class.

In this introductory post, I will also demonstrate how to link to Pages.  Clicking here will take you to the Blogspot blogs, while clicking here will take you to the WordPress blogs.