Welcome

Blogging is a quick and easy way to present information on the web. Our classrooms are full of people who use the internet on a regular basis for entertainment, communication, and information gathering. Reaching them using this tool then is a natural step to take.

As awkward and intimidating as some of this may be, it is also rewarding when your students begin to recognize that you too are wading into the 'deep end' and trying to swim in the electronic ocean of information. I have found that my students are the greatest resource in learning how to do new things with my blog, and in my case, they became more involved with the class once their expertise was put to use.

This blog is designed to get you started with your own and covers some of the initial set up and use (specific to Blogger). I've included some links to other teacher or classroom blogs to give you some ideas of how you might use yours. Blogs allow the individual to have a voice, they allow groups to build things together, and blogs allow everyone to be creative.

"Jump in, the water is fine!"

Enter the WYSIWYG...

So now that you have a blog, how do you add pictures and other interesting stuff?

Most blog providers have a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) to make things as easy as possible. Get to know yours. Most of them work well and you never have to touch any 'code' at all.

With the WYSIWG editor comes a few other functions like "Add image" or "Add video". Typically it's a push button process. For example, after pressing the Add image button you'll get a screen like:



Now if you use the browse button, you can upload an image from your computer or enter the web address of an image you would like to use. Yes, sometimes there can be copyright issues. I have found though, that most images I'd like to use are under a Share-alike license. Overall it says if you're not making money by using the image you can use it. Sometimes the owner would like a credit or a link back to them.

This is to make posting to your blog as easy as possible. Most of them work like a word processor so play a little.
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