1. Blogs – Teachers Manual
Melissa Sandsmark
Page Content
1. Table of Contents
2. Setting up your account
3. Setting up your account
4. Setting up your account/ Choosing a
template
5. Choosing a template
6. Layout options
7. Configuring the header and title
8. Getting images from the internet
9. Creating a image location on the blog
10. Uploading images to the blog
11. Adding a page element/ posting
12. Adding a page element/ posting
13. Setting permissions and privacy
14. Setting permissions and privacy
15. Setting permissions and privacy
16. Setting permissions and privacy
17. Setting permissions and privacy
18. Setting permissions and privacy
19. Setting permissions and privacy
20. Setting permissions and privacy
21. Adding authors and readers
22. Adding authors and readers
23. Adding authors and readers
Instructions
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2. Step one: Go to Internet site: www.blogger.com
Step two: Create your blog account (click on the orange arrow “create your blog
now”). If you already have an account, please log in and create a new blog.
Step three: make an account (Fill in e-mail, password... etc)
Step four: continue filling out email address, password and make sure to accept the
terms by clicking on the “I accept the terms of service” box.
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3. Step five: After you have finished step four and have clicked on continue you will
move to the next page. Please name your blog.
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4. The following picture is an example of how to fill out this section. Make sure the
name is free of capital letters and spaces. You can use dashes but not underscores.
Step six: Choose your template (you are able to change this later as well so don’t
worry about choosing the right one. You can also change the colours and format of
the template that you choose later).
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5. Step seven: Start your blog by clicking on the orange arrow that states “start
blogging.”
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6. Step eight: Get to know your blog. Go to the postings tab to find out how you can
post and how you can edit comments and posts.
Step nine: Go to the layout tab and look at how your blog is laid out. If you want to
add a new section click on the link “add a page element” and insert what you wish.
If you want to edit existing sections that are already part of your blog click on “edit”
and then you can change them.
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7. Step ten: This slide shows how to edit the blog title and blog description. Simply
click on the “edit” link that is on the header title under the layout tab and then a
separate window will pop up with further options. Often in these sections the rules
of the blog and the “welcome to the blog” is laid out. Make sure to click on the “save
changes” button in that window.
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8. Step eleven: Often bloggers use images to enhance the readability of their blogs. To
do this just simply go to www.google.com and click on the images tab. From there
write what you are looking for in the search engine box (ie. “cats” as we did for the
slide below). Once you have found the photo try and open it up to its largest size and
right click on the mouse and “save image as.” Then find the location on your
computer where the image will be safe to save (ie. Desk top or your personal drive).
Please note that it is best that students save their work by e-mailing it to themselves
or by putting it on the desk top (this option only if they know that the image will be
erased after they have signed out). There is also a new option that msn/ hotmail has
that allows students to save up to 20 gigs of work on their server for free. They will
need a hotmail or msn account. They can log into it from their home page and it is
called, “Sky Drive”.
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9. Step twelve: If you are viewing your blog and you decide that you would like to add
the image that you just saved to your desktop to your blog, click on the customize
button and go to the layout tab. From there decide where you would like the image
to be posted. If you would like it to be posted on the side bar then click on “add page
element” and continue to click on add “picture.”
From there a second window will open up and you will need to upload your image
from your desktop to the blog. To do this click on browse and find your image on
the desk top. Continue and click open.” Once it is open the image will be added to
your blog.
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10. In the following slide we added a “cat” image to the title of the blog. You can control
the size of the image and the quality by clicking “edit” under the image section of
the layout tab.
Step thirteen: If you are interested in adding other elements to your blog such as a
poll that the students can participate in or a slide show from Flickr…etc then after
viewing your blog click on customize and then hit the layout tab. From there click
on “add a new page element” and choose the option that you would like to add. In
the following slide we added a poll and filled it out.
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11. After we added it to the page and saved it by clicking on the orange “save” button
we then clicked on the “view blog” tab to see what it looked like. The following slide
shows what the poll looked like.
Step fourteen: Once you have figured out what page elements that you want on your
blog it is important to be conversant with “posting.” This is the heart of your blog as
all students will need to post images, text, movies..etc in order to communicate with
each other. As an administrator of your own blog you can post in a couple of
different ways:
• Under the posting tab in the customize setting
• When you are viewing the blog you can post by clicking on
the “new post” button.
Both options take you to a page where you can write text, add images, or add html
(from Youtube or other places). Simply write in the text box and add a title under
the title box and then hit save and your post will appear on the blog within 5 seconds
to two minutes. Often people need to hit the “refresh” button on the text bar to see
these changes take effect.
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13. Step fifteen: Sometimes, hopefully never, there are inappropriate comments or posts
on the blog. It is up to you on how you would like to deal with this; however, it is
imperative to remove or edit the post immediately. To do this click on customize and
then click on the “posting” tab. Under this tab there are a few different options. To
delete the post click on the “edit post” tab and choose the post that you want to
delete and click delete. To modify the post click on the “edit post” tab and click
‘edit’ to change the wording or the images and then save. This will modify the post
and will save the changes to the blog.
Step sixteen: How to create privacy.
Go to “customize” and click on the “settings” tab. Go through all of the tabs, ie.
Basic, Publishing, Formatting, …. and follow these instructions. First ensure that all
of the information in the boxes is correct (ie. “title” and “description” ..etc) and if
not fill in boxes.
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14. Step seventeen: If you want to keep your blog private it is important to click “no”
on “add your blog to our listings.”
Step eighteen: Also click “no” under “let search engines find your blog.”
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15. Step nineteen: Everything else stays the same – but be sure to save at the bottom!
Step twenty: Make sure they are saved by clicking the orange button at the bottom
of the page that says, “save settings”.
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16. Step twenty-one: Leave the publishing page alone!
Step twenty-two: Leave the “formatting” tab alone!
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17. Step twenty-three: Under the comments tab it is important to choose “Only
members of this blog.” This will ensure the privacy of your students by only
allowing members of your blog to view and post. Please leave the rest of the page
alone!
Step twenty-four: Remember to Save settings by clicking the orange button that
says, “Save Settings” at the bottom of the page! If you want to get emails every time
a student comments, please insert your email address under, “comment notification
email”.
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18. Step twenty-five: Please leave Archiving alone!
Step twenty-six: Please leave “Site Feed” alone!
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19. Step twenty-seven: If you do not want email updates, please leave “email” alone!
Step twenty-eight: If you would like to get an e-mail every time someone posts, enter
your e-mail address in the “BlogSend address” box. Please save settings by clicking
the orange button on the bottom of the page!
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20. Step twenty-nine: Leave “Open ID” alone!
Step thirty: Now that you have set up your blog and have edited your permissions
you will need to add students so that they are able to contribute to your blog. To do
so please follow the following instructions:
1. Collect everyone’s name and email.
2. Click on Settings
3. Click on Permissions tab
4. Click on “Add Authors”
5. Type in their email address’s (no names!)
6. Click on “Invite”
Authors can write comments and post. Readers cannot contribute to the blog and
can only read the correspondence. This is perfect for parents and other teachers.
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21. After you have clicked on “Invite”, your screen should look like this:
Step thirty-one: On the same tab, click “Only People I Choose”
Also, if parents or other teachers want to view your blog you can add them under
“blog readers.” By having them solely as a “blog reader” they can only read the
interactions on the blog and cannot make comments themselves. To do this you will
need to follow the same instructions as adding an author except it is just adding a
reader.
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22. Step thirty-two:
1.Get students to log into their own email address.
2. Get them to click on “Invitation Email”
3. In the email, get the students to click on the link
This is the screen that will show up after clicking on the link in their e-mail:
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23. Step thirty-three: Get students to click on “Create your account now”
Step thirty-four:
Fill out email and password and other requirements and click, “Submit”. Please get
them to write down their e-mail and password so that they do not forget. Next get
them to click on the link that says View blog!
Now when they want to sign in at other times such as at home or in another
classroom they will need to do the following:
1. Go to blogger.com and log in with their user name (e-mail) and password
that they created in the create google account section.
2. Or they can go into their e-mail and click on the invitation e-mail that you
originally sent them and they can click on the link and log in that way.
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