Blog club: Step One

This is the first in a series of posts helping you to master blogging. 20 minutes a week for four or five weeks should be enough to set up a fantastic site which you can then use easily in your department.
First decide which blog host you will use. Choose from www.blogger.com (this one is an example) or www.edublogs.org (look at my French blog at www.haythorneg@edublogs.org).
Edublogs allows you to use a number of pages, as well as reverse-chronological posting on any particular page, and functions such as getting students to subscribe by e-mail, tag-clouds (an eye-catching way of enabling people to search the site) and uploading of audio files, PowerPoints and pictures are easy. Blogger has more options for blogging on the go (maybe for you, PE?) including posting from any e-mail address and posting from mobile phones, plus it has impressive features such as slideshows of photos and using newsreels. Don't agonise too much however: they seem to expand their features all the time. Have a word with me if you need more advice.
Go to the relevant website, create an account, and follow the instructions to set up a blog (a couple of clicks will do it).
When choosing a theme (template or appearance) in edublogs, make sure you choose a three column one, as it offers you more functions ("widgets"). Please now send me a link and I'll post them here so we can share what we do as we go along.

Next week we will add pages (in edublogs) and start posting (edublogs and blogger) - if you can wait until then. Remember help is available next Friday, 1st February, at lunchtime (venue tba). Happy blogging!