Blogging Start-up

For those without a blog these lessons will use Blogger for instructional purposes. This post will run through the steps Blogger posts for getting started.



1. To get started with Blogger, visit Blogger.com, enter your username and password, and click Sign in.

2. Enter a display name and accept Blogger's Terms of Service.

3. Then click the Create a Blog link and get started!

That's it your're ready to start blogging. You may also review the following video instructions for starting a blog:

Creating a Uavatar with Befunky.com

First we wanted to help kids learn about blogging and we thought the best way would be to do this within a blog. We also wanted children to remain safe while having fun with this technology.

First I went to http://www.befunky.com/uvatar/index.php where I created a uavatar of my daughter to use as my online persona. To the left is a view of the website it is actually quite easy to use and the kids this instruction is designed for should find it very user friendly.

The most important step is that student must have clear image of themselves they can upload to begin the process.

The tuttorial moves along with viewable instructions and examples of what to do next to complete the process as you can see to the left I cropped the photo down to just a head shot. This screen is instructing me crop out just the face.

The image to left shows the cartoonized Uavatar of my daughters face which I can now manipulate on successive screens to give her a body, skin tone, clothing, background and even set her up with Johnny Depp.

With a few additional mouse clicks I was easily able to turn my daughter into the jailbird you see to the left. The only functionality issue I cncountered was adding hair which I could not situate correctly on her head. This issue can be overcome by including your hair in the crop of the face.

Adding and Video

Lastly, to add some solid imagery to your blog we wanted to show you how to embed video imagery from blogger this function is quite simple. The image below should look just like the screen you use when adding a new thread to your blog.












Simple select the icon that looks like a movie reel. If you scroll over it the java applet will give you a description. When you clip on the applet you will get the portal you see below, the item must be present on you computer to download onto your blog you cannot take items off of a standard URL unless you have already downloaded them. For this exercise I inserted the Windows Media player example. Then you must give it a name and accept the terms and select upload.

Without comments how do I know it's a good post?

A succesful blog is made up of quality posts. Bloggers are able to guage the success of their posts by reading and responding to the comments left by their readers. Often though readers do not leave any comments. Outbrain.com has created rating system that will easily capture feedback from readers, including those unwilling to leave comments.

It is based on a 5 star rating system everyone can understand.




How to add Outbrain ratings to your blog:

1. Visit their website:

2. Chooose your blogging platform (Blogger for us)



3. Choose the "Get Widget Now" button, making sure the language is set to English.

4. Select the blog you would like to add ratings to and change the title if you would like. That's it you're done!!!

Make sure to review these ratings in order to identify what makes a good post. With this new tool you are sure to have a blog others enjoy reading.