LiDA100: Learning in a Digital Age

WordPress and Blogger host blog sites you can use for free. WordPress is open source software. Since Blogger is proprietary software, you need to create a gmail account to use this service. If you are technically inclined, you may wish to host your own blog site, but this course will not provide instruction on how to do this.

Stimulus Resources

Here are a few resources to help you get started in setting up your course blog. Remember, if you get stuck use the Internet to find help. Search Google or Youtube with a query: “How to …..” (inserting what you are trying to do.). Alternatively post your question on the discussion forums. Help fellow participants by providing answers and support.

Purpose

The purpose of this learning challenge is to:

• Create a new blog on WordPress or Blogger through a process of self-discovery supported by open access materials you find on the web.
• Personalize your blog site.
• Document and share your learning experience by posting a blog entry.

Value of this exercise

• You will gain first-hand experience on how to use blog technology to publish your own course site. This is a requirement for learners taking this course for academic credit.
• You will “declare” yourself to fellow course participants by using your PLE (as opposed to posting an introduction in a closed course forum).
• You will upload and share your first photograph challenge for the course.

Tasks

Complete the tasks listed below. If you get stuck, review the stimulus resources or search the web for open access materials to find help on completing the task.

1. Register an account and create a free blog on WordPress.com or Blogger.com.

2. Determine the difference between the dashboard used for editing and the published view of your blog. (It is important to know the difference because when you register your blog for the course feed you must use the URL for the public view of your blog).

• For WordPress view the cashboard video published by WP101.com
• For Blogger view this tour of dashboard features published by Jared Broker.
• Do you know how to open the published (public view) of your blog in a new window?
• Have you added a browser bookmark to your dashboard and public version of your blog?

3. Complete your personal details for display on the “About” page of your blog.

• Can you see the updates on your about page in the published view of your blog?

4. Review and customize your blog settings from the dashboard according to your preferences. We recommend that you enable categories and tags on your blog (called labels in Blogger).

• Consider whether you want to moderate all comments or in the case of WordPress, you can also enable previously approved posters to post comments without moderation. Conduct a web search on “moderating blog comments” to find out more about the pros and cons on the flow of information when moderating comments.

5. Visit the appearance option on your dashboard and personalize your blog by: changing your theme, header image, background color or image;

• Add at least one widget to your blog – remember that adding too many can be overwhelming. Follow the motto, “less is more.“
• Functional choices include: archives, recent posts, categories or category cloud, and "blogs I follow";
• For Blogger, review How to add a widget;
• For WordPress, review How to add widgets.

6. Draft a blog post reflecting on your experience completing this blog activity. Click on “save draft” so you can review your work before you publish it live on the web.

• You might introduce yourself and reflect on what you would like to achieve by maintaining a learning blog.
• Explain on why this activity was easy or difficult to perform.
• Share links to resources that could help others complete this task.
• Provide tips to help others complete this activity. What would you do differently?
• Add anything readers might find interesting or useful!

7. Complete your first LiDA photograph challenge and upload this picture to your blog post.

• Take a selfie or ask someone to take a photo of you working on this blog post challenge.

8. Review your draft post. When you are happy with what you have written, click on the “publish post” button.

9. Send an email to a colleague, friend or family member with the web address of your blog and ask them to post a comment. This gives you the opportunity to see how comments work on your blog and test whether they are working properly.

Outputs

Publish a post on your blog comprising a few paragraphs (200 to 300 words) to introduce yourself and explain what you would like to achieve by maintaining a learning blog. If you are a first-time blogger, you can also reflect on this learning activity. Choose an original title for your post or use: “Declaring myself on lida101.“

Your blog post must include:

1. At least one link to an external website, such as a useful resource or a link back to this learning activity.

2. Your first image from the LiDA photo challenge. Make sure you obtain permission from your photographer because they own the copyright for the image. Be sure you give attribution to the copyright holder.

3. Optional: Record a short video introduction to embed in your blog post.

4. A category or tag for your post using the course tag: lida101.

• Learn how to add a tag in WordPress. In Blogger see change settings on your posts to add a label.
• The blog harvester needs this tag to identify posts for the LiDA course. If the tag is missing, we cannot incorporate your post into the course feed. This happens automatically when you register your blog URL on the course site (see below).

5. At least one comment. You can invite a friend or family member to comment on your blog post to make sure have enabled the comment settings properly and ensure you are able to moderate posts.

You need to register the full URL for the PUBLIC view of your blog site. The blog platform needs this URL to harvest posts tagged or labelled with the hash tag #lida101 to add to the aggregated course feed.

Note that it may take up to an hour for your post to appear in the feed. If your post does not appear in the feed after a few hours, make sure you have registered the correct URL for the published view and tagged or labelled your post using the course code.

• Register your blog URL by clicking on the user icon on the OERu site menu. Once you are logged in, use the update button to enter the full URL of the PUBLIC view of your blog. Tip: do not use the dashboard URL you used for editing your blog.

Use the online HTML, CSS, JS tool collection to make creating websites easy.