Blogging Tutorial

Blogging and RSS Tutorial

There are two parts in this tutorial. If you need more help Greg McVerry will offer 1-1 support. Just leave a comment below, post a question to the forum or connect with him on Twitter.
  1. Decide if you will use an existing blog or create a new blog
  2. Review the rules on how to blog (Hint: The first rule is there are no rules)

Need to set up a new blog?

If you do not already have a blog the first step is  to choose a platform.
This tutorial is designed for those who want to have their blog hosted for free online. If you want to self-host your own blog (a more advanced but really easy process) we recommend reclaimhosting.com.

Step One: Choose a platform

  • WordPress.com a hosted version of the most popular blogging platform. You get a good selection of themes and features (but not quite as many options as hosting your own blog).
  • Blogger is Google’s hosted platform, so is fully integrated with your Google account and other tools. Blogger offers a wide range of themes and features to customize your blog.
  • tumblr is less thought of as a blogging platform, and is often more focused on media, but offers everything you need to write and organize your content, and its interface for writing is the least complex. Like WordPress and blogger, tumblr offers a range of themes to choose from. It takes a little more digging to find features for creating pages and enabling comments.

Step Two: Choose a url address

Be creative but logical. You may find It may take a few attempts to choose a blog url that is not already used. I would suggest avoiding ones that include a specific year in it or languagearts (e.g. languagearts.wordpress.com) — what if you really like using this site and what to blog beyond this class? What if you want to use the blog in 5 years?

Next choose a title. The title is where it will be listed on your blog site. For example the url may be mywalkmyworld.blogspot.com but the title of the blog could be My Journey, Our Walk. The title is how other people cite your blog. So be creative. Stay away from using your class number (GregsENG524). Its just boring. Your blog title is the front door to your digital space. Make it inviting.

Step Three: Write your first post

Now write a post. Publish.  Explain your why. Why are you here? Why do you want to take a join What do you hope to gain?

Already have a blog?

Great. Except we are only interested in the posts you write about #QuestionTheWeb. In other words we only want to syndicate your posts about #QuestionTheWeb. We will catch up on all your other great writing another time.

You need to understand how to use categories, tags, or labels. This identifies a post as being about #QuestionTheWeb WordPress uses categories. Blogger uses labels. Tumblr uses tags.

WordPress

If you are using a wordpress blog you will use a category. Create a category for our class. Then when you publish a post assign the category.

Blogger

If you are using blogger you will use a label. When you publish a post assign the label

Tumblr

If you are using tumblr you will  use a tag. Use the tag when you publish.

Edublogs

If you are using edublogs you will use a category.