a-Blogs

**__HISTORY__**
 * //Concept//: In 1994, a Swarthmore College student published web pages that reported on useful internet sites as a guide for others to most productively use the internet. These evolved into more personal perspectives concerning the sites, and eventually to perspectives on daily life. In 1996, Xanga launched a web diary service for about 100 people that year. In 10 years Xanga had grown to a reported 20 million people. In 1999, Blogger launched with a suite of easy tools to make setting up a blog very simple.
 * //Application//: The impact of blogs on a large scale may first have been felt in 2002 when political blogging debated a speech Trent Lott made honoring Strom Thurmond leading to Trent Lott's resignation from political office. Another unique use of blogs have been war blogs in which soldiers have commented on their experiences in the war effort.
 * //Term//: John Barger, in his blog "Robot Wisdom" is reported to have been the first person to combine web and log into weblog. In 1999, Peter Merholz humorously cut the word into "we blog." The term "blog" was quickly adopted as both noun and verb shortly thereafter.


 * __HOW TO START BLOGGING__**** //Decide on a a Theme// - ** Will your blog be more like a personal phone call, or a newspaper column?
 * ** Diary approach is centered on what you are thinking about **
 * ** Themed - Work around a topic. This is the best approach if you want to build a following beyond a few family and friends. **

HUGE WARNING! Personal blog - Blogs are not private (unless you go to some effort to restrict access) and generally are not intended to be. However, some folks overlook this "detail" to their peril. With a personal blog one often uses a "pen name" and the diary nature leads one to a false sense of security. If someone knows you, one may be found far more easily than imagined. Some students keep a "parents" blog ("sanitized") and a "friends" blog (free flowing). I have known of parents who forgot the address of the student's blog and searched - only to find the "wrong" blog. Disheartening for the parents. Potentially damaging in other ways.

Themed blog - What you say can be sufficiently damaging in the eyes of others to track authorship down by IP addresses. Here are some important "firsts."
 * 2002, pseudonym "Dooce," Heather Armstrong, web designer, wrote satirical blog about her workplace. FIRED for recognizable references to co-workers. Starts the verb "to be 'dooced'" - to be fired over a blog.
 * 2005, "Queen of the Sky" blog included photos of Delta Flight Attendant Ellen Simonett in her work uniform. FIRED for possible defamation of the brand.
 * 2006, college lecturer called a political candidate a "Nazi" in his blog. Lost libel suit to the tune of $34,000.
 * 2007, Egyptian blogger was awarded a 4 year prison term for insulting President Mubarak and Islam in his blog

//Choose a name to use for your blog// - The name of your blog must be unique to the service you use. So, you may want to have a couple of alternate names in mind.

//Choose a Service// - For this course, we will use Blogger. In a later course one will have an opportunity to compare and contrast blogging services.

//Customize your Space// - Color, number of columns, use of images, sound... You may want to look at others blogs to see what is possible on the service you are using and to spark your ideas.

//Get Writing// - The first blog post traditionally is an introduction that states your purpose in starting a blog, and (if it is a themed blog) your qualifications to write on the subject. Obviously, just that you want to start a blog is enough, but you may want to explain why others would be interested in reading what you have to blog about. After your introduction, people usually start out with short posts. Eventually you may choose to write longer pieces, but as you build your "fan base" short, regular posts are generally thought to work best.

//Develop your Persona// - You develop your personal by developing the side columns most blogs have with a multicolumn format. Again, look at others for ideas. You will see lists of books read, preferred music, perhaps music that you are Listening to as you blog, etc. You may choose to incorporate 3rd party services, like RSS feeds, podcasts (yours or others), embedded You Tube videos, images from cloud repositories, etc. (Check the Dashboard of your blog site and instructions at third party sites to learn how to link effectively to 3rd party resouuces.

//Going Public// - Themed blog sites that are looking for an audience seek out "pinging" services that open a site to search engines as new material is posted. Alternatively, Google has guidelines and a submission process necessary for their search engines to add a blog site. Typically, this is more of a commercial, than educational, issue. Search engine positioning and RSS feeds will be corollary studies in a later course. For now, be aware that a new blog will not show up on search engines and will need to be shared through personal channels.

//Build Relationships with your readers// - One builds relationships with blog readers through frequent postings and responding to their comments - either with comments from you or in subsequent blogs.

Will Richardson - __[]__ David Warlick - __[]__ Clay Burrell - __[]__ Chris Lehmann - __[]__ George Siemens - __[]__ Curt Bonk - __[]__ Jeff Utecht - __[]__ Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach - __[]__ Stephen Downes - __[]__ Judy O'Connell - __[]__ Clarence Fisher - __[]__
 * __EXAMPLE BLOGGING SITES__** (and an excellent array of professional development education sites)

For the nitty-gritty of getting a blog started, I first tried writing up some instructions myself for Blogger - resulting in I-Blogger Tutorial, below.

Later, I found Atomic Learning had a Blogger tutorial/project. It uses screen shots and goes into greater detail, which some folks really appreciate. So, it is II-Blogger Tutorial below.

Finally, WordPress probably is the most commonly used blogging software after Blogger. I tried it out as an alternative to Blogger (a Google product). I really like it! Atomic Learning has a tutorial for WordPress, which is set forth as III-WordPress Tutorial, below.

If one wishes to explore both, that is fine, unless it becomes too confusing. For the purposes of this course, an introduction to the blogging process and using it for the CHIP track is all that is required. Broader and more in depth work with blogs is pursued in other courses.