Learning to blog can be a long and stressful process, but with Edublogs it is not. Edublogs has a 10 step course that helps you make your own blog and it walks you through everything that you can do and things that you can add to make your Blogs stand out. This is my first time creating a blog and Edublogs has made it easy for me. I’m just in step 2, but I already have learned so much. Each step is detailed and easy to follow. It each step you will find videos and images that will help you. Edublogs does not only help you make your own blog, it also provides you with valuable information.

What I Have Learned

As of now I am in step three of the 10 steps course of Edublogs. From the first three steps I have learned many things. In step one I learned about what a blog is, the reasons that educators use blogs, and about choosing the audience. A blog is similar to a journal, but the only difference is that it is not private and it is online. In a blog feedback and interactions are included. Like a journal a blog is updated frequently and the posts are in chronological order. There are many reasons of why educators use blogs. Some of the reasons are to share information and tips with others, collaborate with a bigger audience all over the world, to reflect on their teaching, create an online portfolio and many other things. When creating a blog we must keep in mind our audience, we need to keep in mind who we want to reach. Our audience could be local educators, global educators, student teachers, principles, administrators, school leaders and parents.

In step two I learned about the difference between pages and posts. Pages are mostly used for information that is not updated as much. For pages you can have a page for contact information and an about you page. It is better to have only some pages and not many because this will make the information harder to manage. In a page you will see a title, the content and comments. In a blog we have posts and we have pages, but they both are different, The differences between posts and blogs are that the posts are entries that are in reverse chronological order, the most recent post is the first that a person sees. On the other hand the theme of the blog determines the place were the pages are going to be located in the blog. Another difference between them is that a post is regularly updated, and pages has static information, it has information that is rarely updated. Posts are time stamped, organized with categories and tags, and designed for comments and sharing. On the other hand pages are not time stamped, can have sub pages, the order in which they are displayed can be change, and is not shared via RSS.

Finally, in step three learned about how to create a post and what is included in the posts. In a blog the post page is the first thing that we see. The posts is were bloggers publish their main content. The content can be reflections, things we have learned, and information that a blogger would like to share with others. A post is made of a post title, date published, the name of the author, the post content, comments, categories and tags.

• Title Page– Gives the reader information about what the post is going to be about.
• Date published– Shows the day that it was published, and it is normally located at the top of the post.
• Post content– The main information that a blogger wants to share or reflect on. It can include text, links, images, videos and many more things.
• Categories– Helps the readers locate the posts that are in the blog. Categories are like chapters in a book. It provides an overview of the topics.
• Tags– Similar to the index that are located at the back of books. Used to help the readers locate other posts that are in the blog.

Reflection

A blog is something that is useful, not only for the author/blogger, but also for the reader. If the blog is done correctly, and the blogger uses it for others to gain information, then a reader can learn and gain a lot from the blogs. Making blogs take practice and time, but the more you practice the better you will get. The first posts in a blog might not be perfect, or your format of your blog might not be that great, but the more you practice and the more experience you get, the better your blog is going to look and the better the posts are goin to get. When creating a blog keep this three things that Steve Wheeler mention in his video in mind…..

• It is the most important form of public unchoreographed discourse.
• Takes time to gain an audience. (Patience and consistency is key).
• Clarifies your thinking. (Ideas become more concrete).

“In the act of writing, you are written”

-Daniel Chandler