GSAC - Blogging and Web Design - March 2010

Class 1:  Introductions and Basic Blogging
Introductions:

1. Do you have a website or have you tried to build one?
2. What do you want out of a website?
3. Do you follow any blogs? - http://middletowneyenews.blogspot.com/
4. What could you blog about?

Blogs, Wikis, and Websites:

1. Blogs (WebLog) are a series of thoughts/collaborations/discussions
2. Blogs can use text/images/video relating to a topic or theme
3. Blogs are displayed reverse-chronologically, and updated regularly - http://caterwauled.blogspot.com/
4. Visitors can add comments that can be moderated or unmoderated
5. Wikis are community knowledge bases - each user can add or remove content - the wisdom of the crowd
6. http://www.wikipedia.org/
7. Websites are relatively static - the webmaster creates content
8. All 3 are websites with varying degrees of visitor/community input possible
9. You could blog about:

• family events
• diary
• planning
• hobbies
• business
• trips
• opinions
• classes

Blogger:

1. Log into your gmail account
2. 
3. Log into My Account (you can also skip going through your email, and go directly to the blogger page: Blogger homepage)
4. Click on Blogger, and accept Blogger's Terms of Service
5. Click on Create a Blog
6. Pick a name and address (URL) for your blog. Note that this will have xxx.blogspot.com as the URL (eg: http://gsblogging.blogspot.com/)
7. Choose your favorite template (this is how your blog will look when you publish it).
8. Add information to your personal profile and customize how your blog looks

Starting to Write Your Blog

1. Click the NEW POST button
2. Start by giving your post a title, then enter the post itself:
3. 
4. When you're done, click the Preview link to make sure it's ready to go:
5. Once you're satisfied with your post, click the Publish button. This will publish your new post.

Adding images:

1. You can add an image from your computer or the Web to your blog. Click the image icon in the post editor toolbar.
2. A window appears prompting you to browse for an image file on your computer, or enter the URL of an image on the Web.
3. Once you've selected your image, you can then choose a layout to determine how your image will appear in your post. (The 'Left', 'Center', and 'Right' options allow you to customize the way your blog text will flow around your image. The 'Image size' options will determine how large the image will appear within your post.)
4. Click UPLOAD IMAGES to add your image, and then click DONE when the notification window appears telling you that 'Your image has been added.' Blogger will then return you to the post editor, where you'll see your image ready to be published to your blog.
5. Note that your image will come in the top of your Blog. If you want to move it down, drag it to a new location. I recommend that you insert images first, then build your text on top of them
6. You can also publish images to your blog using your mobile device, Google's free photo software Picasa, or a third-party service like flickr. Learn more