Blogging with Blogger

Since we've been spreading our blog on Pinterest, we decided that this is the time to start blogging in English as well as in Dutch. The digital revolution is a world wide revolution, right? We are going to test websites and applications with educational value here, so I decided to start with Blogger.com. 

What is Blogger?
A blog is an online medium, which is usually about interesting developments, news items, personal issues.. A blog can be about anything, really. Compare it to the diary you used to keep, except this diary is available online and can be seen by anybody (if you allow this, you can also adjust privacy settings and keep it more personal). A blog is different from a regular website because the update interval is shorter: usually a blog is updated more regularly and more often. 

Blogger is a service provided by Google which makes it possible to start your own blog for free. A lot of other websites provide this service as well, but I have experienced that they usually post advertisements on your blog. This is something that Blogger does not do! To create an account with Blogger you can use a Gmail account, which is free too... I love that. 

So what is the educational value of a blog?

There are many reasons for students and teachers to blog. Blogging can get you to start reflecting on your learning or on your professional development. Teachers often reflect on classroom situations and wonder what they could have done better or differently. Blogging can help you with this because by blogging you automatically create a portfolio for yourself in which you record such events. This can benefit any kind of evaluation with your manager! 

For the teachers who are not very ICT savvy yet: blogging can help you get started. Imagine you start blogging and as it turns out, you like and and are rather good at it! Perhaps this is a signal that you can do so much more and this could get you to try out other applications as well! I really hope so! Blogging can also provide you with useful feedback from readers. If you are open to this, this can really benefit your professional development as a teacher. 

Blogging is a creative process, just as writing in your diary used to be. I have found that by writing things down, I catch any fillers I'd much rather avoid. Writing also forces me to expand my vocabulary, which I think is always a good thing. But remember, blogging doesn't have to be about text only. Obviously you can try to transfer your point by using images, music, or video! 

There are plenty of reasons why I think students should blog. If you would like to read more about this, please click the link and visit 10 reasons why I want my students to blog. 

I understand that creating an account might be easy for me, but it isn't easy for everybody.. So that's why I present the following chapter: 

A step by step guide to your first blog! 

Step 1: visit www.gmail.com and create an account. You can do this by clicking the red button that says 'Create account' in the top right corner of your screen. 

This is where you put in your data. Gmail asks for your phone number but because this is optional, I decided not to put it down. I don't really like leaving my phone number because I am always worried call centres will know how to find me... After putting down your data you can add a photo to your photo, but this too is optional. 

Basically, this is all you have to do to create a Gmail account. Make sure you remember your username and password, because you have to use it to log in with Blogger. You can also use this for other Google services, such as Picasa photo albums and Google Docs (kind of an online version of Word, in which you can work on a document with several people at the same time). 

Step 2: visit www.blogger.com and use your Gmail address and password to log in. After you do this, you will see the following screen. 

Step 3: You will see a button on the left side of your screen which says 'New blog'. This will take you to the next screen, where you can choose a title for your blog and its URL (the link). You can also choose a format here, which mean you can pick a look for you blog. 

Scroll down and click the orange button that says 'Create blog'. 

Step 4: You will see that your blog has appeared on your dashboard (your home page). If you want to publish your first blog message, you can click the orange button with the pencil on it. 

Step 5: you are ready to get started! As you can see, Blogger looks similar to Word and we all know how to work with Word right? Right! This is one of the things I really like about Blogger: you can make something that looks quite fancy even if you have limited technical knowledge. 

You can type a title next to the word 'Message' which is written in orange. If you decide not to do this (or if you forget) Blogger will name it according to the date of publication. I think this is rather inconvenient because I think I would lose track of my blogs. Well, you're good to go now, you can just start typen. It is smart to save your message while writing it, just like you would do in Word. 

The buttons are similar to Word so I am not going to discuss all of them. The buttons I used for this message are: 

• Link: this will create a link to a different website. 
• Image: this is the button next to the link button. It allows you to browse images on your computer, but you can also use an image from a different site by choosing 'from URL'. 

If you want to see what your blog looks like without publishing it, you can click 'Example'. Are you ready to publish your blog on the world wide web? Click the orange button that says 'Publish'! 

If you want to make changes after you have published your blog, you can. To do this, go to your home page where you will see the name of your blog and het amount of messages. Click on this. If you put your mouse over the title of the blog you want to change, you will see that several options appear below the title. One of the options is 'edit'. Click this and you will be right back in your Word-like version of your blog.

Is Blogger useable for teachers? My answer is yes. 

• Blogger offers possibilities for teachers and students, so I see a win-win situation in this. Since Blogger is free, it is not unthinkable to get your students to blog. The work your students turn in can be corrected at any given time and place, and you can provide them with feedback via the blog too. Blogging also offers possibilities for students to work on their global citizenship, which creates an authentic learning environment and a global audience for your students. 
• Blogger is easy to use, especially for teachers who are already familiar with Word (that's all of us right?).
• Blogger can make your work as a teacher easier. It will take some time to get used to it at first, but in the end you and your students can create an online portfolio which will make job evaluations easier to prepare. 

I hope this explanation provided you with a small insight into the world of blogging and I hope you are willing to give it a try! Perhaps it is an idea to keep a blog that records your steps into the digital word? 

Have fun and keep us posted! If you would like to provide us with any feedback, please do so in the comment section or send us an e-mail! 

Regards, Lotte