Post 21: Building a Blog (Step by Step)

Let's begin by viewing a great little video titled "Blogs in Plain English?
Creating a blog is pretty simple. The following steps include some great tutorials (short videos, annotated illustrations, and step-by-step instructions). One can cut to the chase and create a Blog in 3 minutes. However, if you are new to Blogging then it is wise to walk through the following steps:

1. Create a Gmail Account (if you don't already have one) using this step-by-step tutorial.
   
2. Create your Blog using this step-by-step tutorial (several video clips and illustrations).
   
3. Configure your Blog using this tutorial to modify settings, update personal Profile, and more).
   
4. Activity 1: create a new Post, Publish it, and send the URL to a friend.
   
5. Activity 2: Practice logging out, logging in to Blogger, and Editing a Post.
   
6. Activity 3: For those with a little web design background -> experiment with Edit HTML.

Tracy's Testimony to value of Blogging follows:

I attended the eLearning Guild’s Annual Gathering this year and one presentation really hit home for me. The speaker mentioned that since he had started blogging, a year previous, he had learned more from blogging and reading the blogs of peers than he had in his entire academic career. I though to myself “Ya, right? Who’s going to believe that?” He knew the audience was thinking the same thing and said to just try it and experience it yourself.

So the first thing I did upon my return was start my own and behold he was right. I truly believe I have learned a great deal from this simple process. Blogging is a wonderful way to learn directly from one another. Each day I read many different postings from people I then can summarize, analyze, draw my own conclusion and post my own ideas and thoughts on those same topics. By doing this one simple example of peer-to-peer learning/teaching I am able to learn a many new things each day and expand my existing knowledge on those topics of which I am already aware.