Happy Friday!
This week, we are finishing up our blog series on Blogger. Last week, in Part II, we went over the art of posting and all the possibilities for your blog posts. Part I covered how to set up your classroom blog and customize it. Today, we will cover how to manage your blog, add authors, and some additional blog features.
We will begin at our Blogger Dashboard, and click on settings.
This will bring up the basic settings page, there are three things we want to look at:
- This area allows you to edit the title, description, and privacy level of your blog. Keep in mind that students/parents will probably want to view your blog from their home or mobile connection.
- The blog address is what people will type in their browser to view your blog. Keep your address short and simple to help avoid errors.
- Blog Authors allows you to add multiple authors to your blog (maybe your teammates or teacher assistant?). Authors do not have full rights to your blog, they can make new posts and edit their own posts but they cannot change the layout of the blog or any of the advanced settings. You will click on add authors and then enter the person's email address.
From the settings menu, we will now click on "Stats" on the left side of the page:
The Stats page will give you an overview of the visitors to your blog. This is a handy tool to monitor the effectiveness of your blog.
Lastly, let's look at a few advanced features that you may want on your blog. Click on "Layout" on the left hand side of the blog and look for "add a gadget" on the right side of the page.
Gadgets allow you to add advanced features to your blog such as allowing people to subscribe to your blog by email, adding a poll or survey to your blog, embed a video or presentation, and add links. Gadgets are always visible on the side of your blog page. You can move the gadgets or any part of your blog around on your page by clicking and dragging. Use the preview button to make sure your blog page looks as desired and then click "save arrangement" to save your new layout.
I hope this series has been helpful to you in setting up your classroom blog. As always, if you have any questions, please contact me at: pamelabatchelor@johnston.k12.nc.us
Happy Blogging!