Let's Get Started!
If you're reading this, you're reading a blog. If you're taking this course for credit, your assignment is to create your own blog in which you explore meaningful connections between place and people.
Besides demonstrating basic blog design skills and functions like posting text, images and linking to other sites, feel free to use your blog for your own professional purposes. From telling the story of a place through words and images, to creating place-based lessons for your classroom, the options for your blog are wide open.
You may want to explore the Explore Alaska! link under the Course Participants menu on the right to get some ideas from other teachers across Alaska who created their own blogs in Spring 2010.
You may already be a blogger and use another blog program or service. Feel free to use any other blog program or service you like. Otherwise, try blogger. It's quick! It's easy! And it's free!
Start by clicking on this blogger link. Follow the prompts to set up your own blog for this course. There you'll also find a helpful Quick Tour and Video Tutorial along with other useful features - just a click away.
Naming Your Blog
It can be a surprisingly difficult task to reduce the scope of ideas in this course to a few helpful words. Feel free to be creative and personalize, but please choose a title that somehow directly relates to this course and the purpose of your blog.
Choosing a Design Template
You will be prompted to select your basic template for your blog. You can change colors, add gadgets, and move elements around to suit your style. Take a little time to play with your blog design. Strive to make it unique, appealing and easy for others to use and read.
Linking your blog to this blog
After you save your blog, send an email to the course instructor at explorealaskablog@gmail.com .
Be sure to include the blog title and its URL. The URL is your blog's web address. It should look like this, but with your blog's name in it: http://your blog name here.blogspot.com.
The instructor will add your blog as a link in the Course Participants menu on the main page of this blog.
A Note on Privacy
You are not required to use your real name or provide personal information on your blog. Here are some recommendations:
- Only provide information you wish to make public.
- You may choose to not display your personal profile when you set-up your blog.
- You may choose to not include your email on your blog.
- You may limit or exclude Readers' Comments under the Settings menu for your blog.
Bottom Line: Treat your blog as a practical portfolio which you can use professionally.
