Declare yourself challenge
Challenge summary
Summary: | Create a new blog on WordPress or Blogger and publish your first post introducing yourself to course participants. |
45 mins – 2 hours (Depending on prior knowledge and experience with online technologies) |
During this challenge you will learn how to set up a course blog by introducing yourself and sharing your first daily photograph.
Both WordPress and Blogger host blog sites you can use for free. WordPress is open source software and is the technology that Saylor Academy uses for own main website, and what OERu uses for their course site. Blogger is proprietary software and you will need a gmail account to use this service. If you’re technically inclined, you may wish to host your own blog site but we don’t provide instruction on how to do this.
Stimulus resources
Here are a few resources to help you get started in setting up your course blog. Remember, if you get stuck use the Internet to find help. Search Google or Youtube with a query: “How to …..” (inserting what you are trying to do.). Alternatively post your question on the discussion forums. Help fellow participants by providing answers and support.
WordPress | Blogger |
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• WordPress “getting started” video • Help tutorials at Learn WordPress.com • Free videos on WordPress published by WP101.com • Design a free blogging website on WordPress | • Get started with Blogger • How to start a blog on Blogger.com published by DHBW |
Purpose
The purpose of this learning challenge is to:
- Create a new blog on WordPress or Blogger through a process of self-discovery supported by open access materials you find on the web.
- Personalise your blog site.
- Document and share your learning experience by posting a blog entry.
Value of this exercise
- You will gain first hand experience in using blog technology for publishing your own course site. This is a requirement for learners taking this course for academic credit.
- You will “declare” yourself to fellow participants on this course using your PLE (as an alternative to posting an introduction in a closed course forum typically used in a conventional e-Learning course).
- You will upload and share your first photograph challenge for the course.
Tasks
Complete the tasks listed below. If you get stuck, review the stimulus resources or search the web for open access materials to find help on completing the task.
- Register an account and create a free blog on WordPress.com or Blogger.com.
- Determine the difference between the dashboard used for editing and the published view of your blog. (It is important to know the difference because when you register your blog for the course feed you must use the url for the public view of your blog).
- For WordPress view the Dashboard video published by WP101.com
- For Blogger view this Tour of dashboard features published by Jared Broker.
- Do you know how to open the published (public view) of your blog in a new window?
- Have you added a browser bookmark to your dashboard and public version of your blog?
- Complete your personal details for display on the “About” page of your blog.
- Can you see the updates on your about page in the published view of your blog?
- Review and customise your blog settings from the dashboard according to your preferences.
- We recommend that you enable categories and tags on your blog (called labels in Blogger).
- Consider whether you want to moderate all comments or in the case of WordPress, you can also enable previously approved posters to post comments without moderation. Conduct a web search on “moderating blog comments” to find out more about the pros and cons on the flow of information when moderating comments.
- Visit the appearance option on your dashboard and personalise your blog by:
- Changing: your theme, header image, background colours or image
- Add at least one widget to your blog — remember “less is more“. One or two of the following are functional choices: Archives, recent posts, categories or category cloud and blogs I follow.
- For Blogger, see How to add a widget
- For WordPress, see How to add widgets.
- Draft a blog post reflecting on your experience of this e-Learning Activity on creating a blog. Click on “save draft” (so you can review before publishing live on the web). Your reflection could for example:
- Introduce yourself and reflect on what you would like to achieve by maintaining a blog to support your learning
- What did you think of the activity? Was it easy or hard?
- Share links to any additional resources you found useful in completing the tasks.
- Provide tips for future learners who will be completing this activity. If you were to set up a new blog again, what would you do differently?
- Add anything your readers may find interesting or useful.
- Complete your first LiDA photograph challenge and upload this picture to your blog post.
- Take a selfie or ask someone to take a photo of you working on this blog post challenge.
- Review your draft post, and when you’re happy with what you’ve written, click on the “Publish post” button.
- Send an email to a colleague, friend or family member with the web address of your blog and ask them to post a comment. This will give you the opportunity to experience how comments function on your blog and to test if they are working properly.
Outputs
Publish a post on your blog comprising a few paragraphs (about 200 to 300 words in total) introducing yourself and what you would like to achieve by maintaining a blog to support your learning. If you are a first-time blogger, you can also include a reflection on this e-Learning activity. Choose an original title for your post or use: “Declaring myself on lida101“. Your blog post must include:
- At least contain one link to an external website (for example, a resource you found useful or a link back to this e-Learning activity)
- Your first image from the LiDA photo challenge. (In addition to completing the photo challenge, this step will confirm your ability to upload an image to your course blog. Make sure you clear permissions with the person who took the photograph because they would normally own the copyright of the image. Be sure to attribute the copyright holder unless it’s your own selfie.)
- Optional: Record a short video introduction and embed this in your blog post.
- Add a category or tag for your post using the course tag: lida101.
- See how to add a tag in WordPress or in Blogger see Change settings on your posts to add a label.
- The tag is needed for the harvester we use to identify posts for the LiDA course. If the tag is missing, we will not be able to incorporate your post into the course feed. This is done automatically once you have registered your blog url on the course site (see below).
- At least one comment (for example invite a friend or family member to comment on your blog post). This is so you can test that you have enabled comment settings properly and know how to moderate posts, if required.
- You will need to register the full url for the PUBLIC view of your blog site. We need this url to harvest posts tagged or labelled with hash tag “lida101” for the aggregated course feed. Please note that it may take up to an hour before your posts appear in the feed. If the post does not appear in the feed after a few hours, check that you registered the correct url for the published view and tagged / labelled your post using the course code.
- To register your blog url, click on the user icon on the OERu site menu. If you’re logged in, use the update button to enter the full url of the PUBLIC view of your blog. (Tip: Don’t use the dashboard url used for editing your blog).