How to Blog for Sherwood's ENGL 121 Table of Contents Overview...............................................................................................................................................1 Getting Started.......................................................................................................................................2 Logging In and Changing your Password.............................................................................................3 How to Post...........................................................................................................................................6 Customize Your Blog............................................................................................................................8 Personalize Your Blog...........................................................................................................................9 Security................................................................................................................................................11 Overview The blog is an easy tool for sharing your reading responses. I install a Wordpress network on my server and create individual blogs for each student. This is not an IUP service, so IT Services does not support it, you don't use your IUP password, etc. Page 1 of 11 Getting Started Look in your IUP email for a message from “digitcw4”. This contains your username and temporary password. - Write down your username - Highlight and copy your temporary password - click the link Page 2 of 11 Logging In and Changing your Password Using the username and password provided, you should be able to login to your blog for the first time. Make sure you type or cut/paste exactly. You should see the main class blog page when you have successfully logged in. But there will be one difference. Your username should show up in the right hand column – indicating that you are logged in. Page 3 of 11 You now need to change your password to something that you can remember. There are four quick steps: 1. Pull down the “My blogs” menu and look for the “Dashboard” option. 2. Look for the “Users” link on the menu options. 3. Select “Your Profile” Type in a “nickname” which will display with your posts instead of your username. For class purposes, it would be good if you used the preferred version of your first name – not “4x4 Maniac” ! Scroll to the bottom of the screen Page 4 of 11 4. Type a new password, twice and “Update Profile”. Page 5 of 11 How to Post 1. There are two ways to post. A. If you're working in your “Dashboard”, use the Posts / Add New option. B. If you're looking at the main page, then use the My Blogs / Dashboard / New Post option. 2. Compose the post Choose a title. Copy/Paste your paragraphs into the text box from your wordprocessor. (Be careful about composing thoughtful posts right in the blog. If you lose the web connection between your computer and wordpress, you'll have to start over!) 3. Publish Look for the “publish” button on the far right. You can also save a draft if you want to save it where only you can see it. Page 6 of 11 4. Check to make sure it published. Click “view post” or just pull up your blog's public page: http://engl121.digitalenglish.net/yourloginname Page 7 of 11 Customize Your Blog At this point every students' blog looks alike. Part of the reason I choose to setup blogs for my students is that I think it's much more fun if you can personalize it a bit. Moodle is very “vanilla”! You can spend a little or a lot of time with this! But I hope you will at least make some changes so that you take “ownership” of your own blog space. 1. From the Dashboard, look for the “Appearance” and then choose “Themes” I have uploaded some optional themes you can choose. Then, within each one you have some choices for changing the header image, the color scheme, etc. Page 8 of 11 Personalize Your Blog Right now your posts show up with the gray silhouette of a person. It's much easier to get a sense of who we are if words and names go with pictures. Would you please upload a “recognizable” picture of yourself? It's simple: 1. Log in and pull down the top menu bar. 2. Look for: My Account / Profile / Change Avatar 3. “Choose” and then “Upload” a small / medium picture from your computer and upload it. (1 mb is the upper limit) If you chose a larger image, you'll have the chance to crop it to fit. Page 9 of 11 Now when your classmates and I look to see who is in this class, we'll see “you!” Page 10 of 11 Security Don't share your passwords. Don't post anything libelous or embarrassing. (These blogs are public; your Mom and Dad can read them if they know where to google them! Block SPAM! It usually takes a month or two for spammers to find new blogs like ours. But at that point, you may start getting fake comments. You can always delete them, but it can become a pain. 1. Dashboard / Settings / Discussion I would recommend the following options to you – but you're free to lock it up tighter or leave the door wide open. Page 11 of 11