Blogs - Islamic University of Gazasite.iugaza.edu.ps/tfourah/files/2011/11/Blogs.pdf · By: Alaa Radwan 1 Blogs A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated

Technology for Teaching English Lab

By: Alaa Radwan

1

Blogs

A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from

time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary,

descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly

displayed in reverse-chronological order. (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)

There are different types of blogs named for the way content is delivered such as1:

− vlog—comprising videos;

− linklog—comprising links;

− sketchblog—comprising sketches;

− photoblog or photo logs (Flogs)—comprising photos

Teacher blogs named Edublogs, the world's most popular education blogging service, will be

discussed in this document.

To get started, visit Edublog homepage at http://edublogs.org/

1 Tony Erben, Ruth Ban & Martha E. Castañeda (2009) Teaching English Language Learners Through

Technology.p136


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Figure(1) shows 3 types of blogs:

1. Free Edublog

2. Pro Edublog: Ultimate blogging tool for individual teachers.

3. Campus Edublog : Campus sites are run by individual schools, districts, leading

universities and government departments worldwide.

• To create a blog on edublogs, click on the First picture in the home page and follow the next

steps:

1. Enter your details Step


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1. Username: Write your name or any other name you like. For example : aradwan13.

Note : It must be more than 4 characters (small letters and you can use numbers as

well).

2. Password: Write your own password. It must be 5 characters or more.

3. Confirm password: retype the password you enter in the box 3.

4. Email address: write your own real email address. For example:

[email protected]

5. Confirm Email address: Retype the email you entered in the box 5

[email protected]

6. Terms of service: Some instructions you need to agree upon in order to sign up for a

blog.

7. Click trick on the ‘I agree’box.

8. Click on ‘Go to step 2’.

1. Name your blog Step

2. Blog domain: name your own website (URL). For example : aradwan.edublogs.org

3. Blog title: Write your desired blog title. For example I chose ‘Be different teacher’

as my blog title.

4. Language : Your blog language; Here we will choose ‘English’.

5. Blog type: Choose your blog type as teacher.


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6. Some characters you need to write in box 7.

7. Write the characters above as they are as shown in the box.

8. Click on ‘Go to step3’.

1. Start blogging Step.

2. Your blog has been created and you can use it now.

3. Your own blog Information ( Blog URL- Username –Password).

4. Click on Login to your new blog button and enter your details as shown in the figure

below.


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1. Write you username: For example I chose ‘aradwan13’ as username.

2. Password: Write your own password that you chose while creating your blog.

3. Remember me: If you don’t want to login to your blog every time you visit the blog,

you can click on ‘remember me’. But make sure that nobody else using your

computer/laptop.

4. Log in.

5. Lost your password: If you forget your password, you can click here and the

administration will send you another one to your email.

• Start working on your own blog

1. Add New

� Post : text, story, poem, proverb, joke, etc

� Post: image, a video & audio

1. To add a new post: click icon no.1 at the top left side.


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2. To insert an image: click icon no.2

3. To add a video: click icon no.3 .

4. To add an audio: click icon no.4 .

5. To add media: click icon no.5. *Notice that it must be less than 20MB.

6. Visual: Make sure that you click visual not Html because it allows you see whatever

you post.

7. Html: the website language. We are not using this.

8. Save draft: to save your post as a draft.

9. Preview: to see your post before you publish it.

10. Move to trash: to delete your post.

11. Publish: To publish your post that your visitors can see it.

12. The box in which you write your post

Adding an image steps:


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1. Click icon no.1

2. A window will appear as shown above, then click ‘select files’ and choose from your

computer the image you want to insert.

3. Cancel upload: When you want to cancel uploading the image you chose.

4. The image is uploading: When it reaches 100%, it means that it’s uploaded

completely.

5. Fill in the form shown the figure below:


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1. The title of the image.

2. Caption: Your description to the image. For example “ My house when it is

raining’’.

3. The URL of the image.

4. Alignment : Where you want the image to be ( None – left – center – right)

5. The size of the image.

6. Insert into post.

7. Save all changes.


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The inserted image in the post looks like the following figure where No. 1 refers to the caption of

the inserted image.

2. Adding New link to your post:

This is exactly like hyperlinking a word in Microsoft Word. If you want to hyperlink a word in

the post so that the visitor when he/she clicks on it, a window of that URL will be opened.

Follow the next steps to insert a link:

1. Write your post and shade the word you want to hyperlink.


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2. Click on this icon , you will find it above the post among the icons. A window will be

opened asking you to write the URL and the title of your link.

Note : If you want to hyperlink a word by a page you have in your blog, you will see all the

pages listed below in this blog and you just need to click on the one you want. But if you

want to hyperlink from outside your blog, write the URL above and the title of it.

3. Add link.

4. Publish post and see the result.

For example: I hyperlinked the word ‘here’ to www.englishforpalestine.com


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So, if you clicked here, the following website will be opened.

3. Adding New Page

• Click Add New, then select Page.

• Fill in the following details as shown below.


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1. The title of the page.

2. The URL of the page.

3. The text of the page.

• Preview and then Publish the page.

1. To preview the page before it is published.

2. To publish it in your blog.


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4. Adding Users

Adding users will let your blog spread among your friends whether if they are using the site or

not.

1. Click on ‘ add new’ and choose ‘ users’.

2. You will find ‘existing user’ and ‘ new user’.

Existing user means the user who has a blog here and you want to invite him to your

blog. While new user means the user who doesn’t have a blog and you want to invite

him.

3. Write the email of the user whether it is existing or new.

4. Choose the role of the user. (subscriber – administrator -…….).

5. Click on ‘Add existing user’ / ‘Add new user’.


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After adding a user you will need to visit her/his site, how?

1. Your blog’s site. For example: my blog name is ‘Be Different’.

2. English student is the blog of the existing user I added. To visit the blog, click ‘visit site’.

5. Comments

Sometimes while browsing your friend’s blog, you want to add a comment to his/her post or

page. How??

1. Visit the blog.

2. Click on the post you want to comment on.

3. Add a comment.


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1. The blog of the existing user (English Student).

2. Post by the existing user, a nice audio.

3. Another post, an amazing picture of penguins. This is what I will choose to comment on.


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1. The title of the post.

2. The box in which you write your comment on the post.

3. Submit Comment.


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Now after submitting your comment as above, you will need to wait the admin (Blog owner) to

accept your comment. Then it will be published.

Note: Other users can comment on your posts in your blog but before it is published you, the

owner of the blog, will have to accept it or delete it if it was not suitable or edit it.

Blog owner will receive a notification by the number of comments which need his approval.

Approve, reply, delete or edit the comment.


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6. Changing the appearance

You can change the theme of your blog and the header and the background and many things as

well.

• Click Appearance from the top and then click Themes and choose the theme you like. After

that, a window will be opened to preview the theme and if you like it, click on activate at the

top. Finally, visit site.


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• Visit site and see how the blog’s appearance changed.


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• Changing the header image

1. Click appearance then header.

2. Browse the picture you like from your computer.

3. Upload the picture you choose.

4. Preview it and then click on ‘crop and publish’. After that, save the changes. Then visit

site to see the result.


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the following figure shows how header is changed.


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By the same way, you can change the background of your blog. Try it by yourself.

Documents

Blogs - Islamic University of Gazasite.iugaza.edu.ps/tfourah/files/2011/11/Blogs.pdf · By: Alaa Radwan 1 Blogs A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated