4. Start a blog

Now that we've seen some other blogs, let's each create one of our own! The purpose of the blog you create today will be to log your experiences, thoughts, and ideas as you go through the Learning 2.0 WU Libraries program. Using the blogs, we'll be able to pool our resources, sharing our problems and collaborating on solutions.

If you find you like blogging, you can create another one for your own purposes using the same account. Or if you want to blog officially, as a library staff member, ask an Exploring Technology Committee member to set you up with the blogging software that the WU Libraries paid for, Typepad. For today, though, we'll be using the free Blogger software.

Exercise

1. Go to http://www.blogger.com/

2. Log in using your new Gmail account, see my account information (okay, that's not my password) in the example below:

3. Here's step 1 of setting up your new blog:

4. After completing the above screen, you will click on the "Create your blog now" button.

5. Then, it's time to name your blog and give it a web site address (write the address down so that you don't forget where your blog is!):













6. Now, comes the fun part, choosing a template that will determine how your blog looks. If you don't see anything you like, just choose one. Don't worry, there are more options when you change your template than there are when you first set one up.

7. Write a post. What was your favorite blog of the blogs you looked at during as the 2nd Thing? Did you have any trouble with 3. Create a Gmail account? Or with starting your blog? Click on Publish when you are through and on View Blog to see your blog with it's first post.

8. Leave a comment on this blog post with the address of your blog. So that we have a directory of all of our blogs.