Week Two: Making It Personal

Designing Your Own Blog

Blog is short for weblog and is a public personal online journal which allows for interaction with others via comments or posts. Postings are usually frequent, brief, and of a somewhat personal nature. Watch this short video about blogs from Common Craft.

Homework Assignment:

We will begin setting up our own blogs.You will need a Gmail account in order to use the blog hosting site Blogger.

* If you do not have a google email account (Gmail) go here and register for one.

* Login to Blogger here.

*Click "Create a Blog" and follow the steps.

* You will be asked to name your blog. It could be "Smith Family Blog" or "Sam's Technology Workshop" , etc.

(If you prefer more privacy this is when you will make up a mock name.)

* You will then have to select a blog URL address. Try and make this short and easy to remember. Write this down as you will need to email this address to us later.

*Go to the "settings" link on the blogger page and click the option to enable comments. Click save settings.

* Now be creative and select your template. Go into the design link and add some gadgets - make it your own.

*Include all team members as contributors if your are working as a family or group.

* Go to the "settings" link again and select blog log. Enter our class blog URL which is:

http://patronweb20project.blogspot.com

* Email your URL address to libraryyouth@largo.com. We will then add you to our blog list. Now all participants in the workshop will be able to see each others blogs. Remember that they will only see your blog name and not your real name.

*You are now ready to start posting your comments to your blog about our adventures and to read other's comments. The problems you encounter and solve may help someone else and they may lead you to explore web sites you never knew existed. This is the fun part of the web 2.0 experience.

* Remember that your blog will grow and change. Have fun and experiment with it!

Personalizing Your Online World With RSS and IGoogle

RSS - Really Simple Syndication

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is not only revolutionizing the way news, media and content creators share information; it is also changing the way everyday users are consuming information. It is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web. Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit everyday. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn't it? Wouldn't it be much faster and easier to be able to see the content from these sources in one place at the same time.

First let's watch another Common Craft video explaining more about RSS.

There are several different Readers available but since we all have Google accounts we will use the Google Reader for this class.

*Go to your Google home page and login. At the top of the screen, next to the Gmail account link is a link called "more". Open this and you will see a line of options, one is Reader. Click into reader and set up your newsreader.

*Now start adding some feeds and/or blogs to your reader. Try looking at your favorite web sites and see if they have the orange RSS icon. Or look here at Bloglines List of Top Feeds for some ideas. Your goal is to add at least four newsfeeds.

Homework Assignment:

Create a post in your blog about your experience with RSS. Was it difficult to subscribe? Do you think this tool could be useful in your work/personal life? You might even share one of the feeds your selected. Remember that these postings are brief and informal. You are not writing a term paper, just sharing your experiences with the group.

IGoogle -

IGoogle lets you create a personalized homepage that contains a Google search box at the top, and your choice of any number of gadgets below. Gadgets come in lots of different forms and provide access to activities and information from all across the web, without ever having to leave your iGoogle page. You can include gadgets like your Gmail messages, the current time and weather, news alerts. You can also select different colors and images for the background under "themes". This short video illustrates the process.

Homework Assignment:

Personalize your IGoogle page with a new background and add at least one gadget.