Set Up a Blog

If you are new to Nebraska Learns 2.0, it’s time to setup your very own personal blog to begin recording your thoughts, discoveries, and exercises.

A blog? What's that?

To learn about blogs, here are some discovery resources you can use:

• Blogs in Plain English (2:58)
• Introduction to Blogging - WordPress
  
• What's a blog? - Blogger's Quick Tutorial

Create Your Blog

For this program, we recommend that you use either WordPress or Blogger, popular, free online blog hosting services that are extremely easy to use.  

WordPress

To set up a WordPress blog, to to http://wordpress.com/. Click on the big, orange "Get started here" button and follow the steps to set up your account.

Step-by-step instructions are available on the Learn WordPress.com website.

You can also watch this short video about getting signed up:

 

Blogger

To get started go to http://www.blogger.com/. Click on the big, orange "Get started" button and follow the easy, three-step process:

1. Create a Google Account (view screenshot).
   
   NOTE: If you alreade have a Google Account as a result of using services such as Gmail, Google Groups, or Orkut, you don't need to create a new account. Instead, click on the sign in first link that appears at the end of the paragraph immediately beneath the "Create a Google Account" heading. Sign in to Blogger with your Google Account.
2. Name your blog (view screenshot).
3. Choose a template (view screenshot).

You can also watch this video tutorial, "How to Create a Blog on Blogger":



Using Your Blog

Once you've created your blog, there are several important details you need to remember:

1. Note your login and password: You will need this information to log into your blog account to create new blog posts and customize your blog. 
2. To manage your blog: Go to http://wordpress.com/ or  http://www.blogger.com/, depending on which service you chose. Sign in to your account. This will take you to your Dashboard page. Your Dashboard is your main editing interface. From here you can add a new post to your blog, edit a post, customize your blog settings, or change your blog layout.
3. To view your blog: Your blog address is http://(xxx).wordpress.com/ or  http://(xxx).blogspot.com/, where (xxx) = the unique blog address you choose when you set up your account.

Now what? 

You have a blog name and blog URL, so now you have all the information you need to Sign Up to Participate! After registering your intent to participate, move on to the remainder of the prerequisites - the Lifelong Learning video and your first blog post!