This presentation “e-torial” has been designed as a self study tutorial and will take you through the some of the basic steps of creating your blog In Edublogs). It deals with registering for your Edublog, tweaking your dashboard and doing your first blog posts and pages.

1. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Creating a blog part 3
Setting up your blog
in Edublogs

2. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Creating a blog: Setting it up!
Outcomes
By the end of this e-torial, you will be able
to:
 Set up a blog in Edublogs
 Log into your blogging dashboard
 Change your settings
 Write a blog page
 Write a blog post
Tools
This e-torial make use of the following
programmes or tools:
 Browser: Internet Explorer, Firefox…
 A blogging platform: Edublogs, Wordpress

3. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Index
 Before you start
 Sign up for an educational blog!
 Activate your Edublogs account
 Your dashboard settings
 Changing general settings
 Change your password
 Change your theme
 Insert login widget
 Manage your posts
 Write your first blog post!
 Tags and Categories
 Save your post
 View and edit your post
 Manage your pages
 Add pages
 View your site
 Self assessment rubric

4. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Before you create your blog….
If you have not done so before, Action plan
first work through the previous
blogging e-torials: •What is your blog going to be about?
•School? Personal? Organisational?
 Why and What of blogging Purpose •Who is your audience? Learners? Parents
 The anatomy of a blog
•What posts have to be included?
So this means that you…. •Ideas Folder
 Already have a purpose for Ideas •Look for opportunities.
your blog (personal, class,
organisational…..) •Where are you going to create it?
 Have completed the first 2 •Choose a theme
Create •Insert feeds, widgets, interactivity
steps of your blogging action
plan
 Have chosen Edublogs as •Update regularly
•Look after comments
your blogging platform Maintain
Remember: Creating a blog without a clear idea of why you want to do it, is like
writing a book without a topic.

5. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Sign up for an educational blog!
Go to:
 www.edublogs.org if you
want to create an
educational blog
 Sign up!
Click here…
If your blog do not have an educational focus,
rather sign up at Wordpress.com

6. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Sign up for your Edublogs account
Fill in your username. Try to
make it easy to remember or
funmaths
the same as your blog title or
your name!
practice@school2.co.za
Make sure that you will have
access to your e-mail box. You
will receive an activation link
via e-mail and will have to
activate before you will be able
to use your blog!!!
You have to agree!
Use this option if you only
want to be able to
comment on other edu-
bloggers’ blogs

7. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Sign up for your Edublogs account
Choose the domain name that It is a good idea to make your
is relevant to what your blog blog title similar to your
is all about blog domain
Fun Maths
Tick- you want your blog to
Your choices are: be read, don’t you!
Teacher, Student, Other

8. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Activate your Edublogs account
Edublogs does not allow for the resend of
your activation link to a different e-mail
Sign into your e-mail
address, so make very sure that you insert
inbox and wait for your
activation e-mail to
the correct address in the first place
arrive……
If you have not received it within a few hours, check your junk
mail/spam box

9. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Activate your Edublogs account
Your blog will not be active
until you click on the
To activate your blog, please click the following activation link in the e-mail!
link:
Click on this link to
activate your blog
Sometimes school firewalls
block e-mail, so first check
 Spam junk mail box
For activation e-mail
If you have not received your e-mail after 2 days, register again!

10. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Log into your Edublogs blog!
Copy the given
password!
To copy the password…
 Highlight it
 Right-click on the
password and
choose Copy or
 Press Ctrl- C on
your keyboard
Log in!
The first thing you should do is to change your blog password to something you
can remember!

11. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Working with your dashboard settings!
Change your general settings:
 Make your Tagline relevant
to your blog focus
 Membership
Maths Games, fun puzzles and things
 Decide if anybody or
just registered users
can make comments on
your blog (leave un-
ticked -preferential)
The easier it is to comment  the more feedback you will get.
You can always moderate or delete unwanted comments

12. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Dashboard: General settings
What is the time zone
for South Africa?
Change your general settings:
 Time Zone: UTC+2 for
South Africa
Save your changes!!!
It is good to change the time zone to your local time!

13. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Dashboard: Change your password
 Click on Users 
 Your Profile How do I change
 Scroll right down my password??
 Change your password to something that
you will be able to remember!!!
 Update profile
Save your
changes!!!
You will also be able to insert more information about yourself on your profile
page

14. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Dashboard: Change your theme
How do I decide
on a theme?
 Click on Design 
 Themes
 Pick a theme!
Blog Themes provides blogs
with a distinctive “look and 3 columns, 2 sidebars 2 columns, 1 sidebar
right, Custom header right, No custom header
feel”. A theme also determines:
 How many columns &
sidebars (1 or 2)
 If you can insert widgets
 If you can upload your own
header banner
3 columns, 2 sidebars 4 columns, 3 sidebars
(left & right) (on right)
Over 90 themes available! No custom header Custom header

15. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Dashboard: Insert login widget
Why do I need a
login widget?
The login widget will make it
possible for you to log back into
your blog dashboard!
 Click on Design 
 Widgets
 Click on Add next to Meta
 Remember to save your
changes
You can also insert the Search, Pages, Latest Posts widgets

16. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Dashboard: Manage your posts
By default you will already have
a post in your blog. Go and
change it!
 Click on Manage  Posts
 Click on Hello world
You can now change this Hello world post into your very first blog post!

17. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Dashboard: Write your first blog post!
Change the title
Welcome to Maths Fun 4 U
What is your
blog going to be
about? Tell us all
about it!
A first blog post should outline the focus of your blog…….

18. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Your first blog post! Tags and Categories
Add some tags
Welcome, mathematics, fun
Tags help people find
this blog post
Separate tags with
commas
General
Categories
divide your blog
posts and links
into folders
You can add more categories every time you write a new post

19. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Your first blog post! Save your post
You can edit your post in
If you would like Unpublished mode
the world to see using your Manage
your post, choose Posts feature on your
Publish. dashboard
If your post is not
quite ready for the
public, choose
Unpublished or
tick “Keep this
You can change post private”
the post date as
well
Save your post
If you want to create post dated blog posts, just change the post date to a
future date and save the post as Published!

20. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
View and edit your post
In your dashboard, click on
View Site
Brilliant!
Edit your blog by clicking on
Site admin
You can also go back into your dashboard by clicking on the Edit this link in
your blogpost, provided that you are logged in!

21. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Manage your pages
By default you will already have
a page in your blog. (About Us)
Go and change it!
 Click on Manage  Pages
 Click on About us
 Edit the page and Publish
Your About Us page is very
important as it provides
information about
 Your blog focus
 The authority of the blog
Well done, your blog is ready for the world…..

22. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Add pages
Decide on what pages you
would like to add!
 Click on Write Page
 Write the title and
content of your page
 Decide if it is a main page or a sub page under
an existing page (eg About us  My CV)
 Decide on the page order (in which you want them
to show in your tabs/page list)
Pages are usually ordered alphabetically, but you can put a number above to
change the order pages appear in.

23. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
View your masterpiece!
To get to your site Always, type in the domain
address in your browser address window…
Eg http://yourblogname@edublogs.org
Don’t forget to let your friends, colleagues and the world know that you are now
a blogger with a blog in the blogosphere!!!

24. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Self assessment Rubric
Assess your level of skill: 1 MMMmmm still need more thought/practice;
2 Getting there! 3 Cool- No problems!

25. Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
About this Presentation information
This e-torial was developed by maggiev
for the Department of Education for use
by subject advisors, teachers and learners
It forms part of a online learning pathway
and is a self study tutorial
 Part 1: Blog: What? Why?
 Creating a blog
 Part 2:The anatomy of a blog
 Part 3: Registering for your blog
and creating posts and pages
 Part 4: Making your blog look
good
 Part 5:Making your blog
interactive with widgets and RSS All e-torials can be found on the
Thutong portal:
For more blogging resources, see:
www.thutong.org.za
http://groups.diigo.com/groups/blogging
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