Blogs - online journals
In this course, you'll discover what a blog is and how easy it is to get online and share your thoughts with the world.
In the following activities, you'll learn how to start your own free blog. In our demonstrations, we show you how to use the Google Blogger website, but there are many other free blog sites available. You'll learn how to choose an interesting topic, write and publish great blog posts, and we provide tips on how to stay safer online when writing blogs.
To get you started, below is a short, animated video overview of how to use Blogger to create your first blog.
Transcript
Welcome to 'How to create a blog'. A blog is similar to an online journal, where you can write about a topic that interests you and publish it on the web. In this video, you will learn how to create a free blog site using Google Blogger and your Google Account on a computer. To get started, open a new window in your computer's web browser and type www.blogger.com. Once the Blogger home page opens, click Create Your Blog, and you will be prompted to sign into Google with your Google Account. If you don't have a Google Account, click Create account and follow the steps. If you do have a Google Account, enter your email address. And click Next. Enter your password. And then click Next.
Type the name you want to use for your blog. A good tip is that it should describe what your blog will be about. Then click Next. Type a web address for your blog. You can use the name of your blog or something else that says what your blog is about. Blogger will automatically add .blogspot.com after your address. Click Next. Enter the name you want readers of your blog posts to see. It can be your real name or a fun alias. Then click Finish. Just like that, your blog account has been created. You can read the notices, then click on the cross to close them. You will also see how many posts you've made. It's none right now of course, so let's change that. First, you need to decide how your blog's home page will look by choosing a theme. Remember, you can change the theme later if you want.
Click on Theme in the left panel. Scroll down until you find a design that suits your blog. And click it. Once you have selected a theme, click Apply. Now you're ready to start your blog. Look for the New Post button at the top left and click it. You can type a title for your post at the top. Then add some text to the body of your post. You can add Labels on the right. These are used to organise your blog and help readers find posts about specific content. You should only add labels that match the content of your post. To make your post really pop, you can add a photo or picture. Look for the image icon in the row of icons above your post. It looks like two mountains inside a square. Click on it. From the drop-down menu that appears, click Upload from computer. From the pop-up box that displays, click on Choose files to select an image that is saved on your computer. Once your image appears in the pop-up box, click Select to add the image to your blog post. Once you are happy with your blog post, click the Publish button at the top right.
A pop up will appear, and if you're sure you want to go ahead, click Confirm. Congratulations. Your first blog post is live. The next page will show a list of all your blog posts, which is now just one post. To see what your published blog looks like, hover your mouse over your new post until a row of icons appears on the right. Now click on the eye icon. Your post looks great. Keep it up. Remember, the more you post, the more likely it is that people will keep returning to your blog.
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1
What is a blog?
8 min
2
Why would I want to blog?
7 min
3
What can I blog about?
5 min
4
Get blogging!
7 min
5
Staying safe while blogging
6 min