Who is Watching?

Now that you have been blogging a bit (hopefully), you may be wondering who is "watching" your blog. You have probably noticed that not everyone who follows your blog 'follows' your blog publicly. As a teacher, I always wondered if people ever read my newsletters. I often have the same thoughts with my blogs, but there is a way to check... Read on!

Readers of your blogs can get sign up to get your blog emailed to them every time you add a new post. This is one of the easiest things I can show you how to do and it will literally take less than five minutes- even for those of you who are very uncomfortable still with blogging. You can add a gadget that is very simple to add. Just go to your design page and click add a gadget.
The first gadget that comes up when I do that is the one pictured above. It may not be the first gadget that comes up on your list. If it is not, scroll down. You will find it (and perhaps other fun gadgets you may want to use). To add this gadget just click the blue and white plus sign.
When you do that you will see a box like the one pictured above. You can change the title if you'd like to "Sign up to get this blog via email" or something of that nature, or you can leave it as is. Let others know that they can sign up to follow your blog via email (and let them know that unsubscribing is easy to0- just a click). I would also recommend signing up yourself. This way you will know when the emails are sent out. They are not immediate, but should go out within 24 hours (which is nice if you reread your posts and realize you need to fix something- your edited version will go out). I am too tired at the moment to reread this post- so hopefully everything looks good (my apologies if I missed something).

You can always come back to this gadget on your design page and click "Edit" and then click "View stats and learn more". While you won't know WHO exactly is getting emails for your blog, you will know how many are signed up.
Similarly if you haven't noticed, you can go to the stats tab (listed above) and see how many hits your blog gets in a day, week, month etc. Recently a post I wrote on another blog got over 4000 hits in three days! With only 30 comments, I would have never guessed that so many had read it, but the stats page let me know, so check in with it and see who (or how many) is watching.

And- sign up to get this blog as an email for future updates.

Since many reading this blog are teachers, I would also recommend following each other's blogs. I've gotten some great ideas from what you are doing in your classrooms.

Happy Blogging-

L

Using Smilebox

Smilebox is a great site that allows you to make free slideshows to post on your blog. You can choose to upgrade (aka pay) and get more music choices and such, but I have found the free variety to work just fine. Smilebox is very user friendly, but you may need some help posting it to your blog.

The first thing you will need to do is go to the Smilebox website. You can get there by clicking HERE. You will need to create a free account. To make it simple you may want to use your same email and passwords as you use for your blog.

I found the Smilebox site very easy to navigate and I hope you will do. If you do not, let me know and I can help you with that. As with the Cutest Blog on the Block site, you could spend a long time finding great slideshows for your pictures. The one thing you will want to notice is how many pictures each slideshow allows. Some allow hundreds, while others may only allow 10, so be aware of that if it does not let you add any more pictures to your slideshow.

Once you choose a slideshow to use, it will allow you to personalize it. The three boxes I have circled above allow you to do just that. To change the title of the slideshow, you will click on the box on the left. The box on the far right is for adding more pictures to your slideshow and the box in the middle allows you to personalize the individual slides (if you would like to rotate a picture or add text). A quick tip- "Get" all your photos first so they show up in the bar at the left, then when you add slides it will automatically add them with your pictures. This saves a TON of time!
You can preview your slideshow at any time which is a good idea because unfortunately, there is no spell check... (grrr...). When you have it the way you want it you will need to save it and then you will go to the fourth and final step which is to share it. Smilebox may ask you to log back into your account at this time. Sometimes it does this, sometimes it does not. Follow everything it asks you to do.
Remember, when it asks you to share you are always going to choose the big white and orange B which stands for blogger. You could also email these slideshows or post them on facebook, but since this is for blogging, we'll stick to Blogger for now.
When you click on the choice to add it to blogger, it will take you to a new page which has a bunch of code (much like what you saw when you changed your background for your blog). You need to copy that code. You can do this by highlighting it and holding down control c (if you are on a PC) or command c (if you are on a mac).
You will then need to go to your blog post to paste it in. I usually put slide shows at the bottom of my weekly posts for my classroom blog. You can do that, or you could create a post just for your extra slideshow. The key is how to paste in the code and this is important...

YOU MUST MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN THE EDIT HTML TAB AND NOT THE COMPOSE TAB!

(I have circled above to show you exactly where I am talking about). Paste the code into your blog under the HTML tab. You paste the code by moving your mouse to where you want the code to be pasted and holding down control V (command v if you are on a mac).

You can check to see if it worked by then viewing the window above using the command tab (and not the html tab). If you did it correctly, you should be able to see a picture of your slideshow. If all looks well, simply click the orange publish post button at the bottom!

Good luck. I hope this works (and makes sense).

First Things First

The only thing you need to set up your free blog on blogger.com is an email. If you don't want to use your work email, you can get a free email at places like yahoo or gmail. I have three separate emails that I blog from. I use my school email for all blogs related to education, my personal email for my blogs about my family, my children's blogs and my blog about loss and I have opened up ANOTHER email to remind me of those first steps I took when I first became a blogger and created THIS blog.

Go to blogger.com and fill in all the information they ask you. Don't lie on your birthday. When setting up a blog for a friend I didn't know what year she was born so chose the current year. Blogger said that she wasn't old enough to blog and then blocked her email (sorry Chrissy). You do not have to put your birthday anywhere, and it will only publish the information you give them... (more on that later).

You will create your account, name your blog and then choose your template. Blogger has a lot of cute templates that you can use. If you would like your blog to look like this one (and change the backgrounds based on your mood or the season), you can do so later. I have other posts that will give you instructions on how to do that. To get to those posts later, you can click here. For now, choose any blogger background, just so we can get started.

Once you click "start blogging" you will be taken to your "dashboard" which is where you will add interesting things to your blog (widgets), control the settings, design and most importantly... POST! The dashboard is set up to look like a folder system and the tabs will help you navigate through them. The first stop I would suggest in setting up your blog is the "Settings" tab.
It is here where you can change the title of your blog (if you'd like), add a description (though you don't have to) and control who can see your blog. You can change these things at any time. I have turned off all of my search engines on my school blogs and family blogs so that they are hard to find for the 'casual' person, though blogs that I don't mind people reading (like this one or the one I have written about loss) are open to the public. I also blog using the 'old editor' because I use an old template that is compatable with "The Cutest Blog on the Block" backgrounds. I'm guessing you will need to switch to "old editor" to do the things that I mention on this blog. Once you have things the way you would like them, click "Save Settings" at the bottom of the page.

The next thing I would do is stay in the "Settings" tab, but click "Comments". If you would like to encourage comments, click on "Anyone" next to where it says, "Who Can Comment?".

The only other thing I would do on this page is scroll all the way to the bottom and right above where you will save the settings it says, "Comment Notification Email". If you would like to be notified anytime anyone makes a comment, enter your email here. You can enter multiple emails. For example, anytime someone comments on my classroom blog I get an email of that comment to both my home and school emails. If there is a comment that is inappropriate, I can delete it at any time.

There are many things that you can play with in settings, but (to me) these are the important details to setting up a blog prior to actually posting.

How to change your layout for Cutest Blog on the Block Backgrounds

If you would like to use "The Cutest Blog on the Block" backgrounds, you will need to change your layout design. To do that click on the "Design" tab and then click on "Edit HTML" (see above). Delete the code that is in the Edit Template and paste the one that I send you via email. To copy the code, highlight the entire code I send you and click "Control C" to copy it. Then click"Control V" to paste it in the box (above). If you are using a mac you would use "Command C" and Command V" to copy and paste.

You may email me for the code at momdoran@yahoo.com. Because I don't always check that email (it was created for the purpose of setting up this blog), please leave a comment here either with your email address or asking me to check my momdoran@yahoo.com address. I do not want to put out my personal address on this blog.

Happy Blogging!

How to Add a Cute Background

There is a great site called "The Cutest Blog on the Block" and it has wonderful (free) things for your blog. This post is to show you how to add a free background to your blog. First, you will need to change your design layout (I posted how to do that here). There are probably other ways to do this but I am just showing you what I know.

Once your layout is changed, you can add a background. First you will need to choose that cute background at "The Cutest Blog on the Block". Click on Backgrounds for Blogger and let the fun begin! They have the background styles listed in different categories down the right side of the blog.

When you find a background you like, click on it (Do not choose 3 column layouts). The site will give you directions on how to add the background. But for those 'visual' learners out there, here is where you will need to do. First copy and the code they give you, and return back to your blog.

Click on your "Design" tab and you will see the layout below.

Click on "Add a Gadget"

There are many different Gadgets that you can choose from (more fun for later). To add a background, you will want to scroll down a bit and find the one that says HTML/Java Script.

Next you will paste the code that you got from The Cutest Blog on the Block into the content box. It is important to leave the "Title" Box BLANK! (I have pasted my code just as you should.)

Save the code, cross your fingers and then view your blog. You should have a nice new background.

Whenever you change backgrounds, you will go through the same steps. Don't forget to delete the code from your old background before adding a new one. I have had students who have had difficulty with backgrounds and it is usually because they added new backgrounds without deleting the old.

Happy Blogging!

Posting with Pictures

Now it's time to do what you came here to learn about... BLOG! You will do all of your blogging on the window posted above. If you are planning on using multiple pictures in your blog, I highly recommend uploading them first! To upload a picture, click on the icon of the picture (see this isn't that hard...).
Once you do that, this window (above) will pop up. Choose the picture you would like to upload and then decide what size you would like that picture to be and WHERE you would like to put it. Then you will click "Upload Image".

If you are using MULTIPLE pictures (this is important) you will upload the picture you want to show up last, first. So if I was posting a blog about Lions and Tigers and Bears (Oh my!), I would upload the Bear picture first, then the Tiger, then the Lion.

I upload all of my pictures before I write my text and the first picture you see on my blog posts (the last one I upload) I always make Large/ Center. The other pictures I upload I prefer them to be of medium size (and I put mine on the left). Personally I think that the small pictures are a bit too small for my eyes, but that is all just personal preference. Play with it to see what works best for you. Once you have your pictures uploaded, then you can start typing around them.

Try it out and let me know if you have any questions about it. The best way to get good at blogging is to "do it". I blog A LOT and no one believes me when I say blogging takes no time... In my opinion, what takes the longest is choosing what pictures to use and uploading them. The actual typing and publishing takes not time at all (that is- if you know what you want to say).

Once you have a blog post done (aka some pictures and text), click on "Publish Post" and see what it looks like. If you don't like it, you can always come back and edit it!

And don't forget to spellcheck first! Grammar snobs like I pick up on those things rather quickly... (and always read what you write out loud a few minutes later so you don't accidentally omit or add words that don't make sense). I hope I have taken my own advice on this one...

Happy Blogging!

Changing Colors/ Fonts/ Etc

Whether you are using a blogger background or one from "The Cutest Blog on the Block", you may want to change certain things about your blog like colors, fonts, etc... To do this you will need to click on the "Design" tab and choose "Template Designer".

Once you are in the Template Designer you will see a menu at the top and a copy of your blog near the bottom. Click on "Advanced" and you will see a list of things that you can change about your blog. For example, here I have changed the font of my blog title as well as its color and the color of the border. The best thing about this window is you can see the changes you are making on the sample of your blog below. Nothing will be saved however unless you click "Apply to Blog".