Here is How to Create A Classroom Blog Using Blogger

Updated February 2022

Blogging is a digital activity with huge educational potential. You can easily incorporate blogs into your classroom to transform your professional practice and open up new learning opportunities for your students.

There are many ways to use an educational blog in your classroom, including student learning presentations, sharing extracurricular resources, creating a virtual hub for remote interaction with students, connecting with parents and the school community, learning extensions outside the classroom walls, Sharing assignments and important dates / events, among others.

As I explained elsewhere, if you decide to include the blog in your classroom, you need to build it into a pedagogical framework so that education has clear goals and objectives. You should also set up specific blog topics to help students measure learning and track overall progress.

There are several blogging platforms that you can use to create your class blog. Google Blogger is one of the best. In today's post, I'm sharing with you this step-by-step guide to help you create your own class blog using the Blogger platform.

1- Log in to Blogger

To start blogging on Blogger, you must first log in to Blogger. This is easy if you have a Google Account. Go to www.blogger.com and log in. Once logged in, click on the new blog.

2. Add blog titles

Enter a title for your blog and enter the desired address as the URL. Try multiple repetitions until you have one available.

3- Choose a model

Blogger Templates Gallery has lots of professionally designed templates to choose from. These templates are divided into themes which include: travel (e.g., aviation models, beach models, study models and street models), dynamic scenes (magazine templates, flip ticket templates, classic templates, snapshot templates, mosaics , etc.). , Pale, deep, alphabet, dark, etc.), photo window (shadow, open, screen, etc.), watermark (e.g. navigator, bird, flower, etc.), notable (with glow, Dracula, coral, antique and rose) , Emporium (including porcelain, toolbox, apron, flamingo and technica) and much more.

When you find the template of your choice, click Apply.

3- Blogger editor

Now that you've chosen a template and applied it to your class blog, your blog is pretty much there now, congratulations!

From now on, you will work with Blogger Editor to write content and customize your blog settings. Think of it as the back door to your blog.

To start writing articles, you can write your articles to Blogger Editor, which provides all the basic writing and editing tools you need, or use your favorite text editor (e.g., Word, Text Edit, Google Docs, Scrivener, etc.). Then copy and paste your post into your Blogger editor.

Here's what you can do to the editor:

A- Insert a picture

To insert an image, click the image icon shown in the image below. There are four ways for you to add images to your posts, including: Upload via Computer, Photos, Blogger, and URL.

B- Add hyperlinks

To create a hyperlink to a word, for example to add a URL that people may see when clicking on the word, simply highlight the word or phrase and click and paste "link" in the link bar. If you want to open the link in a new window, check the box next to "Open this link in a new window".

Insert video c

There are two ways to add video to your blog post. You can add it from your computer or paste it from YouTube Check out this guide to learn how to add videos to your blog posts.

D- Add citations

To add a quote to your post, paste or type your quote and click on the quote icon shown below.

Check e-spelling

Blogger has a built-in spell checker that works best when you click on the "ABC" icon below. When you click on ABC, all misspellings are highlighted in yellow. Click on the word to correct it automatically.

Select the letter F.

To choose a font for the text, click on the font icon and select the desired font. To choose a font for your text, click on the font icon and select the font you want .

Resize G-font

To resize text fonts, click the Font Size icon and select the desired size.

H- Your message caption

Tags help you organize your posts into different sections. For example, when I write a tutorial, I name my articles: tutorials or guides ... etc. If I have a lot of articles and I want to find a specific one, I can easily find them using the tags I use.

I am HTML 

I don't know if you want to edit the HTML of your post unless you have a basic knowledge of HTML coding, otherwise don't worry. HTML is effective when embedding code snippets (such as infographics, embedded videos, slides, etc.) in your posts.

5- Share your post 

Once you've typed and edited, you can click "Publish" and your post will be published immediately.

How to customize your blog settings

1- Add co-authors

To add a co-author to your blog, click Settings on the left. Scroll down to permission and click Invite Other Authors. Add their email address and click Submit.

2- Define blog readers

You can make your blog available to the public, private or special readers only. To customize your blog reader settings, click Settings, scroll down to Permission, and click Reader Access. Choose one of three options: public, personal to authors, dedicated readers.

3- Customize comment function

By default, your blog displays a comment box at the bottom of your post. But you have complete control over your restraint. You can control who posts comments, whether comments should be moderated before posting, whether captcha should be enabled for word testing, and more.

To customize the comments feature, go to Settings, scroll down to the comments and customize the feature to your liking.

Other sources:

How to create and edit pages on Blogger (Blogger Team Video Tutorial)

How to Publish a Blog Post (Blogger Team Video Tutorial)

How to choose who can read and edit your blog (Blogger Team Video Tutorial)

How to Buy a Custom Domain at Blogger (Blogger Team Video Tutorial)

This post originally appeared on Educational Technology and Mobile Learning (www.educatorstechnology.com).