BlogWritingCourse

Many schools and classrooms are setting up specific blogs for their students and teachers.  Some are designed only for teachers or administrators as communication tools - - to post updates, news, or even assignment lists.  Others are of a more collaborative style, with requests that students add their own thoughts to the blog.

There are so many great ways for schools and teachers to integrate blogs into the educational framework.  They could be used as part of a collaborative writing assignment,  as a way to inform parents of school-related events and activities, or as a way to provide students with additional information about a specific subject or research project.

Anytime the internet is integrated into education, however, there are safety issues to be taken into consideration.  To avoid any potential problems, keep in mind the following advice:

• Be sure that parents are notified of all blogs that their children may be participating in or receiving regularly.  (Depending on the situation, parental permission might even be advisable)
• Check all comment and spam settings on school and classroom blogs.  Comments might be best restricted to students only or at least have Akismet spam detector enabled.
• If privacy is an issue, for instance if a few students are using a blog to create a competitive class assignment, privacy settings on the blog can be set so that only the blog contributors are allowed access.  This can also be helpful if you have a classroom blog that you want to restrict access to.
• Take the opportunity when opening a classroom or student blog to teach students about online safety. 
• Check out Edublogs for an unique and safe option for educational blogging.

To get even more insights about blogging and blogging safety, check out our blog writing courses.

  Wow.  We are almost done??!! 

That’s right.  This session of the Blogging 101 course will be over tomorrow, just in time for me to jump into holiday busyness.  ((sigh))  But it has been fun looking back over the new blogs and seeing how far they have come!

In Week Seven, we explored the possibilities of earning money from our blogs.  Since we now have lured some readers to our blog, we discussed how we could turn those clicks into CASH, and how our blog could finally “give back” after all we have put into it!

Week Eight, our final week of the course, has been somewhat of a retrospective.  We took a look at how far our blogs have come since the first days of the course where we were just settling on our themes.  And we are also looking forward - - checking out some of the cool blogging tools and trends that we might want to take advantage of to make our blogging endeavors even more exciting.

With this session of Blogging 101 almost kaput, it is time to be thinking about the NEXT round, which hopefully will begin in early January, if we get enough sign-ups by then.  If you’d like to get in on our next session, be sure to register now, or at least put your name on the waiting list.

I can’t wait to see what the next eight weeks of Blogging 101 has up its sleeve!!!

Week six of the Blogging 101 course is all about building community.  Starting with the simplest of things - - like commenting on blogs that are similar to yours and getting noticed - - to more involved techniques, such as starting up a Twitter account, we looked at many different ways to make your blog feel more like someone’s front porch than just a rest stop along the journey.

It is important that readers see your blog as a “hub” that they can go to for support, encouragement, advice, etc.  This is one of the biggest ways to draw traffic and keep it! 

Of course, with the Blogging 101 course, you have a built-in community from the get-go.  Your fellow classmates visit your blog and give both positive feedback and constructive criticism that will help you make your blog the best it can possibly be. 

We’ve had a few more students add their blog addresses this week, so here is an updated list of course blogs…drop by and leave a comment if you can!

• Lifting My Eyes to the Hills
• Faith and a Full House
• Blog of a Free-Form Scholar
• Never Just a Housewife
• Pansy Colored Glasses
• Seeing Through the Illusion
• Moment by Moment
• Black Belt Breakfast of Champions
• Stay at Home / Work at Home

The last two weeks have been a blur!  Many of our students have been incredibly busy in their personal lives, so many of them have been playing “catch-up” with their course assignments.  That’s the great thing about a course like this one, though…it is flexible enough to bend and flow with even the busiest of schedules!

The most exciting thing has been seeing the blogs start to fill with content.  The course “winner” for most prolific writer definitely goes to the blogger of Lifting My Eyes to the Hills, who took on a daily meme right from the get-go!  That’s a way to shoot right out of the starting gates!

But other blogs have started to fill with content as well, and the bloggers have been looking at ways to get inspired, to fight writer’s block, and how to add a little “pizzazz” to their posts to keep things interesting. 

Week Five has been focused on the “little things” that can be added to your blog to give it that extra “something.”  And they are also dutifully attempting to visit each of their classmates’ new blogs in order to leave comments of encouragement and constructive criticism.

If you’d like to check out the different approaches of some of our blogging students, take a minute to visit these blogs:

• Pansy Colored Glasses
• Never Just a Housewife
• Blog of a Free-Form Scholar
• Faith and a Full House
• Moment by Moment

Next week our Blogging 101 students will start building community around their blogs.  This is probably the single most important component of traffic-building, and we will be looking at several different ways to create that sense of community.

It has been an exciting week of lessons at Blogging 101!  This was the week to focus on blogging safety, including how much information each blogger feels comfortable sharing on their blog.  This always depends heavily on the type of blog you have, so of course business bloggers usually will share a lot of information, whereas mom bloggers keep things a little closer to the vest.

Another thing we focused on this week was creating an effective “About Me” page.  This important aspect of a blog is sometimes located on its own page of the blog, but other times is handled right within the blog sidebar.  Our students for this session had a mixture of ways of going about this task.

The final task of the week was exploring blog design a little more closely.  We gave comprehensive instructions for how to use a customized header to draw attention to your blog, and a few of our students have really created headers to be proud of!!

In week four, we will actually begin the process of writing, and creating quality content for our blogs.  We will also dig a little deeper into blog graphics and design and how they can make a big difference in how our blog is received.

If these activities sound like something you would be interested in, then head over to the left hand sidebar, and add yourself to the waiting list for the next Blogging 101 session.  I look forward to seeing you there!

Our new class of bloggers has now completed their second week of the Blogging 101 course at BlogWritingCourse.com.  Not only have they begun to understand what blogging is, but now they have begun to personalize the experience by creating a theme, a title, and even a tagline for their new blogs!

Here is a list of the blogs that have been created so far…of  course they don’t all have content in them, but we will get there. Oh yes, we will get there…

• Tales of a Southern Fried Mind
• Knitty by Nature
• Never Just a Housewife
• Ajamel’s Blog
• Lifting My Eyes
• Pansy Colored Glasses
• Free Form Scholar
• Faith and a Full House

It is so exciting to see these blogs actually take shape and become part of the thread of the blogosphere!  I can’t wait to see the “before and after” versions of each of these blogs from this week to the end of the eighth week of the course.  It is always an amazing transformation!

We have completed our first week of the Blogging 101 blog writing course, and it is looking to be an exciting term!  This time around we have 18 students - - with a wide variety of blogging interests. 

Themes of this round of bloggers include:

• Things that matter
• Personal faith
• The characters in our life
• Books and writers
• Unschooling
• Homeschooling
• Knitting
• Labradoodles
• Single-motherhood
• Healthy living
• Managing a home
• Modern artists
• Musings on life
• …and more

That is one of the most exciting parts of this course for me…seeing, firsthand, some of  the diversity of ideas and styles that make up the blogosphere!  If you would like to keep up with what is happening with the course, be sure to subscribe to this blog.  Or if you already know that you would like to be part of the fun experience of creating your own blog, why not sign up for our next round of Blogging 101?

We’d love to help you turn your personal passions into a blog, as well!

Mark your calendars, and register today, because the next round of Blog Writing 101 is scheduled to begin on Monday, October 12.  If you have been thinking about signing up for this course, now is the time. 

This course is perfect for anyone who has been thinking they would like to start their own blog, but weren’t sure where to start.  Or for those who have begun a blog, but would like to know more about design, sidebars, promotion, and building traffic.  Anyone who would like to write and build a more effective blog, this course is for you!!

To find out more about the course, check out Blogging 101.  Or you can simply head over right now and register for the course! 

Hope to see you there…

I get so weary of bad news.  I keep threatening to invent a B-Chip for televisions that would filter out all bad news and only let me see the good.  A while back, I even plunked down money for a subscription to the Good News Network, which brings a string of constant good news directly to my Feed Reader. 

The “good news” is that if you know where to look, good news is everywhere.  Blogging has become one of the best mediums for spreading news about random acts of kindness, anecdotes of good deeds, and opportunities for you to get involved and make a difference in the world. 

For example, the blog Round II Cameroon recently posted about her Books for Cameroon project.  This cause highlights the lack of educational reading materials in the schools of Cameroon, where most facilities are not even equipped with a functioning library.  The Peace Corp has gotten involved and is helping to establish a library in at least 25 schools, serving 20,000 students.  All books donated to this project will be incorporated into the teaching curriculum and be available for check-out by students.

If you would like to donate to this project, the Peace Corp has created a terrific informational page about the Books for Cameroon project, including a simple donation link.

What good news do you have to share today?

I did NOT jump on the bandwagon of the Julie and Julia craze during the book stage of the process.  I was one of those pop culture Cinderellas who arrived VERY late to the ball and didn’t know anything about this story until I saw it on a movie trailer.  But WHAT a trailer!  I was immediately hooked and simply knew I HAD to see this movie when it came out.

I’m a movie theater snob, however, so I did not go see it at the multiplex, but rather waited until it was showing at my favorite fine arts theatre where you can order wine and dinner with your movie and enjoy every last delicious morsel in the most leisurely of ways.  What better way to watch Meryl Streep and Amy Adams create on-screen magic??

What is really interesting is that even though I had the general idea that this movie was about blogging, I in no way realized just exactly how blog-centric it was going to be! It was a delightful surprise - - especially because the story seemed to take place during the germinal stages of blogging when growing a blog audience was probably even more exciting than it is today.

But the best thing about the movie?

It reminded me that there is no subject too specific - - too specialized to blog about.  And that is great news because it means that ANYONE can start a blog. 

That’s right.  You have a rubber band collection?  Blog about it.  You dream of becoming an opera singer and you are tone deaf?  There’s a blog in that.  You are Jimmy Hoffa’s biggest fan?  Go for it!  You knit booties for kittens?  Hey, so maybe it’s not my thing, but I’m sure there are plenty of kitty-lovin knitters that are anxious to hear about your exploits.

Bloggers aren’t born, they are made.  From the diversity of the human spirit.  From the melting pot of ideas that swirl around our heads and are aching to get out.  Maybe you don’t need to blog through Julia’s entire cookbook, but I’d wager there is something on your mind. 

Today could be the day that YOU become a blogger.  Why not???

Until next time,

If you would like information on how to start your own blog, check out the free online blogging course at BlogWritingCourse.com.