EDUSOCIAL BLOGGING HELP GUIDE. An EduTech Workshop

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1 EDUSOCIAL BLOGGING HELP GUIDE An EduTech Workshop Copyright EduTech, 2010 All rights reserved. This document may not be reproduced or redistributed by any method, including electronically or by photocopying without the written permission of EduTech

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3 TABLE OF CONTENTS BASICS... 2 GETTING THERE... 2 ACCESSING BLOGS@EDUTECH... 2 CREATING ADDITIONAL BLOGS... 2 ACCESSING THE EDUSOCIAL MENU BAR... 2 THE BLOG DASHBOARD AND CONTROL PANEL... 2 ACCESSING THE BLOG DASHBOARD... 2 CUSTOMIZING YOUR BLOG... 3 SETTING THE BLOG S TITLE AND TAGLINE... 3 MODIFYING THE PRIVACY AND DISCUSSION SETTINGS... 3 SELECTING THE DISCUSSION SETTING... 4 CHANGING THE THEME... 4 ADDING WIDGETS... 4 REMOVING WIDGETS... 5 REORDERING WIDGETS... 5 ADDING AND CHANGING CONTENT... 5 CREATING POSTS... 5 EDITING A POST... 6 DELETING A POST... 6 CHANGING YOUR PROFILE... 6 CREATING A PAGE... 6 EDITING A PAGE... 6 DELETING A PAGE... 7 NAMING AND ORDERING PAGES... 7 SETTING THE ORDER OF THE PAGE... 7 COPYING AND PASTING CONTENT... 7 PASTING AS PLAIN TEXT AND PASTING FROM WORD OPTIONS... 7 INSERTING HYPERLINKS... 8 UPLOADING AND EMBEDDING FILES... 8 UPLOADING MEDIA FILES FROM YOUR COMPUTER... 8 EMBEDDING CONTENT FROM THE INTERNET... 9 POSTING AND MANAGING COMMENTS... 9 USER ADMINISTRATION... 9 ADDING USERS... 9 MANAGING USER ACCOUNTS MODIFYING A USER ROLE REMOVING A USER

4 BASICS Getting there ACCESSING Anyone with an EduTech account automatically has access to the EduSocial blogging, podcasting and social networking service. Go to Log in with your EduTech username and password. CREATING ADDITIONAL BLOGS Everyone receives one basic blog, but may request additional blogs as necessary. Hover over My Blogs to create a new blog. Select Create Blog. ACCESSING THE EDUSOCIAL MENU BAR The EduSocial Menu Bar provides easy access to your blogs, as well as all the features of the EduSocial Network. The basic features of the EduSocial menu bar, from left to right and top to bottom are: EduSocial is your home button should you get lost. My Account contains the Activity, Profile, Blogs, Messages, Friends, Groups, Settings, and Log Out buttons. My Blogs contains a list of your blogs and the Create a Blog button. Notifications is the area where notifications, requests, messages or approvals will appear. Visit allows you to visit Random Members, Groups or Blogs on EduSocial. Log Out logs you out of your account. Search allows you to search for blogs, groups or members within EduSocial. The Blog Dashboard and Control Panel ACCESSING THE BLOG DASHBOARD Your dashboard shows a quick view of your blog s current state and also has a control panel that contains all the tools you will need to create posts, pages and comments; change the appearance and settings of your blog; add student users; and upload and manage content. To access your dashboard from the EduSocal Admin bar, select My Blogs blog name Dashboard Control Panel Sections 2

5 If you are the administrator of a blog, you will see sections on the left side of the screen containing the following tools: Dashboard Posts Media Links Pages Comments Appearance Users Tools Settings You may manage the various functions of your blog (working with posts, working with pages, approving or removing comments, etc ) using the appropriate dashboard section. Customizing Your Blog SETTING THE BLOG S TITLE AND TAGLINE From your Dashboard, select Settings. Select General. Highlight the Blog Title text and type the desired title. Highlight the Tagline and type the desired tagline. Click on the Save Changes button. MODIFYING THE PRIVACY AND DISCUSSION SETTINGS From your Dashboard, select Settings. Select Privacy. Select one of the five privacy settings: o I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Bing, Technorati) and archivers. o I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors. o I would like only logged in users to see my blog. o I would like only logged in users who are registered subscribers (EduTech users) to see my blog. o I would like only administrators of this blog, and network to see my blog. Click on the Save Changes button. Notes: If you wish to make your blog visible only to your students, select the fourth option: "I would like only logged in users who are registered subscribers to see my blog". 3

6 If you would like to make your blog visible to others, it is recommended that you select the second option: "I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors." SELECTING THE DISCUSSION SETTING The discussion settings allow you to modify how comments are made to your blog. From your Dashboard, select Settings. Select Discussion. Select the desired comment settings. Click on the Save Changes button. Note: It is suggested that you leave the default values until you become comfortable. CHANGING THE THEME From your Dashboard, select Appearance. Select Themes. Click on a theme or select Preview to "try it on". Select Activate to change your theme or click on the X in the upper left of the screen to revert to your former theme. Notes: Themes with one sidebar, a large text area, easy readability, and indented flexi-pages are recommended for online courses. These themes include Almost Spring, Batavia, Blue Moon, Connections, Contempt, Copyblogger, Cutline, Freshy, Green Marinee, Glossy Blue, Jakarta, Kubrick, LetterHead, Mandigo, Rubric, Simpla, Steam, Suhweet, Thoughts, Twilight, WordPress Classic, WordPress mu and WordPress II Silver. Search, Flexi-Pages, Links and Meta widgets are recommended for online courses. If content appears to be missing after changing the theme - don t worry change to the original theme. You content is not lost. ADDING WIDGETS Some themes come with widgets already added, but you can add almost any widget to any theme. Widgets are usually placed in a Sidebar on the right and/or the left side of the blog content. Some themes may have several sidebars. You may experience odd behavior or problems with widgets. This is beyond our control and we suggest you attempt to use a different widget. Search, Flexi-Pages, Links and Meta widgets are recommended for online courses. From your Dashboard, select Appearance. Select Widgets. Select and drag a widget from Available Widgets to Sidebar 1. Read the dialogue box that opens when the widget is dropped on Sidebar 1. 4

7 Make desired changes and click Save. Notes: Once the Meta widget is added to your page, you can easily move back and forth between your Dashboard and Blog/Course Site by selecting either the Visit Site button while on the Dashboard or the Site Admin button while on your Course. It is a good idea to name the Meta widget Admin Each item in that dialogue box will pertain specifically to the widget selected. If your theme has multiple sidebars, there is no convention to say where Sidebar 1 is in relation to Sidebar 2, etc It may take some experimentation on your part to figure out where each sidebar is within the layout provided within your chosen Theme. REMOVING WIDGETS Select the widget in Sidebar 1. Click on the reveal triangle to the right side of widget's title. Select Delete. Note: Alternately, you can remove a widget by dragging the widget out of the Sidebar1. REORDERING WIDGETS Simply click and drag them to the desired location. Adding and Changing Content CREATING POSTS From your Dashboard, select Posts. Select Add New. Enter a title for your post in the white area, just below the Add New Post Push Pin. Click in the Content entry area and type the desired text. To access additional edit functions, select the Kitchen Sink icon on the far right. To save your current work, click the Save Draft button located to the right of the Content entry area (this only saves the current content; it does not make it visible to the world). To make your post visible to the world, click the Publish button. This simultaneously saves the post and publishes it. To save your post to publish at a later time, click the Publish immediately Edit button. Select the desired date and time you wish your post to appear and click the Publish and the Update buttons. 5

8 EDITING A POST From your Dashboard, select Posts. Hover your mouse over the post you wish to modify and select Edit. Make the desired changes. Click Update. Note: You may also edit the post by clicking on the post name. DELETING A POST From your Dashboard, select Posts. Hover your mouse over the post you wish to modify and select Trash. CHANGING YOUR PROFILE You may wish to change Your Profile Nickname. This is the "author" name that appears each time you create a post. By default your profile nickname is your Unix ID. From your Dashboard, select Users. Select Your Profile. Type the desired name in the Nickname box (this will become your display name). Click Update Profile at the bottom of the screen when you have made your changes. CREATING A PAGE Pages are used to hold your course information, staff information, course documents, assignments, discussion questions, etc. From your Dashboard, select Pages. Select Add New. Enter a title for your page in the white area, just below the Add New Page Title. Click in the Content entry area and type the desired text. To access additional edit functions, select the Kitchen Sink icon on the far right. To save your current work, click the Save Draft button located to the right of the Content entry area (this only saves the current content; it does not make it visible to the world). To make your post visible to the world, click the Publish button (this simultaneously saves the page and publishes it). To save your page to publish at a later time, click the Publish immediately Edit button. Select the desired date and time you wish your page to appear and click the Publish and the Update buttons. EDITING A PAGE From your Dashboard, select Pages. Hover your mouse over the page you wish to modify and select Edit. 6

9 Make the desired changes. Click Update. Note: You may also edit the page by clicking on the page name. DELETING A PAGE From your Dashboard, select Pages. Hover your mouse over the page you wish to modify and select Trash. NAMING AND ORDERING PAGES A new page should be created for each section and sub-section of your course and structured according to your organizational choice. Your first page or Homepage will be your Announcements page where you will create posts. None of your other pages will contain posts. Note: Create pages and organize them prior to adding content. It is helpful to have a copy of your outline in front of you so that you can name and easily order your pages. Pages can be ordered and organized into sections and subsections at the time they are first created or modified later. SETTING THE ORDER OF THE PAGE Open the page. Select the Parent dropdown menu from the Attributes section located to the right of the Content section if the current page will be a sub-section. The Template section may or may not be visible depending on your chosen theme (if available, leave this as Default Template for now). Type a number to reflect the desired page order (by default each page is numbered with a 0). COPYING AND PASTING CONTENT Select (highlight) the text you wish to copy (to select all the text on a page, press CTRL+A or CMD+A). Press CTRL+C (CMD+C) to copy the text. Go to the page you wish to paste the text into and press CTRL+V (CMD+V). Note: The text may react differently depending on the browser you are using, the document you are copying from, and various other reasons. You may need to experiment using the Paste as Plain Text and Paste from Word options. PASTING AS PLAIN TEXT AND PASTING FROM WORD OPTIONS Select (highlight) the text you wish to copy. Press CTRL+C (CMD+C) to copy the text. 7

10 Go to the page you wish to paste the text into and select either the Paste as Plain Text or Paste from Word buttons. Once the selected window opens, press CTRL+V (CMD+V). Click the Insert button. INSERTING HYPERLINKS Copy the URL of the page you wish to hyperlink. Select (highlight) the text you wish to hyperlink. Select the Insert/edit link button. Press CTRL+V (CMD+V) to copy the URL. Select either the Open link in the same window or Open link in a new window from the Target dropdown menu. Type a caption in the Title blank if you wish. Click Insert. UPLOADING AND EMBEDDING FILES Uploading Media Files from Your Computer While your post is open, select the desired Add an Image, Add a Video, Add Audio or Add Media icon, located to the right of Upload/Insert. Select the From Computer tab when adding a media file located on your computer. Select Browse and navigate to the file. Select Open. Select Upload. Make desired changes and click Insert into Post. Click Update. 8

11 Embedding Content from the Internet Select the From URL tab when adding a media file from the Internet. Enter the full web address or Image URL which points to an image found on the Internet (ex. Enter the Image Title. Click Insert into Post. Click Update. To embed a video from YouTube, Vimeo, Animoto, Flickr, Photobucket, or GoogleVideo simply paste the URL onto a line all by itself. Notes: Media files up to 64 MB can be uploaded to your course blog, however, you will be limited to your blog quota (default is 25 MB). Blogs@EduTech will automatically resize pictures when they are uploaded to your blog. You can also automatically 'thumbnail' the picture so it is entered into your post as a small picture which links to a larger version of the picture. POSTING AND MANAGING COMMENTS One of the largest differences between a regular Web site and a Blog is the interactive communication that is possible via comments. As your students read your posts, they can leave their viewpoints and responses on that blog post or page. You have significant control over comments made on your blog. As owner of your blog you have the ability to manage comments which have been left by your students. By default, comments will not appear publically unless they are approved. So within this section you can view all comments, change their status (Approved or Unapproved), mark them as spam or just delete them. From your Dashboard, select Comments. Check the box next to the desired comment. Click the action link (Approve, Reply, Quick Edit, Edit, Spam, Trash or Unapprove). User Administration ADDING USERS You can allow other people to have rights and privileges on your blog, described below. Note: it is recommended student users added to a teacher s blog be limited to Subscriber or Contributor roles: Administrator - the entire blog, its contents, its settings and users. A person always has this role within their own blog! Editor - the ability to write, publish and manage people's posts on the blog. Author - the ability to write, edit, publish and manage own posts, but no one else's. 9

12 Contributor - can write, edit and manage their own posts but cannot publish them but requires approval from the editor or administrator. Subscriber - cannot write any articles on a blog but can leave comments. The person's name is automatically entered with their comments and they do not need to fill out the "ReCaptcha form" to prove they are human when leaving comments. From your Dashboard, select Users. Select Add User. Enter the person's EduTech username in the box and select the role you wish them to have. Click the Add user button. MANAGING USER ACCOUNTS You can modify user roles or remove them from your blog/course. If you have student users in your blog, you may wish to make this a standard practice at the end of each school year or semester. MODIFYING A USER ROLE From your Dashboard, select Users. Select Authors & Users. Check the box next to the desired user s name. From the dropdown menu named Change role to, select their new role. Click Change. REMOVING A USER From your Dashboard, select Users. Select Authors & Users. Check the box next to the desired user s name. From the Edit/Delete, click Delete. Click Confirm Deletion. 10