Before we go any further, a reminder about the online issues of responsible publishing, reputation, identity  ... We used this paragraph in lessons 12–13 and it needs to be fully understood:

In the digital realm, once something is posted online it has a persistence that is not like something that is said. It is also searchable and replicable and you cannot be sure who your audience is or will be. Once something is posted online, its effects are often magnified and can be mirrored out of context. All of this requires experience to understand. Remember: when you post, you have not only your own reputation to consider but also that of others and that of the school. Every member of the community has to take responsibility for his or her actions online.

Look back at lessons 12–13, make sure you have the privacy settings set as detailed there and read again all the advice about safe online publishing. Remember, this ICT blog is not for the kind of personal use that, say, you use your Facebook page for, but you still need to think about your identity, privacy and safety.

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A blog is a great platform on which to build. Of course, there are a number of different ways of publishing (words, videos, presentations, feeds …) and having a blog allows you to play with bringing these together.

This lesson is as much about blog design as it is about posting different, diverse things ... Some sets may start this lesson in class; others will read it for holiday work; everyone will complete it and the prep in readiness for the beginning of next term (January 2009).

Designing your blog. You had a chance to start exploring the possibilities in lesson 13. Here, we'll go into some more detail.

Blogger offers a lot of choice. Go to the Layout tab in the dashboard:

Explore all the choices below the Layout tab: Page Elements, Fonts and Colors, Edit HTML (requires a knowledge of HTML), Pick New Template. And play with page elements:

Here are some "things" which you can put in a blog post. Some of them will go in a sidebar — and might be better there. You decide!  Beside each item (in bold) is a brief list of things to think about and resources to use.

Photos: observe copyright and give due credit for images created by someone else. Images can be found via (for example) a Google image search or by going to sites like Flickr: using the latter requires that you read the copyright permissions for the photo you like (you can work out what the copyright permissions mean by going here; where you see 'All rights reserved', then you have no right at all to use that photo). We'll be discussing copyright later in this course so, if in any doubt about your rights to use a photo, use your own material.  And remember — even though your blog is not being publicised widely, it's on the web where anyone can see it: so, 'use your first name only and do not use pictures of yourself'.

Videos: let's stick with YouTube for this lesson and focus on a video we'll watch a little later in the year, The Machine is Us/ing Us. It's here. Have Blogger open in another tab in your browser and go to the 'Postings' tab. Then choose the 'Edit HTML' tab:

In the main window where you would normally write your blog post, enter some text (let's say 'Great video!') and then put in a couple of blank lines. Now, go to the YouTube video to copy the embed code to your clipboard. The embed code is currently on the right of the video and there's a 'customize' option to make more embedding options drop down:

Make your choices of options and then copy all the code and paste it into your Blogger post, below 'Great video!':

Click on Preview to see what you've got. If you like it, hit Publish Post and then view your blog:

RSS feed: you can publish any RSS feed on your blog, and the result is a linkroll. Linkrolls look good in the sidebar. If you go to 'page elements' layout (see above), you can click on 'Add a gadegt' in the sidebar; this opens a pop-up window where you can choose from a range of options. Choose this,

You could, for example, have the latest BBC News appear on your blog. Find a feed or feeds that you want to use and, using this option, add it/them to your blog.

Google has made it possible to embed Google Presentations in your blog. If you used  a Google Presentation earlier this term (as many of you did), try taking your Google Presentation (from where it's still stored in Google Docs) and embedding it in your blog.  To do this, open the presentation in Google Docs and then choose Publish (on the right). When this opens, you will see:

You may well think of other things which can be added.

Other things you could try:

• co-authoring a blog post with a friend in the set (look at the options in Blogger to invite someone to be a co-author of a post)
• adding work from other subjects (thus making your blog into a record of some of your academic work)
• using other communication tools to help you blog (if you're co-authoring, but you are in different places, you could try GTalk, chat, Skype …)
  

Holiday work:

1)  Finish off designing and building on your blog so that when you show it to us next term you have something you feel proud of.

2)  Create a new blog post (circa 300 words) about Google Earth.  (If you want, you can also look at Google Sky — which exists in two versions: within Google Earth and as a separate web-based version — and Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope. There's a very fine, short film about the latter here and you can watch a film about Google Sky web edition here.)  Use Google Earth and see what the latest functionality offers (don't miss the Gallery).  Write about your experience of it and how you see it being useful and interesting.  Google Earth is closely related to Google Maps. There's one article which will require a bit of thought but will help you think about what Google Earth and Google Maps are doing for the way we see and navigate the world: Google Maps Is Changing the Way We See the World, Wired (2007). And there's a video about what Google's doing to help mobile users determine their location without GPS: Google Maps for mobile with My Location (beta) UK (YouTube, 2007).

3) Looking ahead to next term, find out about wikis and create a blog post (about 300 words) explaining, in your own words, their history, what they are and how they're used. 

So, you should end up with an interesting looking blog with at least the following posts, all of at least 300 words:

One full entry — explaining why you've been asked to start and keep this blog, what a blog is and what you've learned about the history of blogging. 

One full entry — about Google Earth.

One full entry — about wikis.