This lab will help you build the technological skills you need for your Individual Blog assignment.
Lab timelineIt is gradually being constructed in advance of Lab 5 day because
these skills should be learned as you need them prior to Feb. 22. At the very latest, you should have the skills in this lab by end of
the lab held Feb. 22 so that they are available to you as you finalize
your blogs for the due date. See the Calendar for deadlines.
A Lab "in development"In dialogue with you Carmen and Dr. Smith will collaboratively author this lab over a few weeks prior to the lab day. The most important topics will be added first so that you can use them right away. Lab content will develop further as we discuss the technical needs of your blog assignment, as Q&A are posted in Bb Group Discussion forums, email, or as students bring suggestions.
Use this living demo
Learn several useful web-development skills and team processes by seeing how we develop this lab -- Consider these things :
Drafting and publishing[Section edited Feb 16. Dr. Smith author & editor] This is simplest and safest way to manage your blog: Save "drafts" as you start composing
Occasionally "preview" items to see what they would look like
"Publish" your items as soon as you have a good draft
"Edit" your published items prior to the deadline We will notice important flaws a few days later as we see our writing through a viewers' eyes! "Can the reader understand my purpose right away? Did I forget to attach tags, or not enough tags? Is the spacing looking wrong? Are those headings really clear?" ... etc.
"Publish" toolbox - Right hand side of your Dashboard while editing a post
Advanced features -- use with caution Use the expanded "publish tool" area to have more control over your post's publication status. 1. You can turn a published post back into a draft by selecting "draft" in the drop-down menu next to its status, or by selecting to make it "private."
2. You can choose a time stamp for your post in the future or the past. The default is the date/time when you first press "publish."
Private blog?
[Section edited Feb 16. Carmen author, Dr. Smith editor] Make your blog private IF you are publishing an inherited document that is labeled "publishable with consent" and you don't know if we have obtained consent for it yet.
When you make your blog private, it means you have to manually give each viewer (up to 35 people) access. Dr. Smith and Carmen should already have access as administrator & contributor to your blog. You can only select viewers with a Wordpress username, and viewers will need to log in before viewing. Go to My Dashboard (from your front page sidebar, under "Meta," click "Site Admin" ). Then click on Settings in the left sidebar, and then the sub-area Privacy. You will now be on the Privacy Settings page which will look like this:
Your whole blog is now set to "private," so that means that when you "publish" a post, it is also private. Blog Pages (vs. posts)Wordpress Blogs can have pages as well as posts. Posts are used for articles, news and specific content. Pages are more static and general, like a web page. (From the perspective of an internet user, both will look like similar web pages). Page titles are displayed at the top of the header image like this in the "Connections" theme (other themes may place them elsewhere)  Every blog needs "Home" and "About" and "Header Image"
Other pages are optional. Pages can be used to mimic "Tabs" on a website. This helps to direct viewers through your site if they have a particular function in mind. They will always be available to the viewer, even when they are reading a specific blog post. Within pages, you can insert links to particular blog posts, such as posts that contain videos, surveys and polls, or contact information. The URLs of pages and posts are different -- post addresses include the publication date, such as /2010/01/18/, while page addresses look more like website URLs. When viewing a post, the sidebar will disappear and be replaced with information about the post. When viewing a page, the full sidebar will remain, providing full functionality.
Adding Images, Files and MediaThis page became too long with all the screenshots so we moved part of Lab 5 to a subpage.
Use the link on the heading above to learn how to do these things:
APA Citation and reference[Section created Jan. 31, 10am. Dr. Smith to author] This is important. Learn how to collect the complete information and cite it as you find it and use it. Resources and instructions can be found on these pages within our website: A More tag is a tool you can use when you decide you want to show only the introduction to your post on the front page of your blog. The rest of the post will appear when the viewer clicks "more" or "continue reading" (the way it displays will vary depending on your chosen theme). Use this if your blog post is longer than a screen, and/or if you want to have very short snippets appearing on the front page. Go into My Dashboard, and click on Posts. Click on Add New. You should have the following screen:
Click on the icon that looks like a divided page. This is the More Tag. You can also insert a more tag by pressing Alt+Shift+T on your keyboard. You cannot insert more than 1 more tag per post, and it should be inserted between paragraphs. After the More tag is inserted, you can continue to add text to your post. When you are finished writing, press Publish if this is a new post, or Update if you have revised an old post. Your More tag will only appear when viewing a published post on your blog's home page (view your blog's home or front page by clicking your blog's title on the header image). If you are viewing or previewing just the post itself, it will display your whole article and you will not see the more tag.
Block quoteA Block Quote is a way of displaying quoted text as an indented paragraph so that it is very clear that you are quoting someone else. It should be used for quoted passages that are longer than a line or two. It can be used for shorter quotations when you want to highlight them. This is visually helpful for a reader. It is also an ethical way of handling longer quotations. When quoting from previously published works, you need an APA citation (not shown in the examples).
STEP ONE: While editing a Post, select the text you would like featured as a quote and isolate it as a single paragraph within your post, as shown below:
STEP TWO: Click on the Quote icon:
Your sentence should move to the middle of the rest of the text. Save, Publish or Update your post to keep the change.
Multi-part blog posts[Section created Jan. 31, 10am. Carmen & Dr. Smith to author] If the text of your profile is too long for a single post (in your opinion) and it can be divided into sections, you will need to know how to make multi-part posts that are connected to one another. See these examples online -- notice how they use links to refer to each other. Consider your audience. If a person lands on part 2 of a 3-part post,
they should know right away that they are looking at part 2, and they should have links
to parts 1 and 3 and know their titles or subtitles. If there are images on each post, consider making the images similar and familiar to the viewer. Adding Links to your sidebar
[Section edited Feb 6. Carmen author, Dr. Smith editor] You might want to put relevant links on your blog's home page for all to see. This is called a "Blogroll" because often people post links to other related blogs. This is different from inserting links within a post or page. If you are an Editorial Coordinator you should put in a Blogroll the links to your team member's blogs. Before you begin adding a link to the sidebar, make sure that you have Links added to your Widgets
bar on the right hand side of your blog. Please follow the instructions
in Lab #1 if you do not remember how to add Widgets to your post. Go into My Dashboard. Click on Links, then Add New. You should have the following screen: (click to enlarge)
Enter the Name of the Link, enter the Web address (URL) of the link, and scroll down to click Add Link. Note: When you add a link, you can add it to a specific category (this is hoping your post is categorized) or your entire Blogroll (on the right hand menu bar under Widgets) so that you can view it at any time regardless of your most recent posts. Below is an example of the links I have chosen to show up on my Blogroll: (click to enlarge)
Reflect[Section created Jan. 31, 10am. Carmen to author] Go to this Wordpress Blog page to reflect on the process of learning Blog authorship skills. |
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Labs > Lab 01 to 05 >
Lab 5: Crafting good blog posts
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Blog Images, Files and Media
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