Activity - Starting a Blog:

Create an account at www.blogger.com to set up your own blog. The purpose of this blog will be for posting the project profile and review assignments in this course, and having others comment on this work.

You can also use this blog to share information or experiences (e.g. about hobbies, studies, technologies) with others in the class, or with the world at large. Just make sure that these postings are of the kind that you don't mind your classmates and instructor(s) seeing. Setting up your blog at Blogger.com involves a number of steps:

  1. Click on the "blog jetzt erstellen" link at the www.blogger.com home page.
  2. User names: The blog settings page asks for your user name. There are lots of people on blogger.com (just like any popular service, like Hotmail), so you may have to be flexible with the user name you choose. Often a combination of letters and numbers is most likely to be available (e.g. normirm).
  3. Choose any password that you'll be sure to remember; for the display name, you can use your own name, a nickname, or a pseudonym.
  4. Anzeigename: Choose a name that reflects something about yourself and/or your interests. If you can't come up with a name, feel free to use something like Norm@irm or internetresearch.
  5. To give your blog an address, choose a short combination of characters that is unlikely to have been used by someone else before. In fact, you can use your user name (or your blog name) if it is short and otherwise appropriate.
  6. Wordbestaetigung: This is done to prevent abuse of the blogger.com serivce by Internet bots.
  7. Be sure to accept the "Allgemeine Nutzungsbedingungen."
  8. On the next page, give your blog a title (e.g. Elke's Eke).
  9. Choose a blog address (a combination of letters that is short, and also unlikely to have been chosen by someone else).
  10. Don't choose "Erweiterte Einrichtung" unless you're confident that you can host your blog on a server of your choosing.
  11. Choose a template: pick any one you like.
  12. Create your first post, welcoming others (your classmates, at least) to your blog. You can explain the purpose or scope of your blog (You'll be using it for your assignment in this course, but you're encouraged to use it for other purposes, too.)
  13. Send the Web address of your blog to: norm.friesen@gmail.com as soon as you're done. (A list of addresses for the blogs created in this course will be posted in a location online soon after these addresses have been handed in). Remember to use "IRM" in your email subject.
  14. Tell someone else in the class about your blog, and find out about someone else's blog.
  15. Post a comment at one other person's blog.