Blog Following, Redux - Week 15

Very early on, in Week 3, as a matter of fact we took a look at blog aggregators, Bloglines and Google Reader - That seems to have been quite a long time ago and it occurred to me, as I was getting ready for this week's posting, that it might be a good idea to return to the idea again - we're now fairly regularly communicating things via Belinda's ISD blog and using an aggregator regularly can make that a whole lot easier.

Assuming that you've created an account with one of them, and most likely Google, log in and see what blogs you read with the most frequency - there are many that will be interesting, either personally or professionally. Since starting this process, my own blog reading habits have changed pretty radically. I dropped Bloglines for Google Reader, I tend to scan more blogs, but only once a day, as opposed to checking in a few times and reading parts of the updated postings each time.

For this week, let's try going back to updating our own blogs, since some of them have been languishing a little bit. Take a look at the blogs you've read in the past, or are reading now, and create a simple post on your own blog that tells us of a newer blog that you've been following, or that you'd like to follow, if it's been a while since you added one, and give us an idea of why you chose that one?

Second, how about giving us a hand and suggesting something interesting for the Oesterle Library blog to cover? We've had a series of really good posts in that forum lately, so if there is something you'd like to suggest, post it to your blog, and we'll see what we can do!

Also, note the new survey in the upper right hand corner!

Next Week - a few new, fun tools to try -

jjs

Week 3, part 2

Week 3 is drawing to a close, and I hope that it's been interesting, so far. 

The section on blogs is nearing the end, and tomorrow we'll move on to something a little different, but let's keep up with the blog posting through the remaining weeks. 

I hope that everyone has 'chosen' a blog reader, be it the Google Reader or Bloglines [does anyone use something different?] and that you've got all the 21 Things blogs set up in it, as that will be one of the primary ways that we'll all keep track of what's going on with the following weeks. We can, and should, be using comments on each others blogs as well, just to remain in contact as we go through this. 

jjs

Welcome to Week 3 of "21 Things"

We’ve looked at a lot of blogs, shared some of our favorites and created our own. This week, we’re going to look at a pair of tools that ‘aggregate’ blogs themselves. While it’s possible to bookmark individual blogs and check on them now and again, what an aggregator or ‘blog reader’ does is to keep track of the blogs that you want to follow, and when you log into your aggregator account, it only shows you blog postings that have been updated since your last login, which saves a lot of time, and allows you to go through them more quickly and more conveniently, without having to look at every individual blog only to find out that many haven’t been updated.
This week, we’ll take a look at a pair of tools that perform this function. They’re rather similar. Google Reader is one of the tools, and if you created a blogger or Google account to build your blog, you’re more than half way there. http://www.google.com/reader/
Another tool you might want to consider is Bloglines – www.bloglines.com To use this tool, you’ll need to create a free account at Bloglines, and that’s a simple and straightforward process.
Both of these tools function in much the same way, it’s a matter of style and which interface you prefer. For my part, I’ve been using Bloglines for a few years, and am simply more used to the interface. I’ve been working with Google Reader since beginning the 21 Things process, and am moving toward using that, though I am not fully migrated.
Take a look at these tools, and pick one. You’ll find that it’s easier to follow blogs this way, and both of them will offer many suggestions – Bloglines has a “Top 100” while Google Reader offers “Feed Bundles” that pull together recommended blogs in broad categories.
Once you’ve chosen your aggregator, you can add blogs to it easily, either by adding a blog URL manually, like: http://tcalodols.blogspot.com/ or by choosing to use a “subscribe to” link [look on this page, and you’ll find it near the top, on the right hand side].
You’ll also find that it is easy create folders in both tools, so that you can organize your blog feeds, making it easier to read them in a sequence that might make a bit more sense to you.
Also, I’ve been adding our blogs to the “My Blog List”, located at the bottom of the 21 Things blog itself. You can copy and paste those URLs into you own reader – you’ll find it a lot easier than looking at the bottom of the 21 Things blog, since it will only give you the updated posting.
This week, what we’re also going to learn a little bit about commenting on Blogs – a simple and straightforward process. Once you’ve chosen an aggregator to use, leave a comment under this posting, telling us which one you chose, and perhaps, why!
jjs

Week 2, Thing 2!

Well, week 1 was quite the success, and I think we managed to learn all sorts of things about blogs, finding them and reading them. I hope that everyone had a chance to discover some new things, and that you may have found something that you considered to be useful – or just interesting.

This week, we’re going to create our own blogs – Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask all of you blog about your jobs, or put deep thoughts on the impact of technology on the student population on the web for everyone to see [though if you wish to do so…]

The tool used to run this particular blog is called blogger. I’m going to suggest that you all create an account here [and there are many alternatives] for two primary reasons. The first is that there are settings in blogger that will allow you to keep your blog private if you wish. 21 Things @ Oesterle is run in this fashion, as it’s intended to be an internal process, and you may wish to have yours set up the same way – or you may not care if it’s out there for the world to read.
The second reason – if we’re all using the same software to blog, we can help each other, and that’s a marvelous thing, too. That said, if you already know another piece of blogging software, feel free to use that!

Here is a video that explains how to create a blogger account.


If you already have a google account for Gmail or some other service, you can log in and use that. If you don’t have one, or if you prefer to keep them separate, these instructions tell you how to create a new account.
There is another useful video that show you how to use the privacy features of blogger, so that you can turn off searching for your blog and etc.


This weeks assignment is simple and straightforward – Create a blog, put up your first post – which can be anything - a simple test message will suffice – and send the URL [like http://tcalodols.blogspot.com/] to everyone else in the library, so we can see what you’ve done, and follow along.

You’ll also discover, if you look around the blogger interface a bit, that there are different template for how your blog will look, and many other things that you can use to have a bit of fun with it. Experiment and enjoy yourself!
The main purpose of your new blog will be to talk about the weekly things as we go though the 21 weeks – of course, you can feel free to add other things if you like!
jjs