How to Make a Blogger Account (Directions)

1. Create an account (www.blogger.com)

• You will need to first create a gmail email account (gmail.com) if you do not already have one – if you do this, write down your gmail email name and your password right away so that you can find them again to log into Blogger later
• You may need to input your cell phone number to verify your account and receive a verification number by text.  If you do not have a cell phone that can receive text messages, please ask a friend to have it sent by text to their phone.

2. Create a blog and give it a title that has your first name in it.

• Your blog’s name can be creative, just be sure you have your name in it, too (e.g., Rebekah’s Corner; Hugo’s Café; Lemondrop Mountain (Rebekah); Ari’s Super Cool Party Place)
• You will also need to select your URL address – this is the address that will be at the top of the page in the URL box when you are on your page – and the address that anyone can type into the search box to go to your blog
• A good URL will have your first name and something about your class (e.g., rebekah-esl-blogspot.com; hugo-art-blogspot.com) or your blog’s name (e.g., esl099-hela.blogspot.com)
• If the URL you select does not work, that means someone else is already using that address for their own blog page, and you need to select a different URL name – maybe by adding numbers to your name
• Write down your URL address so that you can remember it and can share it with classmates if you need to
• For your privacy protection, DO NOT use your last name on the blog name or in the URL – you don’t want too much personal information available to everyone on the Internet!

3.  Select a “template” (background design) for your blog and then go to the “Design” tab at the top to set up your blog page to set up your blog page.

• Look at the “Header” and select “Edit” – here you can add a few sentences to the top of your blog to describe your blog and you can add a picture or image to the top of your blog.  Search for a picture you like on the Internet (images.google.com) and save it to your Desktop. Then “Browse” for the picture and upload it to your blog’s header.
• Go down to the side menus and go to “About Me” and select “Edit” – here you should write a few sentences about yourself in the “Description” section.

4.  Go to our class blog page at this URL: http://esl099-hela.blogspot.com

• Look at the first blog posts (below the picture) and post a comment for your class section that has your blogger URL address in it

5.  Set up your blog to connect to other blogs:

• On the side menu, select “Add a Gadget” and add “Blog List”
• After you have added “Blog List” it will be called “My Blog List” on your menu.  If you are in “Design” select “Edit” and if you on your blog page (in “View Blog”) select the tools picture to edit.
• When you edit your “My Blog List,” you can add other blogs to follow.  Please add our class blog’s URL (http://esl099-hela.blogspot.com) to this list. 
• Then add the URL of each of your classmates to this list (you can copy and paste these URLs from the comments for your class on my blog)

NOW YOU ARE ALL SET UP in BLOGGER for our CLASS BLOGGING!

A few more things about using Blogger:

• You can always see what your blog looks like to everyone by going to “View blog” and you can always change your blog by going to “Design”

• To change your Profile (and add a photo that will appear on your blog page), you will need to “Edit Profile” and “Edit Photo” when you first log into Blogger and are on the “Dashboard” page.

• In Blogger, you can have more than one blog!  Just create another blog (“create a blog”) when you first log into Blogger (when you are on the “Dashboard” page).

• You can easily edit your blog posts, even after you have already posted them. Just click on the little pencil icon (which means “edit”) and the post will reopen and you can change anything on it and then re-post it.

YOUR FIRST BLOG POST

Your first BLOG ASSIGNMENT will be making your first blog post.

To post a new message to your blog, go to your Blog Page (“View blog”) and at the top of the page, you can select “New Post”

Title your post “Introduction” or “Welcome” and then type up your message.  At the end, you will need to click the “Publish Post” button so others can see it!