Day 3 of 20 Days to BlogTastic - Your First Post

Today is Day 3 of 20 Days to BlogTastic If you'd like to join in on the training click here

Yahoo!  Congratulations to those of you that have a blog setup and looking gorgeous, now let's get to the important stuff...We're looking at making your first blog post today, jump straight in - log onto your blog and click a 'new post' button.  Here's an explanation of what they look like and where to find them.

	When you first log into your blog you can click this button to go directly to making a new post.  It will be next to the name of your blog.
	If you’ve already clicked the name of your blog you’ll see this button at the top of your screen. Click on it to go directly to making a new post
	If you’re already in your blog this button will appear on the left hand side of your screen in the sidebar.  Click on it to go directly to making a new post.

Check out these Thinglinks that show the different areas of a blog post:

Basic Outline of a new post

Click on each of these links to see more in depth Thinglinks on the formatting toolbar.
Formatting Bar - Left
Formatting Bar - Right

How to create your first post
If this is the very first time you've posted to a blog, take a breath, it takes a little bit of getting used to but once you've done it a few times you'll be fine. 
This video shows how to make your first post:

Post Essentials
There are a few things I'd put in every blog post you make:

1. A Title 
2. Labels for people and topics that are in the post
3. Jump breaks for longer posts

A few tips

Think about which account you're using for your photos and videos.  Google drive documents and photos can be given another owner fairly easily, youtube videos are a bit harder.  I suggest uploading youtube videos to a class or administration account rather than an account attached to a specific teacher.

UPDATE - March 2016 - This way of posting photos isn't working anymore.  You can post using photos that have been uploaded to Google Photos.  I'll update this video to reflect the change soon.  

This video explains how to add single photos from Google Photos on Google Drive to your blog post:

At 1minute 57 Seconds This video shows some of the editing features once you've put a photo in a blog post.

These videos show how to add photos to Google Slides and then embed that slideshow into a blog post.  This is a good way to show multiple photos in one blog post.  I'll update these videos over the next few days.

Here's a video that explains how to upload videos to youtube for you blog posts

Here's a video that explains how to add videos to a blog post, from youtube, without the suggested videos at the end.

Ideas for first posts

• Welcome to term 3 
• What are you doing in your holidays?
• What do you think about....?
• Welcome to room ...
• Have you seen this great activity?

A few examples
Check out some of the blogs that were posted during our Day 1 and 2 challenges to help you with ideas for your first post.  Here's a link to Day 2 with the list of blogs that have been posted so far.

Flick through this slide show to see a few examples of first posts that have been made from Rowandale school blogs (I've included the blog address with each photo so you can visit and see what they're up to now)

Create and publish your first blog post.  If you've already had a blog setup for a while publish a post that welcomes your students back after the holidays or challenges them to give an opinion about a recent event.

Add a comment to this post to let us know your first post or updated post has been published so we can take a peek and perhaps add a comment.

Have you completed the challenge?
Remember to update your challenge spreadsheet!  You don't need to share your challenge spreadsheet with anyone this is just for your reference.

If you'd like to join the challenge please click here for more information
See you tomorrow!