Day 11 of 20 Days to BlogTastic - Keeping Track of Projects

Today is day 11 of 20 Days to Blogtastic, to get more information about this training click here.

We're looking into labels a little more today.  Labels are a great way to keep track of posts about a particular topic, project, person or event.  We went over this quickly when we looked at making our first post in Day 3's challenge.  Hopefully you've been labelling your posts on your blog, don't worry if you haven't you can always go back into each post and edit it to include appropriate labels. 

Let's look at the basics with labels... 


How to create a labels gadget

The labels gadget can be created by going to the layout settings area of your blog and then adding a gadget and selecting labels.  

You can then choose how that gadget is displayed.  You can also choose which labels are displayed in this gadget.  You can also have more than one labels gadget.  This is entirely up to you and your class!

Here's a video that shows you how to add a labels gadget

Adding Labels to a post you've already posted

If you've forgotten to add a label to a post you've already posted, go into the post section of your blog and click edit underneath the title of the post you want to add a label to. 

You can then click the labels link on the right hand side of the post and add and delete whatever labels you want.

Remember to press the 'update' button at the top of the screen once you're finished so that your post is updated.

Here's a video that explains how to add labels to posts you've already published and how to add labels when making a new post on your blog:

Okay now lets really put those labels to work... 

Examples of Labels to Use

A great way to keep track of what's happening for particular projects and students in your class is using labels and creating links directly to all the posts with those labels. 

For example:

I want parents to be able to quickly find:

• Post's about their child
• Weekly certificate winners
• Posts about our gala day preparations
• Posts about our maths competition 

The first thing I need to do is make sure I've labeled all my posts so my labels will be:

• For each child I'll have a label with their name for example: Joe
• For a post about this weeks certificate winner I'll use the label: CertificateWinner
• For a post about our preparation for our Gala day I'll use the label: GalaDayPrep
• For a post about our maths competition I'll use the label: MathsComp2015

Whenever I make a post about the topics above I need to make sure I add the appropriate label to that post. I can have up to 20 labels in one post.  So If a post is about Gala Day, Joe and the Certificate Winner for this week I'll add all three of those labels to the post.

Find Posts using the labels gadget

Now that I've labelled all my posts if I click on a label within my labels gadget all the posts with that label will show up.

Here's a video that shows that in action:

You'll notice when you click on a label that the address bar changes - this is actually a website address that'll get you directly to all the posts with that label.

Keeping Track of Specific Projects using a Link 
Another way of quickly seeing all the posts for a particular label at once is to add it to your pages gadget.  This way it looks like the posts are a separate page on your blog when in fact blogger just finds all the posts with that label and shows them on one page for you.

This is a little harder to do than just using a labels gadget....

1. Visit your blog and find a post that has the label you're looking for.
2. Click on that label
3. Blogger will bring up all the posts with that label
4. Copy the URL (website address) at the top of the screen while you're looking at these posts
5. Login to your blogger at www.blogger.com 
6. Go to layout and edit your pages gadget
7. Add an 'external link' 
8. Paste the link you got when looking at your labelled posts 
9. Make sure that link is showing up on your navigation bar.

I've created an example of this on the blogtastic training blog, try clicking on the Celebrations link on the Blogtastic Training Blog and see where it takes you.

Here's a video that shows how to add the link to your pages gadget.

You can use the link you copied above anywhere in your blog.  For example if you have an inquiry page you could add a link off that to all the posts that have been labeled with that inquiry title.

Creating a Page that Links to Posts about Students/topics/events 
Another way of displaying the links to specific labels is to create a page with pictures that link to the label.  I've created an example of this on the BlogTastic Training Blog, try clicking on the Post Labels link on the Blogtastic training blog and see where it takes you.

I've done this using a Google Drawing, I've then published the Google Drawing to the web and used iframe html code to make the links work correctly.  Day 4's challenge explains how to publish and add the Google Drawing.

Here's a video that explains how I created the Post Labels Page on the Blogtastic Training Blog.

I'm sure you can think of other uses for labels that I haven't covered here. Please feel free to share them as a comment on this post.

As a minimum make sure all your posts are labeled and you've created a labels gadget on your blog.  If you're feeling great separate your labels gadget into two different gadgets - one for your students and one for your events/topics/celebrations.

Once you've had a good play around with labels remember to add a comment to this posts with your blog address so that we can take a peek at your great work.  If you've forgotten how to get your blog address this video shows you how.

Have you completed the challenge?

Remember to update your challenge spreadsheet!  

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

See you tomorrow!