Using Blogger for class assignments

    In the recent years, blog has gain its popularity both for personal and corporate usage. Blog also serves as a new model of marketing communication from businesses to consumers. In addition, many educators use blog for their class. For example, I was required to create a blogfolio on Blogger.com or Wordpress.com as the final project for Advanced Hypermedia Development (IT644) class. Dr. Yuen required us to write a reflection for each assignment, discuss what we learned and how important of this assignment to us in our field, and share our thoughts and future learning goals (if any) related to this assignment.  Be sure to include a link to our assignment (artifact) on each blog post.  In addition, we were required to write an overall reflection for the class, assignments, online instructional materials, as well as our class social networking site. I imagine that other teachers would have similar assignment for their students.

    Many people may ask "why blogging, why not a term paper" if any educator wants their students to write better. In my opinion, students in different fields may benefit from blog various ways. Students can use their blog as a way to brand themselves. For instant, students majoring in instructional technology may use their blog as a blogfolio when apply for job. Fashion merchandising students can include their blog as a part of their online portfolio. They can also use blog as a tool to show their writing and analytical skill, to display their knowledge, ideas, and opinions about fashion industry or their expertise, to summarize what they have learned from classes and how to apply to their future career, to dissimilate useful information, and to create their learning community.

    Blogger.com and Wordpress.com are two free popular websites. They both are very powerful blog engines. The drawback of Wordpress.com is the limitation of embedding video. Dr. Yuen suggested that Blogger.com would be easier to create a blog for one who has never created a blog before. Additionally, many students have a Gmail account. Here below is the step-by-step on how to create a blog in Blogger.com.

1. 1. Create an account with Blogger.com but if you have a Gmail account you can just logging to your account.
   
      
2.   Once you have created an account, you can name your blog. Key to name your blog address is to make sure that it is short and easy to remember.
   
    
   
   
   
   
3. Then, you can choose a template for your blog. Don't be too scare to pick one. You can change your blog template anytime you want.
   

    4. You can start posting your blog next or modify your blog settings.

5.  The 'Design' tab is a useful tool for changing your blog template.

  6. If your teacher requires that the blogging assignment is only for people in the class. Here is how to do that.