Intermediate Blogging

In order to take advantage of the ease with which you can make information available, you need to make hyperlinks. You are already accustomed to clicking on hyperlinks when you are browsing online. Blogger makes hyperlinking embarrassingly easy.

Any text you write into a blog entry can be converted to a hyperlink. You might want, for instance, your students to read an article you have found on line. Here's how to do it:

Switch to your other tab, find something you might want students to read and copy its web address to the clipboard. Now switch back to your blog post and type in whatever text you would like to make clickable (e.g. NEWS ARTICLE). Select the text and click the hyperlink button (pictured top right). Paste the web address (URL) into the box that pops up. Hit "ok"-- you are done, but the link won't work unless you either "Preview" or "PUBLISH POST."

Now, it's time to introduce you to Google Docs, if you haven't discovered it already. Google Docs is a Web-based word processor. You can access your files from any computer in the world that has an internet hookup. You can also publish your files to the web which makes them accessible to your blog. I use this feature for handouts. You can keep these files private, make them public or available only to a select few people.

Try uploading something innocuous from your M-drive into GoogleDocs. If it is a Wordperfect file, you will need to save it as a Word document or an .RTF file. Once the file has been uploaded, click the empty box to its left and click the "more actions" button. Click the "Publish" button and then the "Automatically republish when changes are made option" (Now any links to the file will be updated when you make corrections or additions). Googledocs now generates a unique web address for your document which you can cut and paste into your clipboard to make hyperlinks.