Step 4, setting up your blog site management
Next, you need to set up how people will see posts and be able to comment on your blog.
- Go into the Site Admin page for your blog
- Choose the Options tab
- General
- Fill in the title of your blog
- Add a catchy tagline
- Uncheck the users must be registered (this will require you register each and every student)
- Check the email address listed
- Fill in the time off-set (-8 for PDT)
- Set up the date and time defaults
- Click the Update Options button
- Leave the Writing tab for now
- Select the Reading tab. You need to decide if you want your front page to change everytime you add a new post, or stay the same.
- I you want your front page to be your latest post, select the first option
- If you want a static page select the second option and select the page you want to be on front. If you haven’t created that page yet, come back here later after you make the page.
- Figure out how many posts you want to be visible (5 is a good number)
- Leave Syndications for now
- Click the Update Options button.
- Select the Discussion tab. The settings I’m suggesting will set things up so that you will moderate all comments coming into the site, and will also make it easy for your students to post.
- Article (Post) settings: Uncheck the first box for class blogs, and check the next two.
- Email settings: Uncheck the first box but check the second.
- Moderation settings: check the first box, uncheck the next two.
- Comment blacklist. If you start to get spam, get the IP address from the comment, and put it in here. You won’t get spam from those IPs again.
- Click the Update Options button.
- Privacy settings. I would suggest that for a class blog you take the second setting and block search engines, but not visitors.
- I’d leave permalinks as they are unless you know about them, and have strong feelings about how you like them setup.
You are now ready to post!
