Setting up a blog, logging on to Diigo
  Setting up a real blog

I’ve decided that advanced class members should have their own blogs.

1. Whatever writing you create over the next 2 years will always be available to you. It’s on the Internet, so wherever you go you will be able to access it.
2. It’s good practice. Much of the world uses blogging technology for all sorts of professional reasons.
3. By setting up a blog outside our password-protected sites, we can use Diigo to comment on writing. This is similar to the Revizr site I showed you, except with Diigo I can comment directly on your blog post. Only someone logged on to Diigo can see my comments. You can also comment on each other’s posts. We can also do group work on other web pages.

So.

1. Get a WordPress blog (there are others, such as Blogger, but Wordpress is very large and if you get sophisticated you can install a more robust version on your own server and have almost unlimited control over the appearance and functionality. Might as well use the real tools.)

2. Use discretion in identifying yourself. I need to be able to tell who you are--a first name--but you should consider keeping your identity a little vague. Everything you post on this site will be linked to you via Google forever. Later (like when you’re 30) if you want to change your profile information to identify yourself, you can.

3. Post the url of your blog in the Discussion Forum entitled WordPress Blogs. Just copy the url and paste it into the comment form on the discussion. That’s it.

4. I will subscribe to all the blogs via an rss reader. This is free and easy, and I’ll show you how to do it, if you want.

5. I registered you on Diigo, so you can see my comments on your blog posts (and so you can see one another’s). You’ll need to get your user names and passwords from me.

5. Consider subscribing to a free password protected management website such as BackPack. It lets you keep online all sorts of information, such as your various websites and usernames etc. (I edited this link--it now takes you directly to the sign-up page for the free version).

6. Also, consider changing your homepage on your school netbook to Homepage Startup, so all the websites we use are readily available.