Day 1 Assignment – Start

Welcome to blog school! I’ll start by telling you how to use this blog.

After the first two class meetings you have assignments. Links to today’s assignments are in this entry. You can also access all Day 1 assignments by clicking the Day 1 Assignment category in the sidebar on the right.

The assignments and links for the second class are in Day 2 Assignment – Start. You can also access all Day 2 assignments by clicking the Day 2 Assignment category in the sidebar on the right.

If you click the Optional category in the sidebar, you will see entries about topics that are not required for the class. These include extras that you might want, such as instructions for adding images to your blog entries and changing the look of your blog.

Today your assignment is to:

1. read About Je Blogue (3 minutes)
2. create a blog (about 30 minutes)
3. create your About Me page (as long as it takes you to write it). You might want to look at the About pages of some of the blogs you read in step 5 to see what other people do.
4. leave a comment on this post to let everybody in the class know the address of your blog (about 5 minutes)
5. go to The Paris Blog and peruse the blogs in the category Other Paris Blogs (in the sidebar on the right) to see what some local expats blog about. You’ll find a nice variety of style, look, and subject matter there, as well as a sampling of creative names people choose for their blogs. You could also look at the blogs on BlogHer.org. Click Blogrolls tab at the top of the page and search blogs by category (as long as you want to spend doing this)

Before you create your blog, it’s a good idea to have a few ideas in mind for the name of your blog. You can change your blog title (Je Blogue) at any time. However, you can’t change the blog domain name (http://jeblogue.wordpress.com); to do that you would have to create a new blog.

Keep in mind that you can easily modify or delete any content on your blog at any time. You can change your theme (see Change the look of your blog) as often as you like without losing the existing content. You can also delete your entire blog.

So feel free to go crazy. Blogger’s remorse is easily cured… (Caveat: It’s entirely possible, however, that there could be a copy of what you posted saved somewhere…)

WordPress refers to the light blue bar of the Dashboard as the Administration Panel. The dark blue bar below it is the sub-panel.

I will only be discussing basic WordPress functions in this blog because the goal is to get you started. For more detailed instructions, go to http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons. For complete WordPress help documentation on using the Dashboard and advanced topics, go to http://codex.wordpress.org/Administration_Panels.

Create a blog on WordPress

To create a WordPress blog:

• Go to http://wordpress.com/

• Click Start your wordpress Blog.

• Enter a username and e-mail address, check Gimme a Blog and click Next.

• Choose a blog domain name (can’t be changed), title (can be changed later), language, and click Create Blog. If the domain name is available, you’ll get a new page displaying “yourblogdomain.wordpress.com Is Yours.” If the domain name is not available, you will get an error message and be prompted to try a different domain name.

• Click My Dashboard at the top of the page. This takes you to the administration page (where you will write your blog posts and manage your blog).

• Click View Site at the top left of the page. Your blog appears! By default it is in the standard WordPress blog template. You can leave it as is for now, or you can go to Change the look of your blog for instructions on customizing your blog.

The Day 2 assignment will include writing your first entry, but you don’t have to wait till then to start if you don’t want to! (Write a blog post)

To log back in to your blog after logging out, go to http://yourblogname.wordpress.com/wp-login.php. (Note that you need to replace yourblogname with your actual domain name.)

It’s a good idea to bookmark the login page!

Create your About Me page

Unless you want to be completely anonymous, which is entirely up to you, you might want to add an About page to your blog. WordPress blogs have an About page started for you.

The About page can be useful if you want to add personality or credibility to your blog. If you plan to blog about a specific subject, whether it’s knitting, organic gardening, or model airplanes, you might want to mention that it’s a passion and describe your expertise in your About page to give your readers confidence in what you have to say.

To create your About Me page:

• Click Manage in the Admin Panel.

• Click Pages in the sub-panel. The About page is listed below.

• Click Edit and make any changes you’d like.