Setting Up Your Blog

Once you have your blog created, there are certain requirements that your blog needs to have. Follow the steps below to complete them.

1. Log in to your blogger account. This will take you to your "dashboard" (this page lists all of your blogs under your username).

2. From here, next to the title of your blog, there are three buttons: an orange one with a pencil, two pages with a drop down arrow, and a "view blog" button. Go to the center button (to pages with a down arrow) and click. This takes you to a page with the options list on the left hand side of the page. From here go to "Layout."

• On the layout screen, find the title of your blog... depending on your layout, it will either be at the top of the page, or on the side. Click edit. 
• A second screen will come up. This is the screen where, if you ever decide to, you can change your title. For our purposes, however, I want you to add a description. This description should be something like "English Notebook Assignment".
• Once you have done this, click save, or save changes, or what ever the option is.

3. Also on the layout page, on either the right or left hand side (do not click the option in the middle), click "Add a Gadget." When that window comes up, scroll down until you have the option to add a list--not a blog list, or a link list--just a list.

• A window will open. Title this list something like "Books I've Read This Year," leave the count box blank. This is where you will list all of the books that you have read. You can start by adding the books that you have read from the time school started until now (for some this will be easy, for some, it might be a little more difficult). Add them one book at a time, and hit "add" in between each book. When you are done, hit "save"
• When you are done, at the top of the Layout screen, hit "save arrangement"

4. Click on Settings, then click on Posts and Comments:

• Under "Comment Moderation" you may change it to Always, which allows you to see all comments before they show up on your blog. You can enter an email address that you want to have the requests sent to. If you leave it blank, it may still email it to the blogger account email, but it will notify you on your dashboard always.
• Show Word Verification--should be on Yes
• For Who Can Comment?-- not sure this matters... eventually we will have this set up as a private blog, which means that only the people you have invited are allowed to see it, so I'm not sure this applies, however you should probably change it to registered users, or only members of this blog if you would like.
• Click Save Settings in the top right corner

5. Also under Settings, click on Language and Formatting:

• Change the time zone to Mountain Time (NOT Arizona Mountain Time)
• Leave everything else the same
• Click Save Settings in the top right corner

This completes what is required for your Blog Creation assignment. Beyond this, customizing your blog makes it original to you as an individual. You can add pictures, other widgits (keep in mind, not very many people are going to see this, so do not add ads). You can change the background and fonts, stretch and change the layout, etc. I'll put up another post about customizing.