Your blog on Blogger.com

1. Go to www.blogger.com.

2. Click on New Blogger. Then type in your username (including @spsd.org) and password.

3. The next window that opens is your Dashboard. It's the main "control panel" for your blog.

4. To start posting articles, simply click on New Post. Give your post a title (like Session 2 Thoughts...), then type away in the big typing window. You may want to type your article in Word then copy and paste it into the post typing window. That's true mainly if you are writing a longer piece and don't want to lose it if something goes awry with the Blogger server or the Internet.  

By clicking on the Compose tab you can highlight parts of your text to make them bold or italic; you can change text color; you can create hyperlinks to other websites using the linking tool; you may create indented blocks of text using the blockquote tool; you can center or justify text  as well as add bullets or numbered lists; and you can upload an image from your computer or from elsewhere on the web with the image tool. The eraser tool lets you remove any formatting to text quickly, but doesn't erase what you wrote. Once you are done typing your article, you may preview it, save it as a draft to finish later, or publish it. Publishing it puts it out on the web on your blog page. 

The labels line allows you to give topical names to your posts to organize those that follow certain topics. 

5. There are many settings you can adjust in Blogger. By clicking on the Settings tab, you will access the variables. Any time you change a setting, you'll need to click on Save Settings at the bottom of the page to have them take effect. For our blog, click on Formatting and change the Time Zone setting to Eastern Standard Time. If you would like to see what people write for comments about your blog before those comments appear on the Internet, click on the Comments tab and select Yes on Enable Comment Moderation. You'll have to specify your email account since those comments will be sent to your email for approval before they appear on the your blog.

You may also play around with the look and feel of your blog using the Template tab. Most of that is self-explanatory and largely just fun.