Talking Tech @ Redeemer

The first topic for Community 2.0 is blogs. Recently, you have probably heard Father Ray talk about the blogs we have added to Redeemer’s homepage. You may have heard we plan to expand our use of blogs, and that soon various committees, groups, and ministries may also have blogs. But you may be wondering, “What’s a blog and why would I want one?” This lesson will attempt to answer those questions.

For a great overview of what a blog is, watch this short video produced by Common Craft:

Chances are, you have already encountered blogs. Many news sites have incorporated blogs into their websites. The new web page for the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast also uses blogs. And, of course, you are reading this blog.

For this course, we’ll be using our blogs to keep track of our progress as we explore and learn about Web 2.0. I’ll be posting on this blog, but I hope you will also create your own blogs, post, and comment on the blogs of others in this course.

Discovery Exercises:

#1: Set up your own blog.

I recommend you use Blogger, a popular free blog hosting service, if you are not already familiar with another blogging service (such as Wordpress). Blogger is owned by Google, and we will be using other Google services later in the course.

Blogger has a tour that will guide you through the process of setting up your account.

Please note - if you don’t want to use your real name on your blog, a pen name is fine. You can also make your blog viewable only to people you invite to read it, or even keep it private. The choice is yours. You can always delete your blog later.

#2: Write a test post or two on your blog.

#3: Leave a comment on this post with the address of your blog, if you would like to share that with me and others participating in Community 2.0

Bonus Activities:

Try finding some blogs to read. Good places to search for blogs are Technorati and Google Blog Search.

Some faith-related blogs that I like to read are:

• Ray+’s blog
• The Daily Episcopalian
• The Speaking of Faith Blog - companion to the public radio show

Try customizing your blog’s layout and theme. Hint: use the Layout tab on Blogger.

Questions? Comments? Let me know. You can comment here, or email me directly at  ekwilson at gmail.com.

Happy exploring!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Community 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.