Thing 4: Subscribing to other blogs (plus an update to Thing 3 instructions!)

Thing 3 update!

A couple of people have mentioned to me that they had problems with Thing 3 - specifically that when they went to http://feedburner.google.com, their blog didn't automatically appear there to click on. Well, fear not, it only takes a second to add it - so for anyone for whom it didn't appear, follow these steps; for those of you for whom it worked fine, skip to the Activity below...

Go to http://feedburner.google.com again - you'll see a box below the line Burn a feed this instant. Just copy and paste the URL of your new blog into this box, then press Next >>. You'll probably then get taken to an Identify my feed source screen - choose the RSS option rather than the Atom option. Click Next >> again. On the screen which now appears you'll then be able to edit the title and URL of your feed. You can leave them exactly as they appear by default, or edit them if you want to. Click Next >> again, then on the next screen click Skip directly to feed management. That's it - now whenever you go to http://feedburner.google.com your feed will appear to be clicked on like it's supposed to!

Phew.

Now we've made it easy for other people to subscribe to our blogs, in Thing 3, we need to subscribe to some ourselves.

Activity: subscribe to some blogs 

This activity should take around 5 - 10 minutes.

We're going to use a feed-reader called The Old Reader - it originally created to look and feel like Google Reader, which is shortly to be turned off by Google.

(We've chosen Old Reader because it integrates easily with an existing Google account, meaning you don't have to go through any kind of sign-up procedure - but if you're feeling adventurous and want some more options, here's an article on my blog outlining a few - I'd recommend Feedly. Sign up, follow the instructions and have a play.)

First make sure you're still logged into your York account, then go to http://theoldreader.com and choose the Sign in with Google option from near the top-right of the page. It'll ask you to 'Allow Access'; say yes to this. The screen will look much like this:

Click the ADD A SUBSCRIPTION button - you can then copy and paste any RSS feed into the box that appears below it, and it will subscribe to that feed for you. 

For example, try copying and pasting in the feed for this blog:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/23ThingsYork. Click the red and green + button and you should see this very blog appear before your eyes. You can subscribe to any blog this way - getting the feed address for the blog by clicking the RSS feed symbol wherever you see it, then copying and pasting it into Old Reader.  

Here are some blogs worth subscribing to - you can subscribe to some, all or none of them depending on where your interests lie:

• Techcrunch is a regularly updated blog about new technology, social media etc - it's an industry blog, so only subscribe if you're interested in that sort of thing... The RSS feed for the European version is http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techcrunch/europe 
• Phil Bradley is an internet consultant - he writes about Library issues but most of his blog posts are about useful tools like the ones covered in this 23 Things programme, and advice on searching online, so hopefully his blog should be of interest to both Library and IT staff. The feed for his main blog is http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/atom.xml 
• The Digital Scholarship blog is a useful blog from the Library and IT - the feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/digitallearningyork
• Tom Smith's Collaborative Tools blog can be found at http://collaborative-tools-project.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
• Finally there's Stephen's Lighthouse, which is more library focused, but has loads of links and updates about new and emerging trends. Just copy and paste the URL for the site into Old Reader: http://stephenslighthouse.com/  

You can find more blogs relevant to your professional (or personal) interests by typing keywords into Google Blog Search.

Later in the week, once everyone has had a chance to do the Activity in Thing 3, you can also subscribe to each others' blogs - here's the list of 23 Things participants, along with the URLs for their blogs (click on the link and you should have permissions to view the google spreadsheet). Go to each blog, and subscribe via Old Reader in the same way as above (assuming people have completed Thing 3).

Time to really start blogging... 

That's it for blogs and blogging, for now - next week we're moving onto other forms of social media. At this point it's time to start using the blogs we've created to write about and reflect on our experiences. Try writing a short blog post about RSS Feeds, perhaps mentioning which blogs you've subscribed to, which you'd recommend, whether you found it easy or difficult, etc.

Here's an example of a nice 23 Things blog from a librarian at Warwick - she won the 'Best Blog' award in their own programme. Scroll down to read some of her earlier posts.

Thing 3: RSS Feeds - helping people subscribe to your blog

What is it?

RSS Feeds are a way of getting regularly updated content from a website. Blogs use them, news websites use them, weather apps use them. This is the RSS icon - wherever you see it, there's a feed to subscribe to:

Why is it worth doing?

Subscribing to a feed means the articles on the website come to you whenever they are published, rather than you having to go and check the website to see if there's anything new. Plus, you have everything in once place - whether it's news headlines or blog posts about whatever you're interested in. You can use feeds to subscribe by email like most of you are already doing with this 23 Things blog, or you can use a Feed-reader - basically a place online to organise, and access, the feeds of your choice.

For any blog, it's essential to make it incredibly straight-forward for people to subscribe via an RSS feed. If they want to hear more from you in the future, this is the easiest way. The more subscribers you have, the greater your captive audience!

Activity: make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog 

So the first activity for RSS feeds, which should take around 10 minutes, is to make sure people can subscribe to your own blog really easily. To do this, first you need to go to a site called http://feedburner.google.com. Like Blogger itself, Feedburner is a Google-owned product so once again you already have an account for it - just make sure you're signed into Google with your York account before you start.

Once you get to Feedburner you should see a screen much like this (except it'll have the name of your blog displayed, and there'll only be one blog listed):

Click the title of your blog to be taken into the Feedburner dashboard for that blog. The screen next will have four tabs across the top: Analyze, Optimize, Publicize, and Troubleshootize. Click Publicize. On the screen which then appears, the phrase friendly graphic is hyperlinked - click this link.

The screen that follows helps you create a button for people to press to subscribe to your blog. You don't need to edit any of the settings, just leave everything on its default setting. The only thing you need to do is choose Blogger from the Use as a widget in drop-down menu right at the bottom of the screen.

Click Go! and you'll be taken to the Add page element screen. Edit the Title so it just says 'Subscribe' (rather than the more fussy 'Subscribe Now: Feed Icon' which appears by default). Cick Add Widget and you'll be taken into the Layout page of your Blogger dahsboard; you should see a screen a little bit like this:

(This is what the 23 Things blog looks like in Layout view, so it probably has a few more 'Gadgets' on show than yours will at this stage.) It's essential now to click Save Arrangement near the top-right-hand corner of the screen, or all your hard work will be for nothing! Once it has saved click View blog (top left hand corner of the screen) to see what your blog looks like with the new subscription options. You can always subscribe to it yourself to make sure it works...

You now have a shiny new subscribe button on your blog, so everyone can get regular updates. In Thing 4 later in the week, we'll look at how to subscribe to each others' 23 Things blogs...

Optional extra activity 

If you have time and you want to, go back to the Publicize tab on http://feedburner.google.com, and repeat the process above for Email subscriptions from the Services menu down the left-hand side.

Thing 2: Write your first blog post

Hopefully by now you've set up a blog - if not, don't panic, there's plenty of time, just follow the instructions in the previous post.

Before going any further you need to register your blog using this Google form. This officially signs you up for 23 Things (making you eligible for the £100 prize) and also collects the links to all the blogs in one place - in Thing 3 we'll share the link to the form so everyone can read each others' blogs as we go along. A bit part of why 23 Things works so well is everyone sharing their experiences, helping each other out when they get stuck, coming up with different ideas of how to use a tool, and so on. Registering your blog will also mean we can find and read your posts - we're going to try and read every single one in the 23 Things Team - and help out if you ask questions or have problems...

Activity: writing a blog post

So now we come to writing the first blog post. This activity should take 10 minutes or so, depending on what you actually write. Don't worry too much about the content - your first blog doesn't have to be a work of genius, it's just to get used to using the Software...

First of all, open blogger.com again, and click on the title of your new blog to go into its dashboard. (Your blogger account is your York account, so make sure you're signed in with your IT username and password.) In the top left hand corner of the dashboard, there's a friendly orange New Post button - click this to get started.

Your screen should now look like this (minus my arrows and explanations):

Along the top is a space for the title of your post. Blog post titles are important later down the line, in terms of getting people to actually read your posts, but for now feel free to just call it something like '23 Things York - first post'.

Just below the title field are all the tools for actually writing the post - it's like a very basic version of Word, with options to make your text bold or italic, to change the colour or size of your font, to add in links or pictures, and so on. Take a second to click on each thing and see what it does. Generally speaking, you can leave the font size and type and colour alone - you won't often need a lot of the buttons along the top.

Down the right-hand side is the Post settings menu. At this stage you don't need to worry about Schedule, or Options, or Permalink. If you want to you can put York into the 'Location' field. But the most important one is Labels. Labels are a way to tag your post (sort of like basic metadata) - it enables you to group posts together later, and it helps people search for and find what they're looking for. For example, a post about Twitter might have the labels 'Twitter, social media, web 2.0' and anyone viewing the blog post could click on any of those labels and be taken to all the other posts on the blog on that subject. (You can see this in action by clicking on any of the labels for this blog post, which appear at the bottom. If you're reading this via email, click on the title of the post at the top to got and read this on the actual blog.)

We're going to put some labels in now - seperating with commas, write (or copy and paste from here) 23 Things York, Blogger, blogs and blogging, Information Directorate, Thing 2.

Finally, write your post! It can just be a quick hello, explaining that this is a blog made for the 23 Things programme at York. Or it could be about what you're hoping to get out of the programme, or the tools you are particularly interested in. Or really whatever you want.

If you want to stop at any time, press Save in the top right hand corner of the screen - you can then come back to it later. You can press Preview (next to Save) to see what your post will look like. And finally, when you're happy, press Publish and it will go live online. In the top-left hand corner of the screen, click View blog to see what it looks like. You can always edit it if you spot any errors.

That's it! Agan, if you get stuck, try asking a fellow 23 Thing-er for help. For those who want to experiment a little more, there's some (entirely optional) additional activities below.

Extra Assignment

An extra 5 minutes or so of quick things to try if you're keen:

• Go into your Dashboard again, and click Posts from the menu down the left-hand side. You should see the blog post you've published - hover over it and an 'Edit' button will appear just below.
• Click Edit and you'll be taken back into your blog post as the author - from here you can edit the post and then press Update in the top-right hand corner when you've made any changes you want. We're going to make a couple.
• First of all, put a subheading into your post. Near or at the end, type Experimenting with images and then highlight the text you've just typed with your mouse. The from the menu along the top, click on the drop-down menu where it says Normal and choose Subheading instead. This will turn the words Experimenting with images into a subheading (as you've probably guessed)...
• Then click the little picture icon, between Link and the clapperboard icon - this will allow you to insert an image into the blogpost. You can then click Browse and find a picture you already have on your PC. (Don't worry too much about the Insert from URL option now as we'll cover it later in the Multimedia section of the programme.) Once you've uploaded the pic, click Add Selected to add it to your post. Blogger tends to make pictures quite small by default - click on the picture and you'll see sizing options appear just below it on the left. Try 'Original Size' and then click Preview in the top right hand corner to see how it looks - if it's too wide you may need to resize it. 
• Finally we're going to insert a link. At the very bottom of your blog post, write This blog is part of the 23 Things programme at York and then highlight the text with your mouse - then click Link from the menu at the top. In the Web Address field, type http://york23thingsblog.blogspot.co.uk. Then click OK.
• You've now mastered Headings, linking and inserting images!

Thing 1: Set up a Blogger blog

Okay here we go with the first Thing: blogs and blogging. If you've not already done so, have a look at the introductory blog post and the About page for more info on how this whole course works.

After Thing 1 and 2, you can choose to take or leave any of the remaining Things - if you think the tool is not for you, or you just don't have time in a given week, that's fine. But this one is essential, because it's through the blog you'll set up today that you'll be exploring all the subsequent tools in the coming weeks. Remember, you can always delete the blog after the course finishes if you don't want it anymore.

What is it?

There are technical definitions of blogs and blogging, but what matters is this: blogs are regularly updated webpages, which people can easily share online, comment upon, and discuss. Each new update appears at the top of the page, and is called a blogpost. You can think of blogposts as short articles - there are no real rules about blogging, you can do more or less whatever you want, but generally the tone tends to be more informal than a journal article, standard website, or press release.

This page you're looking at now is a blogpost on a blog. The Library also ran a blog about the refurbishment. There's one about Digital Scholarship. There's an eLearning Development Team blog. There are industry news blogs. But it's not just departments and institutions that have blogs - library and IT staff have blogs too, in fact there are millions of them. I have two just on my own... Tom Smith writes a blog. There's a really useful online community we can all tap into, to give us ideas, support, help in our work, and a voice.

Tom has a list of several good University of York blogs, plus some excellent guidance on blogging, on this Google Site.

Why is it worth doing?

Blogging is a brilliant way to become part of a larger community than just the staff who work here. It's a platform for your views on your profession and your industry (if you have any views!), and it's something to greet people with when they Google your name. Blogs can be used purely for reflection, or they can be used as ways to disseminate information, to gather ideas, to spark debate. They can also help you to build up your knowledge and experience of areas your current job doesn't allow you to explore.

For the purposes of 23 Things, we'll be using our blogs to write about our experiences with, and opinions on, the rest of the tools we try out. You'll be able to see who else is blogging about the same things as you, read their posts, leave comments and generally interact. At the end of it all, you can choose to leave your blog, to delete it, or to carry on with it - many blogs start as 23 Things blogs and then become something more general on an ongoing basis.

Activity: set up your blog

This activity should only take around 10 minutes or so to do.

We'll be using Blogger, which is a blogging platform owned and run by Google, so you won't need to set-up a profile - your York log-in means you already have a Blogger account.

1.Go to blogger.com (clicking that link will open Blogger in a separate window or tab, so you can keep this guide open)

2. Log-in with your York username and password if you haven't already, then click the New Blog button

3. Give it a Title - you change this later so don't worry too much about it

4. Give it a URL (web address) - preferably containing the title, though that's not essential. The only thing that really matters with the URL is thinking of one no one else has already taken...

5. Pick a Template - this is how your blog will look. There are 7 to choose from initially, but again you can change this later

6. Press the orange Create Blog! button. You should then see a screen like this:

Click the title of your blog and you'll be taken into the Dashboard of your new blog - sort of like the headquarters. It's from here you'll be able to write posts, edit posts, check your statistics to see how many people are reading, and so on.

7. The final stage is to go to Settings from the menu on the left-hand side. When you click on it, the top of the screen should look something like this:

Click Edit next to Description and put in a brief tag-line for your blog - anything from 'A York 23 Things blog' up to something more creative... If you want to you can change the Privacy setting so that people can only find your blog if you tell them the web-address - click Edit to do this. We'd recommend you leave the setting as it is by default unless you particularly want to be private. Finally you can edit the title from this page if you wish to.

You can now register your blog using this Google form. We'll make the list of blogs available to all participants later on. 

That's it! Feel free to look around Blogger a little more if you want to, but you don't need to do anything else for now. If you get stuck try and help each other, or email me (ned.potter) and I'll help you out. If you're really keen and want to explore further, take a look at this presentation on blogs and blogging I delivered at a conference a couple of years ago. (It's a bit library-centric I'm afraid, but the principles apply across the board.)

Coming up...

Now we all have blogs, we need to start actually blogging - but that's Thing 2, coming up later in the week. If you've not already done so, stick your email address in the box on the right hand-side of this page called 'Get new posts emailed to you as they arrive', and then the next post will appear in your inbox once it gets published.