Blogging with OneDrive

Transcription

1 Blogging with OneDrive Another tool that is now available to teachers and students through Office 365 and OneDrive is the ability to create a blog. By default every user in the system already has a blog set up for them. This blog can be accessed from within Office365 by clicking on the Newsfeed or Sites link. This blog is setup so that posts are visible to everyone meaning everyone in the KDE global system has rights to view it. However, if students are staff want to utilize the blog feature, but not necessarily make is accessible to everyone, then they can modify the existing blog rights or create a new one. Users may create and use multiple blogs if desired. The directions that follow give a broad overview of that process. If you need further assistance with creating or managing a blog, please contact your school STC or one of the OIT staff ( To get started.. In order to access your blog space or to read others blogs, you must first login to Office 365. Visit Use your district address and password. Step 1: In order to create a blog, you must first visit the Sites page or OneDrive page. Once you are on either the Sites or OneDrive page, click on the gear in the top right corner. In the drop-down box, select Site Contents. You will then be redirected to the Site Contents page. Step 2: Click on the link to create a new subsite.

2 Then you will be prompted to fill out some information for your new blog. You will need to do the following on this screen. Give your blog a title. Enter a brief description. Select and enter a short web address. (You can t change the first part which points to the user s space in Office365.) Keep web address simple and without spaces. Select the Blog template. On the same screen you will also need to change the Permissions settings to Use unique permissions so you can customize who can read and edit this blog. Once all of this information is entered, click on Create.

3 On the next screen you will be asked to set up groups for your site. This simply means setting up permissions for who can view, contribute or have full control of this blog. Anyone in the state group can be given rights for a blog. Changes can always be made later to add or delete permissions. Visitors = view only rights Members = Contribute rights, i.e. they can also post to the blog Owners = other admins of the blog (perhaps the teacher and student should be admins for younger students. Look up individuals you want to give rights to in each group by clicking on the lookup link under each box. (The arrow points to the top one.) When you click on the lookup link, the box at the left will open. Type in the name in the Find box and hit Enter. Find the correct person in the list of names from the search results. Highlight that name and click on the Add button. Repeat if adding multiple people. Click OK once names are entered as desired. Repeat for each group (Visitors, Members or Owners) as needed. Then click okay on the main screen when finished. You are now ready to blog!

4 Changing permissions later. If you need to change the permissions later, you can certainly do that. It will just look a little different. Below are some screenshots to help. From your blog home page, click on the Gear in the top right corner and select Site Settings. On the Site Settings page, select Site Permissions. Click on the group (Visitors, Members or Owners) that you want to modify. Once on the group page, click on drop down arrow next to New and select Add Users. The Share box will open and allow you to enter names, addresses or Everyone (if you want to make it visible to everyone.) Add the desired names. Then click on Show options and uncheck Send and invitation if you don t want an to be sent. If you do (and that might be easier for others to access your blog) then leave it checked. Then click on Share.

5 Recommendations for Teachers: Depending on the age and maturity of your students (especially elementary age) you may want to have more control over student blog spaces as you help them learn how to manage their site. Teachers can also be admins of student blog spaces used for classroom purposes. Teachers may select to create the blogs under their username and add students as contributors. A class blog could be created in this way that is owned by the teacher or small group or individual blogs could be created and then shared with students as contributors. Alternatively, students can create blogs under their own Office365 login and teachers can request that they be added as an additional admin. There is no moderation feature for blog posts within Office 365 and OneDrive. However use of permissions can help structure blogs so that teachers can help students learn safe and responsible use and ownership of blog spaces.