Setting Up A Blog For Class - Part 1

The instructions below are based on the assumption that you will use Blogger to set up your blog.  To do that you can't use your university email as a login and indeed you must be sure to have logged out of your university email to proceed (or use a different browser than you use normally).

As an alternative to the instructions below, you can use the campus blogging service (based on WordPress) at publish@illinois.  Then you log in with your NetID and password.  You can adjust your screen name to your alias, to protect your privacy.  But I don't know whether you can access the site after you graduate.   Further, it seems that blogs at publish@illinois require a U of I login to make a comment.  That reduces the attractiveness of this alternative.  Also, for commenting on the class site you will either do that anonymously or use your real name.  If you use Blogger and make your alias your screen name, then your comments to posts will also be given by your screen name.  (That assumes you are logged into your blog.)  This is a big plus.

As still one other alternative, you can have a blog in Moodle, which is then not publicly available.  Truthfully, this is much less convenient than the other alternatives.  But it protects your privacy the most because the the rest of the world doesn't have access to the Moodle class site.  If you want to pursue this alternative you must contact me about it.  I have to set it up for you.  Truthfully, I've found that students blogging under an alias is sufficient to protect their privacy that this added step is not necessary.

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The instructions below and in the next post are aimed at setting up your blog so that you post under your alias - nobody outside the class will know who you are - and make sure that everybody understands this is a blog of a student, not of the person from whom the alias was constructed.

The video below was made for the class from a few years ago.  It is applicable still, though Blogger has changed a bit since.  In particular, there is no longer Google Plus, so you don't have to worry about that alternative any longer. Also note, that it assumes you are making a new Gmail account just for this use.  As an alternative, you can use your non-university Gmail account equally well, if you are not already using Blogger with it.  Do not use your campus email.  That will not work.

Note that in the video where it says My Econ 490 Alias, your alias is of the form Famous Economist Econ 490 fall 2019.  Also that that for the url of the blog, you should take the spaces out, but for the name of the blog and your screen name, you should leave the spaces in.  (And for the screen name, the name of the famous economist suffices.  The rest is redundant.)

The main thing is to use the Blogger Profile, not the Google Plus profile.  The Blogger Profile is what allows you to post under an alias.  See the image below.  You can find this on your blog dashboard under Settings, then User Settings.