Reminder - Blog Post Due This Friday at Noon

This is the blog post about the economist who forms your alias.  The deadline here is even softer than usual.  Getting it done sometime over the weekend is fine.  I'l write a short response to your post, but nothing too grand, so I don't need as much lead time to do that.

Also, if you get a smaller photo of your alias economist, you can put that photo in your profile.  It will then appear along with your alias every time you make a comment.  It's a cute touch!

Some Blogging Factoids

Photo of your alias

If you find a photo image of the economist who gives the first part of your alias, you can download that and then re-upload it to your Blogger profile.  There is a section for profile image.  If you include that image, then all your most current post listed on the class site will have a thumbnail of the image, as will any comments you make.

This is not necessary, but it is a nice touch that will personalize our site more.


Hyperlinks in posts

Unlike what you may be used to in other online environments, if you simply paste a link into your blog editor it will publish the text of the link, but the link itself will not be live.  To make a live link, you need to select the link tool from the toolbar.  Also, the custom is to highlight some text and link that rather than to insert the url into your text.


Hyperlinks in comments

There is no toolbar for making comments.  Comments do accept basic html commands.  So if you are comfortable with that you can use those commands to put in a link or to format your text.  If you are not comfortable with that, ignore this.  It is not necessary.  I really don't know if it is a skill that people need to have after they graduate.  Ten years ago I would have said it was.  Now, I'm not sure.

Setting Up A Blog For Class - Part 2

This is the rest of the tutorial.   Once you've made a test post, please email me the link to it.  I will then subscribe to your blog and list it on the class site.  Having subscribed to it, I will automatically see updates to your blog.

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.

- - - - -

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.