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Welcome!

This blog details the learning journey to complete the Edublogs Teacher Challenge 2011. It is a conversation about being a beginner blogger so it may prove to be a little too self-deprecating at times for some readers!

This blog is about blogging - setting up a brand new blog, making decisions about design and appearance, and learning how to use the Blogger interface as well as the slightly different Edublogs interface. So it will also discuss the decisions made for the design and operation of my professional blog which is Applied Chaos Theory (hosted at Edublogs).

I hope that by journalling about my learning journey in the world of teacher blogging it may provide some small encouragement to other teacher bloggers as they begin their own learning journey in this new collaborative/connected world!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Accessing the dashboard

Reading the comments on the Edublogs feedback pages for the Teacher Challenge ( link ) I noticed that a number of participants have mentioned issues to do with establishing their blogs and the accessing them again after navigating away. The whole notion of a dashboard as the interface to be used to monitor comments and change design and appearance, is something that beginner bloggers need time to get used to. This is where I am lucky to have had the experience with NSW DET BlogEd in 2010 which has a completely different access and interface but has taught me the steps required to access and use the dashboard.
One of the most common problems seems to be that people don't remember to login to the website before trying to open the dashboard. I think also, that some people are forgetting these access needs and designing the pages in such a way that getting back into the dashboard is more difficult for them than need be.
It is so important to have a really good explore around the dashboard and familiarise yourself with the way it is organised and what it enables you to do. Even having a look at the Stats page here on Blogger gives you some really interesting insight into your blog construction process.
Don't forget to SAVE your post though before you go navigating away from your post interface... although Blogger will probably have saved your work as a draft!

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