Activity #3 Posts vs Pages

For beginner bloggers, the whole problem of the distinction between posts and pages may not be important if the template you choose has enough space and appropriate design for your needs. However it certainly isn't long before you want to expand your blog and the issue of when to use a post or a page will surface.

Many blogs have a single front page where posts are streamed in reverse date order and one other About page. However, for my professional blog I wanted to do a series of pieces of writing around explaining the choice of name of my blog: Applied Chaos Theory. So I had to figure out how to add a series of individual pages that people could comment on if they chose. I wanted individual pages because I didn't want people to have to scroll up and down a long way in order to follow the series.

The template I am using in Edublogs didnot seem to want to make it easy for me to add pages that included comment fields. My solution was to do some Navigation hocus pocus! I put a new gadget on the right sidebar that gave the pages as individual hyperlinked pages. I also put a hyperlink at the bottom of each piece of writing (on individual pages) which gave the reader the option of moving to the next section (or Lesson - which would be explained if you went for a visit to the blog). What this all means is that I have 3 page options at the top of the template: Home, About, "Why Chaos Theory?" - so it looks like just 3 pages. However, nested behind the third option is a series of other pages which don't have tab navigation but can be arrived at using the sidebar navigation.

I'm sure I could have explained all that a bit better - Mathematics teachers... ha! What does amuse me at times is that many bloggers don't appear to check the navigation of their own blog. I know that sometimes it is difficult to sort out these issues on your own, but leaving your blog in a difficult navigation hole is really not how you attract readers. I am amazed at the number of times that comment fields have been missing (so I couldn't leave a message) or the only way to navigate around a blog is to use the back function in the browser. If we don't make navigation user-friendly then we can't expect to attract a group of regular visitors with whom we can establish connections and build our network of advisors and friends.

The Teacher Challenge lesson around this issue of Posts and Pages has a really useful table explaining the distinctions and uses, so I will include a link here in case needed:  Activity 3 outline link

Navigation

Visiting other teacher blogs and navigating around them is a sure way to make you realise the mistakes you've made in the design of your own blog! I realised it was difficult for a visitor to return to the HOME page of this blog and also that a first time visitor was not immediately presented with a raison d'etre (a reason for being!). So back to the design interface and another text gadget added to introduce the blog at the top of the home page.
Creating this gadget was easy, however it took a bit of click and drag to pull the page wide gadget up to the top of the page below the page navigation gadget. I think it works well and is a better way to help a visitor remain engaged - depending on the reason for their visit.

More pages?

Either my logic had failed me or adding a page to a blog in blogger is NOT user-friendly! I did not think to look on the POSTING page then click Edit Pages and then Create a new page! So I had to use the Help facility and found buzz.blogger - a handy place to visit... and may be needed in the future.

So now I have created a gadget to be able to navigate back to the HOME page and have also added an ABOUT page - which will have to wait for some text.

I have also added another gadget to list the links of other blogs that I am finding have been created by other teachers completing the Edublog Teacher Challenge 2011. On twitter this evening there was one mentioned from a teacher in Indonesia and it was great to visit and read and leave a comment.

When I returned here to add the link for this new found blog I was amazed to find that my Clustr Map had been updated and there were DOTS ON IT! Amazing! Of course it is probably just visits from people who navigate here via the "next blog" button... but hey - they're visitors too!