August 11, 2004
Welcome to the Clio Wired Blog
We will be using a web log or “blog” (a sort of online diary) to record reflections on the topics covered in Clio Wired and to share them with other members of the class. Every student will have access to the class blog, where he/she will be able to post required journal commentaries as well as comments and reflections on the subject of the course. The blog software also allows you to comment on the posts from other students and I hope you will take advantage of that feature. I will probably build in some required commentaries over the course of the semester.
Rather than each student having his or her own blog, there will be a collective blog where each of us will be able to post. This has the advantage of putting all of the course commentaries in one unified space. The disadvantage is that you can’t customize the look of your blog. But you will have plenty of opportunity to do web customization and design on your personal web pages and so you can make that your creative outlet.
Your username is the first part of your GMU email address (e.g. rrosenzw) and your initial password is your username followed by “696” (don’t type the quotation marks, e.g. rrosenzw696). After you have logged in, you can change your password and create a “nickname” for yourself.
Generally when you create a blog entry you need to place it in two categories. The primary category is your own sub-blog (e.g., “Terry’s Blog"). The secondary category will most often be related to a particular class assignment, e.g., “website evaluation.” That way, members of the class will be able to look at everything you have written (by going to “Terry’s Blog”) and everything written on a particular topic (by going to “website evaluation”). General reflections and comments should be categorized under "reflections." I will also post things under "Main," which shows up in the central space on the blog home page Please be sure to put your blog in primary and secondary categories so that it can be found easily.
This is the first time I have used a blog in a class and so I am still figuring out some of the technical issues. More important, I am still trying to work out how it can be used most effectively within a class setting. I welcome your help on the first and your suggestions on the second.
Getting Started
1. Go to http://chnm.gmu.edu/movabletype/mt.cgi to log in.
2. Your username is first part of GMU email; password is yourusername696
3. When you get to welcome screen, choose “Edit your profile” where you can change your password or email address and add a nickname (your actual name makes sense here since this is how your entries will be signed). Please don't change your username.
4. Now you are ready to make your first entry. Go back to the Main Menu. Choose “new entry.” (on left side of screen)
a. Give the Entry a descriptive title (e.g., “The Perils of Digital Scholarship”). For your first entry, give it a title like "What Historians Do"
b. Assign a primary category (that should be your blog). After you have saved, you will put in a secondary category (generally the assignment). For this first time, choose "history and the web."
c. Write your entry in “entry body.” (Don’t worry about Extended Entry or Excerpt.) You can cut and paste from a word processor. If you do that, you need to have two spaces between paragraphs. The help screen gives you more information on making entries. Generally speaking, you will need to use some minimal HTML to format your entries, but if you use IE on Windows, there are some shortcuts and you don’t need to worry about the formatting at the moment. For this first entry list up to five arenas or venues or forms in which historians--broadly defined--work.
d. SAVE your entry (at bottom). Now, you can add secondary category.
e. Preview your entry (also at bottom). (Preview is not necessary.)
f. If you are satisfied, change “post status” from “draft” to “publish.” Save again.
g. Look at posted version by clicking on “view site.”
Editing an existing entry
What happens if you find a mistake in one of your entries, or you just want to change something you have written? If you are not logged in, you will need to log in once again. If you are still logged in, return to the Menu screen and click the Edit Entries button in the left-hand menu.
You will see a list of your entries and can then either click on the individual entry's link and edit it, or you can check the box in the far right column of the list and then click on the Delete button if you want to delete an entry. Beware! Once you delete your entry, it is gone and cannot be recovered, so only delete those entries you truly wish to delete forever.
Once you have edited your entry to your satisfaction, repeat the steps described above to publish your entry. It must be saved and re-published or it will not be changed.
Try this out now by adding below your initial entry the goals of historians working in those venues. And then below that what ways (if any) new media can help historians accomplish those goals.
Adding a Comment to an Entry
One of the great features of a weblog is the ability of visitors to add comments to the entries they read. We will try to use the comment feature to foster online dialogue among members of the class.
To add a comment to an entry, simply click on the Comment link at the end of the entry.Enter your name, your email address (and the URL of your website if you have one), then type in the comment you wish to leave. You should not post anonymous comments in our weblog. If your comment does not show up when you return to the main blog screen, refresh your page. It will show up then.
Try this out at home by writing a comment on at least one other entry from the class. Do you agree or disagree?
Adding Links and Formatting to a Post
MovableType allows you to use basic html formatting in your postings. So, to add a link to the Center for History and New Media as a hot link, you would type it as:
[<]a href="http://chnm.gmu.edu">Center for History and New Media[<]/a>
(Dont type the [brackets] around the <, I just put that in to keep the blog from formatting it; same below.)
In this example, the URL between the quotation marks is where you want the reader to be able to go and the text between the > and < marks is what the link will say in your posting. Be sure to include the tag or all text following the first tag will be linked.
Other common html tags you might want to use are:
[<]b>bold[<]/b>
[<]i>italic[<]/i>
Instead of typing out the words "bold" or "italic", put your text between these tags.
Uploading Images
MovableType allows you to upload images to the weblog. Do not upload any image larger than 100k to the blog (the software prevents huge images from being uploaded), because it will slow the blog down tremendously. A better course of action for large images is to add a link to the page where the image lives (see above advice on links).
To upload an image, first choose the Upload File link in the menu on the left side of your screen. In this window, you can choose the file you want to upload from your computer. Do not choose a path (the second set of boxes). When you click on the Upload button, you can choose to include your image as either a pop-up or an embedded image. Click on embedded and choose the radio button that says "show me the html," then you will be directed to a screen that shows a lot of html code, which you can cut and paste into your blog. I have done that at the bottom of this entry.
Now, repeat the steps described above for saving and publishing your posting to the blog. When you do, you will be able to view the blog. If you have a small digital image of yourself, add it to your first posting when you get home.
My thanks to Mills Kelly from whom I (in the open source spirit) cribbed many sections of this guide. Mills has a guide posted with illustrations at A Simple Guide to Blogging
