Blogs: The Basics & Beyond
Here are the slides from my recent class on blogs and rss feeds. I ended up just adapting the presentation from the Blogs and Blogging class I taught at my old library (thanks to my former colleague, Margaret). I think there were 11 people who attended the class and each person left with at least an idea of what blogs are and a new Google Reader account with a few subscriptions of their own. I think it went well and I actually had a lot of fun teaching it, though my voice was failing me near the end. It’s always nice to teach a class like this and see people really catch onto something quickly. I could tell that most of the students were really excited about making use of rss feeds. I also set up a class blog to demonstrate what a typical blog looks like and how it works. It also serves as a place for students to return to for more information and make use of the glossary and recommended links.
Next week I’m teaching a follow-up class on starting your own blog. I’m getting things ready for that class and I’m wondering whether or not I should focus on one blog-host or demonstrate a few. Normally, I would teach people how to create a free wordpress blog, but I think I’ll use Blogger just because I think it’s slightly easier to use for the absolute beginner and it’s just so convenient to have one Google account and handle blogging, rss feeds, email, etc. It’ll be interesting to see if people continue to sign up for these types of classes. I think it’s true that most people who are interested in blogging are already tech-savvy enough to figure out for themselves, but I still think that there are a lot of people just learning about the Internet and computers who need a little bit of help to get started. By the way, now you can visit the computer class archives page and check out more slides and handouts from recent classes at my library.
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