Thing #2 Become a blogger

A blog, is a website containing an archived series of posts, organized by categories (or tags), with a place for readers to leave comments. Readers can subscribe to the blog by email or by using an RSS feed (Thing #3). A blog may have one or many authors, and can be about any topic.

Blogging can provide you with an opportunity to engage in discussion and debate, inform and mentor others, and connect with peers. As you work through the 23 Things, you will learn more about their potential for personal and professional learning.

Your blog is the most important component of the 23 Things as you will use it to document your learning and your thoughts about it. It will also be your portfolio and record of completion of the 23 Things. We suggest that each post be at least 100 words long.

#2 Create your own blog and start writing

Set up your blog at Blogger, (you require a ‘gmail’ account to do this)

After you have registered your blog, email Fiona O’Brien with its name and URL and she will add it to the participants blogs page (see top tool bar). Other 23 Things participants can subscribe to and comment on each others blogs.

1. Go to the Blogger website: www.blogger.com
2. Click on ‘Create A Blog.’
3. Create a Blog Title.
4. Create a Blog URL.
5. Select a style that appeals to you.
6. Bookmark the Blogger start page, as well as the URL for your blog.
7. Write a blog post.

To get back to your blog, to add future postings:

1. Log in to your Google account with your Username and Password

Once you’ve logged in you’ll also be able to change your blog settings – either by clicking on the Settings, or Layout links on your ‘Dashboard’ or clicking on the Customize button you’ll find on the top right corner.

More information about using Blogger is in this tutorial: Blogger’s Quick Tutorial

Remember you have an hour and a half of work time to undertake your 23 Things tasks each week – this includes writing up your blog posts

Thing #1 Widgets

Congratulations on embarking on the 23 Things programme – be sure to subscribe in the box at the bottom of the page to receive updates each week.
Take a look around in the FAQs and at the earlier posts at the bottom of the page to find out what we have in mind and explore what other universities have done. Then get started on Thing #1:

#1: Create a customized igoogle home page with at least five widgets

What is a widget?

A widget is a stand-alone application that can be embedded into third party sites by any user on a page where they have rights of authorship (e.g. a webpage, blog, or your profile on a social media site). Widgets are fun, engaging, and useful applications that allow users to turn personal content into dynamic web apps that can be shared on most websites

Other terms used to describe web widgets include, for example, in the case of Google, a ‘gadget’. They can also be referred to as a badge, module, webjit, capsule, snippet, mini and flake

Widgets are mostly used to enhance personal web experiences, or the web experiences of visitors to personal sites

Widgets are popular, with users of social media who are able to add them to blogs, for example. Widgets add function in the same way that an iPhone application does.

Getting started

1. Log on to your university Google account via the  Staff Google apps link on the intranet

2. Choose the Start Page link in the top left hand corner of the page

3. This opens the igoogle page and on the top right hand side you can see options to change the page’s theme plus a link to the  “Add stuff>>” page where you can choose from a range of widgets. Notice in the left hand bar these are classified by type to help you choose and create your own personalised page

Launch event of 23 Things

On Monday 16th August Suzanne Enright, Director of ISLS, formally launched the 23 Things programme. You can watch her presentation online or read the script.

• Watch the presentation (10 mins; PC version)
• Read the script

In the beginning …

Early in 2010 several Academic Liaison Librarians  at the University of Westminster launched their subject based blogs – you can see these on the blogroll at the bottom of the page. This was the start of developing our approaches to social media.

On August 16th 2010 the 23 Things programme for all Information Systems and Library Services staff was officially launched by Suzanne Enright, Director of ISLS.

The 23 Things programme is a discovery programme of self-directed learning that will give you the chance to play with Web 2.0 technology over a number of weeks and see how we might use in our services.

Watch the presentation from the launch (link in previous post above) to find out more, sign up to the blog at the bottom of the page for further details and to receive your weekly tasks from the 23 Things programme.