Blogs allow you to post articles easily on the internet. If you have a blog skip to the RSS heading to learn how to put your blog on Education Through Expeditions. If you have not blogged before check out some of the blogging services featured below. How do you decide what blog service to use? This depends on you. We have given a brief overview to help you choose the service that best suits you.
If you have more technical skills or want someone to build a website for you then a Wordpress.org blog allows for an even greater range of functionality, but must be hosted on your own servers. Fault Line Living's website is an example of a great Wordpress.org blog in action.
Blogger is Google's blogging platform. It is simple and easy to use, allowing easy alteration of themes via HTML. If you have a Gmail account is it easy to set up and combine with Picasa or a Google Site. Allen Pope's Science in Svalbard and the Adventures of Fjord is a great example of a Blogger blog in action.
Posterous is a simple blogging platform that allows users to send updates via email. This is useful for expeditions with limited internet access. Photos can be attached to an email and a gallery automatically generated. We are yet to feature an expedition using Posterous, as it is an emerging blogging platform.
Posting your blog on Education Through Expeditions
RSS (Really Simply Syndication)
Once you start blogging, the platform you are using should generate what is called an RSS feed. The logo for this look like this: Your RSS feed generates a list of your articles that can be displayed on other websites or users subscibe to in an RSS reader, such as Google Reader. RSS feeds are important for Education Through Expeditions because they allow us to show posts from your blog on our site. We do this using a website called Feedburner.
To create the feed for your expedition area, the RSS feed must be first put through Feedburner. The userID to enter in your Education Through Expeditions is the address of your feed: e.g. www.feedburner.com/yourfeed.
So for example, here is the Feedburner feed for the Baffin Island 2010 Expedition: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BaffinIslandExpedition2010. In the admin area you would enter "BaffinIslandExpedition2010" into the area provided for blog userID. Your expedition area will then automatically update with your blog posts as they happen.
If you edit your BuzzBoost the changes will automatically show on the ETE website. If you want any assistance with setting up a blog or using Feedburner just contact us at: info@etelive.org.
Your RSS feed generates a list of your articles that can be displayed on other websites or users subscibe to in an RSS reader, such as Google Reader. RSS feeds are important for Education Through Expeditions because they allow us to show posts from your blog on our site. We do this using a website called Feedburner.
