edna.edu.au

me.edu.au blog or external blog?

The first time you click Edit Blog you are asked to choose between two options:

• using the built-in me.edu.au blog, or
• linking to your existing external blog. 

If you link to an external blog, copy the web address (URL) of your external blog and paste it into the box provided. Do not use the url of your blog feed as this will not work.  Note that when you click on My Blog it will take you from me.edu.au  to your external blog. To get back to me.edu.au you will need to select the back button on the Browser.

Choosing to use the me.edu.au blog will make your profile become public.  If you do not want this to happen then you need to select Cancel. The me.edu.au service will not allow you to have a blog unless your profile is public.

Blog settings

Before creating your first blog post you should go to preferences and set the parameters for your blog. Click on Edit Blog and a new entry will appear.  Select Preferences from the sub menu. Note that you can change everything later if you want to come back and update any information.

 

Here is a short explanation of each of the main settings:

Title: You can call it what you like: Kate's lecturing life, Teaching Tales...

Tagline: a short description or subtitle.
Icon: The image file name (ex:thumbnail.jpg) or image url.  You'll need to upload the image via the Create & Edit: File Uploads tab first.
About your blog: A more detailed description of the blog.

Allow comments: Blogs usually allow comments, and these can greatly enhance a blog, but you can choose.

Moderate comments: If ticked, you will receive email notification of comments and you approve or delete them. If not moderated the comments will appear immediately. If unacceptable, you can delete a comment later. Moderation will prevent rare objectionable comments, however it delays comments appearing until they are moderated, and is a small chore for the blog owner to approve comments. See below for more detailed comments on moderation.

Creating and editing a blog post

When you select Edit Blog and then the Create & Edit tab in the submenu you see the main controls to manage your blog. 

 

 

When New Entry is selected, add:

• title - pick a title that is meaningful but not too long. It will also be used in the link to your blog post.
• tags - are the keywords you can use to find and group your entries (eg literacy, software, publishing). Tag each entry with your choice of keywords. Tags are listed on the right side of the page and link to all the entries using that particular tag. They also link into the Communities of Interest if the tag has the same name as a community.
• status - is a read-only field that tells you about the current state of the blog post you are editing. There are three possible status settings:
  • Not saved - the post has never been saved
  • Draft - the post is saved as a draft and is not yet visible to your blog readers
  • Published - the entry has been published and is visible to blog readers
• add content for your post

Content - is typed in the box which is headed by formatting tools, including tools that allow images to be included and video. Your entries can be edited further after they are initially published.

Summary - is optional, and is useful if you have a long entry. The summary can provide a brief overview, and a [more] link goes to the main body of content.

You can also set more advanced settings.

Inserting images

Images have to be uploaded as a file, then they can be linked to one or more entries.

1. In Edit Blog, Create & Edit, click File upload. From here you can upload files and manage the files that you have already uploaded.
   In here you can upload files, create sub-directories and delete uploaded files and directories.
   
2. Browse to locate the image to be uploaded. Note, there is a maximum of 4Mb of file space allowed. This is adequate if images are kept to a small file size, such as 25 - 50 kb.
   
3. When the upload is complete, a message will appear with the address of the uploaded file.
   
4. Select this address and copy it. You can also see all the uploaded images further down this page. You can get the address of images by right clicking on the icon for an image in this list and selecting Copy Image Location, then pasting this address into the image window. 
   
5. Go to the entry that is going to include the image, either by starting a New entry, or by locating an existing one in Entries.
   
6. Click in the text where the image is to be placed, and click the Image tool [mountain icon].
   
7. The image window appears. Paste the address on the clipboard into the Image URL box. If you want the text to flow around the image, select Left or Right in the Alignment drop-down window. Click OK.
   
8. Click Save Draft and check Preview and continue editing, or Post to Weblog to publish the entry.
   Then click My Blog to check its appearance.
   
9. To do further editing, click Edit blog, then Entries to find the entry to edit.
   
   

Comments

You can't edit comments that are posted on your blog post, but you can mark them as spam or disapprove them.

Comment moderation

If you would like to preview and approve comments before they are displayed on your blog post, then you'll want to turn on comment moderation via the Preferences page. Each new comment will be marked as pending and unapproved and will not appear on your blog.

To check for new comments, go to the Comments page to check for and either approve or delete new comments.

To approve moderated comments:

1. Review each new comment and decide if it is to be approved for display, marked as spam and hidden or deleted entirely.
2. Only comments that are marked as approved and are not spam will be displayed on your blog post. So set (unset) the corresponding check boxes for each comment, or leave them the way they are.
3. When you are done. Click the save changes button at the bottom of the page. You'll see that comments that were pending are no longer pending and those that you marked for delete will be gone.