Lesson plan for blogging, posting, and commenting on Word Press

October 29, 2009 Blogging with the Newcomer ESL Students

Objective: Given a small group the learner will open an email account at UserNamemysbisd.com google. Then, open their blog account at word press. And make comments on other blogs by using technology. This took us about 8 -9 class periods mostly because of the problems that we had with Word Press and gaining access to the blogs.
1. Hand out student account and blog explanations.
2. Watch two short clips about blogging.
3. Open DELL net -book mini computers and go to email accounts (the shortcuts on the computer do not work so the kids had to go to “ed tech” button. Scroll to bottom left and go to google students. )
4. Log in with district provided user name and password and go to email. Use minimize button and put at the bottom of the screen.
5. Log in to http://mysbisd.com/wp-login.php and type in user name, go to bottom left of message and hit register, very small letters.
6. Help students think of a blog title that they will like. (I had them use their first name’s, a color and a place. Some chose other things as long as it made a little sense I let them do it. We can change it out later if there is a problem. I would play with blog titles before we start next time. )
7. Follow the directions on this page and have the students check the agreement and “gimme a blog.”
8. The next page says to go to their email and wait for a password and to activate their account. (Here is where the problems begin, I called in the big general, K. Justl to help me on this day. It probably would have been easier if I didn’t want them to have the same password as their email account but, there are so many passwords to know and remember that I felt that one was best for their sanity and mine.)
9. Close the blog site and go to the email account. There should be an email stating that they can activate their account. Read it carefully. Click on “activate my account”
10. You will be on a page that states that the blog has been set up activate the account. Have the students press “log in” Now you have to take them back to their email and get their new password. They have to go into the email and copy the password that they are given by Word Press. (I wanted mine to use the password that they were given by the district for everything. So, they will log in with their user name and then paste in the word press “password” and log in.)
11. Then, they will be on their dashboard page. Scroll down the left side of the page and look for “users.” Click or highlight that and go to “user profile.” Go to the bottom of the user profile page to the part that says new password. Have them type in their email/district password 2 times and save it with the button at the bottom left of the page. (I ended up having to do this for each student individually with K.Justl’s and C.Wolfe’s help. Many of the blogs got messed up somewhere in ether land and K. saved the day back at her office by cleaning up the little messes that I couldn’t correct.)
12. Then, take them back to the dashboard and click on view site at the top line of the page. They will see their site in the word press skin. Yuck.
13. Take them back to their dashboard. Have them go to “appearance” and select “themes” They will go to a page that has a connection to 15 pages of skins or themes for their blogs. They can push on preview to see what it will look like. Push on activate to select the one that they want. Tell them to find a skin with 2-3 columns so they can put lots of widgets. This will take a period.
14. Take them to the dashboard and have them go to posts and add new. Show them the title line. Type in #1 My First Blog. (I stopped here and had them write on paper a mini blog. I gave them these questions. 1. What did you do to make your blog? What do you like? What is easy about blogging? What is difficult about blogging? I proofed their writing and had them enter it as their first post. Remind and teach them how to publish with the buttons on the right of the screen.
15. Widgets are in appearance also, you can teach them about widgets now if you want. I had them all load “meta” as it gives them a way to go back and forth between their blog and the dashboard with one click. Also, you can have them load their friend’s blog addresses into blogroll widget if you like. I showed them how I have some of my favorite kid games on my blogroll under math or science depending on the subject and I did this easily in widgets.
16. Introduce and have a “netiquette” lesson from an activboard presentation so that students know about internet etiquette. Demonstrate for students how to go to each other’s blog’s by using http://mysbisd.com/computername/ Or using the blogroll widget if that is finished. Practice making, publishing, approving and responding to comments.