All about blogs.

First, some important rules about blogging.

1. Please, no last names, school names or addresses.

2. Do not link to your personal blog/journal from your school blog; you might reveal information on there that you don’t want to reveal on your school blog.

3. If you want to write your opinion on a topic, make sure you’re not going to be offensive to anyone as you write it.

4. Always make sure you check over your post for spelling errors, grammar errors, and your use of words.

5. Never disrespect someone else in your blog, whether it’s a person, an organization, or just a general idea. You don’t want someone making a stab at what you are passionate about; don’t do it to someone else.

6. Don’t write about other people without permission; if you can’t get their permission, use first names only. Never share someone elses last name.

7. Watch your language! We’re not at home, we are at school, this has to be at least remotely professional looking.

8. Make sure things you write about are factual. Don’t be posting about things that aren’t true.

9. Keep it education-oriented. That means that you probably shouldn’t discuss your plans for the weekend.

Here’s a great collection of people’s thoughts about what a blog is.

DayPop is the Google of blogs. It allows you to search millions of blogs for topics or subjects.

The best simple but thorough definition of blogs & blogging is at Wikipedia.

The components of a blog:

Post Date - date:time the post was published
Category - category the post is labeled with (can be one or more)
Title - main title of the post
Body - main content of the post
Trackback - links back from other sites
Comments - comments added by readers
Permalink - the URL of the full, individual article
Footer - usually at the bottom of the post, often showing post date/time, author, category, and stats such as number of comments or trackbacks.