OERu/Orientation blog

Required parameters

• microcourse: Name of micro-course, eg "Digital literacies for online learning" or transcluded title, eg.: {{:Introduction_to_project_management/Links/IPM101/Title}}
• code: In the form of a transcluded link for the course code, eg. {{:Learning in a digital age/Links/LiDA 101/Tag}}
• coursefeed: The wiki page for the course feed, eg.: Introduction to project management/IPM104/Feed
• courseurl: Use the transclusion link for the the homepage registration url of the published course site on Wordpress, eg.:{{:Introduction to project management/Links/IPM101/Register url}}

Syntax for transclusion
{{:OERu/Orientation_blog|microcourse=|code=|coursefeed=|courseurl=}}

At the OERu we encourage learners to set up a personal course blog to be used as a learning journal. Your learning journal blog is an e-portfolio documenting your learning journey.

Overview

A blog is a website which enables individuals, groups, or organisations to easily publish content online. Your learning journal blog is a website that you will control and retain access to the content you produce long after the course has finished. The OERu technology platform will also fetch links to your blog posts for inclusion in the [[{{{coursefeed}}}|course feed]] so you can connect with your learning peers.

There are a several activities in the {{{microcourse}}} micro-course which require you to make entries in your learning journal blog. There are three steps to setting up your learning journal blog:

1. Create your personal learning blog site (or use an existing blog)
2. Assign your learning blog url to the OERu courses you have registered for. (This is needed if you want your posts to appear in the [[{{{coursefeed}}}|course feed]].)
3. Add the course code ({{{code}}}) as a label or tag to individual blog posts. (This is needed if you want your posts to appear in the [[{{{coursefeed}}}|course feed]].)

Which blog software should I use?

You can use any blog which has the capabilities to tag or label posts and generate a blog feed. Most OERu learners use WordPress or Blogger. If you would like to use an existing blog you have, we will harvest posts which are tagged or labelled using the course tag ({{{code}}}). However, you may prefer to set up a new dedicated learning journal blog for your OERu studies.

A blog can be open (visible to the world which is recommended for OERu courses) or semi-private (shareable with designated people, for example your assessor). There may be times when you don't want your journal entry posts to be made public and in those cases we recommend that you set your blog entry to semi-private. Heres how you control the visibility in WordPress and Blogger (look halfway down the page.)

Steps to set up your learning journal blog

Actions	Additional resources
Create a blog account	Create account on Wordpress.com or Create account on Blogger.com
Configure your blog	Customise preferences (including settings for comments) and personalise the layout of your blog: Help resources for Blogger Help resources for Wordpress
Assign your blog url to your course account	If you would like us to fetch links to your blog posts for inclusion in the [[{{{coursefeed}}}|course feed]] you will need to assign the url of your blog feed to your course account. We have a handy blog feed finder service to help you with this task. Make sure you have registered an account on this course site: {{{courseurl}}}. Log in to the course site by clicking on the "Log in/Register" at the top of the page and check that your status is "Enrolled" after you have logged in on the course site. Open the blog feed finder site in a new tab: https://course.oeru.org/blog-feed-finder Enter the url of your blog in the text field area for "Find your blog's feed address". It will look something like: "https://blogname.blogspot.com" or "https://yourblogname.wordpress.com". Make sure there are no typos or missing characters in the feed url you enter. The service will identify valid feed urls based, for example, on "Atom" or "RSS". Select any of the valid feeds - it doesn't matter if you choose Atom or RSS. The service will then list all the OERu courses you are registered for, and any previous blog urls you assigned if applicable. Click on the "Assign" or "Replace" button to associate your blog feed url with the respective course(s).

Need help?

• OERu support site
• LiDA101 learning challenge to establish a personal learning environment (provides more detailed instructions).
• Search Youtube for "How to" videos for your particular blog software.