Creating your own blog

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Now that you know the basics of blogs, it's time to create your own!
Blogger is amongst the most popular blogging sites on the internet, and for this activity it is the blogging platform that we will be using. Watch the tutorial to the left, and then follow the link below to start creating your own blog.
  • Click Here to begin creating your own blog
  • Once you have created your blog, send an email to your instructor that contains the URL of your blog.

Learning from other political blogs

To the right is a collection of links to some of the most popular political blogs on the net.
Explore at least three of these blogs, and then create a blog post in your own blog that address these questions:
  1. Compare and contrast the sites that you explored. Pay close attention to things like how they look, how they are organized, what type of political news do they tend to place their focus on? How are they similar and how are they different from each other?
  2. What did you enjoy about the blogs you explored? What did you not like?
  3. Political blogs tend to be much more opinionated than traditional news because they are usually written by one person or a small group of people. How does this make blogs a great news tool? What do you think the dangers could be of relying on this type news source?

You're ready!

Lets recap what we've learned so far:
  • You've learned about the basics of blogging and how blogging is different from traditional news sources.
  • You've explored some of the most popular political blogs, thinking about what you liked and disliked about them.
  • You've made your very first blog post, familiarizing yourself with the blogger website and the tools available to you.
With all this experience you are now ready to become a political blogger! In your next activity you will be doing research on a member of congress and writing an opinionated article about them.
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