Let's blog. Word.

If you're reading this post, odds are pretty good that you're about to be, or already are, a blogger. This morning, at the first meeting of our Advanced Institute, it's my job to introduce you to the tools that you'll be using as you get going with blogging. You should be thinking about two tools in particular today -- your blog and your aggregator.
The blog is where you'll do your writing, thinking, reflecting, and sharing. The aggregator is where you're going to build a network of writers to help you do the writing, thinking, etc. above. For our purposes, we'll be using Blogger to, um, well - blog. We'll be using a web-based aggregator, called Bloglines, to do the collecting and reading.
Below you'll find some instructions that I've used with some of you to create blogs previously. Don't worry if you've tried to blog and it didn't work out. Today, we start fresh, unless you have a blog that you'd like to continue using from the past.
Here's a link to those instructions. Ignore the time suggestions -- but follow the steps, if you need to. Create a Google Account and then get going on a blog. Once you've written a short first post -- perhaps you want to write about the writing you did this morning, or why you're participating in this institute -- then post the URL of your blog into the comments for this post.
Then go ahead and set up a Bloglines account. You'll want to come back here and get everyone's blog URL to stick into your aggregator. Eventually, all the blogs will end-up in the sidebar of this blog, too, in case you lose track of somebody.
Questions? Cindy, Jason, or I will be around to answer them.