As part of most of my classes students are required to set up their own personal blog as a writing medium and an RSS (really simple syndication) reader to keep up with blog postings from the course website and fellow students.  This serves a dual purpose:  1) Blogs and RSS are must-know technology tools and 2) both allow for simple, online interaction.

Follow the directions below to create your own blog. Watch the CommonCraft videos for a great overview of both pieces of technology.  After that, watch the video tutorials by Kyle Jones to get to know WordPress and a popular RSS reader, Google Reader.

Blogs

CommonCraft: “Blogs in Plain English”

Kyle Jones (graduate assistant): “Intro to WordPress”

Download here (it’s a large file; 15 minutes long): http://www.screencasts.thecorkboard.org/wordpress.mp4