Item 4: Blogging - More About Blogging and Tracking Your Progress

If you’ve made it this far, you already have 3 items or “things” completed of the 23 that are required to complete the program.

But how do you qualify? You'll need to register your blog and record your progress on each of the 23 things.

Where? How?

The Discover 2.0 Participation Log is on the FVRL intranet - you'll submit your information to the Discover 2.0 Team.

The first thing you will need to do is sign up on the Participation Log (this is a staff-only link). It's easy - just fill out your name, email address, and work location, then click the sign up! button:

Once you are signed up, the log is extremely easy to use - go the the main log page (this is a staff-only link also - it's also been added to the right as part of the Discover 2.0 Link Box) and click on your name (we're going on the honor system; please click only on your own name):
Then check off the 'things' that you've completed or add the URL for that item's blog posting (depending on the item), and click 'update my record.'

That's right - starting with the next item, you also need to include the URL for the permanent link to each of your blog posts. Your blog postings should capture your thoughts about what you're learning and responses to any specific questions we ask about the 'things' we'll be looking at.

Permanent link?

Each blog posting has a distinct URL that displays that posting alone (without the rest of your blog postings). Depending upon the Blogger template that you selected, the permanent link for each individual post can be found either through the post’s title or through a link in the post's footer area the contains the date.

For example: The image below shows where you would find the permanent link for this earlier Discover 2.0 blog post - click on the underlined time of posting (but in a real-life blog post, not in the image):

Once you have clicked on the link, the permanent link address will be in the address bar at the top of your browser. This is the link that you want to use when recording your progress in the Discover 2.0 Participation Log (you will copy and paste it into the log).

You can also, in most blog interfaces, click on the posting title for the permanent URL.

The Discover 2.0 Team will be reading your blog postings and, on occasion, giving you feedback via your blog entry's comments field.

Yes, comments. That's the beauty of blogging - your readers get to respond to what you've written. The Discover 2.0 Team will be commenting for sure, though you never know what your co-workers will have to say - everyone's blog will be posted to the Learning 2.0 FVRL Discover 2.0 Participants page (but don't worry - we'll be listing these by your anonymous blog name). And don't forget - you can respond to a comment with a comment of your own.

Comments are all about interacting and collaborating. Leave us a comment today or, better yet, start reading your co-worker's blogs and leave comments for them.

But first things first - here are the activities for this item.

Activities:

1. Head over to the Discover 2.0 Participation Log and sign up.
2. Record your first 4 completed things on the Participation Log.