Updated Resources for Creating a Blog

The initial list of Resources for Creating a Blog was published during the first week of the course. I've added in several additional blog posts with tips and links to resources for creating your blog. This week the focus has been on adding gadgets (or widgets), setting blog permissions and controlling blog comments.

List of latest blog posts on Creating a Blog.

• Basic Blogger Gadgets 
• Adding Gadgets to Blogger
• Setting Blog Permissions - Selecting Readers
• Controlling Blog Comments

List of initial blog posts on Creating a Blog.

• Understanding Blogs
  
• How to Create a Blogger Blog
• More on Blogger Reading Lists
• How to Use Google FriendConnect and Blogger Reading List
  
• Getting Started with Google Reader
  
• Understanding RSS Feeds
• Keeping Your Blog More Private
  

With these different posts and the resources available to you under blogger help, with a bit of time, the process of creating a blog will be more fun and less confusing.

Ken Wilber's Four Quadrants

Defining Integral Model
JFK University who offer a Master's in Integral Theory offer this definition of the Integral Model:

The integral model is a unifying and comprehensive framework, bringing together many discrete disciplines – from psychology to politics, ecology to social sciences, business to spiritual studies – that can be used to develop comprehensive, effective, and integrally informed approaches to specific problems and their solutions.

Image of Integral Model

Additional Resource for Understanding Integral Model
One of your classmates found these additional resources that do an excellent job in explaining Wilber's Four Quadrants.

• An article What are the Four Quadrants from Holons News 
• An online presentation What are the four quadrants? from Integrallife.com

I highly recommend viewing these for those who are having difficulty understanding Wilber's Model.

Image Source: Integral Futures. Thinking Futures.

Controlling Blog Comments

You have several options for controlling the comments made to your blog.

Start by looking under the "Settings" tab for "Comments."

The first choice you have in controlling blog comments is to answer the question "Who Can Comment?" Your choices are 

• Anyone (This includes Anonymous Users)
• Users with Google Accounts
• Only members of the blog

If you want to restrict comments in your blog to classmates, you could set the blog permissions and limit readers to only other classmates. The next step would be to restrict comments on the blog to only members of the blog, or only people that you have allowed to read your blog.

Comment moderation
Another way to restrict comments is to have the Comment moderation option ticked as "Always." This ensures that you read any comment before it gets posted.

For more on Comment moderation, see the Blogger Help topic on "How do I moderate comments in my blog?"

Word Verification
A third way of restricting comments (and reducing spam) is to tick, "Yes" for "Show word verification for comments?"

Requiring people leaving comments to complete a word verification step will help reduce spam.

For more about Word Verification, see the Blogger Help topic on "What is the word verification option?"

Online Meditation Video - Zen Garden

Another online Meditation with music from Kokin Gumi and Zen Garden. This video clip also features Japanese Proverbs.

Relax and Enjoy

Setting Blog Permissions - Selecting Readers

Blogger allows you to choose who has access to your blog.

To choose who has access to your blog, go under the "Settings" Tab and select "Permissions."

Look for Blog Readers

Answer the question, "Who can view this blog?" Your choices are:

• Anybody
• Only people I choose
• Only blog authors.

By default your blog is open to all readers.

You can restrict your blog to only readers you choose. If you chose to restrict your blog, the readers will need to log into Blogger before being able to read your blog.

For more on restricting your blog, see the Blogger Help topic "How do I control who can view my blog?"

Meditation Music and Image Video - Zen Garden

Beautiful Buddhist Meditation with Zen Garden Music from Kokin Gumi.

A way to relax for a few minutes.

Adding Gadgets to Blogger

Gadgets are an easy way to customize the layout of your blog. Any of the Basic Blogger Gadgets, Featured Gadgets, Popular Gadgets and many others (More Gadgets) can be added to your blog.

How to Add a Gadget to Blogger

1. From the Page Elements sub-tab, click Edit to edit existing gadgets, or Add a Gadget to add new ones.
2. To add a new gadget after you've clicked Add a Gadget, simply click the plus sign next to your desired gadget. You can choose from gadgets by category, or search for a specific gadget in the top right of the pop-up window. 

For more on adding gadgets to blogger, see the Blogger Help topic on "Getting Started with Blogger" under Customize Your Layout.

Gadgets can be added in several places to your blog from the Layout Screen. Look for the areas that say "Add a Gadget." In the basic blog layout, you can add Gadgets to

• The top of the blog
• The bottom of the blog
• The top of the side bar
• The bottom of the side bar

If you adjust your blog layout template, just look for the areas that say "Add a Gadget" to see where you can add a gadget to the new layout.


See the blog post on "Basic Blogger Gadgets" for a list of some of the Gadgets you can add to your Blogger Blog. You can also look at the earlier post on "Fun Wellness Widgets."

Basic Blogger Gadgets

Blogger offers many different gadgets that can be added to your blog and customize your layout.

Defining Gadget and Widget

The terms gadgets and widgets may be used interchangeably. They are defined as "a device or control that is very useful for a particular job."

In the case of a blog, they are applications or tools that you can add to your blog to add different functions (e.g. RSS Feeds, Calendars or Search capabilities) and to customize the layout or display of a blog or webpage.

The basic blogger gadgets include:

• Pages - Displays a list of stand-alone pages on your blog.
• Followers - Displays a list of users who follow your blog
• Search Box - Search over your blog, your blogroll, and everything you've linked to.
• HTML/JavaScript - Add third-party functionality or other code to your blog.
• Text - Add some words to your blog - like a welcome message - with our rich text editor.
• AdSense - Earn revenue by displaying relevant ads on your blog.
• Picture - Add a picture from your computer or from somewhere else on the web.
• Slideshow - Add a slideshow of your photos to your blog.
• Video Bar - Display clips from YouTube and Google Video for your readers to watch without leaving the page.
• Poll - Survey your visitors by adding a poll to your blog.
• Blog List - Show off what you read with a blogroll of your favorite blogs.
• Link List - Add a collection of your favorite sites, blogs, or web pages.
• List - Add a list of your favorite books, movies, or anything you like.
• Feed - Add content from an RSS or Atom feed to your blog.
• Newsreel - Automatically add current headlines from Google News to your blog.
• Labels - Show all the labels of posts in your blog.
• Subscription Links - Let your readers easily subscribe to your blog with popular feed readers.
• Logo - Choose from a variety of Blogger logos to add to your page.
• Profile - Display information about yourself.
• Blog Archive - Display links to older posts.
• Page Header - Display your blog's title and description.

For this week I've added the "Search This Blog" function to the Creating Wellness Blog. You can look for older blogs posts by looking under the Blog Archive or by using the "Search This Blog" search by Google.

Featured Gadgets
Under Featured Gadgets you can add in gadgets to link you blog to other popular online resources link flickr, Twitter, TwitPics, Picasa, YouTube and Amazon.

Be aware that these gadgets have been developed by third parties, which may bring in their advertising to your blog.

For how to install a Blogger Gadget, see the post on "Adding Gadgets to Blogger."

Quote for the Week - Crocus in the Spring

As we have begun to emerge from the very stormy winter this year, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes on persevering during challenging times.

Like a crocus
in the snow,
I stand
knee-deep in Winter
Holding
Springtime
in my heart.

Joan Walsh Anglund

This quote is a reminder that "happy spring days filled with joy will once again emerge out of the gloom of winter."

Dyer KA. 2002. Nature Awareness as a Therapeutic Modality: Part 1: The Healing Qualities of Nature. Journey of Hearts.

Image: Betty George. Spring Delight. Royalty Free Use.

Resources for Starting a Blog

I've pulled together several resources in different posts to help get you started in creating a blog for this course.

• Understanding Blogs
  
• How to Create a Blogger Blog
• More on Blogger Reading Lists
• How to Use Google FriendConnect and Blogger Reading List
  
• Getting Started with Google Reader
  
• Understanding RSS Feeds
• Keeping Your Blog More Private
  

Hopefully this will make the process of creating a blog more fun and less confusing.

Keeping Your Blog More Private

Since this blog is being created in Blogger (a public free service), it could be viewed by everyone who has access to the Internet. If a blog is made available to search engines, it is more likely that people outside of the class might access it.

If you want to make you blog more private and more likely to only be viewed by other members of the class, you can change the settings on your blog.

To make the blog more private, select "Settings" from the tabs under your main menu.

Once you are in the settings mode, you can edit the Title, Description. The next two questions are the ones you want to change if you want your blog more private.

• Add your blog to our listings?
• Let search engines find your blog?

Add your blog to our listings?
If you select "No" your blog will not appear in these places, but it will still be available on the Internet. This blog will still be displayed on your profile unless you hide it. To hide it from your profile you need to edit your displayed blogs. Follow the link to edit your displayed blogs on your dashboard, Settings page.

Let search engines find your blog?
If you select "Yes" we will include your blog in Google Blog Search and ping Weblogs.com.

If you select "No", everyone can still view your blog but search engines will be instructed not to crawl it.


While ticking the boxes helps to keep your blog out of the search engines, it is still potentially viewable by others who have access to your blog URL outside of the class.

If privacy is a big concern for you, think twice about what you are posting on your blog, since it is going out the Internet.


Blogger Privacy
You can read more about Blogger Privacy and Content Policy by following their links.

Fun Wellness Widgets

A widget is loosely defined as "a device or control that is very useful for a particular job." According to wikipedia, a web widget is "a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation."

In searching for Wellness widgets to add to the Creating Wellness Blog, I found several from the Wellsphere website. Their mission is "to help millions of people live healthier, happier lives by connecting them with the knowledge, people and tools they need to manage and improve their health."

Wellsphere Widgets

You can add fun and free Wellness Widgets or WellWidgets to your blog from Wellsphere.

I've added two of the widgets available, the WellTip of the Day and the Wellevation Widget to the sidebar on this Creating Wellness Blog. Every time you refresh your browser, you get a new tip.

They also have a Wellternatives that gives you healthy meal alternatives at your local restaurant. You can customize what you want to display in each of the widgets.

Understanding RSS Feeds

A basic, short explanation of RSS from Common Craft, where they explain how RSS (Really Simple Syndication) helps save time when reading the web.

More on Blogger Reading Lists

You can follow your classmates' blogs using Blogger Reading List.

Visit their blog and sign up using Google FriendConnect (How to Use Google FriendConnect and Blogger Reading List) or go to your Blogger Dashboard and add the URL from their blogs by clicking on the "Add" button.

By selecting from "All blog updates" or a specific blog, you can read what has been recently posted in that blog.

Find out more about "What is Following?" by reading the answer on Blogger Help.

Getting Started with Google Reader

A video tutorial on how to sign up for Google Reader. The video also provides information on how to add your first subscription.

How to Use Google FriendConnect and Blogger Reading List

You can sign up to follow your classmate's blogs with Google FriendConnect.

Once signed in, the Blogger Reading List (available on your Blogger Dashboard) allows you to connect with any of the sites you have joined using Google FriendConnect.

Blogger Reading List allows you to read the latest posts from the blogs you are following on your Blogger Dashboard.

The list will update whenever a new post is published on any blog in your Reading List.

You can also subscribe to any blog with a RSS feed.

For more information on using the Blogger Reading List, see their help page.

Wellness - the Word

An interesting article, "On Language - Wellness" from Ben Zimmer at the New York Times looking at how Wellness, the word was introduced into our language.

The term was in part inspired by the WHO's definition of health from 1948:

"Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

Overtime the term "Wellness" has become part of our language.

How to Create a Blogger Blog

Here is a helpful video blog from Blogger on how to create a Blogger Blog.

For more information on creating a Blog in Blogger visit: http://help.blogger.com/

Happy blogging.

Lotus Credits

The beautiful pink lotus used to create the header for the Creating Wellness Blog is from Jin Neoh of Malaysia.

You can see more of his amazing photography at stock.xchng.

Image: Jon Neoh. Pink Lotus. Royalty Free Use.

Understanding Blogs

An 2007 YouTube video from Commoncraft, that helps people understand why blogs are such a big deal.

Quote for the Week - Total Wellness

An interesting quote on total wellness from Greg Anderson, founder of the American Wellness Project.

The concept of total wellness recognizes that our every thought, word, and behavior affects our greater health and well-being. And we, in turn, are affected not only emotionally but also physically and spiritually.

Greg Anderson