Hi, Brad here. I built this thing. It’s a blog. You’ve no doubt heard of a blog before but do you know exactly what a blog is? Do you know how a blog is different from a regular website? Why have blogs become so popular? Well let me tell you…

First up, the term blog comes from the words ‘web’ and ‘log’. Kind of like a Logbook for your car. It’s something you update regularly. So, the basic difference between a blog and a regular a website is that a blog is designed to be regularly updated, and that’s what we’ll be doing.

Subscriptions

A powerful feature of the blogging platform is that you can subscribe. In other words, each time the blog is updated you’ll be notified. You can subscribe either by Email or RSS. (There may be a term here and there you may not understand, all the more reason to subscribe. Over time we’ll teach you what it’s all about).

We have only just released this blog. If you’re reading this it probably means we have used your email address to subscribe you. This is so we can keep you up to date with not only Beyond Chalk the program, but everything we learn and have already learned about Technology and Education. This blog has been built for you!

If you’d like to unsubscribe, simply enter your email address over there on the right, choose the ‘un-subscribe’ option, check your email, confirm, and you’re done. We’d hate to see you go!

So that’s email subscriptions, but wait, it gets better! Have you heard of RSS? It an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. It’s appears just like another Inbox in your Mail application. Each time a blog you have subscribed to using RSS has updated their content, it will appear in your Mail application in bold writing, just like the subject like of your email does.

So give it a try! You won’t break anything. If you see the RSS symbol (it looks like that one on the right, but that one’s just for show) just click on it and see what happens. We don’t have time to cover every step right now, there are a lot of variables such as your operating system, your mail program etc. Just give a go, it’s likely your computer will lead you through the steps.

Written by Brad Halcrow.
Brisbane Beyond Chalk Facilitator