building a better BLOG

WE'RE BUILDING BETTER BLOGS

We are a community of bloggers committed to working together to improve the quality of our blogs and the blogging experience.

Membership is open and we invite you to join. We'll be discussing blogging best practices and providing weekly challenges to help us continue to grow as bloggers.

Our members have a range of experiences and we particularly welcome those who are new to blogging or thinking about starting a blog.

We live by the mottoes, "There are no dumb questions" and "We can all learn from each other."

GETTING STARTED

If you're new to Ning, BBB community member Sue Waters has created an intro page that will answer some questions.

To learn more about getting started with the Building a Better Blog community, check out this post.

To learn about the Weekly Challenge, go here.

THE WEEKLY CHALLENGE

The Weekly Challenge is taking a holiday and will return in 2008.
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Leave Michele a message if you're interested in leading a challenge. Remember--anyone can do it. Honestly, it doesn't take a lot of skill, it won't hurt and you might even have fun!
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If you'd like to learn more about the Weekly Challenge, check out this post.

Members

ana pires
Doone Online

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Videos

Typepad Tutorial Added by Michele Martin
Blogs in Plain English Added by Gladys Baya

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Groups

music talk (2 members)
Building a Better Blog, Blog (7 members)

Wordpress Users (15 members)
Blogging Newbies (16 members)

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NEW AT BUILDING A BETTER BLOG

WHERE ARE YOU AT IN YOUR BLOG'S DEVELOPMENT?
Skelliewag had an interesting article on the different strategies to take in building your blog depending on whether you're at the Chrysalis (less than 500 readers) or the Butterfly stage. I started up a forum to get your thoughts on where you're at and what you think of her ideas.

BLOG REVIEWS?
A couple of BBB members are looking for people to review their blogs and provide them with feedback. Christine Martell has been kind enough to do some screencasts for people, but I know that everyone would like more advice/feedback if you can stop by and take a look. Also, to make it easier for people who want reviews to connect with those who are willing to do blog audits, I've set up a forum specifically for that purpose. Hopefully that will help us make more "love connections."
**Chris Jones
**Andy Roberts
**Michelle Hudiburg

ANYONE UP FOR A POSTING CHALLENGE?
I'm planning for another blogging challenge--this time I'm structuring research on a project that's based on using different blog posting formats. I'd love to have people join me. You can learn more in the forum, where you can also let me know if you want to participate.

HELP FOR THE 31 DAY CHALLENGE BLOGGERS
The BBB Bloggers who are currently participating in the 31 Day Challenge have set up a forum to discuss questions, problems and challenges to the process. Feel free to stop by and share your wisdom and/or related angst.

Latest Activity

Talia Carbis replied to the discussion eLearning 1 hour ago

Suzanne replied to the discussion eLearning 1 day ago

Jo Rhys-Jones joined building a better BLOG. Leave a Comment for Jo Rhys-Jones. May 8

Claudia joined the group Wordpress Users May 7

Jane Lowe joined building a better BLOG. Leave a Comment for Jane Lowe. Apr 28

Avi Kaplan joined building a better BLOG. Leave a Comment for Avi Kaplan. Apr 25

Carlos Leyva left a comment for Nadiva Olivier Apr 23

Nadiva Olivier replied to the discussion Badges... Apr 22

Forum

eLearning
5 Replies

I would love to get in touch with more people who use eLearning. I've just started a new blog as well: http://teachingtalia.com, I would love people's feedback!! Continue

Started by Talia Carbis. Last reply by Talia Carbis 1 hour ago.

Badges...
3 Replies

You know how there are those badges that show you who's been looking at your site recently from BBB or Blog Catalogue or where ever you get your badge from??? Was wanting a BBB one, but not sure i... Continue

Tagged: badge, help

Started by Talia Carbis. Last reply by Nadiva Olivier Apr 22.

Get a Poem a Day

http://witsblog.org/2008/03/31/get-your-poem-a-day National Poetry Month (April!) with a poem by a bonafide kid each day. This free service is provided by Writers in the Schools. Continue

Started by Robin Mar 31

The Blog Review Connection
53 Replies

I know that a lot of members of the community would love to get feedback on their blogs. I also know that a lot of people here would be willing to give that feedback. I'm setting up this forum to h... Continue

Started by Michele Martin. Last reply by Christine Martell Mar 10.

New Blog, Looking for opinions and contributors
4 Replies

Hello fellow building better bloggers! i've recently launched a new blog, called Blog, the magazine and I just wanted to see what everyone's opinion on it is. It's a bit different to other blogs b... Continue

Started by Simon Thomas. Last reply by Simon Thomas Mar 9.

Blog Posts

Getting Started on Better Blogging

I started the On Living By Learning blog in June, 2007. Over the past nine months, I've made major strides in improving the blog based on advice from the blogging community. Recently, I've been working with the HEWG (Homeschool Educators Writing Group) to take on weekly tasks aimed at creating better blogs. Week 1 - Write a mission statement and list short-term & long-term goals. Week 2 - Enable reader subscriptions. Week 3 - Create an enticing A… Continue

Posted by LivingByLearning on March 8th, 2008 at 2:25pm — No Comments (Add)

Launching a new blog!

A few hours ago I launched a new blog. It's called Blog, the magazine and is all about blogging. I've gone down a slightly different path this time, as it doesn't take the form of a traditional blog. Instead, it has issues, with each issues containing a number of posts. Just like a real magazine. I've written the theme from scratch (with help from Blueprint CSS) so that it behaves like a magazine. For example, there's a headline story that appears in… Continue

Posted by Simon Thomas on March 1st, 2008 at 9:58pm — No Comments (Add)

Under permanent reconstruction

I've worked with blogs since 2001. Some of these were discontinued, for example used for one occasion, such as a course or part of a project, a few of these I have still kept and updated recently. I'm in learning mode and would like to take advantage of this opportunity to explore how others consider blog building, so that I can help others around me do something in the blogosphere, too. Since I joined Ning some weeks ago, I found out that for each Ning group that I join, there would be one more… Continue

Posted by Sus Nyrop on February 13th, 2008 at 10:55am — No Comments (Add)

Days 15 16 and 17

Looking around the ning group here, the discussions for the actual 31daychallenge itself seem to have dropped off the front page completely so I'm trying out a blog post within the group. I've just updated the better blogging wiki with a suggestion for days 15-17 It seems best to me to… Continue

Posted by Andy Roberts on February 12th, 2008 at 3:53am — 3 Comments (Add)

Problems with the sidebar at my Edublogs

I've been playing around with the options for my Sidebar at my Edublog. Now, if I go to
http://gladysbaya.edublogs.org using Mozilla Firefox, it looks the way I expect it. But using IE the Sidebar is
displayed at the very bottom of the page?!? And why is that Sidebar not displayed when I go to the blog posts???

Thanks in advance!

Gladys
http://www.pageflakes… Continue

Posted by Gladys Baya on January 27th, 2008 at 9:08am — 2 Comments (Add)

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About building a better BLOG

Michele Martin created this social network on Ning.

Create your own social network!

The Original 31 Day Challenge Members

The Building a Better Blog site started after a group of bloggers worked together to go through Darren Rowse's 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project. They were:

Brent MacKinnon

miniLegends Class (group of 9-year olds from Australia is joining in the blogging fun!)
Nancy Riffer

Paul Webster