Adding slideshows

Animoto is a natty little tool which allows you to create your own slideshows to music for placement in a blog. You can also add text.

See: http://animoto.com

Templates

If you want to see some alternative blog templates, google 'blog templates free'. Some examples include:

http://btemplates.com/
http://www.bloggertemplatesfree.com/

Edublogs

Edublogs is a hub for educational blogs. Hosted by Wordpress, you can create your own blog for free within an existing educational community.

Blog (Weblog) - EDUCAUSE Learning Library Initiative

An extensive listing of resources and articles related to the use of weblogs in higher education
http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=645

Content Delivery in the Blogosphere

An article by Richard Ferdig and Kaye Trammell (2004) from the University of Florida about the use of weblogs in educational contexts.
http://www.thejournal.com/articles/16626_6

Educational Blogging

An EDUCAUSE article by Stephen Downes (2004) about the educational potential of weblogs:

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0450.pdf

What makes a weblog a weblog?

This is a view on what constitutes a blog which also provides a guide to blog-related terminology:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/whatmakesaweblogaweblog.html

A Training Video on how to use Blogger

http://trainingvideos.hscs.wmin.ac.uk/blogger/index.html

Blogs as a resource bank and training tool

Here is a sample EFL teacher's blog to demonstrate how blogs can be used for training and resource compilation. It explores the possibilities for YouTube and other video sharing sites in the classroom. Every week a new lesson plan is uploaded.


http://www.teflclips.com

Blogging articles/blogs

16 Must Read Articles for Bloggers and
15 Must Read Articles for Blog Writers
and
Rough Guide to Blogging

How to set up a Blogger blog

See link here http://academic.ursinus.edu/it/docs/blogger.pdf

Microblogging

See Wikipedia's definition of microblogging

See also: Microblogging with Plurk

Plurk is one microblogging site
Twitter is another

StatCounter

If you want to add a stat counter to your site to see how many people visit your blog and where they come from, you can get a free version from StatCounter.

It gives you clear instructions about how to add the code to a blogger.com blog amongst others.

Captioning Pictures

This is quite a fun tool. You can caption pictures, save them and then post to your blog.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/captioner.php

Adding Sound Files

Here's a link with some advice on how to add sound files (music) to your blog.

http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/2007/02/add-music-to-blogspot-blog.html