Task One: Setting up a blog
Using one of the free web logging (blog) services the student will set up a blog to be used before and during their trip. The students will keep a journal of their activities in preparing for their trip and will use the same blog to journal their actual trip.
Student Activities:
- Choose a free blogging site and set up a blog. Choose a blog template (look and feel) you like and get used to adding posts. Think about what makes a good post.
- Once you have become familiar with you blog and you have made a couple of posts thing about how you would like to categorize your posts. You may want to create two categories; one for preparation, another for the journey. Or you may want to create a category for each city you want to visit. Or maybe you want to create no categories. It’s up to you, give it some thought.
- You should figure out if the blog server you have chosen can host additional web pages or store files. One thing you will notice is that you may need places to store content (photos, sound files, graphics, etc…) If you blog site can host additional pages of files, create and upload a few and link them into your site.
Associated Links:
- free blogging service - (allows creation of web pages)
- free blogging service –
- a travel blogging service -
- an example of a travel blog -
Task Two: Setting up a podcasting site
Using one of the free podcasting sites set up a place to host and publish your sound files. Some of these sites provide tools to record your podcasts some others require you upload your files. The idea with the podcasts is for you to capture the sounds and music of your travels, some of these sound files will also be associated with pictures and entries in your blog.
Student Activities:
- Choose a free podcasting site and setup a podcasting point. Try out the services that are available and make a few of your own podcasts. Think about what makes a good sound file and podcast. What do people want to hear, try and be consistent through time.
- Be sure you can upload and download MP3 files to this site. Keep in mind this site will become your repository of MP3 files you create and gather on your travels.
- The ability to edit your audio will be very important. The ability to clean up the sound files before you publish them will make them easier for your friends and family to hear.
Associated Links:
- Free podcasting site -
- Free podcasting site -
- Free podcasting with photographs site -
- Free audio editing software - (a must have)
Task Three: Setting up a photo storage site
Using one of the free photo storage sites setup a place to store your photographs. The idea of this photo storage site is too have a place to put all your photos so family and friends can see them. You need to get used to your camera and how to edit then upload photos. Keep in mind different sites and software do things differently. So choose wisely. It is important to take good photos for they tell 1000 words. Take a variety of photos, include; people, places and things.
Student Activities:
- Choose a photo storage site, setup an account and upload some photos. Get used to the features of the photo storage site. Make sure you add captions to all your photos.
- Learn how to create sets or groupings for your photos and add photos to these different groups.
- Find different ways to link to the photos from your blog, or from other places. Learn how to provide a link to a set of photos so you can include this in an email.
- Download and get used to using photo editing software. Try to resize your photos and to change the rotation. Try to save your photos in different formats and see which are smaller. Some of the site set a limit on how many MB of photos you can publish every month, so it is good to learn how to make your photos smaller.
Associated Links:
- Free photo categorization, editing and captions -
- Free photo categorization, publishing and captions -
- photo editing -