Help & Definitions

The LEE Community is your network and blog. This document will tell you how you can blog here and participate in the conversation. Content includes:

• I. Getting Started
• II. Blogging On This Site
• III. Glossary
• IV. FAQ

I. Getting Started

Here are some of the steps you can take to get started today:

Sign up for an account (you must complete this step in order to participate on the blog) http://blog.educationalequity.org/blog/newuser/

Create your own diary http://blog.educationalequity.org/blog/submit/Diary

See a list of all diaries http://blog.educationalequity.org/blog/section/Diary

Search for all the posts that have been tagged with a particular tag http://blog.educationalequity.org/blog/tag

II. Blogging On This Site

We have two types of blog posts on this site: home page posts and diary posts.

Home page posts are featured on the LEE Community home page. LEE staff will be posting content to this homepage, which you may comment on. If you would like to propose an entry or topic for discussion, please email us at contactus@educationalequity.org

Diary posts are exactly the same as blog posts except they are published without an approval. Your diary is your personal journal on the site. Anyone can read them or comment on them, and they're automatically added to the Diary Posts list.

To create a new diary, click the “Post a Diary Entry” option on the side navigation bar from the blog homepage.

Comments: Every post on this site, whether a home page post or a diary post, is open for comment. We love comments! It's how we all get to know one another, and it's how we improve one another's ideas. To comment on an entry, click “Post a Comment.” To comment on another comment, click the “Reply to This.”

III. Glossary

Blog: A weblog, or "blog," is a website where people communicate through text, photos, video, and other forms of media. The LEE Community is multi-directional; it's a conversation between the LEE members (you), staff, and featured guests.

Tags: Tags are keywords that appear under the title of a blog entry or a diary entry. The entry’s author creates an entry’s tags. Tags serve two major purposes: (1) by reading a entry's tags, a reader gets a sense of what the entry is about, and (2) by clicking on tags, a reader can read other entries that feature the same tag. Say you are reading an entry that has these tags: "education" and "early development." If you click on the "education" tag, you will be taken to a page that shows all other entries that feature the "education" tag. Likewise, if you click on the "early development" tag, you'll be taken to all other entries that have those tags. As such, tags allow you to view all entries that pertain to a given topic or issue.

RSS Feeds: A feed is a stream of the latest content in that section. To use a feed you need a feed reader or aggregator that keeps up-to-date with the feeds you tell it to. Many people find checking their aggregator to see the latest from all their feeds is easier than going to each site individually. To find and download aggregators, type “search aggregator” into a web search engine.

Blogroll: A blogroll is a list of blogs a site reads and recommends. Of course, since these are blogs written by independent bloggers, we can't guarantee LEE agrees with or even likes any particular post you may find there.

IV. FAQ

1. I want to participate, but I'm confused as to how I do that. Help?! The simplest way to participate is to comment on other peoples' entries. To do this, simply click on the "Discuss" link at the end of an entry. You'll then be able to comment on the entry, and you'll also be able to comment on other peoples' comments.
2. I'm ready to create my own entries. How do I create an account? In the upper right-hand corner of the blog's web page, you'll see a box entitled "Sign Up." You'll be asked to enter a user name, your email address (which will never be made public), a password, a security code, and zip code. Once you've entered that information, click on the "Sign Up" button. If you have entered the security code correctly, you will immediately be logged in. If the security code was entered incorrectly, you will be prompted to try another. Additionally, an email will be sent to the email address you indicated in step 2. In that email you'll find a link that allows you to activate your account. Click on it. If you look in the upper right-hand corner, you'll see your user name, along with a series of options. You're in! You do NOT need to complete this step if you were successfully logged in via the signup process.
3. What's the difference between a blog entry and a diary entry? There are two key differences between diary entries and blog entries: (1) blog (news) entries are created by LEE Staff; diary entries are not, and (2) blog entries appear on the home page; diary entries do not.
4. If you want to create a “diary entry”: Click on your user options, along the right side, and click "Post Diary." You'll be taken to an entry creation page, which is identical to that of the "Submit Blog Entry" page except that in this case you do not indicate the section to which the entry should be submitted (because diary entries don't appear in any sections other than your personal diary and the general "Diaries" section). Once you preview and submit the entry, it is automatically uploaded to your diary, where others can view it by clicking on your user name or looking in the "Diaries" section. You can post text, pictures, and other media files.