I Tweeted about this yesterday and someone replied looking for directions on how to download the contents of  a blog. Below I’ve included directions for downloading the contents of Blogger blogs and WordPress blogs.  It’s a good idea to download the content of your blog from time to time. That way if something bad happens to your blog, you will have the majority of your content saved in a format that you can access.

(Click on the images below to see them full size and read the details contained within them).

Backing-up Blogger blogs.
Step 1: Sign into your Blogger dashboard and select the “settings” tab.

Step 2: Select “export blog.”

Step 3: Select “download blog.” Save the file to your desktop or other location on your computer.

In the new Blogger interface the process is the same, but the “export” link is harder to find.

Backing-up Edublogs blogs.
Step 1: Sign into your dashboard and select “tools” menu.

Step 2: Open tools menu and choose export.

Step 3: Download export file. Save file to your local drive.

Backing-up WordPress.com blogs.
The process for backing-up a WordPress.com blog is the same as it is for backing-up an Edublogs blog. The only difference will appear in the third step where you’ll be presented with more options for filtering the types of content you want to export.

What to do with blog back-up files.
If you ever decide to change blog platforms you should be able to import the xml files created by Blogger, Edublogs, and WordPress.com into a new blog. You can also use the xml files to create a PDF of your blog using Blog Booker. Turning your students’ blog(s) into a PDF book at the end of a semester or year could be good way for them and or their parents to see how much they’ve written in your class.

While you’re backing-up your blog’s content, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make sure you have back-up copies of some of your other important files. If you have things saved in Google Docs, select “download” from the “file” menu when you have a file open. If you’re interested in creating back-up copies of files that you only have offline, try using Drop Box or Sugar Sync to save copies online. You can read about Drop Box here and Sugar Sync here.