Edublogs Tutorials

Just as a tip, it would appears that once you have added the embed code for this quiz, it is not possible to go back and edit - that’s my findings, anyway - so make sure you have it all done and correct before you add in the code and click publish

The site is mystudiyo and is free to use

Joe had a French quiz that looked pretty good and you are able to grab the code and add these to your own blogs, so you do not need to create them all from scratch - you can share

There’s also a facility to have a quiz where users can ad in their own questions - moderated, of course, so you can get your class to contribute as well as consume.

Once again, thanks to Joe Dale via Twitter for this tip

Mysudiyo.com is a great free site that really brings quizzes to Edublogs. You can add pictures, video and up to 4 answers for each question. The potential is great

I have made up a quick demo just to see how this works and embeds

Tis is a really interesting development in imaging technology. You can take a panoramic view and the software stitches your pictures together - nothing really new about that, but when you view, the panorama is shown like a Virtual tour. Now this normally costs money to produce, but here, it’s for free.

CleVR is a UK based company and I think they’re well worth a mention.

Uses:

• VR tour of the classroom, playground etc
• Field trips
• insides of buildings

do you have any great ideas?

Oh yes, and it can be embedded in a post, which is why I think it’s so cool - thanks to Joe Dale for that link

See how it’s done CleVR Stitcher tutorial screencast

If you would like to add a tag cloud to your site read on.

A tag cloud takes a look at the whole of your site and then prioritises the most used words  by size.  This is fully customisable to suit your design ideas but is a good way to show students what’s of top interest on your site at the moment

It’s all free and provided by ZoomClouds 

Just sign up and follow the very simple instructions.  My tag cloud is the default one so I didn’t need to change anything

authorSTREAM is a great tool for getting your powerpoint files into your blog post.

There’s an embed code which is simple to use

authorSTREAM lets you upload Powerpoints, rate them, email them, comment on them and embed the Flash player in blogs and websites.

SlideShare is similar, while Scribd supports the widest range of formats. ZohoShow is another, while the ThinkFree Office suite also offers embedding of documents.

It also seems to have a slightly bigger player. I also notice that my Slideshare instructions have reverted to the original as the new, quick method does not seem to work anymore - see the Powerpoint category for more information

Well done to the magnificent Vodpod team who have managed to persuade Firefox, a great free alternative to Windows Explorer, to add their wonderful tool as an add-on. This effectively integrates the Vodpod video collection tool right into your browser. Well done that team - I love Vodpod.

If you want to see more on video, click the ‘Video’ link in my categories on the right sidebar.

Firefox Add-ons

This is a fairly straightforward procedure

1. make sure you have a google account - free
2. go to google docs and start a new document - like Word
3. write your information for your post
4. save the file - not sure if you really have to do this, but it makes sense
5. click on the ’share’ button on the rhs menus
6. click ‘publish as web page’
7. click ‘change your blog site settings’
8. choose ‘my own server/custom’
9. API is moveable type API
10. URL - put in your address where is says ‘Your site/Path’
11. mine looks like this http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/TO/xmlrpc.php - ie set up for a Wordpress API
12. Under existing blog settings, put in your edublogs username and password
13. Add in your blog title
14. Tick ‘include document title
15. click OK
16. Now when you’ve finished your post, click ’share’ and then ‘publish as a web page’ then publish to blog
17. let me know what you think of this - applications please

I’m using this as a test to see if I can use Google docs to prepare a post and the using the ’share’ button, getting it published to my blog.

Why would this be useful - perhaps getting the students to post via Google docs could work.

This could be a great way to get your students to do a writeup for your class blog. Just have a class login for Google docs and have them all log in and create then save their posts in Google docs. Then, I think it would be advisable for you to publish them using the ’share’ menu, without lettinng the students in on this function. This way, you can do multiple and collaborative writeups - any other ideas out there?

Unable to get pictures in at the right size at the moment via Google docs, otherwise this seems to work well - I think this is a Safari-specific issue

Advantages

• easier to make multiple posts
• spellchecking built in
• can add in tables
• headers and footers
• strikeout, superscript and subscript
• collaborative aspect to posts
• ability to indent
• highlighting - this doesn’t seem to show up in Edublogs

cell1	cell2
cell3	cell4

• editing is much much quicker
• you can probably upload a .doc file to Google docs and then edit it quickly before posting

Disadvantage

• at the moment, no way to categorise or tag posts

If anyone would like an invite to help look into this and set up some instructions, please let me know

I’ve been having a little discussion with Leslie on my forum and it seems that using Blip.tv might be another good host for your videos.

I have uploaded one to test this out - Bip.tv automatically converts them all to flash and then they can be embedded using their player, straight into your post, just brilliant - with unlimited upload space. It just gets better and better

You can also add this to iTunes so folks can easily subscribe to your channel by clicking on the iTunes Dashboard Pane videos will need to be in the QuickTime format to work with iTunes, so the site says

So once again, a complete set of ticks in the box for Blip.tv

BTW, I have changed the player size to 450 x 355 and this seems to work great - do this by just editing the numbers after you have pasted in the code

Most of us will know that we can access the internet using our laptops via a ‘hot spot’ - Starbucks for example, offer this service free of charge. There are numbers of others that charge - hotels being one group.

There are new ‘dongles’ coming onto the market that offer 1gb of surfing for about £10 a month - this equates to only about 1 hour a day. This is hardly a great deal and is really only going to be used by those who MUST have access for business etc.

Well, hang on - I’ve been looking at a new mobile phone as mine is up for renewal. It’s a choice between the iPhone and what? O2 currently have the Nokia N95 8Gb phone - top of the range for around £35 a month on an 18 month contract - dig in more

This includes 600 minutes calls and 1000 texts AND you can take out a FREE, unlimited (fair use) data add-on.

This allows the N95 to be used as a mobile internet 3G adapter, giving you access to the internet wherever you go and take your laptop with you. It connects using bluetooth, so no cables needed. You can, of course, use the data add-on to access the internet on your phone too via 3G. It also has satnav built-in. If you’re in a wi-fi hot-spot, you can also use your phone wirelessly too.  So, if like me, you’ve not yet got to grips with mobile hand-held internet, here’s a possibility.

You can also download Skype mobile and call folks all over the world for free (Skype - to Skype) direct from your mobile - now that’s interesting

Stuff changes all the time, but I thought it was worth mentioning for those who are frustrated not having access everywhere - like me! It means I won’t have to spend an extra £10 - 15 a month or £1 a day charge to connect when I visit my parents and introduce my dad to the fun of making a VoiceThread story to go with some of his great photos

The transfer speed seems to be about 250 Kbps, so OK for most things

Note - please check all this information for yourself before trying this - however O2 offer 14 day trial if it doesn’t work out right for you

Thanks to Wes Fryer for this - Great student-created tutorial guide for Google tools published with Issuu (Maine students of Kern Kelly)

The list is compiled from the contributions of 155 learning professionals (from both education and workplace learning) who shared their Top 10o Tools for Learning both for their own personal learning/ productivity and for creating learning solutions for others

The great stuff goes all the way to 100, so don’t ignore the little ones like Toondoo

Flickr is again a free service. To embed a badge - horizontal, vertical or tiled

1. sign up for a Flickr account
2. upload some photos
3. go to the badge page - not sure where the link is at this moment
4. choose the badge shape
5. select the other options offered
6. copy the code in the box
7. open up an Edublogs post in edit mode
8. Write in any text you wish to have,
9. click on the code tab at the top
10. put the cursor where you want the badge to appear
11. paste in the code
12. Publish
13. enjoy

Note:  this was not as simple as it looks - I ended up with lots of unwanted code in the post and had to delete it manually - anyone any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

Also, I’m unable to find the link on the Flickr page which leads to me finding the embed code - dohh - I’m not feeling very bright with this embed stuff - I’m hoping Patricia is reading this and can give me the right way to do it - again!

Once again any help will be welcome

Scribd is a great free application that allows you to add a document directly into your post

It is straight forward to do

1. sign up for a free Scribd account
2. upload a document
3. find the ‘embed’ box
4. copy the code
5. open up a post in edit mode
6. add any text that you wish - descriptions etc
7. click the code tab at the top
8. place your cursor where you want your document to show up
9. click paste
10. click publish
11. enjoy
    

Many thanks to Patricia Donaghy - once again, she;s helped me t unravel the intricacies of embedding the Picasa web albums - you are a genius

1.  go to your online picasa web albums
2. check the  settings in Google
3. change this to English (US)
4. to embed your slideshow
5. click on embed slideshow
6. copy the code in the box
7.  open up your post in Edublogs in edit mode
8. add any text you would like to add- eg a description
9. click on the code tab at the top of the post
10. select where you would like the show to begin
11. paste in the code
12. change the height to 355 and the width to 450
13. click publish
14. enjoy

You can also embed a book list for your studentsYou might also want to look at Shelfari which is great for your sidebar as it’s a vertical presentation

Looking at the string of responses to the “How are you using your widgets now?”

I thought it might be fun to add a collaborative mindmap so I can update this post really easily.  I have invited Patricia to collaborate on this, so I see she’s already added some new bits

Following the recent change to Edublogs, see Widgets, javascript, iframes and objects (and all that jazz) I have a couple of recommendations to make to those of you wanting to podcast with ease

1      GCast

2     TalkShoe 

Both of these fulfil the criteria I set when starting my research into podcasting for educators

• allows uploading of MP3 files
• allows downloading of MP3 files
• has unlimited free hosting
• allows a streamed listening via widget player
• this player can be embedded in an Edublogs sidebar (both of mine are there - take a listen)
• on clicking the link within the player, a user can then subscribe to your podcast via iTunes
• this type of recording can be imported to InnerTOOB to produce annotated podcasts

TalkShoe also has the facility for live broadcast

I hope this helps some of you who have found getting started in Podcasting a bit of a trial

From the Edublogs blog - great update and no more fiddling to get widgets to work - hurrahh

After lengthy discussions and weighing up of the pros and cons we’ve decided to allow javascript, iframes and object code onto Edublogs.

This means that you can now just copy and paste pretty much most ‘embedding’ code you can pick up around the web directly into your Edublog.

For posts and pages just click on the ‘Code’ tab and paste the code in there. For sidebar widgets just create as many Text Boxes as you need (under Presentation > Widgets) and copy and paste the code into them.

For example, say you wanted to play a widget game on your blog… simply go there, click on ‘Get Widget’, copy the code and paste it in your ‘Code tab and you’ll get theembedded widget right there in your blog’s sidebar or post

You can also use iframes to embed things like Calendars, put CoComment and Ligit in your sidebar or add live chat and extra Twitter options.

eg Google calendar

Also the GCast player now also works - brilliant news for podcasters - see it in my sidebar

However - Side note: As a result the Widgetbox, Box.net and Video Widgets will be replaced by this approach - so please recreate any widgets you currently have in Text Box form before we remove these widgets (next week).

Gail Desler has recently produced a new and up-to-date guide in pdf format for those who want to print out a user guide

It’s detailed and has all that you will need to get up and running with Edublogging - thanks Gail

The index looks like this, so anything here you want to find out about - check it out

Getting Started ……………………………………………………………………3
Viewing Your Blog………………………………………………………………..5
Changing Your Password……………………………………………………..6
Changing Other Information in the Users Panel ………………….6
Creating a Post or Page ……………………………………………………….7
Editing a Post ………………………………………………………………………7
Creating Pages……………………………………………………………………..8
Adding Hyperlinks to a Post (or Page) …………………………………9
Adding Anchor Links……………………………………………………………9
Creating Categories………………………………………………………………10
Assigning Categories ……………………………………………………………10
Adding Tags to a Post …………………………………………………………..11
Adding Links to Your Blog Roll……………………………………………..12
Adding Your Blog Roll to the Sidebar…………………………………….12
Changing the Presentation (Theme)………………………………………12
Adding Images or Documents to Your Blog …………………………..14
Formatting Images ……………………………………………………………….15
Changing Your Blog’s Tagline ………………………………………………..15
Monitoring Your Blog …………………………………………………………….16
Moderating Comments…………………………………………………………..17
Approving Comments …………………………………………………………..17
Editing Comments………………………………………………………………….17
Adding Edublog Community Users ………………………………………..18
Limiting Comments to Edublog Community Members ………….19
Ready for Advanced Edublogs Tutorials? ……………………………..19