Edublogs Tutorials

If you would like to make your Edublogs site more static than posting regularly, you might want to change the way people view it.

1. go to options
   
2. select the reading tab
3. and alongside Front page
4. select static page
5. then choose which page you would like people to see first from the drop down menu
6. then add your content

for an example of this, take a look at Free AEN resources where the opening page is not the home page – and it is a very long page

There are posts on this site, but you do not need to add content in a chronological format if you don’t wish to

You may have noticed that you have a link to Wikispaces and have wondered what it’s all about.

Well I came across some videos that may unlock some of the secrets for you

They are actually produced for PB Wiki but the core of the information is the same

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Many thanks to Michigan State University for these video tutorials – they are great and mean I don’t have to do them – you can always find them in the page tabs at the top of this post under Edublogs V-Tutorials

Video 1: Creating an blog account

Video 2: Looking at the dashboard

Video 3: How to write a post and a page

Video 4: How to moderate comments

Video 5: Changing the theme

Alice Mercer has started a great blog on how to start up with Edublogs

Do take a look as she has explained things very simply and you might want to use this site to get additional information on moving ahead

I would highly recommend taking a look

If you want to start Customising your side bar I thought I would add some pictures to show you the details.

• you will need to go to the presentation section and select sidebar widgets.

• I am using Seashore which has sidebars on the left and right.
• I prefer this because it allows me to share out the menus evenly so people don’t have to scroll down too far.
• You are able to then undertaken some customisation

• Just drag a Text box to the sidebar, click on the 3 lines on the rhs then add the code you have
• You should see both the left and right toolbars along with the available widgets (at the bottom). You simply drag these from the bottom box into which ever sidebar you wish to use and in whatever order you choose
• If you run out of boxes, you can add more text widgets which accept the HTML code that lots of third-party widgets will give you e.g. bobble share, slide share, clustrwebs etc
• The default setting for this is 1 and as you can see I am now up to five additional widgets

Have fun playing with these, because you can add lots of functionality like the voice mails, for example

Alice Mercer adds “More themes with highly customizable sidebars are: Almost Spring, Deep Blue, Regulus, Round Flow.”

If you want to get involved with voice communication, here are some tips for adding this functionality to your blog. As you can see, these are now available in my right hand side bar.

To find how to out this functionality, take a look at Customising your side bar

and remember that you can add as many of these as you wish by increasing the number of text box widgets you require. When you start, this number will be set to 1 and you can increase it as you wish. To make these additional text boxes, you will find the drop-down just underneath the widgets part.

Adding a Skype availability button to your blog or website

Springdoo – talking e mails, no keyboard or typing skills needed, podcast

Send me an Odeo – add a voice message button to your blog or website

Have fun with the shout box, Odeo voicemail or have a go at Springdoo they are all great fun.

Many thanks to Carlos Raul Lopez Reatiga who independently sent me an Odeo message – see his message in the Shoutbox

Alice Mercer says

“Here is how I added the ShoutBox to my sidebar.

1. First, you need a WordPress theme that lets you add a text box.
2. You and I both use Andreas09, Freshy would work too.
3. Set up an account on shoutmix.com.
4. You can have it filter for obscenities.
5. You will be walked through the set up, and sizing of the ShoutBox.
6. I did mine at 160 x 400.
7. It will generate some code
8. Paste the code into your text box on edublogs,
9. and add a title in the title line at the top.
10. *Add it to your sidebar column, save, and voila!

*note – you will need to have managed to use the sidebar widget tools first – check out

Customising your side bar

Adding ClustrMap to your blog – visitor log

If you have already used your Text 1 box to add Clustrmaps, for example, there is an option to have more than one text box – just click on the arrow and make the number more than 1

Alica also add the following for those of you who want to to use a shoutbox on your class blog

1. “Make sure you give students clear guidelines about what they are to put in the shout box.
2. I use a metaphor to something we do in class meetings which is to start those meetings with compliments.
3. The same rules apply to the Compliment Box.
4. They have to use school English (I had to remove some “this is to my homies” posts recently because of that).
5. It has to say specifically what you are complimenting them for, and you can’t compliment them for looks, or clothing.

Now, there is no way with the ShoutBox to keep out strangers. I haven’t gotten strangers posting there because I don’t list my blog. I haven’t gotten to the point of “sharing” the blog with the entire Internet. I also monitor the blog daily or more often, and I can pull any compliments that appear there. This may not be enough “security” for others out there in their class blogs

Brilliant tips – thanks Alice

Having failed to get divShare working with mp3s – like a number of others, I have disabled this plugin and reverted to the original file uploader.

So this is a trial to see if this works properly and embeds a player into the post

podcast-demo.mp3

Yes, there it is, so you podcasters need to make sure divShare is not being used, or you won’t be able to have a player

Following the post on Adding ClustrMap to your blog – visitor log

I did say I would advise you on how to customise your sidebars. Well, here it is

1. Bring up the ‘dashboard’ (all those Edublogs menu items), and at the top go through the following sequence:
2. click on the following sequence of menus and tabs:
3. Manage…
4. Presentation…
5. Sidebar widgets…
6. having done that, you should be able to see two boxes with “default sidebar” written inside them
7. and underneath those, box that says “available widgets”
8. you can now customise your side bars by simply dragging the boxes into the left or the right-hand side and re-order them to suit your style
9. you will now see your categories, archives, comments etc and anything or you wish in whatever order you want

NB – please be aware that in using this custom tool, all the existing sidebar tools will disappear – you will have to add them in manually before you leave this section.

Ensure the ‘meta’ bit is in there as this is your ’site administration’ button

This is a test as a response to Alice Mercer’s comment on having an mp3 player in the post

The method is fairly simple, but doesn’t work – so my recommendation is to disable the divShare plugin if you want to do lots of podcasting

 Update: Alice says she has a workaround for this – so will post asap 

1. know the location of your mp3 file
2. go to divShare under you post when editing
3. click on browse
4. find the mp3 file
5. upload
6. you then have 2 option
7. to put in a link
8. to upload as an mp3 player
9. however in brackets it says ” turn off visual rich editor”
10. Be sure to turn off rich-text editing (or WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get).
11. Then, all is revealed
12. UnCheck under DASHBOARD | USERS | PROFILE at bottom of page is “Personal Options
13. afterwards go back and tick the “Use the visual rich editor” when writing your posts

I did all this but got no player

cerebraloddjobs has also had some problems
I know some people have had great luck with mp3 files. Maybe they can add a topic to the forum under “share your stuff” that explains what works and what doesn’t and what’s still frustrating. – anyone out there got the workaround for this?

Many thanks to Graham Warren for this tutorial – here’s his slideshow

hazard symbols slide show
This will allow you to look at a powerpoint file without having to download it – it will play right here in your post – it is a bit fiddly but I think worth the effort

1. register for Slideshare
2. click on upload – this will allow you to upload your presentation
3. click on your slideshow
4. on the right hand side it has 3 boxes with code (html) in them
5. copy the code from “embed in your blog”,
6. Start a new post
7. Add the text you want on the page
8. Go to the code tab
9. Choose where the slideshow will go by clicking the cursor
10. Paste in the code

| View | Upload your own

I came across this user guide in pdf format and thought that some of you would prefer to have all the information in one place.

I have recently found another version that has a simpler getting started section 

I also found an Edublogs manual that looks great

It’s a fairly straightforward set of instructions, but I am one of those who is very poor with user manuals – if you like them , then this could be for you

Adding a counter is a bit fiddly, but will allow you to get some statistics of your visitors. You can also check the number of pages viewed, the time spent and where they visited you from (was it a google search?)

1. Go to Sitemeter and register for a free counter
2. you’ll need a screen name to add to your login
3. they will send you an email to confirm all the details, but it is sometimes useful to keep a copy
4. follow the instructions – these are from the site
5. Login to your account on edublogs
6. make sure you are in the edit bit
   
7. Select “My Dashboard“.
8. Select “Blogroll”.
9. Select “Add Link”.
10. Copy this text to the clipboard. – this is an example, you will have your own
    
11. http://s26sitemeter.com/meter.asp?site=s26hamster
12. (you can use the keys – Select the text and press the CTRL key and the letter C at the same time.)
13. Paste it into the Address field for the link.
    (Click in the field and then press the CTRL key and the letter V at the same time.)
14. Enter “Site Meter” for the Name.
15. Copy this text - this is an example, you will have your own
16. http://s26sitemeter.com/meter.asp?site=s26hamster(Select the text and press the CTRL key and the letter C at the same time.)
17. Paste it into the Image Address field for the link. It is located in the “Advanced” section.
18. (Click in the field and then press the CTRL key and the letter V at the same time.)
19. Select a Category for the link from your list -
    
20. if you want this to be at the top of your blogroll make a category starting with A
21. eg A site counter or A visitor log - or you meter will end up in the middle – see mine
    
22. Select the “Add Link” button.
23. Select “View Site”.
24. Site Meter should be visible on your blog’s pages within a few minutes. If it didn’t show up, make sure the category you selected has the “Show Images” option checked.

Edublogs as another interesting function: pages

Pages are like posts except they live outside of the normal blog chronology and can be hierarchical. In simple terms this means you can organise them anyway you wish and you’re not bound by the normal rule of last post first seen which is how blogs organise posts

You can use pages to organize and manage any amount of content.

This allows you have additional pages, similar to website where you can add content as you wish.

To set up a new page,

1. go to the editing area
2. click on manage
3. then on the tab that says pages
4. and when in the page management area,
5. click on create new page
6. give it a name — this can be changed later
7. save as normal

for example of this, take a look at http://carronshore.edublogs.org/

Did you know that edublogs has a very useful function called autosave.

This means if your machine stops working for any reason or your Internet connection is lost whilst writing a post, edublogs very kindly keeps all your information safe as a draft copy.

When you go into the post editing section, you should see a link for your draft post just above the edit box. Simply click on this and continue writing or saving your post.

As you can see in my right hand sidebar, I have split my blogroll into categories. This is the same method as putting your posts in categories.

1. firstly go into the edit mode of your site
2. in the menu, select blogroll
3. and then click on add link
4. copy and paste the Web address (URL) of the website into the box
5. add a title and description if you wish
6. on the right-hand side there is a column titled categories
7. in the box underneath this title, type in a new category if needed
8. this will automatically be selected with a tick
9. click of the add link button and a new category will be made in your sidebar for your blogroll

This is pretty easy and should not stretch you too much

1. Find your Youtube video
2. copy the URL – the stuff in the address bar at the top
3. go to your edublogs post
4. click on the little yellow circular icon on the right hand side with a letter “A” in it
5. paste in the url of the video (the one you copied before – eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC4HhI0bK4c )
6. Just double check that it looks like this and not http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MeE2E7nqe0w
7. this has an extra bit “uk” which doesn’t seem to work, so simple delete it  so it looks likehttp://youtube.com/v/MeE2E7nqe0w
8. then click publish
9. the player should now show the video in your post
10. for collections of videos in one post eg if students use more than one camera
11. or they take more than one video clip
12. you can repeat this and have videos one below the other
13. make sure you place the cursor under the previous address entry
14. and you’d like them to be a bit less out there, use VodPod
15. Setting up a vodpod – for video then
16. Adding video from vodpod

Edublogs uses DivShare as a free area to upload your files. There is unlimited storage so you can add video, photos, podcasts and anything else you desire.

The new DivShare Uploader Plugin for Wordpress allows you to

1. upload files directly from your “Write a Post” page to your DivShare account, and
2.  insert them into your post with a single click.
3. No HTML, no copying or pasting,
4. no need to even launch a new window.
5. Posting images, MP3s and all types of files to your blog has never been easier.

In order to get this working you need to follow a few simple steps

1. go to the plug-ins menu and click on it
2. then click on the DivShare bit and activate it
3. click on the link to configure
4. you are then able to generate a key code
5. then go to your post and underneath add the code to activate the upload facility
6. then when you want to upload stuff, you can use the DivShare section – this just replaces the Edublogs bit

• Just choose wikispaces from your dashboard toolbar.
• The name of your wikispace should be that of your blog.
• You then have to click the ‘get a free one’ link.
• this should take you to wikispaces to do the set up.
• Finally you’ll end up with a url like:

https://edublogstutorials.wikispaces.com

This wikispace can then be used to collaboratively gather ideas and resources from a wide variety of chosen contributors

However, I still haven’t worked out where the badge goes – will let you know

Again, a fairly simple task

1. open up a post like this one and
2. add the text you want to use
3. open up the site you want to link to
4. copy the URL (from the address bar)
5. go back to your post
6. select or highlight the text you want to show as a link
7. this will end up blue and underlined when finished
8. click on the chain link icon in the menu bar at the top of the post
9. paste the url you copied earlier
10. click update
11. then save the post

What if?