Archive for March, 2008

Mar 23 2008

Embedding a Flickr picture show

Published by Mike Temple under Photos, Pictures, Widgets

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

www.flickr.com

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

No responses yet

Mar 22 2008

Embedding Scribd documents

Published by Mike Temple under Getting started

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

Read this doc on Scribd: internet safety poster

One response so far

Mar 21 2008

Embedding Picasa web albums

Published by Mike Temple under Embedding, Google, Photos, Pictures

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

3 responses so far

Mar 20 2008

Adding a book catalogue – LibraryThing

Published by Mike Temple under Widgets

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

No responses yet

Mar 20 2008

A mindmap of the widget tools we can now use and embed

Published by Mike Temple under Widgets

There are lots of third-party applications that will now embed into Edublogs and I thought I’d put them here as a mindmap for a bit of fun

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

3 responses so far

Mar 18 2008

Podcasting review

Published by Mike Temple under Podcasting

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

The image “http://www.garagespin.com/archives/GarageBand-GCast-Podcast-Studio.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

2     TalkShoe 

http://www.mypodcast.com/image-79522

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

http://jmc.ou.edu/pulse/photos/podcasting.jpg

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

No responses yet

Mar 17 2008

Widgets, javascript, iframes and objects (and all that jazz)

Published by Mike Temple under Widgets

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

The image “http://baanjochim.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/edublogs.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

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).

No responses yet

Mar 13 2008

New Edublogs user guide

Published by Mike Temple under Getting started

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

The image “http://aceworkshop.org/images/gail_desler.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

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

http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/misc/env_management_sme/eng/images/pdca.jpg

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

One response so far

Mar 13 2008

ClustrMap user of the month

Published by Mike Temple under ClustrMap

What a pleasure to see that the folks at ClustrMaps think that the Edublogs Tutorials use and promotion of their fantastic widget is worth a mention.

Locations of visitors to this page

They have chosen this site, along with another 6 as the ClustrMap site of the month 

Do also check out the rest of their blog  as they have lots of tips and hints

I do think that they are the ones deserving of the accolades for not only producing a great add on for us, but also taking the time to make it sooooo easy to add one to your own Edublog site – see ClustrMaps update

Hurrah for the ClustrMaps team

http://www.wcva.org.uk/images_client/dv1954029-(resized).jpg

No responses yet

Mar 11 2008

Simply create blogs and usernames for your students and colleagues

Published by Mike Temple under Getting started

Well done again James – multibloggability is here!.

http://baanjochim.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/edublogs.jpg

This is a new function which allows you as an Edublogs user to create new blogs for others to use.

Key point is that you can add yourself as an administrator to assist them with some of the fiddly setting up and theme selection. All this can be managed from your own dashboard.

You can also choose to have them set up as author or contributor, so their posts are moderated first, before going live.

These are available free of charge in batches of 15, but you can have more if you require – if you need more, just fill in the first 15 on the blog form, process it and repeat

Dead easy

2 responses so far

Mar 05 2008

Happy birthday

Published by Mike Temple under Getting started

Edublogs Tutorials was 1 year old at the end of February

http://whatsupdownsouth.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/happy_birthday_10-728921.gif

Many thanks to all of the 10,000 of you who have dropped in and taken a look

Well done all those of you who have used this and other sites to get your Edublogs up and running, as well as those who have helped me with tech tips and checking my sometimes faulty or ambiguously written advice

Keep on blogging

3 responses so far

Mar 02 2008

Edublogs videos

Published by Mike Temple under Video

Just as a reminder, Vodpod is a great way to organise your videos from different sources. It also means your videos are with you at all times – great if you’re not in your own classroom etc.

get your vodpod" width="501" height="428" wmode="transparent" /]

No responses yet

Mar 01 2008

ClustrMaps update

Published by Mike Temple under ClustrMap

It seems that ClustrMaps is now available as a widget, so very much easier to use

Locations of visitors to this page

  1. Go into site administration
  2. choose ‘presentation’ then ‘widgets’
  3. in the selection box at the bottom, chose the ClustrMaps widget
  4. Add a title
  5. Click the ‘agree’ box
  6. your blog address should already be in there
  7. click ’save’ *
  8. voila, you have a clustrmap in your sidebar.

Just as an extra

*If this is the first time you have used widgets, be aware that adding the first widget means all the others present in your theme will disappear from both sidebars (if you have 2). So to fix this, make sure you add them all from the selection box before saving

Key one is meta as this allows you to log in again – if you don’t have this, you end up being locked out of your own blog

No responses yet