Edublogs Tutorials

I’ve been looking (not too hard) for a new theme and needed it to work with all my widgets, page tabs and plugins, as well as looking smooth and easy on the eye.

I like the idea of having a customised headers as this allows easy change of the look without losing functionality.

So here’s the latest

Called SeaShore 1.0 by Sadish Bala

Thanks for developing this for us to use - I think it’s great

let me know what it looks like from out there

Just a warning: I have tried to use this on two different sites and each time it has locked up the plugin section - ie you cannot change or add any plugins - hopefully, I will get an answer from James as to the resolution for this.

I will let you know

Until then, it’s up to you

I have had a number of requests to have a particular post as the first one on their blog. I didn’t have a solution to this until I noticed the “Adhesive” plugin.

Go to the manage section by logging in and activate this plugin. Now when you write a post, you have an option in the “posts status” menu on the right hand side to change to stick at the top of your blog.

For those of you who want to jazz up your posts, well now you can

In the plugins section (in your manage area), you can activate “Advanced editor” and you will have added functionality

1. colours
2. fonts
3. special characters
4. subscript and superscript
5. background colour
6. etc etc

Many thanks to James and co for adding lots of new themes and doing the server update thingy.

I like to have a 3 column theme as it allows me to customise the side bars add lots of extra goodies in like Clustr maps

This theme is Newsportal 1.0 and is on of the new ones. I like the clarity and simplicity

Also available

Anubis

Bluebird

Blue Zinfandel Enhanced

Digg 3 Columns

Fjords04 - 4 columns!

GenkiTheme

Ocean

Reaching Darkness

SeaShore

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

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.”

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

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

1. To change your theme, you will need to get into the editing area of your blog.
2. According to your theme, you will either need to click on edit part of your posts, all use the site admin button in your sidebar.
3. Once there, click on the presentation menu at the top.
4. From here, you will be able to see all of the different types of themes available to you.

Each theme obviously has a different visual style but also seems to have very different navigation available. It is important to consider how the visitor will see your site and managed to navigate around it. For example: there are some sites, where there are no categories listed and as a consequence it is difficult to find particular posts.

If you use Freshey, for example, it is the only one I have found that allows RSS feeds from categories. This is very important for students to get posts relevant to their particular year group — especially if you have grouped all the posts for a year group under a particular category.

The femur I’m currently using is Andreas 09 and I like the style of the twin sidebars, but I’d also like the detail of current posts and categories. It seems to be a very user-friendly theme.