http://miketemple123.edublogs.org Getting you started on the road to blogging Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:20:09 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en If you're a company or an organisation, group of folks spread over the globe or a family, you might want to be able to schedule something that fits all your calendars.  Doing this by email or phone takes ages and often doesn't get everyone's approval. How about using ScheduleOnce It's free and ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2009/10/07/schedule-once/ Well, EB Tutorials has been up and running for a couple of years and has recently reached 50,000 visitors Pretty interesting for a site that was set up to record my rambling journey through the developing platform and the addition of third party apps and podcasting http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2009/09/13/50000-visitors/ I have just found Storybird via Twitter thanks to @dogtrax What a great site for storytelling.  Great illustrations and very simple interface make this a must use for creativity.  You can also ask others to collaborate in putting your story together.  I shall be asking my G'daughter (8 years old) to ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2009/09/06/storybird-illustrated-i-have-just-found-storybird-via-twitteronline-storybook-making/ http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2009/09/02/bubbleshare/ I haven't really looked into the Edublogs platform for a little while after the fuss around in-post Google ads.  It's really heartening to see that James and his team have taken note of the community opposition to these ads and has changed things round. As well as changing the appearance of ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2009/09/02/advertising/ If you like the idea of a Clustrmap but would like to take it one step further, you could have a whos.amung.us live map. The visitors actually on the site show up as flashing points and this is a great motivator for students who want to see who is ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2009/06/17/live-visitor-map/ http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2009/04/07/everyone-is-on-facebook/ As you may have gathered, there are now adverts showing up in your posts, just when you thought your Edublogs site was completely free and school friendly.  At $3500 a month for hosting and bandwidth, I think James had to take some action, but not sure if this is the ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/12/22/in-post-adverts/ This is a test post for using Google docs to publish to Edublogs See post Setting up Google docs to edit and publish your posts An application for this is multiple posts to a class blog from different students and locations.  The Google account has an age limit of 14 I ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/12/02/231/ Hi fellow Edubloggers - did you notice that there's new functions in your toolbar.  Just click the kitchen sink icon on the far right of your write toolbar Great stuff James - we can now choose different font sizes, embed media, undo, add custom characters etc Have fun http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/26/kitchen-sink/ Thanks to Glassbeed via twitter This PhotoFunia looks great for adding effects to your pics - I think the kids will love it http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/19/photofunia/ This took me a few minutes to work out but is basically quite simple 1 Get a free Flickr account 2 You need a phone (or pc) with email facility 3 Sign into your Flickr account 4 Go to http://www.flickr.com/tools/mobile/ 5 Under 'Tips & Tricks for Uploading' click on 'upload by email' 6 Your account will ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/19/adding-photos-to-flickr-from-mobile-cell-phone/ With a focus on "Remixing Library Collections for Digital Youth" This summit is aimed at bringing together publishers, authors, technology leaders, editors, librarians, other educators to explore where content is headed and how we can take advantage of this dynamic world to fully engage both students and teachers. http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/14/school-library-journal-leadership-summit-2008/ Since the change (I call it demise) of Springdoo - now called Bedroom tv! I'd like to suggest the simplest podcasting tool ever. Vocaroo needs no sign up - just use it.  You can record a podcast (voicemail) and then email it or post it online using an embed code or ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/14/simple-podcasting/ If your school posts its dates onto a Google calendar and you happen to keep your information on Google too, you might want to use the merge facility to add the school's dates to your own. It really seems to be very simple. Just open up the school calendar In the bottom RH ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/14/merging-google-calendars/ Searchme stacks is a great tool for sharing and showing resources, including web pages and video Take a look at the video http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/13/sharing-online-resources-searchme-stacks/ If you want to sign up your students for a web 2.0 application and this requires an email account, simply use your free gmail account You can register different unique account names numerous times using your own e-mail address by doing this: emailaddress+1@gmail.com emailaddress+2@gmail.com emailaddress+3@gmail.com emailaddress+4@gmail.com emailaddress+5@gmail.com Carey Pohanka suggested that you could use the student's name ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/12/making-up-dummy-or-multiple-email-accounts-for-students/ Thanks to Jane Knight for collating and producing this list. You might want to to check out if there are new ones you've perhaps missed http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/09/top-100-learning-tools/ Google has many tools which are not readily seen by all of us, perhaps they pop up when least expected. This one came up in the K-12 online conference and although I'd heard about them, I'd not really made the connection - are you like that too? So, if you ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/03/google-forms-a-digital-poll/ What a great video this is - I highly recommend it to those trying to engage others in a discussion on why to use web2.0 tools in the classroom or for CPD http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/11/03/a-brave-new-world/ As probably the final part of my recent research into streaming video, I came across Stickam after a callout from Dean Shareski to trial it.  Along with a couple of others, we conferenced and explored the functionality of Stickam. Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!   I was impressed with the simplicity of the interface and ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/10/31/stickam-video-conferencing-for-6/ Just as a a follow up from UStream.TV I posted earlier, I had a question "How do I stream live from my mobile to my blog" In fact, you might wonder why you would need to. There are lots of reasons You might wish to do a range of interviews at a conference and ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/10/30/live-video-streaming-from-your-mobile/ How many times have you wanted to show part of a YouTube video starting in the middle. Well, now you can specify when the video will start from - it's called Deep Linking Here’s an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bibCui3lFM#t=1m45s the bit at the end determines where the video will start - in this case, 1m 45s in ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/10/26/youtube-tagging-a-specific-point/ TWA = time wasting activity Well I think friv has it all - around 200 arcade games to keep you occupied for those dark winter months thanks to A really different place http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/10/25/friv-a-twa-if-you-need-one/ Thanks to Amit Agarwal for his tutorial Why would you want to convert a PPT file to video anyway? Well, you may want the PPT to go out with music to make it more appealing or you may want it to be iPod compatible.  Both of these are possible Basically, your powerpoint needs ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/10/20/make-a-video-from-a-powerpoint-presentation/ Many thanks to Sue Waters for this very detailed and clear explanation of making podcasts, from installation to uploading http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/10/20/brilliant-podcasting-with-audacity-tutorial/ UStream TV has been around for a while and is still the best for getting your audio or video out there. It will allow a constant broadcast from a webcam or better quality DV cam, if you have one. Broadcasts can be recorded if you want and then UStream and ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/10/13/u-stream-tv-your-own-broadcast-station/ If you would like to add some extra functions to a post or to your sidebar, perhaps you'd like to take a look at LabPixies There's lots to choose from and include games, entertainment and tools - here's a one to start with http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/08/26/labpixies/ I just checked the stats for Edublogs Tutorials and it seems that 10,000 of you have visited the site since its inception in March 2007 and 5,000 of those since March this year! I'm always fascinated by the growth of internet information and thank all of you for taking a look ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/08/14/wow-thank-you/ I thought it was about time I had a go with this, so here's a great flower display I took in a park in Normandy, France in September 2007 BTW, CleVR is really VERY simple to use and is helped if your camera has the panorama shot setting as mine does. ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/05/24/clevr-panorama/ For those of you who use your blogs for students to access, why not mobilise it so they can access the content from their mobile devices. Joe Dale has this on his blog and I think it's a great step forward - thanks again Joe Mofuse is free and easy to ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/05/22/mobilise-your-blog/ Firstly, why would you want to do this? I have the BBC news sent directly to my blog and it is updates automatically - so no work for me. There should be a plugin called Aggr which makes this task really easy and it seems to have now disappeared - hence the ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/05/22/getting-an-rss-feed-onto-your-blog/ I came across this site with lots of good visuals to help you get started in Edublogging Check it out here  http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/05/17/more-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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/05/13/more-from-mystudiyo/ 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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/05/13/mystudiyo-make-your-own-multimedia-quiz/ 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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/29/clevr-panoramas/ 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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/28/tag-clouds/ 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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/26/authorstream-upload-and-embed-your-powerpoint-slideshows/ 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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/18/vodpod-now-a-firefox-extension/ Well I have my new Nokia N95i - the one with 8Gb and O2 as the service provider. I bought this on an 18 month contract as an upgrade, but also to access the next level of mobile access. Well it has taken me 2 days to ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/17/mobile-internet-connection-uk-update/ This is a fairly straightforward procedure make sure you have a google account - free go to google docs and start a new document - like Word write your information for your post save the file - this ensures your post has a title click on the 'share' button on the rhs menus click ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/12/181/ 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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/12/180/ 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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/09/using-bliptv-for-video/ 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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/08/mobile-internet-connection-in-the-uk/ Thanks to Wes Fryer for this - Great student-created tutorial guide for Google tools published with Issuu (Maine students of Kern Kelly) http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/08/google-docs-explanation-via-issuu/ 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 ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/04/08/top-100-educational-tools-for-learning/ Flickr is again a free service. To embed a badge - horizontal, vertical or tiled sign up for a Flickr account upload some photos go to the badge page - not sure where the link is at this moment choose the badge shape select the other options offered copy the code in the box open up ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/03/23/embedding-a-flickr-picture-show/ Scribd is a great free application that allows you to add a document directly into your post It is straight forward to do sign up for a free Scribd account upload a document find the 'embed' box copy the code open up a post in edit mode add any text that you wish - descriptions etc click ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/03/22/embedding-scribd-documents/ 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  go to your online picasa web albums check the  settings in Google change this to English (US) to embed your slideshow click on embed slideshow copy the code in the ... http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/03/21/embedding-picasa-web-albums/ You can also embed a book list for your students You might also want to look at Shelfari which is great for your sidebar as it's a vertical presentation http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/2008/03/20/adding-a-book-catalogue-librarything/