Traveling Desktop?
If you are like me, you access two or more comptuers on a daily basis and rely on your flash drive to transport your files back and forth. Jooce.com provides an amazing service that allows you to create a ‘virtual’ desktop. You can upload files and music to your desktop and can be accessed anywhere. The site is very easy to navigate, the set up process is quick, and your desktop will be set up in a snap. You can also share your files with others, which is a great way for teachers to share content area lessons and activities. Students can share documents they are working on in order to continue group work while outside of the classroom. The opportunities are endless!
Is your cell phone at risk of being “hacked”?
Our cell phones are now being threatened by hackers. With many people owning cell phones with more computing power and fast internet service, a new victim of choice may be the cell phone user. Learning how cell phone networks work will be a challenge for hackers, but phone owners can fell secure in the fact that there is “no hard evidence that hackers are already targeting cell phones.” Read the full article here.
Going Live
The first step to creating a classroom blog is making sure it is an authentic educational experience for the kids. It has got to be more than a novelty, or the kids won’t use it.
Once you have an idea about how you want to use a blog in your classroom, you are ready to make your blog ‘live’. Follow this module to get your blog student ready:
Step One: Cleaning up your blog
Choosing your design – Design>Theme; click on the theme to choose it. Some have customizeable features, others don’t. Find one that works for you.
The sidebar widgets – Design>Widgets; if you don’t add any widgets to the sidebar(s), the default widgets will be shown. Click the add link by the widget you want, Save, click the Edit link on the widget to make changes, Save. If you want text on your sidebar, add the text widget (just make sure you Save before you click Edit); if you find code online for a widget, you would paste it here.
Your Settings – Click the settings link in the upper right corner of the window. Go through the settings and adjust any information needed. One place to make sure you go is Discussion. Determine how you want to be noitified of new comments, and what information you want from the kids. Here is a sample of what most teachers are choosing…don’t forget to scroll down and save after you do this.
Deleting the default post “hello world” – Manage>Posts; click the checkbox and then the Delete button.
Your About page – Manage>Pages. Click on the page title (about). Edit the body of the page to include any information you would like to share. Click the Save button (on the right side of the window)
Add a “Blogging Rules” page – Write>Page. Create an appropriate title, include your rules in the body area. Click Save if you are not ready for the rules to show on your blog; click Publish when the page is ready to post. Here is my page with some sample blogging rules.
Step Two: Creating your first post
From the main dashboard, click on the CREATE A POST link or on the menu bar, choose WRITE>POST.
Enter your title, this will show up larger and bold.
Enter the body of your post. You will see some formatting buttons. To see more, click the last button (show/hide kitchen sink). Format your text as you wish.
Post Options:
Tags: Tags are keywords within your post. For example, for this post I may tag: blog, widget, format, post, manage. What happens is that if I tag each post with keywords, I could add the Tag widget and all tags would appear in the sidebar (aka: tag cloud). Then you could click on the word format and all posts with a tag of format would show up.
Categories: You can categorize your entire post using this tool. It is just another filtering tool like the tags.
**If you had to choose between Tags and Categories to start…choose categories. Tags can be a little overwhelming, and categories seem to be a good first step.
Advanced Features
For beginners, the most important of the advanced features are the Comments & Pings and the password protection. If you want comments turned off or want to password protect a post, use this area.
Finishing
Click Publish when your post is ready. If you are not ready for the post to be available, you have two options, you can just click Save. Then you would go to Manage>Posts, choose the post and then click Publish. Or you can determine when the post will publish. Above the Save/Publish buttons you will see an Edit link at the end of a statement about when the post will be published. You can set the date and time the post will publish here.
Done with all of this already?
Find a widget online to add to your sidebar or a post. Examples would be a clustrmap, poll/survey, voki, etc…do a google search for widget and see what you get. When adding the code to a post, you must click on the HTML tab (in the upper right side of the body area, you will see Visual and HTML) and paste the code here. If you are adding the widget to your sidebar, see the sidebar widget instructions at the beginning of this post.
Add a picture to a post. Download the picture to your documents. Create a post, and click the add an image button to the left of add media. Upload your picture. Once the picture is uploaded, a windwo will pop up with info about your picture, if you scroll to the bottom, you will see a button to add the picture to your post. Move the picture to the desired area. If you upload a few pictures, you can see them by going to add picutre, then the gallery; click the Show link.
Add a video to your post. You can follow the same instructions as adding a picture. Or if you have the html address of the video (from teachertube.com, edublogs.tv, etc), you can enter it in the window that comes up when you click add video (to the right of Add media).
Google will pay $10 million for your idea
Google is holding a contest for anyone out there that thinks they have an idea that can help the world. Google’s Project 10^100 is part of Google’s 10th anniversary and they want you to submit your fresh idea that you feel would make an impact on the world. The idea can be big or small, involve technology or not. The contest ends October 20th; 100 semifinalists will be announced by Jan 27; the public will vote between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2.
Submit your idea
Read the full article about this contest:
Brainstorming made fun…
Bubbl.us provides a free service that allows you and your students to create mind maps/graphic organizers/think bubbles…The creations are easy to make and are saved to the account created by you or your students. The mind maps can be posted online or in your blogs, printed, and emailed. And the best part is that it is a FREE service!
Here is an example:
Add intersting widgets to your blog
I have been experimenting with the widget options here at edublogs and wanted to pass on two cool widgets.
The first is clustrmaps. If you notice on the right side of this page, there is a map of the world. Each time someone visits my blog, this map will show their location as a red dot. As of now, it looks like I have had people in California, Wisconsin, and somewhere in the Middle East! Wow!! To add a clustrmap to your blog, get to your dashboard and choose PLUGINS (to the right). The last plugin is the WIDGET PACK; activate it. Now, click on the DESIGN tab, and choose widgets. Add the ClustrMaps widget, move it into the desired position on the sidebar, and save. Now you have clustrmaps!
The second widget I would like to talk about is actually one you get elsewhere online. It will allow you to add music to your blog. This widget can be added into a post (as mine has here) or in the sidebar…but more on that in a minute. You will want to visit playlist.com, create an account, and follow the step by step instructions, and get to the screen where you are given a bunch of code. Highlight and copy the code.
- If you want the playlist in a post (maybe you want the kids to listen to a song and write about it, analyze it, etc) you will create a new post, click on the HTML tab (upper right corner of the post body area; and paste the code. Save and Publish your post.
- If you want the playlist to be a permanenet fixture on your blog, go to DESIGN>WIDGETS on your dashboard. Add a text widget. Save. Move the text widget to the desired position on the sidebar. Save. Edit the Text widget; paste the code into the body area. Save and Publish. Your playlist will now be on the sidebar!
- NOTE: this playlist does not show on school computers because of the district filters…
