Monthly Archives: May 2008

Quick Tour Of The All New Edublogs Features!

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Its here! Edublogs has been upgraded to the latest version of WordPress. So lets check out whats under our new Edublogs dashboard and get a quick feel for the main changes!

New Dashboard and Menu Layout

Changes are aimed at making it a cleaner, faster and less cluttered dashboard and you will immediately notice the new light blue, light grey and orange color scheme. If you have several blogs they will be listed across the top and clicking on the name of the blog will take you to the dashboard for that blog.

The main features users interact with (i.e. writing posts and pages, managing posts, managing comments, managing design features and upgrades) are now located on the left side of the screen. While Settings, Plugins and Users, which are used less, are now located on the right hand side. The presentation menu has now been renamed Design i.e. this is where you change your blog theme, widgets or add a custom image header.

Image of new Edublogs Dashboard

Dashboard Widgets

Items displayed on your blog’s dashboard are controlled by widgets which you can customise to your personal preference.

Change dashboard widgets by:

  1. Clicking on Widgets menu on your dashboard
  2. In the Available Widget Area click on the Add link on Widget(s) you want to add to your dashboard
  3. To remove a widget from your Current Widget area click on Edit > Remove.
  4. Changing order of widgets in your Current Widget area is just a matter of drop and drag the widget’s order up or down
  5. Click Save Changes
  6. Click on Dashboard menu and view changes

The main widgets I like displayed on my dashboard are Getting into Edublogs, Your Blog, Incoming Links and Recent Comments.

Image of Dashboard Widgets

Write Post/Pages Changes

The visual editor has been improved and includes the ability to change to full screen mode when writing a post.

Media is now uploaded to your blog by clicking on the Add media icons at the top of the visual editor. The Add media uses a Flash Uploader — this allows you to upload several items (e.g. photos) at the same time while showing their uploading progress.

Image of new media icons

NOTE: If your Flash Uploader isn’t working properly try using the Browser uploader instead.

Image of the flash uploader

If you are having trouble with the Flash Uploader or getting a white screen when you upload images or media make sure you’ve checked that you are using the latest version of Flash (currently v 9.0.124.0.) Don’t assume that you have this version — go and get the latest Flash player here! (Thanks Trantwoodcrs for reminding me to add this tip)

To ‘Embed code’ we pick up around the web (e.g. videos for video sharing websites, Voki and Google Documents) directly into an Edublogs post you now just change to HMTL editor and paste the code where you want it to appear. All you need to do is:

  1. Write your post
  2. Grab the embed code for the item you want to embed e.g. a video
  3. Click on HTML Tab
  4. Add the embed code where you want it to appear
  5. Click Publish

No longer appears to be an issue with breaking the embed code. This means once you have added the embed code you can change back to Visual Editor (by clicking on the Visual Tab) and make changes to your post.

Image of the HTML editor

Tags and categories fields are now located below your visual editor. The tag editor automatically brings up a selection of the latest tags you’ve added. Learn more about how you use tags and categories by reading this post.

Blog Widgets

The way you add and change the widgets that are displayed on your blog is probably the biggest change. The widgets you currently have in your sidebar are shown on the right side of your screen and it only displays one sidebar (you need to selects the sidebar from a dropdown to view the other sidebar). Each widget is listed in a column on the left, you click the Add link to add it into the sidebar (I demonstrate how to add Widgets to your sidebar at the end of my quick video tour).

Here’s a quick video tour so you can see the main changes.

Video Tutorials

The Edublogs team has been busy creating video tutorials on how to use the new Edublogs interface — you can check them out on the Edublogs Video Tutorial page. Each of the videos is less than 5 minutes long and between 4-8 MB in size (i.e. suitable for most bandwidth).

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’ve tried to give you are really quick overview of the main changes. Please let me know how you are going and what changes you want to know more about.

Remember the Edublogs team is still squashing a few bugs and adding a few more features over the next few days. If you have any complex questions or issues please post them into the Edublogs forum so the team can provide assistance.

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Creating Online Quizzes and the MyStudiyo EduQuiz Contest!

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eduquiz_badge_trans_white.jpgMmmm lets see! Be creative by creating one or more quizzes of educational value using MyStudiyo by 12am EST June 14, 2008 to be eligible to win an Asus eeePC or $50 Amazon voucher (read more about the competition here).

That doesn’t sound hard! And a cool way of creating free educational quizzes for your students or for your students to create their own quizzes.

I first saw MyStudiyo in action when Steve Dembo used it to create his “Know Your Edubloggers” quiz back in February.

What I liked about MyStudiyo is how you can:

  • Easily embed text, images, audio and video into quiz answers
  • Create ‘non-collaborative’ quizzes or “collaborative” quizzes (allows others to add further questions to your quiz)
  • Embed your MyStudiyo quiz into blog posts

Embedding MyStudiyo Quizzes Into Posts

  1. On your blog dashboard, go to Write > Write A Post
  2. Completely write your post adding all text and images including adding your categories, tags and post title.
  3. Click Save and View this Post to do any final edits on your post.
  4. Register for an account at MyStudiyo and create your own quiz.Image of the Embed Code
  5. Copy the embed code.
  6. Click on your HTML Tab
  7. Paste the embed code from MyStudiyo into your post where you want it to appear then immediately press Publish (DON’T CLICK on Visual Tab to change back to Visual editor).

Image of how to add MyStudiyo to a post

Here is an example of a MyStudiyo Quiz I created for us to learn more about the slang used by the different cultures? I’ve set it up as a collaborative quiz so that we can all add common slang used in our countries (just click on Add a Question to insert your own questions with answers into the quiz).

About MyStudiyo EduQuiz Contest

Check out the EduQuiz contest terms and conditions here. You have until 12am EST June 14th, 2008 to get your entries in.

Unfortunately I’m disqualified from entering since I have the honor of judging the contest with Steve Dembo. Official judging criteria will be educational content, use of media and feedback, number of participants, integration with other online resources. Haven’t worked out bonus points for my unofficial judging criteria but it’s good to know Steve’s include references to:

Not sure what Steve has against the new Star Wars movies – they work for me :)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Let me know how you go creating your quizzes and how you plan to use them. Also don’t forget you can add your own questions to my quiz.

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Setting Up iGoogle For Your Personal Learning

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Appreciating the value of using a personalized Start Page is a bit like explaining the power of RSS because you need to experience it first hand. So let me show you how to set up your own iGoogle page and how I use my personalized Start Page.

Importance of Personal Learning Networks (PLN)

Alix E. Peshette and Vicki Davis comments on Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page? highlighted the need to emphasize the importance of Personalized Start Pages as part of our own and our students Personal Learning Network (PLN) — check out my PLN yourself website to learn how to build your own PLN.  

As Vicki says teaching students how to set up their own PLE

is one of the most useful skills that one can teach students and most importantly, keeps them focused and saves time!

Setting Up Your iGoogle Page

  1. Create an gmail account. Gmail is Google’s free webmail that you can access from any computer, anywhere. Ideally use a login name that people can identify easily as being you e.g. mine is my name with the s missing from the end of waters.
  2. Go to Google and click on Sign in and sign in using your gmail account.Image of where to sign in to Google
  3. Click on iGoogle and tick the items you want to add to your iGoogle page (don’t stress you can add and remove items whenever you want).Image of setting up iGoogle page
  4. Set iGoogle as your default home in your web browser i.e. whenever you open up your web browser it will automatically loads your iGoogle page.
  5. If you use Internet Explorer 7, FireFox or Flock you can set it up so several web pages load in separate tabs as homepages. At work we use IE 6 so my solution is Internet Explorer homepage is my College Intranet and FireFox homepage is my iGoogle page (here is more information on web browsers). Image of setting iGoogle as homepage
  6. Set your iGoogle theme i.e. appearance. I like to regularly change my theme to reflect my moods (keeps me happy).Image of setting iGoogle Themes
  7. Add more stuff to your page by click on Add stuff link and searching for widgets (gadgets) that interest you. Image of how to add stuff
  8. You edit settings of your Gadgets by clicking on the drop down arrow. Click on the cross to delete a gadget from your iGoogle page.Image of how to edit and delete gadgets
  9. Remember you can also add more Tabs to your iGoogle page (means you can organise your work into different categories) and share Tabs with others.Image of how to share tabs

My iGoogle Page

Here’s what I currently have on my iGoogle page (which is only viewable to me by logging in with my gmail account).

1. Gmail

My preferred email is now my gmail account and this gmail gadget means all my latest emails are displayed on my iGoogle page plus I can click on the links to easily compose new mail message or access my inbox.Image of Google reader gadget

2. Google Reader

I use Google Reader for subscribing to RSS feeds e.g. blog subscriptions, forums. The Google Reader gadget means I can checkly check latest feeds directly on my iGoogle page or click on the link to open up and read the items inside Google Reader.

3. Weather

This is Google’s weather gadget which I set up to display local weather forecast — not always correct :( .

4. Date, Time and Meetings

Tad absent minded (extreme understatement) when it comes to anything to do with dates so need lots of reminders:

5. Google Bookmarks

I use the Google Bookmarks gadget to store bookmarks that I can access on any computer anywhere but don’t want other people to be able to access e.g. links to my work email, home email, login links to my blogs and websites.

6. RSS GadgetsImage of Custom RSS gadget

I use the Customise RSS Gadget to bring in posts from the Comment Challenge from Technorati RSS feed for Comment 08 onto my iGoogle page so I can easily click on a link to read and comment on the posts.

Plus I also use the Simple RSS gadget to bring the RSS feeds from comments tracked using Cocomment and:

  1. Tagged with comment08
  2. Shared with Comment Challenge Group

Image of Simple RSS gadgetI have the Simple RSS Gadget set so it displays title and description so that I can read all the comments directly on my iGoogle page and click on link at the bottom of the comment if I want to add my comment.

7. Sticky Notes

My Sticky Note gadget means I can write a quick note on the gadget for all those times I’ve lost my pens or when I need easy access to email addresses.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I like using iGoogle because of its nice integration with all the other Google products I use e.g. maps, documents, gmail, reader. Please remember that the other Personalized Start pages can be used similar to iGoogle and are better for sharing with groups e.g. your students than iGoogle (check out Grace Kat’s PageFlake for her classes, Mike Ball’s NetVibes page for teaching others how to use NetVibes and Mr. Bakins ESL PageFlake — link supplied by Sheryl A. McCoy).

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

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Embedding Jing Screencasts Into Blog Posts

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Feeling frustrated because you want to embed Jing screencasts into your blog posts but can’t get them to work because they’re too BIG? Join the club we all feel the same way. But there is a work around for embedding Jing into your posts — let me show you how!

Skill level: Medium to Advanced

About Jing

Jing is a free program, by TechSmith, which you can use to instantly capture and share images (with notes if you like) and videos from your computer to anywhere. You can also share these images and screencasts free online at screencast.com. Check out their video tour to learn more about Jing and how to use.

People like using Jing because:

  1. It’s very easy to use
  2. It’s easy to share images and screencasts
  3. It creates superior quality screencasts – doesn’t change or diminish the resolution of your content like some screencast applications will. You can easily record the entire desktop and viewers will still be able to read the text in the screencast.

Embedding Jing

Unfortunately Jings video size is based on your original recording size i.e. if you recorded your entire desktop its size may be 1024 wide by 756. So when you grab the embed code from screencast.com it will be too large to embed in your blog posts and editing the code doesn’t work.

A work around, courtesy of James Farmer, is upload your Jing screencasts to your blog, create an image and link to their file location (this is how James does it for the Edublogs video tutorials).

Here is how you do it:

  1. Create your screencast using Jing and save it on your computer.
  2. Take a screenshot of the your screencast preview to use in your blog post.screenshotjing1.jpg
  3. On your blog dashboard, go to Write > Post
  4. Write your blog post
  5. Upload your Jing Video to your blog post by clicking on Browse and navigating to the area of your computer that has the Jing video file you wish to upload.
  6. Select the video you want to upload and click open. Be patient –will take time to upload depending on size i.e. several minutes.Image of Uploading Jing
  7. Click on Edit then copy the URL location of your file. locationvideo.jpg
  8. Upload your screenshot to your post and then link your video to your screenshot by pasting URL location of your file. addvideo.jpg

Here is an example of what it looks like and how it works using Edublogs 5 minute video tutorial on playing with your plugins.

videoplugins.jpg

Please note:

  1. Maximum upload size of videos to Edublogs is 20 MB.
  2. Get extra storage space and benefits by becoming an Edublogs supporter for $25 per year.
  3. You can also link your screenshot to your file hosted on screencast.com

FINAL THOUGHTS

What can I say? Well it’s not a prefect solution because it isn’t exactly an embed and the simpler solution would have been to link to your file on screencast.com. But the reality is most don’t want to do that so this at least makes it look nicer. Personally I wish that Jing would provide an easy option to create suitable embed code for our blog posts when we embed across from screencast.com.

Do you use Jing? And if so, what do you use it for? Or do you use another screencast program? If so, what do you use and why?

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Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page?

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Are you making your life harder or easier? Do you have to visit multiple websites in the morning to catch up on important information or does opening up your browser bring it to you?

Let me show you, as part of our best of Web 2.0 series, how I and others use Personalized Start Pages to bring information to us.

What Are Personalized Start Pages

The idea of a personalised start page (some call them Personalized Homepages) is to bring all the content you consume on a daily basis onto the one page. It’s all about convenience, saving time and providing what you want in one handy location — which you can access on any computer anywhere. They’re called personalized because we can customize our start page to our own personal preferences and needs.Image of Start page logos

Examples of start pages are iGoogle, NetVibes, PageFlakes and Protopage. They all use two components: feeds and widgets (widgets are mini web applications that you can put onto your website). Please note Pageflakes widgets are called Flakes and iGoogle widgets are known as Gadgets.

The feed component means that you can use the RSS feed from websites such as your favorite blogs to feed their latest posts onto your start page. Widgets lets you run cool applications like email, weather, world clock, to-do lists, sticky notes, bookmarks on your start page.

Popularity of Start Pages

Several in my twitter network choose their start page in their top 3 indispensable Web 2.0 tools – Sue Hickton, John . Curry, Awyatt included iGoogle; Graham Wegner listed Pageflakes and Mike Romard likes NetVibes.

Start pages were included in Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list (compiled from the top 10 learning tools by 155 learning professionals) and ranked:

  • 15th for iGoogle
  • 31st for PageFlakes
  • 43rd for NetVibes
  • Protopage didn’t make the top 100 list.

Choosing Your Start Page

Each start page has its pros and cons; your choice depends on how you want to use it.

The biggest difference is that NetVibes, PageFlakes and Protopage all provide you the option to create:

  1. Private pages – only you can view what is on your private pages
  2. Groups pages – you can share the page with a group of people
  3. Public public pages – viewable by anyoneImage of Sharing a Tab

Whereas iGoogle focuses mainly on your personal needs and you can’t create public pages to share content.  However you can share tabs with a group using email.

iGoogle is my favourite start page and is my default home in my web browser.  My next post will show you why I use iGoogle and how to set up your own iGoogle but in the meantime check out these examples on how the public NetVibes, PageFlakes and Protopage are used:

1. NetVibes

Vicki Davis (Cool Cat Teacher) likes to use NetVibes for checking all her students spaces from a project with one quick look. Here is an example of a NetVibes page Vicki created for educators to promote Advocates for Digital Citizenship, Safety, and Success.

Another example is Crimson Connect which is a student run web portal for Harvard Students.

2. PageFlakes

Technobabble created The Giver PageFlake for her English 7 class who are reading the novel The Giver. While the elearning Guild Annual Gathering 2008 Conference and Expo used the AG08 PageFlake to bring together the content being generated by their conference.

3. ProtoPage

Elearning07 conference protopage is an example of a protopage created for sharing information on a conference program with participants.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

Are you using a Start Page? If so, which one and why?  We would love to check out examples of start pages used with students.  If you have any examples, can you please share?

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