Monthly Archives: July 2008

What To Consider When Choosing Your Blog Theme

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You only have a limited time to make the right impression for first time readers; blog theme, post layout and blog clutter all impact on first impressions. Great content is easily missed if your blog theme is distracting or off putting.

Tips for Road testing Blog Themes

New bloggers often spend considerable time changing their blog theme to work out which theme works best for them.

When road testing blog themes make sure that you have:

  • Several posts on your blog and at least one with an image added e.g. have at least 3 posts published (you can always delete)
  • In one of the post include all heading styles so that you can see the font color, size and type of each heading style
  • Add comments to two of the posts (you can always delete)

Edublogs provides 100 themes for you to choose from ranging from themes that can’t be altered i.e. “use as is” to themes that are “extremely customizable” i.e. change image header, font types, font color and background color. You change your theme by clicking on Design > Theme in your blog dashboard and then click on the theme you want to use.

Features worth considering when choosing a blog theme include:

1. What Is Your Preferred Layout?

Blog themes normally include a header, a content area (for your posts), sidebar area (for your widgets) and come in several standard layouts:

  • Single column with no sidebar (widgets are located at the bottom of the blog)
  • Two Column – normally a wide column for content and narrower sidebar
  • Three Column – with sidebars side-by-side on one side of the blog or either side of the wider content column
  • Four Column – one content column and three sidebars. The content column is often the same width as the other columns. This type of layout tends to be cluttered looking and less suited to reading lengthy content.

Two or three column are the most commonly used layouts. When considering layout you need to think about which side(s) do you prefer the sidebar to be located? Also make sure you check out the width of the blog and the post area.

2. Do you want your tagline displayed in the blog header?

The concept behind a blog tagline is to create a memorable phrase that sums up the tone and premise of a blog. Ideally all blogs should have a tagline since they instantly tell first time readers what your blogs all about and whether you write posts in topic areas that interest them.

Image of a tagline

3. Do you want to be able to upload your own Custom Image Header?

Being able to upload your own custom image header means you can add your “own personal touch” to your blog plus you can use it as a work around for blog themes that don’t include taglines i.e. Add the tagline to the image header using tools like PhotoShop.

4. Do you want links to pages in the blog header?

Some blog themes have links to pages in their blog header while on other themes you use the page widget in your sidebar. I personally like to have page links in my header to make it easier for readers to navigate pages on my blogs.

Image of page links

5. What are your preferred color scheme?

When choosing your theme remember that if color scheme makes your content hard to read you will lose readers. So balance your personal preferences with readability since ultimately you want people to read your content.

Don’t just look at the overall color — remember to check closely the color of: the header; the background; post text and links; post titles; headings in posts; widget titles and links.

When choosing color schemes it is worth doing audit of your blog by watching a first time reader read your blog to observe how they are interacting with the content on the site. Don’t talk to them while they navigate through your site just record how they interact and what engages/distracts them. Once finished ask them questions like:

  • What were their first impressions were?
  • What captured their attention?
  • What distracted them?
  • Do they have suggestions on how you could improve your blog?

While most of the standard Edublogs themes color schemes can’t be altered i.e. “use as is” there are a few themes that allow you to change the theme’s color.

6. What type of font do you like?

Most of the standard Edublogs themes don’t provide the ability to change font type i.e. “use as is” however there are a few themes that allow you to change their font.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’ve tried to cover the basics of choosing an Edublogs theme for your blog. But would love to hear about:

  • What you look for when choosing a blog theme?
  • Which themes you have found are easier for students to use?
  • Are there any blog themes that really popular with your students?

Need help choosing your Edublogs theme?  – check out The 100 Edublogs Themes Separated Into Categories To Make Choosing Your Next Theme Easier and Edublogs Themes That Allow Comments on Pages!

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Simple Tools For Creating Screen Captures

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Being able to create screen captures of your desktop or parts of a web site are easy and a great way of enhancing your blog posts with images.  The great news is there are numerous free tools for creating screen captures which offer a range of different features.  This post reviews a range of these tools.

Kwout

Kwout is an online web tool that you can use to create screenshots of web sites which retain the clickable Image of Adding Bookmarklet to IElinks within the screenshot i.e. if you click on a link to a web site in the screenshot it takes you to that web site (check out the links on Vicki Davis’s Kwout). Unfortunately Kwout’s clickable links in the screenshots aren’t supported by all web sites.

Using Kwout is really simple. Read their instructions first then install the bookmarklet or FireFox Add-on as follows:

  1. For Internet Explorer users – right click on the bookmarklet and select “Add to Favorites”
  2. For FireFox users either:

To use the FireFox Add-on to take screenshots you just right click and select Quote this Page.

PicnikImage of using Picnik

Picnik is a free online photo editor which is becoming increasingly popular especially since became integrated with Flickr. What many people probably don’t realise is that you can use Picnik to create screen captures by installing the Picnik FireFox Add-on.

Once the add-on has been installed you just right click on the web page and select Send Page to Picnik. An image of the visible page or full page is taken and sent to Picnik where you can edit to add notes to the image by clicking on the Create tab.

Skitch

Skitch is a popular screen capture tool for Mac Users which allows the user to add notes to the image. Check out this post by Darren Draper for examples of Skitch screen shots. You can’t use Skitch on PCs.

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. Can be used on Macs and PCs
  3. It’s easy to share images and screencasts
  4. 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.

SnagIT

I get a lot of questions about which tools I use to create my screencaptures.  The program I use is SnagIT, which does cost and can be purchased from TechSmith.  I like using SnagIT because its really easy to use and provides more features than most of the free tools.

Comparison of The Screen Capture Tools

  • Kwout is great for taking really quick screenshots that you can easily embed in blog posts but doesn’t provide the ability to add notes to images
  • Picnik is an excellent solution for creating screen captures with notes if you need to use an online application.
  • Neither Kwout or Picnik can be used take screen shots of applications that use Flash such as Wordle and some comic tools
  • Both Jing and Skitch are excellent for adding notes to screen shots.  Both these tools can be used to take screen shots of applications that use Flash such as Wordle

FINAL THOUGHTS

The screen capture tools I’ve listed were chosen based on those I found relatively easy to use.  Please let me know if you recommend a screen capture tool that I haven’t included.  Also make sure you check out the student-safe image tools that educators could use, other than Flickr, that readers have been recommending.

You might also like to check out all our posts on using images in blog posts.

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