Author Archives: Sue Waters

About Sue Waters

I work as an aquaculture lecturer at the WA Maritime Training Centre, Challenger TAFE in Western Australia. I have been working with a range of mobile technologies with students since late 2005. The purpose of my blog, podcast and wiki site is to document my learning journey with mobile and Web 2.0 technology so that I can share my experiences with other lecturers. My main focus is how these technologies can be used practically to benefit lecturers and students.

Adding ClustrMaps to Your Blog Sidebar Using A Text Widget

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Image of a ClustrmapsClustrMaps is a popular widget for class and student blogs because it reminds students that they are part of a global audience and demonstrates how connected we all are.

Students love seeing the red dots grow as their readers, from around the World, visit their blog.

Please Note:

On free Edublogs blogs you need to follow the instructions below for adding ClustrMaps to your sidebar using a text widget!

Creating Your ClustrMaps

  1. Go to ClustrMaps.
  2. Enter your blog URL (e.g. your blog URL should look similar like this http://theedublogger.com/) and email address then click on Make My Map.Image of signing up for ClustrMaps
  3. Copy the HTML code for Option A. Image of the embed code

Adding The ClustrMap To Your Blog Sidebar

  1. Go to Appearance > Widgets in your Dashboard Image of widgets menu
  2. Click on the desired Sidebar to expand (so you can add the widgets) NOTE: In new blogs sidebars in your dashboard are empty and adding widgets automatically removes the default Edublogs widgets Image of widget sidebars
  3. To add a text widget, drag it from the Available Widgets areas on the left into the Sidebar area on the right Image of adding a text widget
  4. Drop the widget when you see a dashed line appear – this indicates the widget is in place Image of adding text widget to sidebar
  5. The widget will automatically open — just add the HTML code from Clustrmaps, click Save and then Close.  If you have trouble with the text widget or it doesn’t open — try changing your theme just in case there is an issue with it.Image of adding clustrmaps code to text widget
  6. You should now see your ClustrMaps in your blog sidebar and the dots will start appearing after 24 hours.

Image of clustrmaps in sidebar

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you need to grab new HTML embed code for your ClustrMaps just log into your ClustrMaps Admin area using your blog URL and password (sent in the original signup email from ClustrMaps).

Remember if you are an Edublogs supporters or Edublogs campus users you use the ClustrMaps Widget to add it your blog sidebar.

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The Edublogger’s First Birthday Celebration!

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The Edublogger just had its first birthday which makes:

PS Sorry but celebrations ran a bit due to waiting new birthday clothes — come and check them out! What do you think of The Edublogger’s new blog theme?

Story Behind The Blog

Was The Edublogger my idea?  Nope! It was all James Farmer originating from this email on January 4, 2008:

I’d like to float something with you, and see what you think of it.

As you know I’m a big fan of your work… I love the way you illustrate ideas, communicate with your readers, pick topics and… well, just about everything really.

What I’d like to float with you is the possibility of you doing the kind of stuff you already do so well, but doing it at a central place within Edublogs, and having it promoted throughout the site.  It would entirely focused around you… you’d be entirely independent to criticize, rave or write about whatever at will…

From this The Edublogger was set up, by Edublogs, to share tips, tricks, ideas that help the educational blogging community.  With it my role working for Edublogs increased; from writing posts on The Edublogger to being employed 3 days a week in 2009.

Lets Celebrate!

To celebrate The Edublogger’s first birthday we’re giving away twelve Edublogs supporter 12 month subscriptions which you can use on your own blog or give away to a reader.  Just write a post based on any of the topics themes listed below:

  1. Advice for doing blog makeovers i.e. improving your blog
  2. Tips for using blogs with students
  3. Using tools like VoiceThread, Voki, mystudiyo, Animoto, SlideShows, Google Documents with students and embedding in blogs posts
  4. Advice for writing better blog posts
  5. What makes good comments or commenting tips
  6. Images in blog posts
  7. Tips for building blog audience
  8. Ideas for getting educators involved with using web technology
  9. Favorite blog widgets
  10. Images generators (e.g. sign generators, newspaper generators), avatars, online graph tools etc that you can use with students
  11. Advice on setting up or using class blogs
  12. Tips for connecting with other classrooms

Anyone can enter, including students, but you must include in your post which topic you are writing about and link back to this post so that we receive a pingback advising us that you have written the post (read this to understand What’s A Pingback? And How To Write Links). For example you might copy the following into the bottom of your post and just change the topic enclosed in the qutoation marks:

This post has been written on “tips for using blogs with students” as part of The Edublogger’s Birthday Celebration Competition!

The best post for each topic wins and you can submit posts for as many topics you like.  You have until March 5 to enter.

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!


Embedding A Flickr SlideShow In Your Blog Sidebar

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Have you speculated if it is possible to embed a Flickr Slideshow in a sidebar rather than in a post? Well Betsy asked because she wants to add one to her Merit School of Music blog.

Your options

The size of most embed code can be adjusted by pasting it into a simple text editor like Notepad and changing its width and height.  Really handy to know when you need to make an object smaller to fit the size of your post or sidebar.

However for a Flickr SlideShow there is a simpler option!  FlickrSliDR or Flickr slideshow! These “third party’ website lets you use the flickr URL address of the user, photo set or group and tags or any user/group to customise a Flickr slideshow to the dimensions you desire.

Adding a Slideshow to your blog sidebar

Both FlickrSliDR and Flickr slideshow create exactly the same SlideShow; which of the two websites you use is your choice.  Width of blog sidebars is dependent on your blog theme; however in most cases 180 px wide x 180 px high will work fine.

Image of creating a slideshow

Once you have grabbed the embed code from FlickrSliDR or Flickr slideshow go into your blog dashboard and add it to your sidebar using a text widget (Click on Design > Widgets).

Image of adding to sidebar using a text widget

Examples of Sidebar Slideshows

Below is an example of the size of a Flickrslideshow you would add to a blog sidebar.  I’ve used the fdsflickrtoy tag from images4education.  If you want to learn more about adding images to your in-class and online activities raise student interest I recommend you join images4education (you will be able to catch up with the weekly tasks).

Created with flickr slideshow.

Check out Ms. Kreul’s class blog to see a cool tour of their class created using FlickRSLiDR widget embedded in their side bar.

FINAL THOUGHTS

To learn more about using Flickr check out:

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Edublogs Themes That Allow Comments on Pages!

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Which blog themes allow readers to write comments on pages is a common question asked in the Edublogs forum.

Problem is some themes allow comments on pages and others don’t.  To find the answer you need to try each theme, which is a lengthy process.  It took me hours to Separate the 100 Edublogs themes Into Categories To Make Choosing Your Next Theme Easier.

Thanks to Ginny Paisie from Paisie Perusals we now have the answer because she both road tested all the themes and shared the results in the forum.

UPDATE:

While I was writing this post Paul Beaufait had a similar idea and has written a post:

  1. explaining why being able to write comments on pages is a handy feature for students
  2. and also set up a Google Form for you to leave details if your theme allows comments

We would REALLY love it if you could check the list above and drop past Paul’s post and complete his form to confirm if your theme does/doesn’t allow comments on pages.

Please remember also to take the time to drop past Ginny’s blog to thank her!

You may also want to check out What To Consider When Choosing Your Blog Theme!

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Quick Start Tips For New Flickr Users: Part III

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Quite a few readers have been asking why Flickr not Picasa or Photobucket.  With any luck this last post in our Flickr series will help explain as I demonstrate some of the creative ways Flickr can be used.

Creating Cool Stuff From Your Flickr Photos

One of the best aspects of Flickr is they allow outside (“third party”) applications or websites to communicate and exchange information with Flickr.  This means you use public Flickr data like photos, video, tags in new and different ways plus easily search for creative commons images.

My favorite websites for creating cool stuff from Flickr Photos include:

  1. Dumpr – check out this slideshow or my Dumpr flickr set to see what the images looked like before and after modifying using the different Dumpr tools

  2. Big Huge Labs fd’s Flickr Toys – check out this slideshow or my fd’s flickr toy set to see what the images looked like before and after modifying using a few of the different fd’s flickr toy tools.  Note: Photobucket also links easily to fd’s Flickr Toys

  3. Picnik – photo can be edited directly on Flickr using Picnik
  4. Spell with Flickr – how cool is this writing with Flickr?

C o Marble O (Washington, DC) L16 Graffiti exclamation

Using A Unique Tag To Bring Flickr Photos Together

Image of grabbing the embed code for a slideshowA cool way to bring your photos or photos by a group of people together is to use a unique tag.

For more information on tags and tagging refer back to Quick Start Tips For New Flickr Users: Part I.

For example, by using the unique tag educhristmas08 educators shared photos of how Christmas and the holidays were celebrated in their part of the World which was then embedded as a SlideShow into a blog post.

Please Note:

  1. There is a trick to embedding code into blog post so that it embeds properly and doesn’t cause problems in Internet Explorer.
  2. Follow the same steps outlined for embedding videos when embedding any code into blog posts!

Locating Creative Commons Images

Flickr is a popular source for finding creative commons images due to:

  • the quantity and quality of creative commons images hosted on Flickr
  • “third party” websites that make searching Flickr images fast and easy

Popular tools for searching Flickr creative common images include:

  1. Compfight
  2. Behold
  3. FlickrCC

Copyright and creative commons are important topics that you need to teach your students.  Here are some posts that may help:

  1. Copyright and Using Images in Blog Posts
  2. Finding and Adding Creative Commons Images To Your Blog Posts

FINAL THOUGHTS

Take the time to explore Flickr thoroughly for yourself because it has so many excellent features which I haven’t be able to cover.  If you are an experienced Flickr user – please let me know if I missed any important aspects.

The other posts from this series are:

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