And I’m sure it’s directly related to running four different web browsers daily on my computer for work.

But it constantly reminds me how which web browser you use directly impacts your internet user experience.

Here’s our review on what educators need to know about the top web browsers.

And our challenge to you is to trial some of these web browsers for 2 weeks to work out which browser is the best for you!

The top five most used web browsers in 2011 were:

1. Internet Explorer
2. Firefox
3. Chrome
4. Safari
5. Opera

Key browser facts to be aware of are:

• Internet Explorer continues to dominate the web browser market because it comes with the Windows operating system and many users aren’t aware that there are alternative web browser they can use.
• Internet Explorer’s dominance is decreasing because tech savvy users find the alternative web browsers are faster at loading sites and have less issues than Internet Explorer.
• Firefox and Chrome are the most commonly used web browsers by tech savvy users.
• Educational institutions often only allow one web browser to be installed on their computers due to the reluctance to provide support for alternative web browsers.  This attitude is slowly changing as awareness of the benefits of alternative web browsers increases.
• Some educational institutions continue to use outdated versions of Internet Explorer (IE 6 and 7) which greatly impact user experience (negatively).
• You can run more than one web browser on your computer at the same time without causing any issues.
• You should always check your website or blog in Internet Explorer, preferably IE 8, because this is the browser most likely used by people visiting your site.  You can find that a website looks fine in other web browsers but look differently or loads poorly in Internet Explorer.
• You can check whether you’re using the latest version of a web browser by checking the version number, usually located under Help > About in your web browser, with the information on Browse Happy.

Top Browser trends in Education

The top browsers used by visitors to all 1 million+ of the blogs on edublogs.org provides a good indication of changing browser habits in education and schools.

The sudden drop in Internet Explorer usage in July is directly related to the school holidays in the Northern Hemisphere where educators and their students are able to use the web browser of their choice on their home computers as opposed to what they have to use on their school computers.

When compared with data from StatsCounter you’ll notice Internet Explorer usage in education is lower than data collected for all Internet users while Safari is higher reflecting the higher percentage of Mac use in schools.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Market Share

Overview of the Top Web Browsers

Internet Explorer

Microsoft Internet Explorer might be the most widely used web browser but it isn’t the best web browser.  It tends to be slower loading and more prone to being unresponsive than some of the alternative web browsers.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox is one of the best web browsers and includes an extensive feature set.  It’s interface is fairly similar to Internet Explorer making the change over from  Internet Explorer easy for the new user.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is the web browser developed by Google.  It has rapidly grown in popularity this year and recently become the second most widely used web browser (based on StatCounter stats).

It has a minimalistic user interface that is different from other modern web browsers.  However, once you get use to the differences you’ll soon appreciate how fast, simple and stable Chrome is to use.  It also include features that aren’t part of other web browsers such as:

• Incognito mode – handy for opening different accounts for an online tool using the same web browser (great for testing student and teacher accounts) or when you want to browse in private without it being recorded in your histories.
• Google Sync – allows you to sync your bookmarks, settings, theme, and so on between different computers running Chrome.

Apple Safari

Safari  is Apple’s web browser.

While it is most commonly used on Macbooks, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch; you can install it on a PC.

Opera

Opera uses a very minimalistic user interface similar to Chrome.

Final Thoughts

Are we missing any tips and advice you would give on web browsers?  Do you have any favorite add-ons to add to our list?

Please leave a comment to let us know!

With so many options now available, we’ve decided to show you how easy it is to decorate your blog for any holiday or season!

We’ve also set up a demo blog so you can check out what a live blog looks like when you use different options to customise with a particular feel!

Adding a Custom Background

Most themes now allow you to set your own custom image header and custom background.

Yet most people are unaware of how easy it is to add a custom background to achieve a more customised look while adding a personalized touch to their blog.

The first step is to search for a free background you’d like to use.  Numerous websites provide a wide range of suitable free images and backgrounds.

Here’s some sites to get you started:

1. Free Christmas Wallpapers
2. Webweavers Free Clipart
3. Free webimages & Clipart
4. Background Labs
5. Layouts for Christmas
6. Christmas Free 4 All
7. Animated Gif Net
8. Cartoon Cottage

Once you’ve located an image you would like to use, all you need to do is right mouse click on the image and select Save Image As (or Save Picture as) to save a copy of the image onto your computer.

Now uploading your background is as simple as:

1.  Go to Appearance > Background inside your dashboard.

2.  Click on Choose File, select the image you want to upload and then click Upload.

3.  Once it is uploaded select your preferred display option and then click Save Changes.

And when you check your blog you should now see your new custom background!

Student bloggers often like using an animated gif for their background.  All they need to do is locate the animated .gif they want to use, save it onto their computer the same as you would save any other image, and then upload it as a background.

Of course, animated gifs can be a bit overwhelming when used as a background and Ronnie made me remove my pretty ones

Adding a Custom image header

Custom image headers, like backgrounds can really add to the look and feel of a blog.

You can easily make your own or search for a free image header to use.

Here’s some sites to get you started:

1. Guides & Tips Bogger
2. Free Christmas headers
3. Free Web headers
4. Free Header images
5. Theme headers

Once you’ve located an image you would like to use all you need to do is right mouse click on the image and select Save Image As (or Save Picture as) to save a copy of the image onto your computer.

Tip:

1. For the best quality use the recommended image header dimensions for your chosen theme (recommend size for your theme is displayed on Appearance > Header)
2. I use Snagit to resize and adjust my image headers to the correct size before uploading.

Now uploading your image header is as simple as:

1.  Go to Appearance > Header inside your dashboard.

2.  Click on Choose file, browse for the image on your computer and then click on Open.

• Only .jpeg, .gif, and .png files can be used for image headers.

3.  Next click Upload 

4.  Your image will upload and if it isn’t the exact dimensions you’ll need to select the area you want to crop and then click Crop and Publish.
<
And when you check your blog you should now see your new custom image header!

Adding widgets to your sidebar

And don’t forget the longtime-favorite Let It Snow plugin on Edublogs which adds falling snow right on your blog!

Leave a link to your decked-out and holiday-trimmed blog below so we can all get in the festive mood.

Seasons greetings and happy blog decorating!

The good news is that our newest custom menus feature makes this even easier!

This is ideal if you want to put up a post or question geared only towards one group of your students. They will see a link for their class in the top menu navigation of your blog, and once they click on that link, they will see only posts meant for them, with the most recent at the top.

Don’t let the length of the instructions fool you – it really is easy to setup, and once it is done, it will last you all school year

Step 1 – Choose what should be shown on your “home page”

Option 1 – All posts are shown with the most recent first – this what you are most likely used to

Option 2 – A “static home page” where you place a welcome message or important announcements

What we will be doing is assigning categories to certain classes or subjects. Because of this, you may not want all posts to show on your home page – what people see when they first visit your blog.

If you are ok with all posts, no matter the subject or class, showing together on your home page, then you won’t need to do anything special and can skip right to Step 2.

If you go with the static home page (Option 2), then you will first need to create a new page, just like any other page, and put in the information you want people to see.

Then, go to Settings > Reading in your blog’s dashboard, choose ‘Static Page‘ and in the drop down, select the new welcome page you just created.

Click ‘Save Changes‘.

You will be able to go back and update this page with new announcements whenever you like – but users that have subscribed to your blog feed or by email, won’t receive any sort of notification.

You can also create a new blank page called something like “All Posts”, and choose it under the posts dropdown box so that there will be a place for all posts to be shown on your blog in one place.

Step 2 – Create categories

Go to Posts > Categories and create new categories for each class, year, or subject that you want to appear in your blog’s navigation menu.

You will need a category for every post you write if you are using the static home page from step 1.

As you publish new posts, make sure to assign them to appropriate categories. You will get an error message when you click on a category that doesn’t yet have a post assigned to it. You can also assign a post to more than one category, which is great for news you want to share with all groups.

Step 3 – Create a custom menu

Go to Appearance > Menus and create a new custom menu for your blog.

Once you do this, all of the links at the top of your blog will disappear and you will need to add them back using the custom menu.

Visit our help site on custom menus to learn more, or check out the video below:

Going from here…

If you have this up and working and would like to share, feel free to leave a comment below letting us know!

For more information on setting up a class blog, check out the ongoing Class Blog series on our Teacher Challenges free professional development blog.

Like blogging, CollaborizeClassroom makes it easy to have discussions online. And best of all, there is a widget that lets you embed questions and polls right into your blog!

Anna and the team from CollaborizeClassroom was nice enough to set up a site just for edubloggers – you don’t need to even be an Edublogs user to use it. You can also set-up your own online space and the service is completely free either way!

So play around with the following directions and let us know what you think!

Step One: Visit the Edublogs Collaborize Community. Click Ask a Question. When the window pops up, it’s time to set up your poll.

Step Two: This is the form where you’ll create your poll. In the first field, type in the topic (or title) of your poll. Add any other information you would like to include in the description area. We recommend using this space to explain how you would like people to use your poll. Next, select a category. If you don’t see a category that is specific to your poll, you can use the “Other” category. You can also add an end-date or attach an image, video or document.

When you are done, click Publish.

Step Three: Once you see your topic displayed in the topic listing, click Make Widget (the link with the gear icon next to it). You will be taken to a wizard that guides you through the process of customizing your widget’s appearance.

Step Four: Once you have customized your Widgets appearance, click Next then click Grab Code at the bottom of the page.  Copy the Widget Code.

Step Five: From your Edublog site, in a New Post – Click on the HTML Tab and Paste in your Widget Code.

Step Six: Click Publish and view your new widget in action!

Thanks CollaborizeClassroom for putting together this site for our community and for helping with the directions above!

Before now, you had to put a link to your twitter page and then potential fellow tweeters had to click “follow” there. Now, they can do it all from your site with one single click.

He’re an example for my account. Go head – click follow – I won’t mind!

So how do you add one to your blog?

Twitter makes it easy to grab embed code for your own personal follow button here.

We’ll walk you through the steps, but if you want to know more about embedding, you should check out the in-depth post here from our Teacher Challenge blog.

1. Visit the Twitter Resource page for the Follow button

2. Choose from the available options and then copy the code that appears on the right side

3. Paste the code into the HTML tab of a page or post. A popular place might be to put it on your Contact or About page.

How To Embed In a Sidebar

You can see that we’ve embedded the follow button into the sidebar of this blog on the left side under our photos.

Here’s how to this:

1. Complete steps 1 and 2 from above (which is to go here)

2.  Go to Appearance > Widgets in your blog dashboard

3.  Click on the desired Sidebar to expand (so you can add the widgets)

4.  Add a text widget to the desired sidebar by dragging it from the Available Widgets into the Sidebar area on the right.

5.  The widget will automatically open — just add the HTML code for your follow button or widget, click Save and then Close.

6.  That’s it!

What other twitter widgets can you add?

Using the exact same steps as embedding the follow button, you can also add several other twitter widgets too!

All of the different widgets and options can be found here.

Here are a few on display for you too see:

The Profile Widget




The Search Widget




Edubloggers List Widget

Other Twitter Resources

• A twitteraholics guide to tweets, hashtags and all things twitter
• To hashtag or not to hashtag
• Edublogs on Twitter

You might post great information but….

-   if it doesn’t grab attention
-   if it’s hard to read

….it might never be read!

So here’s 10 tips to help you write better blog posts.

1. Use attention grabbing titles

Titles on blog posts are like titles on books.

The better the title, the more it’ll grab the attention of readers and the greater the chance they’ll read what you’ve written.

Captivating and intriguing titles draw readers every time.  Back that with a well written post and you won’t look back.

For further tips on writing post titles refer to 15 Ways to rework your next blog post title.

2. Use Short Paragraphs

Posts with really long paragraphs are really hard to read making it less likely for them to be read and more likely your readers will miss the point of your post.

It’s really simple:

• Break your posts up with paragraphs
• The more paragraphs the better
• Short paragraphs are better than long
• If you need to make some paragraphs one or two sentences long so they are visually easier to read online then do it!
• Make the first sentence of each paragraph make your readers want to read the rest of the paragraph

But avoid over use of bold, italics, colored font and so on — i.e. anything that makes it too hard to read the text or makes it visually uncomfortable to read.

3. Use Headings

Use headings, and where appropriate bullet points and number lists, to break up the post into manageable bit size chunks.

Creating a heading is as simple as:

1. Highlighting the text you want to change into a heading
2. Selecting the Heading Style you want to apply from the Advanced formatting toolbar (for most themes your best option is heading 3)
3. Previewing your post to make sure that headings you’ve used has broken your post into manageable chunks

4.  Remember to link

If you write about an article or another blogger’s post link to it!

Why? Because your readers often want to check it out in more details.

Linking is a really important part of being a blogger and linking isn’t hard but a common mistake of new bloggers is to forget to link!

It’s good blogging etiquette to link to:

1. A person’s blog if you mention a blogger
2. The post if you are talking about a particular post on a blog
3. Articles and websites when you write about them

Here’s example of how you might link:

Sue Wyatt, one of the coordinators of the Teacher Challenge, has decided to lead by example and is participating in the Advanced series of 30 Days to Kick Start Your Blogging.   Check out Sue’s Interviewing my blog!

Creating a hyperlink is as simple as:

1. Highlighting the text you want to link to a website, blog or post
2. Clicking on the Insert/Edit Link icon in the standard formatting toolbar
3. Paste the link URL
4. Then click Insert

5. Use images effectively

A picture tells a thousand words.

Effective use of images grab your readers attention and encourage them to read your posts.

Key aspects to consider include:

Resize images before using in posts

It’s really important to resize images before inserting into to your blog post as:

1. You’ll find it easier to get the image to go where you want them to go; and to wrap text how you want it to wrap!
2. Photos from digital cameras can be as large as 2.4 MB.  They’ll unnecessarily use up blog storage space and the image will take longer to load in the post than the same image resized

Recommended sizes are:

• 450 pixels wide – if you want it to take up the full width of your post area  (ideal for most themes)
• 150-200 pixels – to left or right align the image with wrapped text

Learn more about resizing photos here.

Don’t use copyrighted images

You can’t just use any image you like in a blog post.

Why?  Because unless stated otherwise the law automatically grants full “copyright” over any creative work a person makes.

And if you’re thinking Fair Use Laws.  Forget it!

It’s only really applicable in USA and won’t protect you from the rage that can be unleashed by someone whose copyright has been broken.

Learn to use Creative commons images or create your own images so you don’t get into trouble.

6.  Enhance with embedded media

Embedding media like slides, videos, comic strips, quizzes, polls into your blog post take your posts to the next level.

It provides opportunities for readers’ engagement and interaction in ways not achievable using plain text and images.

So use  them!

Here’s where you can learn more about enhancing posts using embedded media.

7.  Subscribe to your posts

Blog readers are now reading your posts through a wider range of choices than ever before.   From posts on your blog using a computer, to feed readers like Google Reader,  or by email, via sites like Facebook to apps on mobile devices — they’re using it!

Your blog posts need to look good, visually, for all the different ways people are reading your posts.

And if you’ve only been focusing of your readers who visit your blog posts then you need to rethink!  Visits to your blog is only make up a small proportion of your readers.

You need to:

1. Take time to learn about RSS and email subscription.
2. Subscribe to your own blog feed using your feed reader and your email subscription
3. And basically check what your posts looks like when read the different ways.

This allows you to troubleshoot issues with font sizes, image size/alignment, removal of content like embeds and any feed issues.

Embeds like SlideShare, Voicethreads and videos can be removed in Feed readers and are removed in emails.  Good practise is to embed the media and link to the location on the media.

8.  Don’t format like MS Word Document

Formatting posts using the Visual Editors works differently from how you can format documents using software like MS Word.

Accept that it works differently and you’ll make your life a lot easier.

For example, you can align separate images side by side in a Word Document but this often doesn’t work in posts.

The best option is to use a photo gallery or create one image from the images to make it look like separate images.

And you definitely DON”T write and format your post in MS Word and then paste it into your Visual Editor — won’t work!

9.  Have a blogging routine

Every blogger has periods where they struggle to write posts.

Deciding on how many posts per week or month works best for you, and a routine to fit this means you’re less likely to suffer ‘blogger’s block’ and you’re more likely to consistently write better posts.

Here’s more information on post frequency and blogging routine.

10. And finally advice on what to blog about

For many edubloggers blogging is a bit about their readers and a lot about their own personal needs to reflect on what they are learning or what they want to share.

One of the commonest mistakes made by new bloggers is focusing on what they think their readers want to read.

Our advice is forget about your readers and focus on your own needs.

You’ll be more passionate and it’ll come through in your posts. And never assume that someone’s already written what you’re saying.

Final Thoughts

What have I missed?

1. What are your 3 most important tips for writing better blog posts?
2. What blog post recently has made you want to comment and what was it about this post that engaged you?
3. Has a post recently inspired you to write your own post? What was it about the post that made you take action?

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

Sorry but I’ve been really busy writing bi-weekly posts on our Teacher Challenge blog.

So I’ve decided that you’d might like to see that types of posts and activities we’ve been doing on Teacher Challenge blog by cross-posting our post on Enhancing posts with images here.

I’ve kept the post as is so you can see exactly how participants are stepped through tasks.

But first I’ll tell you a bit more about the Teacher Challenge!

About the Teacher Challenge

Teacher Challenge blog is where we do free 30 day professional development challenges that step participants through weekly tasks that increase their skills while working together as part of a global community.

The Challenge is open to anyone who wants to increase their skills – blogs are used for reflecting your progress while learning and connecting with each other.

However blogs don’t need to be hosted by Edublogs to participate!*

Participants can complete as many of the tasks as they like and in any order.  And if you missed out, it is never too late to work through the challenges at your own pace!

Our first Challenge was 30 Days to Kick Start Your Blogging and here’s where you’ll find the Beginners posts:

1. Kick Start Activity 1 – Beginner – Setting Up Your Blog
2. Kick Start Activity 2 – Beginner – Effective and engaging blog posts
3. Kick Start Activity 3 – Beginner – Introduction to working with pages
4. Kick Start Activity 4 – Beginner – Connecting with others
5. Kick Start Activity 5 – Beginner – Enhancing posts with images
6. Kick Start Activity 6 – Beginner – Enhancing posts by embedding media
7. Kick Start Activity 7 – Beginner – Getting more out of widgets
8. Kick Start Activity 8 – Beginner – Building readership and blogrolls

Our current Teacher Challenge is 30 days to get your students blogging

Kick Start Activity 5 – Beginner – Enhancing posts with images

A picture tells a thousand words.

Effective use of images grab your readers attention and encourage them to read your posts.

While a copyrighted image can grab the attention of the person whose copyright you’ve broken — and cause you considerable pain

In this fifth activity you will:

1. Be introduced to copyright
2. Learn about using Creative Commons images in posts
3. Find Creative commons images and add them to a blog post
4. Learn about uploading photos from digital cameras
5. Learn about other way of creating your own images
6. Write a blog post that includes images
7. Visit the Discussion question for activity five
8. Complete the extension activity (if you have time).

Step 1: Introduction to Copyright and using Images in posts

You can’t just use any image you like in a blog post.

Why?  Because unless stated otherwise the law automatically grants full “copyright” over any creative work a person makes.

And if you’re thinking Fair Use Laws.  Forget it!

It’s only really applicable in USA and won’t protect you from the rage that can be unleashed by someone whose copyright has been broken.

So what’s the solution?

1. Use Creative Commons images
2. Use your own photos
3. Create your own images using a range of different tools

Step 2:  Using Creative Commons Images in posts

Creative Commons images are the safest way to source images online for blog posts.

Introduction to Creative Commons

Creative Commons, founded in 2001, is an organization which provides free content license known as a creative commons license that people can apply to their work.

When you license your work with creative commons, you are giving people the permission to use it without having to ask permission, provided they use it in the manner stated in your creative commons license.

The reason people use creative commons licenses is to make it easier for everyone to share and adapt creative work without the concern of copyright infringement.

Creative commons licenses are used for books, websites, blogs, photographs, films, videos, songs and other audio & visual recordings.

And for those that are wondering, unless a blogger includes a Creative Commons license, all content on that blog is automatically the copyright of the blogger.

Creative Commons images and Flickr

One of the most common sources of Creative Commons images used by bloggers is Flickr (an online photo sharing website).

Unfortunately many assume Flickr images are licensed under creative commons and allowed to be used.

This isn’t the case; images marked as “All Rights Reserved” are copyrighted and require permission from their creator.

Images marked as “Some Rights Reserved” means a creative commons license applies.

If you look at images directly on Flickr always check to see which license applies to ensure you only use the image in the manner specified by the license.

Here’s a summary of what the Creative Commons license’s mean on Flickr:

Creative Commons and Image attribution

It’s a requirement of all Creative Commons Licenses that you attribute the original author.  This means you can’t just use a creative commons image without acknowledging the person who originally created it.

Within or at the end your blog post you must attribute the image and you must link the photo back to it’s original photo page.  We’ll show you how to do this soon!

Step 3: Finding Creative commons images and adding them to a blog post

There are several online tools that make searching Creative Commons Flickr photos less time consuming.

Here’s a couple of quick options:

1. Compfight
2. FlickrCC
3. Wylio.com

Other sources of Creative Commons images include:

1. Wikimedia Commons
2. Search by Creative Commons

Here’s how to search and add images to posts using Compfight

1.  Go to Compfight

2.  Change to Creative Commons only, choose whether to search tags or text, add your search term and click Search.

3.  Scan through the search results and click on the Photo you like so that you can view it on its photo page on Flickr.

4.  Scroll down right hand side of photo page to view License.

5.  Hold your Ctrl key and left mouse click on “Some Rights Reserved” to open up the license on a new browser tab to read terms of its license on Creative Commons.

• Only use if license is applicable for your situation.

6.  Now select View All Sizes from the drop down Action list and select the size of the photo you want to use.

7.  Right click on Image and select Copy Image Location or Copy Image URL (depends on what web browser you are using).

8.  Now go to the post you are writing inside your dashboard and click on Add an Image icon

9   In the Add an Image window click on the From URL tab
10.  Add the image URL, image title, select the image alignment, add the URL of its Flickr photo page to the Link Image URL field and then click Insert Into Post

• In this example the URL of its Flickr photo page is http://www.flickr.com/photos/53611153@N00/309709280/
• You link to its Flickr photo page as it is a requirement of Flickr’s conditions of use and so that if any one clicks on the photo they can view the original source of the image.

11.  Add the photo attribution either below the photo or at the end of your blog post.

• It’s a requirement of all Creative Commons Licenses that you attribute the original author.
• This means you can’t just use a creative commons image without acknowledging the person who originally created it.
• The text below this photo is are examples of how you can attribute an image — look closely at what websites the attributions links to!

Example 1:

Photo by Darwin Bell licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Example 2:

Original image: ‘a piggy in the middle‘

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

Please note:

• Some School Districts block Flickr
• In these types of  situations you’ll need to download the photo onto your computer and then upload it to your blog post.

Step 4: Uploading photos from digital cameras

Our digital cameras are designed for printing good quality photos and not for uploading directly into blog posts.

A photo from a digital camera can be as large as 2.4 MB, it’ll unnecessarily use up your blog storage space and take longer to load your image compared to an image that is resized before uploading.

It’s really important to resize them before uploading to your blog post.

The best option is to resize the photo to:

1. 450 pixels wide – if you want it to take up the full width of your post area
2. 150-200 pixels – to left or right align the image with wrapped text

Here’s some tools you can use to resize your photos:

1. InfraView – here’s how you do basic image editing using irfanView
2. Picasa – here’s instructions on resizing your photos using Picasa
3. Picture Manager – here’s detailed instructions on how to use Picture Manager
4. PIXresizer – Here’s instructions for resizing images using PIXresizer.
5. iPhoto

Now your photo is resized uploading into your blog post is as simple as:

1.  Click on Add an Image icon

2.  In the Add an Image window click on the Select Files button

3.  Locate the images on your hard drive (use your Shift or Crtl key to select more than one image).

4.  Click Open to start uploading the images.

5. While your images are uploading you will see a progress bar.

• If you upload more than one image you will need to click on the Show link to edit the image details and insert an image into a post (see below for instructions for inserting a photo gallery).

6.  In the image option screen you need to (see below for more details on each of these option):

• type a title for the image
• choose how you want the image align (None, Left, Center or Right)
• select size of image you want to insert (Thumbnail, Medium, Large or Full Size)
• and then click Insert into Post

7.  Your Add an Image window should be closed and your image should now be inserted in your post.

Step 5:  Other ways of creating your own images

Other options for creating your own images include:

1. Image Generators such as ImageGenerator.org
2. Comic Generators like MakeBeliefsComix.com,  kerpoof, ToonDoo
3. Photo Editors like Befunky, fd’s Flickr Tools
4. Tag Cloud Creators such as Wordle
5. Graph Creators including GraphJam and Crappy Graphs

Mixing up your images using these types of tools can really spice up your posts!

We hope you have fun trying some of them out!

Step 6:  Write a blog post that includes images

Now we’ve talked about images it’s time for you to show us your skills by writing a blog post that includes images.

Here’s some ideas of what you might like to write about:

1. Share what you have learnt about Creative Commons and finding Creative Commons images.  Tell us about your favorite sources of Creative Commons images.
2. Share your tips of creating your own images.
3. Write a review on ways of creating your own images using a range of different types of tools.
4. What you’ve learnt from watching how other bloggers use images in their blog posts.

Don’t forget to include images in your blog post!

And remember to leave a comment with a link to your post so we can drop past to check it out!  We like to include these links to your posts in our weekly reviews!

Step 7:  Visit the Discussion question for activity five

Step 8: Extension Activity  – the WOW! factor

Add a photo of your own to befunky or irfanview, use as many of their editing features as possible to change the look of your image completely and give it the ‘Wow’ factor ie the audience who looks at this image would just say ‘”Wow’! How did you do that?”.

Add it to your post and explain what software and features were used.

Final Thoughts

Some readers have commented that blogging in another location is making it harder for them to find my posts.   Would love to hear your thoughts?

Would you like us to be cross-posting the posts from the Teacher Challenge blog onto The Edublogger?  Would that make it easier?

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

Did you know that the fastest and easiest way to add new features to your blog is by embedding widgets into the sidebar of your blog?

To help you out, here is a list of the most popular and most useful widgets that can be added to your blog in no time.

Scroll down to the bottom of this post for more instructions on how to add widgets to your blog. Don’t forget, these widgets can also be embedded using the HTML tab in any page or post as well!

Visitor Statistics

1. ClustrMaps - The most popular widget on Edublogs.  Displays a small map with “dots” for each of your visitors.
2. Flag Counter – Lists the most common countries that your visitors are from and shows the flag from each country.
3. Who’s Among Us – With an account, includes some nice stat collection tools.
4. My Web Counter – Simple and free visitor counters with many custom looks and designs.

Talking Avatars

1. Voki - Add a speaking and highly customizable avatar to your blog.  Record you voice, create a character, and much more!
2. Read The Words – Human avatars that will read text or recorded audio right in your blog.
3. Site Pal – A paid widget that can make scarily realistic avatars using uploaded photos of you or students.

Miscellaneous

1. Clock Link – 100′s of different and unique clocks of all types.
2. AccuWeather – The most complete collection of weather widgets to show current conditions and forecasts.
3. Box.net – Create a file dropbox or upload widget for students to submit files for your review.
4. Feed Wind – Display the latest posts from another blog anywhere on the web.
5. Sweet Search – Place a search box for a trusted and safe for students search engine.

Google Apps

*These widgets also will all work with Google Apps for Education users too!

1. Google Calendar – Embed a list of upcoming events or a month view of a public Google calendar.
2. Google Talk Chatback – Put a badge in your sidebar that lets users chat with you live when you are online. Your blog’s visitors don’t even need a gtalk account to chat with you.
3. Google Maps – Embed a Google map – complete with directions, street views, and more.
4. Google Gadgets – Choose from hundreds of different widgets, including games, trivia and more.

Multimedia

1. Flickr Slideshow and Badges - Easily add photos from your flickr account to your sidebar.
2. Facebook Photo Gallery - Show off your public facebook photo galleries right on your blog.
3. SchoolTube MVP - Share popular videos from SchoolTube.com with easy sidebar access.
4. YouTube - Place in YouTube channels or top trending videos.
5. Mixpod – Create a music play list and share it on your blog.
6. RadioTuna – Pick a genre and play music for your visitors.

Languages

1. Google Translate – Instantly translate your blog into many different languages.
2. Transparent.com Word of the Day – Audio and visual word of the day. Customizable in many of the world’s languages such as Spanish, French, German, Chinese and many more.
3. Reverso Translation – Translorts, verb conjugators, and more in many different languages.

Reading

1. Shelfari - Show off your favorite books for others to see.
2. Education Atlas – Free thesaurus and dictionary widget with many features.
3. SitePal Widgetbox – Mentioned above, but this widget will allow readers to type in or copy and paste words to be read out loud.

Science & Math

1. Science Score – A science question of the day. Students can even enter to win prizes.
2. Wolfram Alpha – Quite possibly the best resource on this list – Wolfram Alpha contains hundreds of customizable math and science widgets, including unit converters, weather tools, graphing calculators, problem solvers, and much more. This might be the only resource math and science students and teachers need for their blogs!

History

1. Info Please – Nice looking “this day in history” widget that displays multiple events and updates every day.
2. Timeline Index – 30 different timelines showcasing several different periods of history – including US presidents, world history outline, philosophers, and explorers.

Widget Sites & Collections

1. WidgetBox.com – The definite go-to place to find and build your own widgets. Edublogs uses several widgets from here on our main site!
2. SpringWidgets.com – Another great source for widgets from many of your favorite sites on the web. User reviews and comments help you find the perfect widget for your blog.
3. Widgipedia.com – Like the two sites above, wigipedia is a huge and growing collections of widgets of all types and sizes.

How To Embed

1. Choose the widget of your choice and copy the html code for it.

2.  Go to Appearance > Widgets in your blog dashboard

3.  Click on the desired Sidebar to expand (so you can add the widgets)

4.  Add a text widget to the desired sidebar by dragging it from the Available Widgets into the Sidebar area on the right.

5.  The widget will automatically open — just add the HTML code for your widget, click Save and then Close.

6.  You should now see the widget in your blog sidebar!

Related Links

• Edublogs Curriculum Corner – Embedding and using blogs with other technology
• Edublogs Support – Upgrading up to 50 student blogs to enable embedding

Since there are thousands and thousands of widgets to use, we are certain to have overlooked a few of your favorites.

Leave a comment below with any that we missed so that we can add to the list!

The aim of the post is to help educators and students with their personal blogging.

For my responses to student blogging questions refer to What You Wanted To KNOW About Student Blogging.

Want my blog to be well read and have a great appearance

Here’s my thoughts including recommended widgets:

1. Always put the most important widgets at the top of your blog
2. Search widget – top of blog or top of sidebar
3. RSS feed using Feedburner – here’s how to add it to your blog
4. Subscribe by email using Feedburner – here’s how to add Feeburner email subscription to your blog
5. Effectively use both categories and tags on your post to make it easier to find posts – here’s the difference between categories and tags
6. Place category widget above tag widget in your sidebar
7. Consider all widgets you add very carefully.  Do you really NEED them?  Do they help or distract from your blog appearance and content?
8. AVOID excessive use of bold, italics and colored font in posts
9. Use headings, number listed, bullet lists, short paragraphs to break posts into manageable chunks– here’s my first five tips for writing better blog posts
10. Use images effectively to engage attention –- read these posts:
    • Copyright and Using Images in Blog Posts
    • Finding and Adding Creative Commons Images To Your Blog Posts
    • Uploading Photos From Digital Cameras Into Blog Posts
11. Avoid blog themes with strong colors or text that is too small that distract the reader from content and make them not want to read it
12. Choose a blog title that is immediately meaningful and relevant to first time visitors – this can make or break their decision to become a subscriber.
    • For example, the original name Mobile Technology in TAFE for my personal blog is a classic example of a REALLY bad blog title

Here’s what to consider when choosing a blog theme.

And think about using your own custom image header like I’ve done on my personal blog – here’s how to upload custom image headers

Do a first time reader audit on your blog

A good approach to improving your blog appearance is to “Do a first time reader audit on your blog” by:

1. Following Darren Rowse’s Run a First Time Reader Audit on Your Blog instructions to observe how someone who has never read your blog navigates it
2. Contacting a few experience bloggers and ask them to do a quick audit of your blog to give you advice on what works and what doesn’t

How you see your blog and what you write about is often totally different from how viewed by others

What experienced bloggers spot differ from someone who normally doesn’t read blogs.

Can you tell how many times your blog has been viewed?

Knowing how many times your blog has been view doesn’t give you a true reflection of your readership.

Blog readership is made up of two totally separate components:

1. People who visit your blog site
2. Readers who subscribe to your blog using RSS or email subscription

The number of people who read your blog by visiting your blog site is generally considerably lower than those that subscribe by RSS or email subscription.

To understand your readership and changes you need to:

1. Set up Google Analytics for your blog
2. Set up Feeburner RSS and email subscription

PostRank is also good for monitoring other engagement factors.

How can a blogger attract more readers?

Hard question because it’s a combination of factors including:

1.  Your blog’s appearance

Some bloggers write great content but:

• Their blog theme and sidebar clutter distracts readers from appreciating the great content
• Lay out of their posts makes their posts hard to read -  here’s my first five tips for writing better blog posts

2.  Type of posts and how frequently you publish posts:

Bloggers like Stephen Downes, Larry Ferlazzo and Richard Brynes all have high readership because they all:

• Have high posts frequency (post several posts per day)
• Publish posts that provide great information for their readers

As a general rule high posts frequency combined with great content increases readership faster than low post frequency with great content.

But you don’t always need high posting frequency to have high readership.

For example, some one like Vicki Davis posts less frequently but  has high readership because of her great content and amazing support of the educational community.

It’s worth checking out Post Rank’s Education list even though their list is based on engagement factors (as opposed to readership) — to check out different edublogging approaches.

3.  Connecting with others

Being a blogger isn’t just about publishing posts.

It’s also about reading others posts, taking time to comment on their posts (in meaningful ways), engaging with your readers by commenting back when they leave comments — being a good blog citizen.

A natural part of connecting with others means that more people are likely to become aware of your work.

Don’t forget that linking to someone else’s post is an important part of blogging.  Why?

Because reading posts that talks about other bloggers or their posts but doesn’t include links to them is really frustrating for readers. Readers like to follow the links and check out the information in more detail but without the links they can’t!

And when you include links to another bloggers post it sends a pingback to that blogger.  Most bloggers check out pingback to their blogs.

Here’s more information on What’s A Pingback? And How To Write Links

But please note — I can’t stress meaningful ways enough when connecting with others, writing comments or using pingbacks.

4.  How you make people aware of your posts

I know other bloggers feel uncomfortable about this as myself.

But nowadays increasingly readers are reading blog posts by links shared on twitter rather than RSS.   So it is now a good idea to tweet when you’ve written a new post.

If you’re not currently using twitter – here’s how to get started.

Bloggers are also using Facebook to connect with more readers – here’s how you do it.

How do you get more people to read your blog and comment?

Increasing readership doesn’t necessarily lead to more comments.

As a general rule if you publish several post per day readers are less likely to comment on posts than if you publish posts two or three times per week.

Scheduling posts several days apart gives readers time to process your posts and means they are more likely to write comments.

However, it does all depend on how you’ve written your post.  Has your post invited a response?

There are skills to writing posts that make readers want to comment — my Comment Count post should give you some ideas.

What are your best practices to ensure uninterrupted publishing posts?

We’re all always busy — so time can be a challenge.

The key is work out what routine works best you and set up a system that helps you.

For example, decide how often you want to publish posts?  Several times daily, once daily or a few times a week?

As a general rule writing a post 2-3 times a week is more achievable for most educators.   So how you do it is decide that Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days your posts will publish.

And to make life easier you can write the posts at the same time and then schedule to post on those days.

Some bloggers also find using a calendar where you plan the topic of your posts helps.  While I’ll also use Google Document which I update with new post ideas.

How do you determine “worthy” topics to attract readers

Really gets back to the reason why you blog.

For many edubloggers blogging is a bit about their readers and a lot about their own personal needs to reflect on what they are learning or what they want to share.

One of the commonest mistakes I see made by new blogggers is focusing on what they think their readers want to read.

My advice is forget about your readers and focus on your own needs.  You’ll be more passionate and it’ll come through in your posts.

And never assume that someone’s already written what you’re saying.

Have bloggers block.  How do I get going again, post length, finding my voice etc

Don’t feel alone — we all suffer from it at some stage.

Some find having a break helps.

Whereas breaks don’t help me and the best solution is to force myself to write the post (any post) to get back into my blogging routine.

Post length

Post length is an interesting topic.  As a general rule shorter posts are more likely to get comments while longer posts are more likely to be bookmarked.

It’s really about what works for both you and your readers.

For example, this post is definitely too long but I didn’t want to break into a series of posts because I normally post twice weekly.  Would it have been better as separate posts for each question?  Probably!

Finding your voice

Each blogger has their own distinct writing style which we often call their voice.

Once you’ve got your blogging routine back I’m sure you’ll find your voice comes back with it.

Final thoughts

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

1. What did I miss in my responses?
2. Do you have any other questions on blogging you would like answered?

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I’ve promised to follow up What You Wanted To KNOW About Student Blogging with a post that  focuses on responses to more general blogging questions.

The aim of the post will be to help educators and students with their personal blogging.

But first I really love to know what you really want to know about blogging or have always wanted to ask.

Please leave a comment to tell me the questions you would like answered about blogging such as:

1. What would you like to know more about?
2. What have you always wondered or been trying to work out?
3. What have you been struggling with?

And to make sure I don’t miss any really important topics

– please feel free to also share your most important tips for new bloggers.

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