Tag Archives: PollDaddy

Befunky, Photopeach, and Sketchfu – it’s what students want to do!

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What are fun (and educational!) activities to do with students that they can also embed into blogs and other websites like wikis?

Who better to tell us then the students themselves!

So here is a list of tools compiled from recommendations by the Digiridoos, a group of Year 4/5 (9-10 year olds),  who each shared what they would include if they were in charge of the Student Blogging Challenge.

Befunky

Befunky is quick and simple tool for transforming digital photos into instant art work or digital comics.

Extensive range of effects, speech bubbles, accessories, graphics and lot’s of objects that you can add to your pictures.

Great for expressing creativity while having fun and providing cool images for spicing up your blog!

Example of using befunky

PhotoPeach

PhotoPeach is one of the fastest and easiest ways of creating a story or quiz using photos.

It’s as simple as:

  1. Uploading your photos
  2. Adding music
  3. Adding your captions.

Presto!  You’ve created a story that you can embed as a slideshow into your blog post.

Here’s detailed instructions on how to create and embed a PhotoPeach.

Check out the example of a PhotoPeach Quiz below:

Learn more about animals on PhotoPeach

PollDaddy

Polldaddy is one of the most recognized tools for creating online polls and surveys.

Polls provide different opportunities for gauging readers opinions compared to just asking questions in blog posts.

Not all readers feel comfortable leaving comments in responses to questions.

Polls means readers can express their opinion while maintaining their anonymity.

They also provide you and visitors to your blog the chance to gain a sense of how your readers feel on topics since most online poll tools display the results once a visitor has voted.

Check out the example of a PollDaddy Poll below:


Sketchfu

Sketchfu is a simple tool for creating your own cool animations online that can easily be embedded into your blog post.

Grabbing the Sketchfu embed code

Here’s an example of a Sketchfu embedded below:


Make your own drawings at SketchfuMore from this artist at SketchfuShare this drawing from Sketchfu
Learn how to draw cartoons, comics, and anime at Sketchfu!

Storybird

Storybird is a simple to use online digital story telling tool which provides amazing artwork for building your story.

Creating your own storyboard is as simple as choosing a theme (layout),  selecting the art work you would like to use and then writing your story.  With Storybird anyone can create great-looking digital picture book stories.

Here’s an example of a Storybird embedded below:

The Secretest Secret Agent Secret Cat on Storybird

Voki

Voki speaking avatars are cool and lots of fun to create.

They’re used to add a human element to your blogs.

Here’s detailed instructions on how to create and embed a Voki.

Check out an example of a Voki below:



Get a Voki now!

Wall Wisher

Wallwisher is an online notice board creator.

It’s a really fast and easy way to create engaging activities to use with students.

It’s as simple as:

  1. Create your Wallwisher
  2. Add some sticky notes
  3. Embed into your Blog Post
  4. Add more sticky notes

The sticky notes can be as simple as text only OR very creative with images, audio, video, SlideShares, Google Presentations, blog posts (basically almost anything you can link to via their URL)!

And students don’t need to have a Wallwishers account to use it!

Here’s detailed instructions on how to create and embed a Wall Wisher.

Embedding into blog posts

Embedding is as simple as:

1.  Completely write your post including adding title, text, images, tags and categories.

2.  Click on Save Draft, previewed your post and make all necessary edits.

Previewing your post

3.  Copy the embed code.

Copy the Photopeach embed code

4.  Click on HTML Tab on your blog post.

Your HTML Tab

4.  Paste the embed code for your PhotoPeach into your post where you want it to appear then immediately click Publish

  • Don’t click back to Visual Tab before hitting Publish as it can break the embed code.
  • Immediately close your post once you’ve published.
  • Change back to Visual Editing mode when you write your next post by clicking on the Visual tab.

Adding PhotoPeach Embed code to a post

Final Thoughts

Thanks to Digiridoos for sharing your favorite online tools!

What online tools would you add onto their list?

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What Do You Most Want To Learn More About? [Poll Results]

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Over the past few weeks I’ve run a poll here at The Edublogger asking readers what they most want to learn more about. I’ve run this to help plan future posts while demonstrating how to use polls on blogs.

Two poll tools were used; so readers could compare the look of a PollDaddy poll with a Vizu poll. Both polls contained the same answers, except the PollDaddy poll had the extra answer — Process of Setting Up Blogs Within Your School.

The Results

A total of 663 people participated in the poll compared to 144 comments during this period (NB. Not excluding my comments). More readers (422) voted using the Vizu poll. Not surprising as it was embedded in both a blog post and the sidebar. Whereas 241 readers voted using the PollDaddy poll (only in a post).

Using blogs with students’ was the #1 response for both (41% votes – Vizu, 20 % – PollDaddy). While Blog design was second/third choice (Vizu/Polldady) ranking of the other answers varied considerably between the two polls.

The Graphs

Here’s how the Vizu graph looked:

Image od Vizu results

NOTE : Vizu doesn’t display ranked order of responses or vote number. Reorganized graph using SnagIT to show these.

Compared to the Polldaddy:

Results from PollDaddy

Tips to Remember When Using Polls

  1. Write a post to let readers know you are running a poll.  Embed poll in both a post and in your sidebar.
  2. Make it very obvious that you have embedded a poll in a post because polls are removed when read using RSS – check how I did it!
  3. At the conclusion of your poll write a summary post telling your readers the results!

Final Thoughts

Plenty of ‘food for thought’ for the statisticians in our community especially when we take into account the extra answer and Vizu set to randomize the answers while PollDaddy wasn’t.

How did your polls go?  Which poll tools did you use? What was the pros/cons of each poll tools you’ve tried?

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Ensuring Readers Realise You Have Embedded A Poll In A Post!

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Don’t you love RSS? I do except when an item I’ve embedded into a post is removed so people who read them in feed readers like Google Reader or Bloglines don’t realise it’s there! Definitely a problem if you are embedding an online poll in a post and you need readers to see it so they vote.

So let’s test out this solution while at the same time getting you to help me prioritize your needs. I’ve chosen 8 9 topics and I’d love to hear what you would like to learn more about so I can plan future posts on The Edublogger. Feel free to expand on your choice or add your own topic in comments.

This time I’ve created the poll using PollDaddy — so you can compare the look of a PollDaddy poll with the poll I created using Vizu. Downside with PollDaddy is a free account only allows 100 survey results per month (anyone know the restrictions on free Vizu accounts?).

What Do you Most Want To Learn More About?
( polls)

Here are the choices that you can vote for:

  • How To Start A Blog
  • Blog Design
  • Finding Ideas For Blog Posts
  • Using Blogs with Students
  • Increasing Blog Readership
  • Creating Podcasts
  • Building your blog community
  • Developing Personal Learning Networks
  • Process of Setting Up Blogs Within Your School

Add your vote here! Free to expand on your choice or add your own topic in comments.

FINAL THOUGHTS

HTML tabIf you’re having trouble embedding the polls into Edublogs the trick is:

  1. Write your entire post adding all text, images, categories, tags etc
  2. Preview your post to do any last minute edits
  3. Click on HTML tab and paste the embed code where you want it to be displayed then immediately click Publish (don’t click back to the Visual Tab)

Yes I know when you read the post directly on the blog it is a bit more messy doing it this way but at least it should grab the attention of people who are reading in their feed readers. Every poll I’ve tried so far is being removed from posts in RSS — if you know of any that don’t please let me know!

Remember always a good idea to subscribe to your own blog to pick up issues like these!

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