Tag Archives: widgets

Share Your Advice on “Must-Have” Widgets for Class and Student Blogs

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Image of Widget signDeciding which widgets to add to your blog sidebar is hard!  There is just TOO much choice…

So when Chrissy asked for advice on any “must-haves” widgets to include on her students new Room202′s class blog I thought this is an excellent opportunity for us to share ideas to help make the task of choosing widgets easier.

So can you please share with us:

  1. What are your “must-haves” widgets for class and/or students blogs? And why?
  2. What other features do you and your students like to have on your class blog  e.g. type of blog theme (2 column, 3 column, custom header, links to pages)
  3. Your Class blog URL so students from other classes can visit your blog for ideas.

Can you please also drop past Room 202′s class blog — leave a comment and your class blog URL so that Chrissy’s students can check out your class blog plus get excited by the dots increasing on their ClustrMap.

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Edublogs Gives Us New Freedom; Most ‘Embedding’ Code Can Now Be Pasted Directly into Our Blogs

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It’s official! Edublogs has decided to allow javascript, iframes and object code.

So what does this mean? Besides the fact that I now have to make changes to several previous Edublogger posts, our life has just become considerably easier because we can just copy and paste pretty much most ‘embedding’ code we pick up around the web directly into either our Edublog posts or a text widget in our side bar.

Embedding into a post

Say for example you wanted to embed a Google Presentation:

  1. On your blog dashboard, go to Write > Post
  2. Completely write your post adding all text and images including adding your categories, tags and post title.
  3. It’s best to add any code you want to embed as the last step just before you click publish as you’re less likely to have problems.
  4. Click on Save and View this Post to do any final edits on your post
  5. Copy the embed code from Google Presentations2340365584_88ac1ebba3.jpg2340369186_9e6284b309.jpg
  6. In your Post panel click on your HTML tab. Paste the code from Google Presentation in the desired location and immediately press Publish.

Image of Embedding Google Presentation code

These screenshots of how to embed a Google Presentation were kindly provided by Tom Barrett. Check out Tom’s post to see what a Google Presentation looks like embedded in a post (and while you are there thank him for sharing his screenshots).

Tom, like many educators, likes using Google Documents, in place of PowerPoint or Keynote, to create presentations because it means he edit his presentation online, from any computer, and invite others to help him create the presentation.

In case you are interested in how we create our screenshots – I mostly use SnagIT (need to purchase) and Tom used Jing (free to use).

NOTE:

If you change back from the HTML Tab to the Visual Tab you may not see the item embedded in your draft, depends on what your trying to embed; don’t stress it’s there and will appear when you save the post.

TIP:
iFrames and objects can be a bit touchy to embed; when in doubt I recommend that you add all text and images to your post then add the embed code just when you are ready to publish the post.

Here are some of the creative ways Edublogs users have started using this new freedom in posts:

Embedding using a text box in your sidebar

Instead of embedding in a post you can also add JavaScript, iframes and object code to your sidebar by using the same method outlined for Adding A Voki Speaking Avatar To Your Blog Sidebar.

Here are some of the ways Edublogs users are using this new freedom in their blog sidebar:

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is a really brief introduction into embedding javascript, iframes and object code into Edublogs. Let us know how you go especially the creative ways you use this new freedom. Remember to drop past Tom’s blog and thank him for the use of the screenshots.

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Adding A Voki Speaking Avatar To Your Blog Sidebar

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voki21Voki speaking avatars are cool and lots of fun to create.

They’re used to add a human element to their blogs or engage students.

But they can be a bit pesky to embed in a blog so this post explains how to add a voki to your blog sidebar.

Our next post explains how to add them to a Post or Page.

About Vokis

Voki enables you to create an avatar in your own voice using a talking character.

You can customize your Voki to look like you or take on the identity of different characters such as animals, monsters.

Here’s ideas for using Vokis in your classroom (courtesy Helen Otway – Classroom2.0):

  1. Students can create avatars that are similar in looks or personalities and record a message that tells about themselves.
  2. Students can exchange these avatars with e-pals either within their own setting or anywhere in the world.
  3. Students can generate questions to ask their avatar e-pals.
  4. ESL (English as a Second Language) students can use the speaking avatars to practice and listen to their speech. They may use the computerised voice first then record their own voice when they feel more comfortable. Writing, reading and pronunciation are all practised.
  5. Students can create an avatar that resembles a character from a story, add a setting and give it speech. The speech could be from the story or a creative point of view (POV) from the character on an event.

Adding Voki Avatar to Your Blog Sidebar

Voki’s as added to your blog sidebar using text widgets as follows:

1.  Go to Voki

2.  Set up a Voki account and then create your own Voki.

3.  Once you have published your Voki grab the HTML embed code as follows:

a) From drop down menu next to ‘Embed in’ select WordPress

Selecting the destination for a Voki

b) From drop down menu next to ‘Size’ select Small (200 x 267) — use custom dimension of Width 170 for narrow sidebars

Changing embed size of Voki

c) Click Get Code and copy all the HTML embed code

Tip: Fastest way is to use the ShortCut Keys Ctrl+A to select all text and Ctrl+C to copy the text

Copying the Voki HTML embed code

4.  Go to Appearance > Widgets in your blog dashboard

Appearance > Widgets menu item

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

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

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

Adding HTML embed code to voki

8.  You should now see your Voki in your blog sidebar!

Tips for Using Voki

  1. Audio is better quality and easier to add when created using Audacity
  2. Voki terms and conditions state you must be over 13 years to use their service
  3. These instructions for embedding Vokis won’t work on WordPress.com blogs due to restrictions on the types of code allowed.

FINAL THOUGHT

We hope you enjoy creating your voki avatars and adding them to your blogs. Please let us know how you go!

Read our next post to learn how to embed a Voki avatar in a post or page.

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How To Add an Email Subscription to Your Blog

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In our last post we showed how to add a RSS feed from Feedburner to your blog to make it easier for your readers to subscribe to your blog and so that you could analyse your blog subscriptions e.g. number of subscribers, Feed Readers they use. This post will show how you can add an email subscription to your blog.

Reason For Adding Email Subscription to Your Blog

However not every reader likes to use RSS, some readers prefer to receive latest posts from blogs using email subscription. This is why you will often see both email subscription and RSS feed options on blogs; bloggers are doing this to cater to the different preferences of their readers.

Readers simply enter their email address and then click on “Subscribe”. They then receive an email notifying when new posts or information have been added to the blog.

There are two main options you can use to add an email subscription to your Eublogs blog:

  1. Drag Email Subscription Widget onto your sidebar (here is more information about using Widgets)
  2. Create and add an email subscription using Feedburner for your blog.

These two options work very differently:

  • Edublogs Email Subscription Widget – emails your reader immediately that a new post has been added to your blog. However to read the post your reader will need to click on a link which takes them to the post on your blog.
  • Feedburner Email Subscription – emails your entire post to your readers on the day after it has been uploaded to your blog i.e. they can read the entire post as an email rather than following the link. Please note images are not displayed in the email. Advantages of Feedburner includes details of your subscribers e.g. number of email subscribers, their email addresses

Which ever email subscription you use make sure you subscribe to your blog using it; so you know what your posts look like when people receive them via email. Normally

Creating An Email Subscription For Your Blog Using Feedburner

Once you have created and added an RSS feed from Feedburner to your blog ( here are the instructions on how to add a RSS feed from Feedburner to your blog) the next step is to set up your email subscription with feedburner (follow the instructions in the diagram below).

Diagram of how to set up email subscription

Adding Your Feedburner Email Subscription To Your Blog

The code for your Feedburner email subscription is located under your Publicize tab. You need to add this to a text widget in your sidebar.

  1. On your blog dashboard, go to Design > Widgets
  2. Scroll down to Text widget in your available widget area (left hand side of dashboard) and click on Add.
  3. Click on Edit on the Text widget that has been added to your current widget area.Image of adding a text widget
  4. Paste code for Feedburner email in Text Widget.  Click on Change.
  5. Click on Save Changes at bottom of Current Widget area (right hand side of dashboard).

Image of Email Widget

FINAL THOUGHT

Please let us know how you go adding an email subscription to your blog; especially if you have additional questions on using it.

For accurate statistics on your subscriber numbers you should redirect all your blog feed to Feedburner!

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Creating Hyperlinks Using HTML

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Image of Photo in Larry's sidebarLast post on The Edublogger introduced HTML basics and showed readers how to use HTML to add their photo to their blog side bar.

As Kate Olsen highlighted, if you use your photo for your blog avatar, a simple alternative is to add the Avatar Widget to your side bar (learn more about Widgets here!). However with Larry’s “blog makeover” I wanted to add words above and below his sidebar photo which is why I used HTML.

In this post, we will look at how you can create hyperlinks using HTML (Learn about HTML Basics here!)

What Is A Hyperlink?

A hyperlink (commonly called links), on a web page, can be an icon, graphic, or word/sentence that, when clicked with the mouse, takes the user to another location on the web site or to another web site.

People will often use HTML to create hyperlinks to helpful web sites when writing comments on other people’s posts.

Here the HTML you use to create hyperlinks:

<a href=”http://theedublogger.com/”>Welcome to the Edublogger</a> produces Welcome to the Edublogger

link.jpg

Here is how I created the Links in Read This Info on Larry’s Blog

I used HTML code for hyperlinks to create a text widget that linked to pages on Larry’s blog which allowed me to reduce the number of pages at the top of his blog (refer to Tips for Blog Makeovers for the reasons why).

Each hyperlink was separated with bullet points using HMTL tags <ul> and <li>

<ul>
<li>potatoes</li>
<li>spinach</li>
<li>lollipops</li>
</ul>

produces

  • potatoes
  • spinach
  • lollipops

Notice you must use the < and > symbols around the HTML Tags and the tag is closed using a ‘/’ (slash) in front of the tag keyword e.g. </ul>

htmlwidget.jpg

Here’s how I created the sub-pages.

pages1.jpg

FINAL THOUGHT

For more experienced widget and HTML users, check out Judy O’Connell’s text widget for displaying Library Things Book Collection.

Another way to add links to your sidebar is using your blogroll which we will cover in the next post.

Other posts in our “blog makeover” series include:

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