The Edublogger has been set up by Edublogs — “the largest education community on the Internet” where you can sign up for a free WordPress-powered blog — and is dedicated to helping educational bloggers with using emerging technologies in education, share their own experiences and promote the blogging medium. Photo by woodleywonderworks.
About the Editor
My name is Sue Waters and I’m well known for my Mobile Technology in TAFE blog. As a blogger I’m about — practical application of technologies in education, and most importantly HELPING OTHERS learn how to use these technologies. The Edublogger will be an extension of what I already do, but at a central place within Edublogs.
Bit of an understatement — but I am extremely excited to be involved with The Edublogger because it increases my potential to interact and connect with a larger community, hopefully helping even more people.
Getting Started
The Edublogger is not about me, but the educational blogging community. It is about us working together, helping each other, sharing our experiences and learning together. My role is to help bring the community together. So please help us to get this journey underway by assisting us with the following:
- What interests you? – Are you interested in …. ‘How-to” tips? Blogging tips? Getting others educators involved in using technology? Tips on using Edublogs? Or are there other topics that interest you?
- Blog Tweaking – New blogs always needs some tweaking! Are there design features, widgets or things you’d like to see?
- Subscribing to The Edublogger –
Subscribe in a reader
Please share your thoughts, and encouragement, in the comments of this post.
hi~
Is there a way other than trying each theme out to learn which ones allow changing the default font size/style? I’m more concerned with size at this point.
Thanks ! I’m looking forward to using this with my students.
Thanks Gail (Blogwalker) – your manual is excellent and will suggest people check it out.
Sue (Tasteach) you are doing an excellent job and the widgets don’t look they are running into each other to me. If I had any suggestions I would remove Calender as it is not really necessary and put comments at the bottom of the side bar. Sounds like you recommend I should also add the video.
Mcwane2008 – this will depend on the code it is using. If it contains Javascript then there is a problem.
Hi Sue,
Read up on your blog and that showed me how to subscribe, but the video you mentioned actually showed me what RSS was about. It was excellent and well worth viewing.
Can we post an audio greeting in the blog?
GabCast of Canada may contact you.
I have code to paste in but I don’t know where to do it.
Sue,
Thanks so much for your information on the drop down boxes. Have made changes now to my sidebar but each section looks like they are running into each other. How can I make them look separate? My next step to read up on RSS and email from your previous post.
Hi Sue,
Good idea. I just added a link to the manual from my blog. Here’s the link to the PDF – http://a3wp.edublogs.org/files/2008/01/edublogs_01-2008.pdf.
Gail
Hi Gail – thanks for telling me about the information on Lorelle’s site on tags and categories. I will definitely use it when writing a post on this topic; I also have librarian bloggers who have been providing me information on this as well. Gail are the resources you use for teachers on your blog or located on another site?
Excellent news Sue (Tasteach) – I popped past your site and was so excited with what you have achieved so far. In your available widget area you should have two search widgets – Search and Google Search. I prefer to use Search because it is simple and searches within the blog. To add to your blog drag the Search widget from the Available Widget area to your Side Bar area and then click on Save Changes.
Explaining RSS feed compared to email can be hard for new people to get their head around. I have tried to explain it on this page of the blog and would appreciate your feedback to whether I have explained it adequately. Also worth watching RSS in Plain English. If you feel the video explains it clearer I will add it to my explanation.
My archives and category boxes are drop down menus – the reason why I have done this is to reduce clutter on the side bars. If you click on the small boxes on the right of the widget it opens up the widget and you can select the options. I just ticked the drop down menu option for each.
Sue, thank you so much for this explanation about how to embed widgets and what they are. I have now changed a few things in my sidebar and have embedded the clustrmap widget. Now a couple of other questions: what is RSS feed compared to email? Also how do you get the search widget and how do you make your categories and archive widgets look like search boxes instead of lists?
Sue,
I like the explanation on the difference between tags and categories at Lorelle’s site: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/tags-arrive-on-wordpresscom-blogs/.
I am updating the training manual I use with teachers, so I’m wondering if there is anything I should add or change.
Gail Desler
Mrs Emery – We are happy to be providing this resource and working with the community. Tracking traffic to your blog is a really great question and a topic that many want to know more about. I use Google Analytics and will write a post on how to install it so you can get the maximum out of using it.
I thought, Mr Moshe, that the reason for Photobucket had to relate to sites being blocked. Will have to get back to you on this matter.
Actually Sue (tasteach) they are really fantastic questions. A Clustr map is an example of widget – but I will find a more in depth explanation because there will be many people that want to know what they are as well as how to embed Clustr maps. What can I say – categories and tags are a fantastic question – I was discussing this exact topic and getting my friends to explain this for me clearly this week. So will definitely get back with a simple explanation.
From a total newbie. What are widgets? I would like to put a clustr map on my blog, have got the HTML code saved at the moment. How do I do that? What is the difference between categories and tags and why do both appear on my posts on my blog? Do I need them both?
A good majority of the kids already have photobucket accounts. I do too. I was considering a rockyou account, but it’s blocked at my school site; as is bubbleshare. Not sure what to do here.
Sue,
Thanks so much for providing this resource!
Something I am interested in: How can I track the traffic on my blog? Sometimes I get comments, but I would like to know exactly how many people (hopefully my students) are at least just going to the blog in the first place.
Thanks!
Hi Mr Moshe – the video doesn’t appear to be working for me. For my own personal curiosity – Is there a reason why you prefer photobucket?
Hi Gail (Blogwalker) – Glad you liked my blog and thanks for suggesting the Tip of the Day — will definitely be getting back to you on this. James and I are very excited about working with the community.
Hi Christine (SocProf) – Plugins are definitely James area so will forward the information on.
Hi Carla – thanks for such a nice warm welcome and you are correct it is definitely OUR blog.
Congratulations on the new blog!
(or shall I say OUR blog)
I look forward to sharing and learning from Sue and this great community.
Warm regards form Argentina 🙂
Like Gail, I have a vague sense of what I want without really specifics: I want more plugins… not sure what’s out there but I’d like to have options.
Christine
Hello Sue,
I just visited your blog and can already tell that you know things that I need to know. The trouble is I don’t always know what those things are. I would love it if you posted a link to a Tip of the Day kind of thing that would appear in our Dashboards. I’m subscribing to The Edublogger right now, and look forward to following discussions and learning new strategies.
Thanks to both you and James for providing us with powerful tools and a dynamic learning community,
Gail
Sue,
As it turns out the videos may not be working at my school site because the district I teach in is blocking content from that site.
Maybe you could head over to the link here —-
http://moshej.edublogs.org/student-work-samples-overview-page/student-work-samples/skits-films-and-sketches/
Let me know if it works for you. I had one student tell me it worked from her computer at home. So my suspicion may be correct.
But since you ask, I’d like to see seamless integration of Photobucket.com content if it can be worked out.
Thanks !!
Cheers !!
Hi John – fairly good detective work. Definitely a Cadbury’s chocolate bar but in the other hand is a bottle of coke – many say these are my secret weapon for keeping up with everything I do. There will definitely be no Picnic bar in my hand 🙂 as I’m not into Picnics 🙂
Hi Sue,
I see that you like chocolate, Cadbury’s chocolate, and is that a Picnic bar in your left hand? It is the historian in me, examining photographs for intricate details of the society and clues to dates, etc.
Once again, all the best!
John
Hi John – thanks for your kind words and especially all the support you always provide me.
Thanks Gabriela – glad you joined us at The Edublogger. Thanks for all the great links you give me in del.icio.us.
Hi Kevin (Dogtrax) – we hope it will be a great resource for educators, and hope the community will work together to help one another.
Larry – will get back to you on widgets and embedding videos. Really appreciate the feedback you are providing — keep them coming.
Yes I also have fond memories of that exact conversation Graham. Now doesn’t that prove it if Sue Waters can become a blogger that that there is hope for everyone!
Hi Thomas — thanks for your feedback I will forward it onto Support.
Thanks Joel – definitely new and exciting. I really appreciate all the support you have always shown me.
Well Darren — what can I say! 🙂 You are right I did ask the questions. The whole echo chamber issue is a very interesting point because to some extent there is a need for echo chambers because interacting with different networks means you don’t always hear the news; and some people limit their sources. Scary thought Sue’s version of OLD daily – nice thought but for me there is only one Stephen Downes. To be honest I don’t envy Stephen Downes — in the short time I have been using the Shared Google Reader integration with Gtalk I have seen how individual people’s preference’s in posts are. But you are right – and you are spot on with “community effort” because my aim is a community effort where we respond to the questions asked by the community with the community assisting by answering the questions.
Hi Mr Moshe – thanks for both the congratulations and for your feedback on videos. Are there any particular video sites that are causing you more issues than others? Or perhaps you can give me the link to those you are having trouble with so I can investigate closer.
Thank Brian – as always appreciate both yours and Darren’s support. Will work hard to give my best!
Sue, as always, you rock. I have to agree with my fellow countryman, Darren above. I think you are right for this and that we need the best of the best if you can! We’ll help all we can by sharing and adding comments, etc. Best of luck on this! We’ll be watching (and commenting)!
Oh, and congrats on the awesome position.
Larry,
Thanks for bringing a focus on video embedding. I tried to embed videos a number of times in the last few weeks, and it doesn’t seem to want to work.
Not sure why.
I’d like more options for video embedding