Edublogs Teacher Challenges | Free professional learning

November 26, 2012
by Matt Tschoegl
0 comments

Free Tools Challenge #29: Share What You Know With Learni.st

Objective

In this Free Tools Challenge, you will learn a little bit about the following:

What Is Learni.st?
How Can You Use It In The Classroom?
How Does Learni.st Work?
The Challenge!
Extending The Discussion

What Is Learni.st?

Learni.st is an application that aims to make it simple for users to present and share information in an attractive and easily digestible format. In their terminology, the author creates a “Board”, or permalink-ed webpage, on which they share “Learnings”, posts which contain the knowledge they want to share. Those “Learnings” can be made up of either the author’s own content or content that the author has snipped from around the internet.

Learni.st’s most interesting and most promoted features are centered around making this content easy to share and collect. In addition to the sharing buttons you would expect (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and Linkedin), they have created their own Learni.st specific buttons to “follow” or “like” a Board. Readers are also able to interact with the content by commenting on individual Learnings and Boards or even suggesting Learnings to the authors of the Board. To make it easier to share in the creation of a Board, they have made it possible for author(s) to select “Collaborators” who can help to put the Board together

Possible Educational Uses

Here are some ways that you, as an educator, can put Learni.st to good use:

Aggregating a useful feed. If there is a website or author that you think regularly puts out good stuff, you can collect and curate that material in one place (like an interactive RSS feed). This author has collected videos from the NYTimes ‘s Education section.
Tips for teachers. Share your experience and hard-won lessons with other educators, as in this Board on using Learni.st in the high school classroom.
Staying on the cutting edge. Use a Board to keep you and your fellow teachers abreast of innovations in the field and what others are doing.
Putting together multimedia resources. Want to have a single place where you can aggregate videos, articles, factoids, and images on a single subject? Use a Board to put it all in one place in an easily digestible format, as with this Board on the Origins of Basketball.
Collect resources for future use. Sometimes you find something cool that you can’t use right now, but might need in the future. With Learni.st you can collect those nuggets in one place and use them as and when you need them (and share them with others) as with this cool Board of Infographics for the Writing Classroom.
Create tutorials. Use your Learni.st board to create step-by-step tutorials on how to do just about anything. Want to learn how to make delicious pour over coffee?

How To Use Learni.st

To give you an idea of how Learni.st works and what it can do for you, I am going to go through the steps here of creating a Board. The first step, naturally enough, is to sign up for the service. Since they insist that they are still in the beta testing phase, you do not technically sign up for the service, but instead “Request an Invite”:

Click Here To Sign Up.

They will then prompt you to create an account. To do so, you can either (1) connect your Facebook account to Learni.st or (2) create an account with your email address and password:

A Screenshot Of The Learni.st Sign Up.

After you have entered your information, signed up, and confirmed your email address, Learni.st will run you through the process of creating your profile. Feel free to press the “Skip This Step” buttons in each window of the profile creation, as the information is not strictly required to use the service.

Now it’s time to create your first board. Click on the “+ Add” button at the top of the page, next to the search field, and the following will pop-up:

Create A Learning Or A Board.

In this case, pick the option on the right to “Create A New Board“. The other two options are solely for adding Learnings to your existing board(s). After clicking on “Create A New Board” the following screen will pop up:

Describe Your Board.

Enter the name of the Board you are creating, the category it would fall under, and a description of the Board. They also invite you to put down any collaborators who might be willing to work with you on the creation of the Board. Once you press the Save button, your Board is created. Congrats!

Not so fast. Although you have created a Board, you now need to add some content to it in the form of Learnings. Click again on the +Add button we referenced above. Now we’re interested in those two other options: Add From A URL and Upload Your Own. To try out the first, Add From A URL, click on that option and you will see a field which prompts you to enter a URL (in this case, we will enter the URL for Wikipedia’s article on lemurs):

A Screenshot Of The “Add From URL” Function.

Learni.st will then insert the content from that webpage into your Learning (it takes out some of the website styling, while retaining the page content). When you press Next, they will display images taken from that page:

Select A Picture To Be Associated With Your Learning.

Pick an image to appear with your Learning and proceed to the next step where you will title your Learning, give it a category, and add text:

Add A Title, Category, and Description To Your Learning.

Press Save And Add to publish your Learning. The second option for publishing a learning, Upload Your Own, follows a slightly different path. Instead of adding a URL and then choosing an image, you skip directly to uploading your own image:

Add An Image To Your Learning.

To add content to the Learning, you will be taken to the same form that you used the last time to title, categorize, and describe your Learning. In this case, though, rather than using the text field to add comments on the page’s content, you will add the page’s content there itself.

To see what these Learnings actually look like in the end, check out a sample learning board I created about Lemurs. In this Board I used each method available for creating a Learning, including one Learning made with Learni.st’s bookmarklet.

The Challenge!

Create a Learni.st Board that deals with a subject you are going to be covering in your class in the next couple of weeks. Make sure that the Board includes three types of Learnings:

A Wikipedia article
A Youtube video
An original text with a picture

Extending The Discussion

How valuable are online tutorials? Do you think students retain information from online tutorials as well as they do with more traditional means of instruction? Do you think your students give too much or too little credence to what people say on the internet?
Learni.st works especially well with Wikipedia and does a great job of working with that site’s content. How valuable do you think Wikipedia is as a classroom tool? What do you say to students about its use? What are its strengths and what are its limitations?

November 12, 2012
by Matt Tschoegl
0 comments

Free Tools Challenge #28: What’s The Good Word on Vocabulary.com?

Objective:

In this Free Tools Challenge, you will learn a little bit about the following:

What Is Vocabulary.com?
How Can You Use It In The Classroom?
How Does Vocabulary.com Work?
The Challenge!
Extending The Discussion

Overview:

Vocabulary.com is an online application designed to make teaching vocabulary easier and more engaging. Whereas Memrise (Teacher Challenge #27) focused on making vocabulary words “stickier” and hacking how people remember things, Vocabulary.com is all about building retention through testing. Their website features three major sections that work to build the user’s vocabulary in different, and sometimes overlapping, ways: The Challenges, The Dictionary, and The Lists.

The Challenges: When a user visits the site, they are immediately presented with a vocabulary question. Depending on whether the user answers the question correctly or not, they are then served another word which is either more difficult or less difficult than the last one. In this way, Vocabulary.com’s algorithm constantly adjusts the questions served to the user to ensure that students are challenged enough to make progress, but not so overwhelmed that they become discouraged. The constant challenge also works to create a certain competition in the mind of the user and can make even the task of learning vocabulary curiously addictive.

The Dictionary: Vocabulary.com also provides an excellent dictionary function that, much like Memrise, is specially designed to make the looked-up word “sticky”. It does this in two ways. First, in addition to displaying a basic definition and example for the word, they provide their own auxiliary definitions and examples which can be surprisingly clever. These definitions and examples also include a discussion of the etymology of the word and a suggestion for a mnemoic that will help the student to remember it. Second, they include a function which helps you to look up the word in VisualThesaurus.com, a sister site of Vocabulary.com. By seeing how the word connects with other words and meanings, the student is better able to contextualize the word and therefore remember it.

The Lists: If the students are tired of the challenge questions track, they can also build their knowledge with vocabulary lists. There are plenty of lists available that have been created by other users and Vocabulary.com itself, but you can also create your own lists using the dictionary’s list builder and another function we will discuss below. These lists cover a wide variety of different subjects, topics, and purposes. Some examples include: Spanish Borrowings Into English; 250 Words From The Domain Of Diplomacy; and 100 SAT Words Beginning With “A”.

Want to see it in action? Check out this How-It-Works video from Vocabulary.com itself:

Possible Educational Uses:

For teachers looking to get the most out of this application, the real value is in the ease with which you can create or find vocabulary lists. If you want to target subject/topic/class-specific vocabulary, you can either make your own vocabulary lists from the texts that you are currently using with your students or find existing vocabulary lists that apply to the material.

On the other hand, if your interest is in improving the quality and size of your students’ base vocabulary, there is also a lot of value in getting students to use the machine learning function for self-study. In this case, though, I suspect the biggest challenge might be to get them to do it in the first place. Extra credit, anyone?

How To Use Vocabulary.com:

The Challenge function is pretty self-explanatory (just answer the questions), The Dictionary function is, well, a dictionary (look words up there as you would normally), and finding a Vocabulary List is really just a matter of entering your search terms in their search field. The only tricky bit is the process of creating your own Vocabulary List, so I will take you through that step-by-step now.

The “Create A Vocabulary List” Box.

As you would expect, the first step is to create an account with Vocabulary.com. The service is free, so all they require from you is an email address (you can also do a one-touch login with Facebook).

Once logged in, click on the the Vocabulary Lists tab and find the square box that lets you Create A Vocabulary List. When you press on the button, you will be directed to the interface you will use to create your vocabulary list. First, you have to give a name and description to your vocabulary list, as well as decide whether you would like your list to be for general use or just for your own:

Name, Describe, And Set The Privacy Level For Your Vocabulary List.

Now you can begin entering words in the vocabulary list you have just named. Using the section directly below the one you used to enter the title and description, you can enter words One At A Time, All At Once, or From Text.

This Is The Portion Of The Interface Where You Add Words To The List.

The first two work in roughly the same way. Once you enter the word (or with All At Once, the words separated by commas) they present you with a few more options: you can Add Notes, Add Example Sentence, and Choose Definition. The first option just creates a text area in which you can add notes. When you click on Example Sentence, you get the following:

Example Sentences That Vocabulary.com Generates.

When you enter the word, you can either enter in your own example sentence or choose from one of their example sentences. Their sentences are snipped from an internet search of the word as it appears in a variety of reputable publications. Once you have chosen the example you like, you can then click on Choose Definition to grab the definition:

Choose The Vocabulary.com Definition For Your List Word.

When you have the words that you want in the list, you can just press Save List and it will be ready to use. Students can be tested, or test themselves, with the list as they would any other words or lists. Vocabulary.com will generate the practice sentences for you and grade the results. If you choose to enter words From Text, the process is only slightly different:

Their Tool For Pulling Vocabulary Words From Texts.

Simply copy your text of any size (it can be a few sentences or a hundred pages) and Vocabulary.com’s program will both snag the most interesting words from the passage and grab the sentences which contained those words. After you have picked the words you would like to include in your list, you can save it and use it like any other.

The Challenge:

Take a page of a text you are working with in class
Create a vocabulary list from the page’s content.
Test your students on that vocabulary list.

Extending The Discussion:

Do you think that constant testing (Vocabulary.com’s approach) or sticky memes (Memrise’s approach) do a better job of getting a student to retain information? In the short-term? In the long-term?
How important is learning vocabulary in a programmatic fashion? Is it more important to have students know the definition of a word precisely or to have the skills to be able to infer the meaning of a word from context?
Is there a way to get students curious about vocabulary and interested in looking up words on their own? What causes you to look up words you don’t know?

November 6, 2012
by Matt Tschoegl
1 Comment

Free Tools Challenge #27: Get A Rise Out Of Memrise

Let’s face it, we all love free stuff!

So we’ve decided to add to new tools to our Free Tools challenge series.

Over the next few weeks, we will present more of the best free web tools for educators and students as we possibly can. We’ve got tools and websites of all types that you are going to love.

Your challenge:

Follow this blog closely and read about any new tool you haven’t yet tried out – there is sure to be many!
Do your best to carve out a few minutes each week to really try out one or more free tool each week with your students. Then, come back to the blog and share your experience by writing a post about your experience or leaving a comment.

Objective:

In this Free Tools Challenge, you will learn a little bit about the following:

What Is Memrise?
How Do You Use Memrise?
What’s Memrise Good For?
The Challenge!
Extending The Discussion

Overview:

Memrise is an online application that is focused on teaching vocabulary to language learners (you can learn vocabulary from dozens of languages, including English), but is actively expanding to other subjects and topics. Its approach is based on what they call “Mems”:

our natty word for the morsels of interesting and relevant information you see beneath every word on Memrise. Mems can be mnemonics, etymologies, amusing videos, photos, example sentences: anything which helps connect what you’re learning and bring it to life.

Mems are used with the purpose of making words, and their associated concepts, “sticky” . Not content to let “stickiness” do the job of implanting the word in your memory, Memrise also has a four-part method for reinforcing the learnings:

Memrise teaches the word for the first time and it is entered in short-term memory.
Memrise tests the user on the word again and again, in the same session, to reinforce and consolidate it in short-term memory.
Four hours after completing the initial learning, Memrise gives a test to ensure the word is transferred to long-term memory.
Periodically, Memrise sends reminders to users that encourage them to be tested on the word again.

This system has been designed to move as far away as possible from simple “cramming” or rote memorization and is instead intended to create long-term retention and contextual understanding of vocabulary.

Memrise is not only the only provider/creator of vocabulary lists. Memrise actually functions as a Wiki and allows users to create their own publicly available vocabulary lists that function just like those that Memrise provides (you can also associate Mems with them and test users). For a fuller discussion of what Memrise is and does, check out this article from TheEdublogger by yours truly.

How To Use Memrise:

Here we are just going to focus on how you can use Memrise, as a teacher, to create a course that you can give to your students (and the broader educational community). This is just a brief summary, though, so for a more detailed guide on how Memrise works, click here.

Step 1. Create An Account.

To be able to create a course, you will need to create an account (link here) with Memrise and log in. They only require a username and password, but if you would like to make it even easier on yourself, you can simply use their Facebook integration to create an account.

Step 2. Find Your Topic.

The Memrise Navbar. Click on Topics.

To create a course, you first have to find an appropriate Topic for it to be housed in. Memrise is divided into topics which feature courses (vocabulary lists) that are designed to teach that topic’s vital vocabulary. They divide it into two searchable categories of topics: Languages and Other Topics.

The languages topics are divided by language (Chinese, French, Spanish, German, etc.) and inside each language you can find multiple courses with specialized vocabulary sets. English is a little bit different as it also has other sub-topics like SAT Vocabulary or ESL, but within each sub-topic there are specific courses, as with the other languages. The Other Topics cover all of the other, non-language subjects for which people have made vocabulary lists. An example below:

A Screenshot Of The Memrise “Other Topics”.

Step 3. Name Your Course.

Create Your Own Course Button.

Having found your Topic, it is time to create your course. In the right hand sidebar you can see the button that allows you to create your own course. In the page that pops up, you will be required to enter course information: the name of the course, a short description of the course, a course image (optional), and the topic it falls under (it’s a drop-down menu).

Step 4. Type of paste a list of words and press “Add”.

Once you have created the course description, it is time to create the course itself. You can enter the words that you would like to add to your list either one-by-one or by simply pasting a list into their editor. Once the words are entered, Memrise will search through their Wiki/database to find definitions, parts of speech, audio samples, and mems that match your word. You can then use that information to make sure your list is as complete as possible. If they do not have the word in their Wiki, you can enter the definition of the word yourself.

How To Add Words To Your Course.

Step 5. Publish and Edit.

After you are done editing, simply press the big green “Done Editing” button and your course will be published. You can then grab the URL and share it with your students. There is one thing I didn’t mention in the last step, though. If the word you enter is not in the Wiki, you are able to enter the definition, but not any parts of speech, audio samples, or mems. To do that, you will have to access it (click on the big, green Plant Seeds button) as your students would, and add those in manually. The form below is the one you would use:

Click On The Plus Button To Edit.

Possible Educational Uses:

Here are two of the more obvious uses for Memrise:

For those of you who teach either ESL or non-English languages, you can begin introducing your students to vocabulary with tools that will help them to understand the word without having to resort to their native language (ex. a picture of a frog, rather than the the Japanese word for “frog”).
If you are teaching SAT-level vocabulary, you can add context to the meaning of the word, so vocabulary that might not be encountered frequently can still be understood and examples readily recalled by the student.

And those are only two subject fields. Memrise can readily be applied to any number of different subjects and fields where memorization could be helpful like History, Biology, Art, and Geography.

The Challenge:

Create a Memrise course for your class.
Add Mems and other information to your course.
Assign it to your students.
Quiz them on that information.

Extending the Discussion:

How valuable is memorization in the educational process? Should it be a first-order element, or something done in the background? Is the best form of memorization just learning the thing in the first place?
Are there subjects where memorization is more important? Subjects where it is less vital?
Are there ages where memorization is more important or less? Should younger students be using memorization to build important foundations or does it stunt their curiosity?

September 18, 2012
by Sue Waters
3 Comments

How to Share the Teacher Challenge posts

Educators have contacted us asking for email copies of our Teacher Challenge posts as they’re finding email is the best way to sharing them with their local teachers.

It’s great to know you’re finding these posts helpful!

So we thought you might like to see how easy it is to send emails of our posts from the Teacher Challenge blog.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Go to the post you want to email.

For example, to send an email copy of ”Activity 1: Getting your class blog started – Create blog and customize look” you go to:

http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/2012/07/30/activity-1-getting-your-class-blog-started/

2. Click on the Print PDF icon.

3. Click on PDF.

4. Click on “Download your PDF” to save a PDF copy of the post on your computer.

5. Attach the PDF to an email to share with others.

The alternative is to use the email option on the Print PDF screen however emailing it as a PDF is more obvious than teachers realising they need to click on the link in the email.

Below is what the email option from the Print PDF screen looks like:

The plugins we use to help teachers easily share our posts are:

Print Friendly and PDF plugin - Optimize your pages for print and let your readers download or email a PDF version of your posts or pages.
AddThis Social Share plugin – Places Facebook like, Twitter, email and other sharing icons on your posts.

These can be activated in Plugins and you can read more about other plugin options here.

Here are links to all the posts in our latest series on class blogging:

You’ll find our other Teacher Challenge series here:

May 3, 2013
by Sue Waters
11 Comments

Activity 10: Setting up your student blogs

Welcome to our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

This series consists of a range of activities that take you through the process of class and student blogging. While many of the class blog examples we’ve included are from primary grades, the same principles apply for class blogs regardless of student age (including adult learners).

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

Wherever you’re at – we’ll step you through the tasks designed to increase your skills while providing mentors who’ll support your learning. Don’t stress, have fun, and remember to ask for help by leaving a comment any time you need assistance!

This activity is is all setting up your student blogs.

Click on a link below to go to the section you want to work on:

Why educators use student blogs
Examples of student blogs
Tips for creating student blogs
Create your student blogs
1. Get students to create their own blogs and join your class
2. Create your student blogs yourself
Other My Class Tips
1. Add links to blogs in sidebar
What Now?

Why educators use student blogs

Educators normally start of with a class blog where they write the posts, and the students respond by writing comments.

This gives the teacher time to increase their skills while gradually introducing their students to blogging and educating them on appropriate online behaviour.

However, as student’s age increases educators are more likely to have them to write posts on their own student blog.

Student learning and writing improves faster when each student has their own blog as ownership is an important part of blogging. We all have increased motivation when we feel personal ownership. So you generally find students are more motivated by their own blogs when class blogging is done well.

Another key benefit of student blogs are they can be used as their ePortfolio to create an archive of your student’s learning.

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Examples of Student blogs

Here are examples of real student blogs to check out for ideas:

Millie’s Magical Blog - 8 years old
Abi’s Blog – 9 years old
Jarrod’s Aweome Blog – 9 years old
BB’s Awesome Blog – 9 years old
Jaden’s Awesome Blog – 9 years old
Mirian’s Magical Moments – 10 years old
Teagan’s Terrific Blog - 12 years old
This and That

Tips for creating student blogs

You can use any blogging platform you would like including Edublogs, WordPress and Blogger, however when we write detailed instructions they will refer to Edublogs. You will be able to adapt this information to the blogging platform you are using.

Here is some important things to consider before creating your student blog:

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1. Student Usernames and Blog URLs

Educators normally use the same name for both the student’s username and blog URL. Keep them simple and easy for the student to remember.

Most use a combination of their student’s first name followed by numbers that might represent the year, class number and/or school initials. They do this to protect the identity of the student by not including their last name and to ensure their username is unique (as Edublogs has close to 1,000,000 users).

For example, username misty16 or mistybp16. For example, username mistybp16 and blog URL mistybp16.edublogs.org.

If you want the students to use the blog for their entire school life then use a combination of letters combined with a number that represents the year they started school or are finishing school.

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2. Add yourself to your student blogs

Always add yourself as an administrator to your student blog.

This means if you need to edit/delete a post, page or comment you can quickly access their blog from your blog dashboard.

We’ll show you how to do this using My Class tool below.

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3. Moderate Comments

Educators either prefer to let their students moderate their own comments or they moderate all the comments for their students. There are pros and cons to each approach.

For those comfortable with students moderating comments we recommend you subscribe to the comment feeds from your student blogs — here is how to subscribe to their comments using Google Reader.

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Create your Student blogs

Now you’ve done all the research it’s time to create your student blogs!

The easiest way to set up and manage all student blogs is using My Class.

My Class can be used to:

Quickly create student blogs.
Allow students to publish their own posts on their student blogs (and the class blog) OR configure it so all student posts must be reviewed by a teacher.
Control comment moderation settings on student blogs.
Control the privacy settings on all student blogs with just one click!
Quickly enable extra features on student blogs to increase their storage space, enable mobile blogging, allow them to embed any code, access Premium themes and so much more.
Quickly preview all moderated posts and comments in one location.

1. Go to My Class > Create a Class.

2. Select ‘This is a class blog’, choose your settings and click Save.

Below are the settings you need to use if you want to moderate all posts and comments on student blogs.

You can read more about the My Class setting options here.

3. Once you’ve created your class there are two options for creating student blogs:

You create the student blogs using My Class > Create Student blogs
Students to create their own blogs using the Edublogs sign up page

How to create Student blogs using My Class

Here’s how you can create the students blogs yourself using My Class:

1. Go to My Class > Create Student blogs.

2. Add username, email address, password (optional), blog URL and blog title then click Submit.

This creates their student blogs, adds them as a user to the class blog, adds you as a user to their student blog and connects their student blog with the class blog.

3. The student blogs are created and all student blogs are listed in My Class > Student blogs where you manage all pending posts and comments.

How students create their own blog and join your Class

Here are the instructions you need to give to students to create their own blogs:

1. Go to Edublogs.org sign up page

2. Enter your details, your blog details and then click Start blogging

3. On the next page your login details are displayed.

4. When you click on Login into your new blog you’re taken to your blog dashboard.

Make sure you write down your password if you use our no email option otherwise you won’t be able to reset it.

5. Log into their blog dashboard and go to My Class > Join Class.

6. Search for your class blog.

7. Click on Send a request to join.

Now all you need to do is go to My Class > Student blogs inside your Class blog and click Approve.

Once you’ve done this all your student blogs will be listed on this page where you’ll be able to view all pending posts, pages and comments on your My Class > Student blogs page.

Other My Class tips

Other features included in My Class include:

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1. Easily link to all student blogs in every blog sidebar

You can easily add a link to all your student blogs using the Class Blog widget as follows:

1. Go to Appearance > Widgets.

2. Click on the arrow on the desired Sidebar to open up the sidebar (so you can add the widgets).

3. Drag the Class Blog widget from the Available Widgets into the desired Sidebar.

You drag by click on the widget with your left mouse and moving the widget.

4. Drop the widget when you see a dashed line appear – this indicates the widget is in place.

5. The widget will automatically open — just configure, click Save and then Close.

You’ll find more information on my Class here:

What now?

How did you go?

Feel free to leave any questions you are having (or tips/advice) as well.

This is the last activity in our series on class and student blogging. We hope it helped!

May 3, 2013
by Sue Waters
3 Comments

Activity 9: Connecting with other classes

Welcome to our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

This post is all about the value of connecting with other classes and the types of projects educators use to develop global connections through blogging.

Why connect with other classes?

Connecting with other classes can have a huge impact on your class blog because:

Your students benefit from having an authentic and global audience
You gain from being supported by other educators — increasing your skills and developing new ideas that benefit your students

An authentic and global audience is important because:

When students are writing or publishing for an audience other the teacher, it impacts how they view what they doing and the intrinsic motivation they have.
Students love seeing their work on the Internet and adore getting comments from people. It motivates them to write as it gives them an audience that is real. The blog opens up a whole new world of people who can offer encouragement and feedback.
Blogging provides an authentic educational experience, where what they write is not only seen and commented on by their teacher, but by their peers and the “public.” For most students, it’s a bit of extra motivation knowing their peers will see their work.
There is an authentic audience – a global audience – one that is willing to connect, share, challenge, discuss and communicate with classes. This audience can provide further information, opinions, suggest resources, seek answers to questions and so on which pushes blogging further.
Provides real world problems and solutions to share.

Summarized from The State of Educational blogging in 2012.

Read how Kathleen Morris and Linda Yollis’s classes moved from isolated to integrated, irregular to frequent, and from the superficial to rich global collaboration through blogging.

How to get started?

There’s a wide range of options for connecting your class blogs (or student blogs) with other classes including:

Student Blogging Challenge

The Student Blogging Challenge runs twice yearly and is made up of a series of 10 weekly tasks all designed to improve blogging and commenting skills while connecting students with a global audience and being supported by a team of blogging mentors.

The Challenge is open to both class blogs and to individual student bloggers from all over the world and of all ages. Participants can complete as many of the tasks as they like and in any order.

The next Student blogging challenge starts on 9 Sept.

You can register for the September 2012 Challenge using the following links:

Register your class blog - for teachers to register their class blog
Register your student blog – for students to register their personal student blog (optional)
Register as a mentor – if you are an educator who would like to mentor a group of students. Excellent for learning more about the blogging while supporting student bloggers.

QuadBlogging

QuadBlogging involves connecting your class to a Quad group of four schools/classes.

Each Quad team has a coordinator who is responsible for making sure each of the quad members know what is going on and when. The Quad team rotates so that each week a different class blog is the focus of the task with the other three blogs visiting and commenting on that class blog during that week.

The next round of QuadBlogging is from Sept to December.

You can learn more and register here for QuadBlogging.

100 Word Challenge

The 100 Word Challenge is a weekly creative writing challenge for children under 16 years of age.

Each week a prompt is given, which can be a picture or a series of individual words and the children can use up to 100 words to write a creative piece. This is posted on a class blog and then linked to the 100 Word Challenge blog. The link is usually open from midnight on Wednesdays until midnight the following Tuesdays.

You can read more about the 100 Word Challenge here and sign up here.

Comments4kids

Comments4kids is a hashtag used by educators to tweet student posts that deserves to be commented on such as a post that is awesome or student that needs encouragement (learn more about Comment4 kids here).

Refer to The Twitteraholic’s Ultimate Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter to learn how you can use Twitter to connect with other classes.

What now?

How did you go? Check out Kathleen Morris’s Connecting with Other Classes through blogging for more tips.

Feel free to leave any questions you are having or share your own tips and advice!

Or go to Activity 10: Setting up your student blogs!

May 3, 2013
by Sue Waters
9 Comments

Activity 8: Cool tools for enhancing your posts

Welcome to our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

The aim of this activity is to show you how to use a range of online tools to enhance posts and pages.

Click on a link below to go to the section you want to work on:

Why educators enhance posts with interactive tools
List of tools to get you started
How to embed media in blog posts
Embed code tips
- Use HTML editing mode
- Changing the embed size
What now?

Why educators enhance posts with interactive tools

If you look closely at class blogs you’ll notice many of them add cool interactive tools to their blog post.

They do this because things like slides, videos, comic strips, quizzes, polls in blog posts grab attention, engage and create opportunities for interaction in ways not achievable using plain text and images.

There’s a gazillion online tools nowadays and most of them provide code that you can use to embed what you’ve found or created into your blog posts or pages.

Try this embedded AnswerGarden to see how much fun they can be:

What is your favorite tool to embed into blog posts?… at AnswerGarden.ch.

List of tools to get you started

Brainstorming Tools

AnswerGarden – is a word cloud site that collects words and phrases. Great for brainstorming, collecting ideas, feedback etc. Read about using AnswerGarden with students here. Check out this AnswerGarden embedded in a blog post or here’s another.
Bubbl.us – used to create color brainstorms and mind maps. Here’s a bubbl.us in a student post
Wallwishers - an online notice board creator. It’s a really fast and easy way to create engaging activities to use with students. Learn more about Wallwisher here.

Curation tools

Livebinders – create online binders. Learn more about using Livebinder with students here and read how Livebinder can be used on iPads here.
Scoop.it - easily curate engaging magazines. Here’s a Scoop-it embedded in a blog post and here.
Storify – curate your own stories from photos, video, tweets, what people post on social media sites and your own narration. Here’s a Storify in a blog post and how you can use it with students.

Comic and Cartoon Tools

Bitstrips – here’s a BitStrop embedded in a blog post. Learn more about Bitstrips with students here.
ToonDoo – here’s a ToonDoo embedded in a blog post. Learn more about using ToonDoo with students here.

Poll and Survey tools

Google Forms - here’s how to create a self grading Quiz using Google docs
PollDaddy – Here’s a PollDaddy embedded in a blog post.
PollEverywhere

Presentation Tools

AuthorStream - - A site where you can host your presentations and share with others. Check out this Authorstream embedded in a blog post here!
Fotobabble – lets you create a talking photo. Excellent for speaking practising. Here is an example of a Fotobabble or check out links in comments here.
Glogster – lets you combine images, video, music, photos and audio to create interactive posters. Here’s a Glogster’s embedded in a blog post. Learn more about using Glogster with students here.
Google Docs
Prezi – is an online presentation and story telling tool that uses a single canvas instead of traditional series of slides. The images, text, videos and other objects are placed on the canvas and users can zoom in and out. Here’s a Prezi embedded in a blog post.
SlideShare – A site where you can host your presentations and share with others. Ideal for those who want to embed Presentations in their posts and websites rather than upload their PowerPoints directly and insert as a link. It’s also an excellent site for locating Presentations created by others. Check out a SlideShare embedded in a blog post here!
Scribd – allows you to upload your MS Word documents, PDFs, PowerPoints and then share them within an embedded viewer on your blog. Here’s an example of a Scribd embedded in a blog post – check out the Scribd as it contains cool tips for backing up your blog!’
VoiceThreads – Creates an interactive slideshow using images or videos. Allows others to leave comments on each photo by adding text, audio or video. You can check out the VoiceThread in our post for advanced bloggers.
Voki – allows you to create talking avatars. Excellent for speaking practise and engaging students. Here’s a Voki embedded in a blog post.

Slide Show Tools

BookR – Super easy slide show maker.
Flickr – Flickr is a PhotoSharing website for hosting and sharing your photos online. SlideShows of photo sets or tags can be embedded into blog posts.
PhotoPeach – lets you quickly upload photos to make great looking slideshows and even simple quizzes. Here’s a PhotoPeach embedded in a blog post and here’s instructions for creating PhotoPeach quizzes.

Quiz Creation tools

QuizRevolution – allows you to quickly create quizzes with images and/or videos. Here’s a QuizRevolution embedded in a blog post.
PhotoPeach – lets you quickly upload photos to make great looking slideshows and even simple quizzes. Here’s a PhotoPeach embedded in a blog post and here’s instructions for creating PhotoPeach quizzes.

Video Creation Tools

Animoto – great site for quickly creating professional looking videos from your images. Here’s an Animoto embedded in a blog post. Learn more about using Animoto with students here.
xtranormal – lets you create 3D animated videos. Here’s an xtranormal embedded in a blog post.

Video Hosting Websites

Here’s some of the popular site used by educators who want to embed their videos within embedded players rather than uploading them directly to posts as links.

Adding embed code to posts or pages is as simple as:

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

2. Click on Save Draft.

3. Click on Preview to previewed your post.

4. Check your post and make all necessary edits.

5. Locate the embed code for the media you created or want to embed.

Websites use a range of different icons to represent Embed code.
Look for icons like </>, the word Embed or hover your mouse over icons until you see the word Embed.

Below are examples of what you need do look for.

6. Copy the embed code.

Below is an example of copying the embed code from a Voicethread.

7. Click on HTML Tab on your blog post.

8. Paste the embed code into your post where you want it to appear then click Publish.

9. Don’t click back to Visual Tab and close your post in HTML view.

Changing back to your Visual editing mode once you have added the embed code can remove or break the embed code.

10. You should now see your embedded media when you view your post on your blog!

11. Change back to Visual Editing mode when you write your next post by clicking on the Visual Tab.

Embed code in blog posts

1. Use HTML editing mode

Never to click on the Visual Tab to change back to the visual editing mode once you have added the embed code.

This can break the embed code with some types of embeds. If this happens it can cause your blog sidebar to be pushed to the bottom of your theme.

If you need to edit a post that contains embed code make sure you change to HTML editing mode before opening up the post to edit.

The easiest way to do this is to:

Go to Posts > Add New and click on the HTML tab.
Close the post while still in the HTML tab and then go to Posts > All Posts to open the post for editing.

Some embed code is designed to be embedded into normal websites and can be too wide for the width of blog post.

Ideal width for embedding for most blog themes is 450 pixels wide.

If the online tool doesn’t provide the ability to adjust the embed size you can often do this by editing the code yourself. All you need to do is try adjusting the scale, width and/or height after you’ve added it to your post.

What now?

How did you go?

What have you learnt about embedding media? Leave a comment below with a link to your blog and let us all take a look!

Also feel free to leave any questions you are having (or tips/advice) as well.

Or go to Activity 9: Connecting with other classes!

May 3, 2013
by Sue Waters
17 Comments

Activity 7: Fair use, copyright, and introduction to using images

Welcome to our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

The aim of this activity is to introduce you to the use of images and how to use them on class and student blogs.

Click on a link below to go to the section you want to work on:

Introduction to copyright, fair use and using images in blog posts?
Introduction to Creative Commons
Adding images to blog posts using image location
Uploading photos from your computer
Online tools for creating your own images
What now?

Introduction to copyright, fair use and using images in blog 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.

I’m sure you’re probably thinking it is okay because as educators, we have a few more flexible rules, called “Fair Use”, to play by. Fair use, in some cases, if an image, text, video, etc. is being used for educational purposes, means you may have more flexible copyright rules.

The trouble is, most of the laws and rules that cover fair use and education were written well before the invention of the web. They don’t apply to use of copyright material on the Internet. Using copyright material leaves you open to copyright infringement.

So what does this mean?

You need to:

Learn what images you are and aren’t allowed to use, and why.
Learn how to attribute images you are allowed to use.
Educate your students that you can’t just use any images off the Internet in their blog posts, show them how to source and attribute images they are allowed to use.

Understanding digital copyright is an essential skill we need to understand and teach our students. This post focuses on use of images.

Refer to The Educator’s Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons for comprehensive information on the use of images, curriculum docs, text and quotes, music, videos.

The safest way to source images for blog posts is to either use your own photos, images you created or use Creative Commons images.

Here’s a list of websites you can use for sourcing images:

Check out Joyce Valenza’s Comprehensive list of Copyright Friendly Image websites.

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.

If an image, or website, doesn’t include a Creative Commons license then it automatically implies all content is the copyright and you shouldn’t use!

Please note: there are a few websites that do provide free images that aren’t licensed under Creative Commons licenses — make sure you follow their terms and conditions of use.

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

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Creative Commons Licenses

There are several different types of Creative commons licenses people use depending on what restriction(s) they want to apply to their work.

For example,on the bottom right corner of the sidebar of The Edublogger you’ll see we license all content on the blog as “Attribution – Non-Commercial - Share Alike”.

That is fancy talk for letting you know that you are free to use anything on The Edublogger as long as you:

give an attribution or credit that lets others know where you got the info with a link to The Edublogger,
won’t profit in any way from using our content and use it for non-business purposes only, and
anything you create with our content, you must use the same license.

Below’s a quick summary of the different types of Creative commons licenses:

Attribution CC BY

Allowed to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work), remix (to adapt the work) and use it for commercial purposes provided you attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

Attribution-NoDerivs

Allowed to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and use it for commercial purposes provided you do not alter, transform or build upon the work and you attribute it in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Allowed to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and remix (to adapt the work) provided it isn’t used for commercial purposes, you attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor and you distribute it under the same license.

Attribution-ShareAlike

Allowed to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and remix (to adapt the work) and use it for commercial purposes provided if you alter, transform or build upon the work provided you distribute it under the similar license. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

Attribution-NonCommercial

Allowed to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and remix (to adapt the work) provided it isn’t used for commercial purposes. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

Allowed to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) provided you do not alter, transform or build upon the work or use it for commercial purposes and you attribute it in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

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Flickr Creative Commons images

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 the person who uploaded it to Flickr. Images with “Some rights reserved” means the Flickr user has applied a Creative Commons license to their photo and you can use the image in the manner specified by the license.

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. Click on “Some rights reserved” to confirm which Creative Commons license applies.

Finding Creative Commons images

The best option for finding Flickr Creative commons images is to use online tools such as:

Compfight - great for fast searching.
Flickr Blue Mountains
Flickr Storm - ideal if you want to provide a selection of Flickr images on a specific topic for students to choose from.

Other sources of Creative Commons images include:

Check out Joyce Valenza’s comprehensive list of Copyright Friendly Images website list.

Searching and adding Creative commons images to blog posts

Refer to Kathleen Morris’s detailed instructions on how to search and add creative commons images to blog posts.

Kathleen created this guide for her students to provide step-by-step instructions on how to find images on FlickrCC and Wikimedia Commons and upload them, with attribution, to blog posts.

We recommend you download her Guide here to use with your students or read it directly within the embedded Scribd below:

Using Creative Commons Images From FlickrCC and Wikimedia Commons in Blog Posts

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.

Here’s an example of image attribution:

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

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Here’s how to add an image to a blog post using image location:

1. Right click on the image and select Copy image location.

2. Click on Add Media icon.

3. Click on From URL

4. Paste the image location, add image title, Link Image to original photo location and click Insert into Post.

Please note:

Some School Districts block Flickr
If Flickr is blocked in your District you need to download the photo onto your computer and then upload it to your blog post.

Uploading photos from digital cameras

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 blog storage space and takes 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:

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

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

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

Uploading image to your blog post is as simple as:

1. Click on Add Media icon.

2. In the Add Media 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.

6. Now all you need to do is:

Add 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

Online tools for creating your own images

Other options for creating your own images include:

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

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

What now?

How did you go?

What have your learnt about using images? Leave a comment below with a link to your blog and let us all take a look!

Also feel free to leave any questions you are having (or tips/advice) as well.

Or go to Activity 8: Cool tools for enhancing your blog posts!

May 3, 2013
by Sue Waters
10 Comments

Activity 6: Helping parents and students connect with your class blog

Welcome to our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

Helping parents and students connect with your class blog

Class blogs are an excellent way for parents to find out what is happening in class and what their child is learning.

As Kathleen Morris say’s “You can’t leave parent participation to chance. Parents needs to be educated and regularly encouraged and invited to be part of your class blog.” If you want to get the most out of your class blog you need to help parent and students connect with and easily find your class blog.

But there’s nothing more frustrating trying to find your teacher’s website and not being able to find it — make it too hard and they’ll quickly give up.

What you need to do!

It’s quite common for educators new to blogging to assume their class blog is easily found using Google or that students will write the blog URL correctly in their notebook. These aren’t good approaches and decrease the chances they will be able to find your class blog.

Experienced educators use several different methods to help parents and students:

Understand what is a blog and how they can participate.
Easily find the class blog.

Here are some ideas you can use!

1. Give them a business card or magnet with your class blog URL

2. Include the link to your class blog in School newsletter or weekly class newsletter.

3. Post link to your class blog on your teacher website.

4. Include your teacher’s name in the blog URL e.g. http://mrstinaschmidt.edublogs.org/

5. Add a link to your class blog in your email signature.

6. Create a QR Codes for your class blog URL

Great for creating a buzz
Can create the QR code for your blog at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
Then send the QR Code home with instructions on how to use OR give them the QR code as a task for them to research what it is.

7. Create detailed Parent handouts

Here’s an example of 2Km and 2KJ Blog information note designed to help parents know: what is a blog, the blog URL, why they blog and their safety guidelines.

Here’s 10 Steps to Navigating 2M and 2KJ blog for helping them understand blog jargon, subscribe to email notification, leave comments and so on.

8. Have parent information nights.

9. Set up email subscription so they are notified of new posts.

10. Use custom shorten URLs for your class blog.

For more ideas check out:

Kathleen Morris’s post on Helping parents connect with your class blog – it’s packed full of ideas you can try!
How do I explain to students and parents how to find my class blog?

What now?

How did you go?

We would love to hear which you’ve decided to try! Leave a comment below to let us know.

Also feel free to leave any questions you are having (or tips/advice) as well.

Or go to Activity 7: Fair use, copyright, and intro to using images!

May 3, 2013
by Sue Waters
9 Comments

Activity 5: Working with Widgets – What you need to know

Welcome to our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

The aim of this activity is to show you how widgets are used on class blog and to introduce you to the commonly used class blog widgets.

Click on a link below to go to the section you want to work on:

What are widgets?
How widgets are used on class blogs
Examples of widgets on class blogs
How to add a widget
How to remove a widget
Overview of Available widgets
Adding widgets using embed code in text widgets
Commonly used visitor tracking widgets
Using link widgets on class blogs
Commonly asked questions about widgets
1. I’m having trouble removing a widget
What now?

What are widgets?

The term widget refers to any tool or content that you add, arrange or remove from the sidebar(s) of your blog — these are the blocks that make up your sidebar.

How widgets are used on class blogs

Widgets are used for a wide range of purposes including:

Help students, parents and visitors find information on the blog e.g. Search widget, pages widget, category widget, tag widget (learn more about categories and tags here)
Track visitors to the blog. Visitor tracking widgets are used to highlight a blog’s global audience. This can be incredibly motivating for students and provides a built in geography lesson. e.g. ClustrMaps, Flag Counter, Feedjit Live Traffic Feed
Student engagement e.g. Quiz widgets, Pet widgets
Links to helpful resources, student blogs and other class blogs e.g. Links widget
Events Calendar for important dates e.g. Google Calendar
Book lists e.g. Shelfari bookshelf
Email notification of new posts e.g. email subscription widget
Displaying comments or posts recently posted e.g recent comments widget, recent posts widget

Examples of widgets on class blogs

Check out these class blogs to see how widgets are used:

Kindergarten Duckling - Kindergarten
Mrs K’s Class - Grade 1
WPPS Grade 1 2012 - Grade 1
Look What’s Happening in Room 102! - Grade 1/2
2KM and 2KJ @ Leopold Primary School - Grade 2
Mr Salsich’s Class - Grade 3
Mrs Yoliis’ Classroom blog – Grade 3
Mr Baldock’s Class blog – Grade 3/4
Grade 3/4 at Napoleons Primary School - Grade 3/4
Jade J Year 3/4 Multiage - Grade 3/4
4KM and 4KJ @ Leopold Primary School - Grade 4
The Hobloggers Network – Grade 4
Room 2.1 – Grade 4/5
The Skinny – Grade 5
Grade 5 at Napoleons Primary School - Grade 5
Welcome to MRJ’s Mount Olympus - Grade 5
Learing2gether - Grade 5
6G and 5/6Cs Blog – Grade 5/6
Year 6 at Penbank – Grade 6
Mr. Miller’s Classroom Blog - Grade 6
Huzzah – Grade 6/7
Krebs’ Class Blogs - Grade 7/8

How to add widgets

Adding a widget is as simple as follows:

1. Go to Appearance > Widget.

2. Click on the arrow on the desired Sidebar to open up the sidebar (so you can add the widgets).

3. Drag the widget from the Available Widgets into the desired Sidebar.

You drag by click on the widget with your left mouse and moving the widget.

4. Drop the widget when you see a dashed line appear – this indicates the widget is in place.

5. The widget will automatically open — just configure, click Save and then Close.

How to remove widgets

Removing a widget is as simple as:

1. Go to Appearance > Widget.

2. Click on the small arrow on the right hand side of the widget you want to remove.

3. Click Delete.

This returns the widget to the Inactive Widget area.

Overview of Available widgets

Here’s a summary of the main widgets you’ll find in your dashboard and what they are used for:

Archives	Used to organise your previously published posts by month. Handy for readers who want to browser for older content To save space change the configuration to ‘Display as a dropdown’
Blog Avatar	Used to display your blog avatar (uploaded via Settings > Blog Avatar).
Calendar	Displays links to your posts by date on a calendar Can’t be used as an Events calendar.
ClustrMaps	A simple widget for quickly adding a ClustrMaps to your blog sidebarAdded when the Widget plugin is activated in Plugins.
Custom Menu	Allows you to display pages, categories, and custom links with a single widget. To use you first need to set up your custom menu in Appearance > Menu.
Email Subscriptions	A simple widget for adding email subscription to your blog.Used to notify readers of your latest posts by email.
Links	Used to display a list of links in your sidebar. Commonly used to share your favourite blogs or websites with your readers.
Meta	Simple widget for easy log in and log out of your blog, to access your dashboard and to locate your RSS feed.
Pages	Displays a list of your pages in the sidebar. Commonly used for themes that don’t have page links in the top navigation.
Recent Comments	Displays the most recent comments left on your blog by readers.
Recent Posts	Displays the most recent posts you have published. Makes it easier for readers to see what’s new on your blog.
Search	Adds a search box to your sidebar. Makes it easier for readers to search the contents of your blog.
Tag cloud	Adds a search box to your sidebar. Makes it easier for readers to search the contents of your blog.
Text	Allows you to add text or embed code to your sidebar. It’s the most useful widget because you can use it to add content from other sources to your sidebar using their embed code.

Some widgets are also added to your widget area when you activate plugins.

Adding widgets using embed code in text widgets

You can add any other widgets you find on the Internet by pasting their embed code into a text widget in your sidebar.

This is how you add widgets from WidgetBox, Voki, Shelfari Bookshelf, Flag Counter, Feedjit Live Traffic Feed, Google Calendar and so on!

It’s as simple as:

1. Grab the embed code for the widget you want to add.

2. Go to Appearance > Widgets.

3. Drag a text widget into your sidebar.

4. Paste the embed code into the text widget.

5. Click Save and Close.

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

Commonly used visitor tracking widgets

Visitor tracking widgets are popular on class blogs because:

Knowing you’re writing for a global audience is incredibly motivating for students.
Realizing people from other countries are reading what they’ve written increases students’ interest, excitement and motives them to blog.
It also provides built-in geography lessons — most students constantly check for new visitors and enjoy finding out more about the countries where their visitors are from.

It’s quite common to see class blogs use more than one visitor tracking widget as each widget provides different information about visitors to the blog.

Here’s a quick overview of the most commonly used visitor tracking widgets on class blogs:

ClustrMaps	ClustrMaps is a thumbnail hit counter map widget that shows the geographical location of all visitors to your blog. Number of visitors from a location is indicated by the relative size of the dot. Clicking the ClustrMaps thumbnail takes you to a large World map so you can examine your traffic sources more closely.Here’s detailed instructions on how to add a ClustrMaps using the ClustrMaps widget.
Flag Counter	Flag Counter widget shows the total number of visitors from each country next to the country’s flag. Every time someone from a new country visits your site, a new flag will be added to your counter. Clicking on the flag counter takes you to your Flag counter page which provides more detailed charts and information about your visitors.
Feedjit	Feedjit Live Traffic Feed displays visitors to your blog in real time and includes: Which city and country your visitors are in; Which website they arrived from, if any; Which page they visited on your website; Which external link they clicked to leave your site, if anyYour traffic feed is updated as each visitor arrives on your site. This update occurs before it loads so each of your visitors can see their own location displayed.Clicking on the Feedjit Live Traffic counter takes you to your Live traffic page which provides more detailed information including the countries associated with web visitors’ IP addresses, the web browser, computer operating system, and referring website.
Feedjit Live Traffic Map	Feedjit Live Traffic Map displays real-time visitor tracking by showing the geographic locations of the last 100 visitors to your blog. If you move your mouse over any point on the map the city and country for that visitor will be displayed. Clicking on the Feedjit Live Traffic Map takes you to your Live Traffic Map page which provides more detailed information.

Using link widgets on class blogs

Links widgets are commonly used on a class blog to provide links to other class blogs, student blogs and resources— they are designed to help you, your students and others websites easily.

The most common type of link widget you’ll hear mentioned is a blogroll. Bloggers commonly use blogrolls to list their favourite blogs. Blogrolls help readers locate other blogs worth reading — you are saying “these are some blogs I like – which are worth checking out!”

Blogrolls on class blogs are used often used to provide links to student blogs or other class blogs they interact with.

Please note:

If you are using the Edubogs My Class tool you add links to your student blogs by adding the Class Blogs widget to your sidebar.
You can read about managing student blogs using My Class here!

Here is how you create links to websites or blogs:

1. Go to Links > Add New.

2. Add the name of the website or blog to the Name Module.

3. Add the URL to the Web Address module.

Best option is to copy/paste the URL from the address bar of your web browser – as you are less likely to make a mistake.

4. Select Blogroll in the Category Module or create a new Category then click Add Link.

You use different categories if you organise your links in different locations in your sidebars.

Once you’ve created the links you add them to your sidebar by adding the Links widget (via Appearance > Widgets).

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Commonly asked we’re asked about widgets

Here’s answers to commonly asked questions we receive into Edublogs Support:

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1. I’m trying to remove a widget and I can’t find it listed in my sidebar in Appearance > Widgets. How do I remove it?

The most common reason why you may have trouble removing a widget, or see two of the same widget on a blog, is if some of the widgets have been hard coded into the theme. Any hard coded widgets can’t be removed.

NotePad Chaos is an example of a theme with hard coded widgets. Pages, Categories, Links and a What is this Place are all coded into the theme.

What now?

How did you go?

Have you started adding some widgets? Leave a comment below with a link to your blog and let us all take a look!

Also feel free to leave any questions you are having (or tips/advice) as well.

Or go to Activity 6: Helping parents and students connect with your class blog!