Hi

Had a great time working with five teachers in Leeds today during a course on blogging and social learning networks. In all 10 new blogs in edublogs and blogger saw the light of day and we enjoyed creating voki characters, embedding video and games and exploring widgets. It was a nice surprise when we noticed Joe Dale had referred to the presentation we were following through the day in his post. For anyone beginning blogging, just a reminder - you can search this site for "blog club" entries to get instructions on the basics of blogging, from setting up to writing posts and pages and installing a couple of widgets. Don't forget there are great help videos in edublogs and plenty of tips and guidance in the dashboard area of blogger. Happy blogging...we certainly were today!

Tasks for blog club

On your marks! - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: On your marks!

Quick start guides

For a reminder for blog-clubbers I've uploaded two basic guides to using blogger and edublogs to the scribd website. Remember you can then embed documents from scribd into your blog, but I'm just inserting the links here to save space.

blogger basics:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3257831/Quick-start-guide-to-blogger

edublogs basics:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3257990/EDUBLOGS-QUICK-START-GUIDE

Blog club task two

It was great that we now have several blogs going, including Ian's Economics blog with lesson content and specification details, the English department's Shakespeare quiz, Biology's bird-identifying competition and Jacqueline's library blog with plans to share book reviews.
If you haven't yet started a blog, follow the instructions under "Step One". Once done, go to your "dashboard" (you'll need to log in by clicking on the "Meta" "log in" or "admin" link) and post a few entries - anything will do, you're just practising! Remember posts are displayed most recent at the top. Remember to fill in the "tag" and/or "categories" boxes with as many key words as you wish - it will make your blog much easier to manage and use. If you are using edublogs, go to "Manage pages" and create a few new pages - remembering these exist outside of the usual hierarchy of blog posts. You might assign different pages to different key stages classes, topics, Units or skills. Tabs for your new pages will appear at the top of your main page.
Last task: either do this yourself or ask someone to do it for you. Access the blog without logging in and fill in a comments box (follow in-screen instructions). This is the only way other users will be able to post on the blog, unless you give them authoring rights. In edublogs you will then receive an e-mail, inviting you to moderate that comment. Once you have moderated, it will be posted automatically. Have a think about how you might encourage girls to participate actively in your blog by commenting (some ideas from me next post).
Next bloggers' club will be after half-term. Have a good week off.

Child's play:click on the cartoon to scroll across

Blog club: Step One

This is the first in a series of posts helping you to master blogging. 20 minutes a week for four or five weeks should be enough to set up a fantastic site which you can then use easily in your department.
First decide which blog host you will use. Choose from www.blogger.com (this one is an example) or www.edublogs.org (look at my French blog at www.haythorneg@edublogs.org).
Edublogs allows you to use a number of pages, as well as reverse-chronological posting on any particular page, and functions such as getting students to subscribe by e-mail, tag-clouds (an eye-catching way of enabling people to search the site) and uploading of audio files, PowerPoints and pictures are easy. Blogger has more options for blogging on the go (maybe for you, PE?) including posting from any e-mail address and posting from mobile phones, plus it has impressive features such as slideshows of photos and using newsreels. Don't agonise too much however: they seem to expand their features all the time. Have a word with me if you need more advice.
Go to the relevant website, create an account, and follow the instructions to set up a blog (a couple of clicks will do it).
When choosing a theme (template or appearance) in edublogs, make sure you choose a three column one, as it offers you more functions ("widgets"). Please now send me a link and I'll post them here so we can share what we do as we go along.

Next week we will add pages (in edublogs) and start posting (edublogs and blogger) - if you can wait until then. Remember help is available next Friday, 1st February, at lunchtime (venue tba). Happy blogging!