Larry explained that Edublogs is his #1 best Web 2.0 tool because “it’s so easy to use and not blocked by my School District filters”. While Rafa agreed with Larry saying “especially with the new facility to create blogs for my students. I have a small group project started which involves every team running a blog, and this made it so easy to monitor!”

So let’s check out resources for getting more out of blogging and Edublogs in our latest post on our ongoing series on Best Web 2.0 tools.

Blogging Resources

I’ve set up a Getting Started With Edublogs page on this blog to provide a central location for information, provided by the edublogger community, on the “basics of getting started blogging” including:

1. “How To” Manuals

These Introductory manuals are both excellent with fantastic “how to” explanations; both can be viewed online or downloaded and printed to provide excellent guides to step you through the process of setting up your blog and writing posts.

I still refer to both these manuals for extra tips — thanks Gail Desler and Janetta Garton for taking the time to create and share them.

2. Blogging With Students

Some really excellent posts explain the benefits of student blogging plus cover all the different aspects of blogging with students from parental consent, setting up their blogs, and student blog management to effective use of student blogs.

Let me know if you have a post to add to this section.

Don’t forget that Edublogs has now added a new feature that allows you to create blogs and usernames for your students and colleagues in batches of up to 15 at a time.

3. “How to” Video Tutorials

Edublogs has created excellent short “how to” video tutorials that step you through the process of setting up your blog and writing posts. I’ve added some of these to the Getting Started With Edublogs page (just click on the image and the video plays) and included the entire collection link.

Like the Introductory Manuals, I still refer to these videos for extra tips.

Latest News

Edublogs is committed to providing you the latest news of what’s happening in the Edublogs community and lots of great tips but are you receiving these updates?

Here’s how you can receive the latest updates:

1. Subscribe to Edublogs

James Farmer writes blog posts to let us know what’s happening.

The fastest and most efficient way of being notified of these is to subscribe to Edublogs’s URL using your feed reader (i.e. add http://edublogs.org/). Now whenever James writes a new post it will be delivered straight to you.

If you aren’t currently using a feed reader read this post on Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using RSS? Plus check out How I Use RSS To Make My Life Easier.

2. Follow Edublogs on Twitter

Edublogs has set up an account on Twitter to let the community know of the latest news.

Make sure if you use Twitter that you follow the Edublogs Twitter account.

Alternatively, if you don’t use Twitter you can still receive these updates by adding the RSS feed from the Edublogs Twitter account to your feed reader – here is Edublogs Twitter accounts RSS feed.

If you’re currently not using Twitter check out this post on How I Use Twitter plus read How A Twitter Network Can Be Used For Help & Providing Recommendations.

3. Subscribe To The Edublogger

The Edublogger was set up by Edublogs to help educational bloggers with emerging technologies in education, share their own experiences, and promote the blogging medium.

The fastest and most efficient way of being notified of the latest tips from The Edublogger is to subscribe to its RSS feed in your feed reader — here is The Edublogger RSS feed.

Help And Support

If you’ve got a problem with your blog the best place to access support is through the Edublogs Forum.

Before asking for help take the time to search the forum because more than likely the questions are already being asked and answered.

If you can’t find the answer by searching the Forum, reading the FAQ, or watching the videos, then post your question to the forum — please provide as much information as you can including:

• The exact URLs you are referring to (i.e. add the address of your blog to your post), if it is an issue with your blog
• A detailed description of the issue (the more the better)
• Sample of the code you are trying to embed, if you are having trouble embedding

The Edublogs crew does an excellent job supporting the community in the Forum but they can’t be expected to help 24/7. Please subscribe to the Forum Feed in your feed reader, and if you know the answer to a question take time to write a response — here is the Forum RSS feed. Let’s give back their support by helping as a community in the Forum :).

Don’t forget to check out the benefits of being an Edublogs Supporter — only costs $25 per year and you get lots of extra features.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

• Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page?
• Setting Up iGoogle For Your Personal Learning
• Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Web Browser?
• Blogging Tools To Help You Blog
• Using Your Twitter Network For Help & Providing Their Recommendations

Don’t forget to let us know about resources or posts suitable for Edublogs Help info pages.

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Since educators have differing views on the use of student images I thought it would be an excellent opportunity for us to discuss the issues while sharing tips and links to resources.

So can you please share with us:

1. Does your school or district have guidelines or policies relating to the use of student images on the Internet? If so, what procedures are you required to follow?
2. Your advice or thoughts on using student images on the Internet?
3. How do you educate your students on what images they are/aren’t allowed to use?

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• Thumbnail (150 x 150 pixels)
• Medium (300 x 300 pixels)
• Full Size

If you are like me and prefer specific sizes of images in blog posts you are able to change the size of thumbnail and medium sized images under Settings > Miscellaneous.

What you mightn’t have realized is that when you insert an image into a post using the “full size” option, the image is automatically resized to a maximum width of 500 pixels. This has been done to prevent the problem of wide images in blog posts caused when people post photos straight from digital cameras.

It is important to realize how wide an image can be depends on your blog theme. Some themes 500 pixels is too wide and the image will flow into your sidebar area. While other themes can cope with images wider than 500.

Maximum image width for the following themes are:

You also need to remember that image size in posts isn’t affected when you change blog themes so the image width you used on your old theme may be too large for your new theme e.g. go from Cutline (480 px) to Quadruple Blue (400 px).

You can increase the width of an image by clicking and dragging the image to the required size. DON’T insert a “medium size” image and drag to the larger size because this affects the quality of the image.

Compare the quality of this “Medium Sized” image dragged to 500 pixels wide:

With this “Full Size” image:

FINAL THOUGHTS

While the “full size” option does automatically resized to a maximum width of 500 pixels its not a good idea to upload images directly from your digital camera to your blog posts. Resizing before uploading is the better option which I will cover in my next post.

If you currently resize images please tell us about what tool(s) you use and why? And any links or information that would help others understand about resizing and image quality.

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So if you’ve set up student blogs with your student’s email address using Edublogs Blog & User Creator feature comment notifications will be sent to your student. This is a problem if you wanted all comments sent to you for moderation.

While you can change the email address in blog settings (Settings > General) a simpler solution is to set up the student blogs using one Gmail account.

Using Gmail To Create Student Accounts

Gmail (or Google Mail) is Google’s free web email service with tons of storage space and lots of great features e.g. ability to easy search mail messages, threaded messages, built in chat.  Create your gmail account here.  I recommend choosing a name that people can identify easily as being you e.g. mine is my name with the s missing from the end of waters.

Educators can use one Gmail account to set up student blogs or sign up for different online services using gmail’s support of plus addressing. How this works is simple! Gmails ignores anything in the first half of an email address after a plus sign so if you create each email with the format username+studentname@gmail.com all emails will be sent to the inbox of username@gmail.com. You can use both text and numbers in the student names.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Remember when using Edublogs Blog & User Creator feature to create student blogs the students are automatically added as Administrators (here is an explanation of the different roles you can assign users).  Also don’t forget to change selection to Yes in the Add Admin field if you wanted to add yourself as co administrator when creating the student blogs.

NOTE: to have access to the Edublogs Blog & User Creator for batch creating 15 blogs at a time you need to be an Edublogs supporter.

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The five roles a user can be assigned in decreasing level of responsibility are:

1. Administrator – can do everything including complete power over posts, pages, plugins, comments, choice of themes, imports, settings, assign user roles and are even able to delete the blog.
2. Editor – is able to publish posts/pages, manage posts/pages, upload files, moderate comments as well as manage other people’s posts/pages.
3. Author – can upload files plus write and publish own posts.
4. Contributor – can write own posts/pages but can’t publish them.
5. Subscriber – can read comments and write comments.

The diagram below summaries the responsibilities of each role:

Please note when using Edublogs Blog & User Creator feature:

• Users are automatically added as Administrators.
• To create multiple student blogs you add yourself as co-administrator by changing selection to Yes in the Add Admin field.

To be able to access Edublogs Blog & User Creator Feature you need to be an Edublogs supporter.

Changing User Role

You change the role of users in your blog dashboard by going to Users > Authors & Users.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Setting up blogs for your students? You may find these posts useful:

• Creating Student Accounts Using One Gmail Account
• Tips On Blogging With Students
• Share Your Advice on Using Student Photos on Blogs

What role(s) do you assign the different users when setting up class and student blogs, and why?

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1. Layout – number of columns
2. Color Scheme
3. Ability to upload own image header
4. Presence or absence of page links in blog header
5. Presence or absence of tagline in blog header
6. Ability to customize theme

One Column Themes

Single Column themes have a central post area with no sidebar. These theme appeal to people who like to keep their theme simple by preventing the clutter often created by sidebar widgets. All widgets are located at the bottom of the blog on one column themes.

1. 72 Classes – Minmalist white theme with black trim
2. Ambiru – light grey theme and able to upload your own custom image header (500 x 225 pixels)
3. Day Dream – offers four different headers to choose from pink with flowers, blue, grey or green leaves
4. GreenDay – Olive green theme with content located on left of page; doesn’t look anything like supplied screenshot in theme selection area
5. Roundflow – Extremely customisable theme. Able to change width of column, type of font used on blog and colors of header, background & text
6. Simplr – This theme allows you to configure some variables to suit your blog such as font size, font type
7. Striped Plus – Extremely customisable theme that allows you to change width of blog, type of font used on blog, colors of header, background & text and upload own images to use for header and background

One column themes with additional features:

1. Links to pages in blog header – Ambiru, Day Dream, Green Day, Roundflow and Simplr.
2. Includes tagline in blog header – Day Dream, Green Day, Roundflow and Simplr

Two Column Themes with Left Sidebar

1. Anarchy – Black theme with red headings and white text.
2. Benevolence – Simplistic theme which allows you to upload your own custom image header (700 x 225 pixels).
3. Borderline chaos – Theme has funky modern color scheme
4. Fauna – theme has a light grey background image with patterns and allows you to upload your own custom image header (780 x 200 pixels). Posts have a white background.
5. Pink Kupy – Very pretty in pink with pink patterns in the header. The post column is really narrow with the post background color of pink and the text written in darker pink.
6. Solipsus – Black and grey tones theme with simple pattern header. The post column is quite narrow and the post background color is grey.
7. Suhweet – Minmalist purplish theme with the background colour of post light purple.
8. Tarskei – White simple feeling theme that allows you to upload your own custom image header (720 x 180 pixels)
9. White as milk – Extremely white theme with a white header and felt too white for me.
10. WordPress Silver II – Clean white theme that allows you to customize your image header using a Flickr tag.
11. Heminway – Black theme that can be changed to white. Technically speaking it is a two column theme but is unusual in that it columns display posts and the widgets are located below like a one column theme. Didn’t partially like this theme because it displays the latest post as a partial post and you have to click on a link to read the full post.

Two column themes with left sidebar additional features:

1. Links to pages in blog header – Fauna, Suhweet, Tarskei and WordPress Silver II
2. Includes tagline in blog header – Pink Kupy, White as Milk, Suhweet, Tarskei and WordPress Silver II

Two Column Themes with Right Sidebar

Two Column themes with right sidebar are the most Edublogs most common theme layout so it has been necessary to break these themes into several categories based on: those that allow you to upload your own image header; and then the remaining themes were categorized based on the theme’s color scheme.

Those that allow you to upload your own image header are:

1. Blix – 690 x 115 pixels. Blue Green simple theme.
2. Connections – 741 x 142 pixels. Stylish theme.
3. Contempt – 750 x 140 pixels. Blue grey professional theme.
4. Cutline – 770 x 140 pixels. White theme.
5. Fleshy – 780 x 95 pixels. Grey theme with black trim.
6. Greenery – 740 x 171 pixels. Extremely vivid green theme with trees in default image header.
7. Jakarta – 480 x 200 pixels. Sandstone color theme and post background color is tan.
8. K2 – 780 x 200 pixels. Light grey theme.
9. Letoprime – size of image not specified. Wide range of default image headers to choose from plus the option to upload your own image header with light blue feel.
10. Mandigo – 800 x 250 pixels. Lots of options for customizing this theme.
11. Misty Look – 760 x 190 pixels. Very light green toned theme that includes Post and Comment RSS feed in the blog header.
12. Ocean Mist – 736 x 200 pixels. Gentle blue toned theme.
13. Press Row – 770 x 200 pixels. White Simplistic theme.
14. Redoable – 730 x 180 pixels. Deep grey theme and the background color of posts is grey. Default header is strong red.
15. Regulus – 730 x 140 pixels. Very customisable theme with ability to change color tones.
16. Rubric – 215 x 150 pixels. Light grey toned theme.
17. Seashore – 900 x 180 pixels. Light grey toned theme.
18. Sumenop – 480 x 150 pixels. Dark theme with curly flowers.

Those with additional features:

1. Links to pages in blog header – Greenery, Press Row, Blix, Connections, Cutline, Fleshy, K2, Letoprime, Mandigo, Misty Look, Ocean Mist, SeaShore and Redoable
2. Includes tagline in blog header – Connections, Fleshy, K2, Letoprime, Mandigo, Misty Look, Ocean Mist, SeaShore, Contempt , Jakarata, Rubric and Sumenop

Green Themes

1. Almost Spring – Simple theme with light green tones
2. FrameFake – Nice green tones and the post area is scrollable. Links to pages in its blog header.
3. Green Mairnee – Black header with green tone theme.

Blue Themes

1. CleanTidy – top post has deep blue background and older posts have grey background color. Links to pages in its blog header.
2. Deep Blue – strong blue tones
3. Flex – Blue and grey tones that includes tagline in its header
4. Fresh Bananas – Light blue simple theme.
5. Glossy Blue – Vibrant blue with green tones theme which links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline in its header.
6. Nikynik BlueMU – Simple blue theme which links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline in its header.
7. Ocadia – light blue with grey tones theme which includes tagline in its header
8. Pool – Gentle calm blue theme which links to pages in its blog header.
9. Steam – Gentle blue and grey theme with wide post area.
10. Waterlilly – Blue grey toned theme with water lilly image header and includes tagline in blog header.

Yellow Themes

1. RadMod – Red header with background area of posts yellow.

Brown Themes

1. Batavia – Simple brown theme with post background color light fawn which links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline in its header.
2. Quentin – brownish red toned theme which includes tagline in its header

Pink Themes

1. Daisy Rai Gemini – Very soft pinkish tones with a soft flower image header and includes tagline in its header.
2. Dixie Bell – Soft pink with a pink flower on the right handside of the blog plus includes tagline in its header
3. Sweet Blossoms – strong pink theme with flowers and includes tagline in blog header.
4. Twilight – Pink and grey toned theme that includes tagline in blog header

Black Theme

1. Black Letterhead – Black theme with yellow titles and white text.

White Themes

1. Copyblogger – strong black header with red highlights and titles giving it strong tones of black and red which links to pages in its blog header.
2. Crop Circles – white and soft grey tones with an alien crop circle influence which links to pages at the top of the blog plus includes tagline in its header.
3. Letterhead – Extremely white theme (was a bit too white for me) plus includes tagline in its header.
4. Man`ja – Simple yellow thin header with white theme which links to pages in its blog header. Very different look and feel from a traditional blog (wasn’t for me).
5. Simpla – White grey minimalist theme which includes tagline in its header.
6. Trevilian Way – White minimalist theme. Links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline. Not a fan of its default setting which doesn’t display full post on blog.
7. Veryplaintxt – incredibly white theme which includes tagline in blog header.

Grey Themes

1. Blue Moon – Deep blue grey theme which links to pages in blog header plus includes tagline in header.
2. Deichnetz – Grey tone with a Bavarian forest floor image header
3. Falling Dreams – Grey pavement theme with pavement image header. Post area is quite narrow.
4. Gentle Calm – Greyish green minmalist theme which includes tagline in its header.
5. Gridlock – Able to change the way posts are displayed however wasn’t a fan of this theme.
6. Kubrick – Able to change the color of the header plus includes tagline in its header.
7. Light 1.0 – Grey, blue and navy toned theme which links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline in its header.
8. Northern Web Coders – grey, orange pink tones with sun coming through clouds image header which links to pages in its blog header.
9. Terrafirma – Grey, green, orange toned theme with plant image header. Links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline.
10. Thoughts – Strong grey theme with speech bubble like image header. Includes tagline in image header.

Patterned Theme

1. Vistered Little – Post area is transparent so when scrolling you see the image behind the post. Readers can also change the look and feel of the image by clicking on the links in the header. Personally I found this theme too busy and makes it hard to read posts.

Three Column Themes with Left and Right Sidebar

1. Andreas09 – This theme provides 14 different options for changing the color of the blog header. Links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline.
2. Anubis – green toned theme that allows you to upload your own custom image header (970 x 150 pixels).
3. Blue Zinfandel Enhanced – White theme with links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline.
4. Cordobo Green Park – Fluoro green theme with rounded edges and inks to pages in its blog header.
5. Edublogs Default – White theme that allows you to upload your own custom image header (970 x 140 pixels) with links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline. This is the default theme for all new Edublogs blogs.
6. Garland – This theme provides the ability to change the color of the blog header, background, text and links using font color codes. Has links to pages in its blog header.
7. Newportal – Blue theme with links to pages in its blog header.
8. OceanWide – Extremely customisable theme that allows you to upload your own custom image header (980 x 198 pixels), change font types and theme colors with links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline.

Three Column Themes with Right Sidebars

1. Bluebird – Blue and brown aligned theme with bluebird sitting on a branch in the blog header and links to pages on right hand side of header. Post background color is light blue. Includes tagline in blog header.
2. Blue Green – This theme has a blue header with green contrasts. Post background color is very light grey blue.
3. ChaoticSoul – Brownish grey theme that allows you to upload your own custom image header (760 x 151 pixels). Post background color is brownish grey with white text in the posts and yellow post titles. Includes tagline in blog header.
4. Fadtastic – Blue theme with green highlights with links to pages in its blog header. I didn’t like this theme because the default post isn’t a full post i.e. you have to click on link to read full post.
5. GenkiTheme – Greenish blue feeling theme which Includes tagline in blog header.
6. Glorious Day – Bluish and greenish tone theme that allows you to upload your own custom image header ( 900 x 180 pixels). Has links to pages in its blog header plus includes tagline.
7. Reaching Darkness – Grey tone theme that allows you to upload your own custom image header ( 900 x 180 pixels) with links to pages in its blog header.
8. Twenty eight thirteen – Minimalist white theme which Includes tagline in blog header.
9. Vertigo – Minimalist white theme.

Four Column Themes

1. CommentPress – Incredibly unusual blog theme. It offers two skin options:
   • Table of Contents skin – which would work well if you wanted to use it for writing a document or wanted to just use the site for providing assignment information (link to the oldest post appears at the top table of contents)
   • CommentPress Skin – provides readers the ability to comment paragraph by paragraph in the margins of a text.
2. Fjords – Bluish grey tone theme with all four columns the same width which means that the post column is excessively narrow and not well suited to lengthy content. It does allow you to upload your own custom image header ( 900 x 200 pixels ).
3. Quadruple – Navy blue header with blue tone theme with one sidebar on left and two on right. The post area is slightly narrower due to having four columns.

Most Customisable Themes

These themes provide greater opportunity for customizing if you want to change color of your blog based on font color code or change font type.

1. Roundflow – One Column. Can change the colors on the blog, width of column and type of font used.
2. Simplr – One Column. Able to change width of column and type of font used.
3. Striped plus – One Column. Able to change colors on the blog and type of font used.
4. Mandigo – Two Column. Extensive range of image headers to choose from and able to change colors on the blog using font color codes.
5. OceanWide – Three column

FINAL THOUGHT

With 100 Edublogs themes there is a chance I accidentally made a mistake like missed your theme, got a color wrong etc. I’d really appreciate it if you could check the information I supplied for your theme and let me know if I need to make any corrections or missed a theme off the most customizable list. Would also like to hear which theme(s) you like/dislike and why.

You might also find What To Consider When Choosing Your Blog Theme and Edublogs Themes That Allow Comments on Pages! helpful

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Tips for Road testing Blog Themes

New bloggers often spend considerable time changing their blog theme to work out which theme works best for them.

When road testing blog themes make sure that you have:

• Several posts on your blog and at least one with an image added e.g. have at least 3 posts published (you can always delete)
• In one of the post include all heading styles so that you can see the font color, size and type of each heading style
• Add comments to two of the posts (you can always delete)

Edublogs provides 100 themes for you to choose from ranging from themes that can’t be altered i.e. “use as is” to themes that are “extremely customizable” i.e. change image header, font types, font color and background color. You change your theme by clicking on Design > Theme in your blog dashboard and then click on the theme you want to use.

Features worth considering when choosing a blog theme include:

1. What Is Your Preferred Layout?

Blog themes normally include a header, a content area (for your posts), sidebar area (for your widgets) and come in several standard layouts:

• Single column with no sidebar (widgets are located at the bottom of the blog)
• Two Column – normally a wide column for content and narrower sidebar
• Three Column – with sidebars side-by-side on one side of the blog or either side of the wider content column
• Four Column – one content column and three sidebars. The content column is often the same width as the other columns. This type of layout tends to be cluttered looking and less suited to reading lengthy content.

Two or three column are the most commonly used layouts. When considering layout you need to think about which side(s) do you prefer the sidebar to be located? Also make sure you check out the width of the blog and the post area.

2. Do you want your tagline displayed in the blog header?

The concept behind a blog tagline is to create a memorable phrase that sums up the tone and premise of a blog. Ideally all blogs should have a tagline since they instantly tell first time readers what your blogs all about and whether you write posts in topic areas that interest them.

3. Do you want to be able to upload your own Custom Image Header?

Being able to upload your own custom image header means you can add your “own personal touch” to your blog plus you can use it as a work around for blog themes that don’t include taglines i.e. Add the tagline to the image header using tools like PhotoShop.

4. Do you want links to pages in the blog header?

Some blog themes have links to pages in their blog header while on other themes you use the page widget in your sidebar. I personally like to have page links in my header to make it easier for readers to navigate pages on my blogs.

5. What are your preferred color scheme?

When choosing your theme remember that if color scheme makes your content hard to read you will lose readers. So balance your personal preferences with readability since ultimately you want people to read your content.

Don’t just look at the overall color — remember to check closely the color of: the header; the background; post text and links; post titles; headings in posts; widget titles and links.

When choosing color schemes it is worth doing audit of your blog by watching a first time reader read your blog to observe how they are interacting with the content on the site. Don’t talk to them while they navigate through your site just record how they interact and what engages/distracts them. Once finished ask them questions like:

• What were their first impressions were?
• What captured their attention?
• What distracted them?
• Do they have suggestions on how you could improve your blog?

While most of the standard Edublogs themes color schemes can’t be altered i.e. “use as is” there are a few themes that allow you to change the theme’s color.

6. What type of font do you like?

Most of the standard Edublogs themes don’t provide the ability to change font type i.e. “use as is” however there are a few themes that allow you to change their font.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’ve tried to cover the basics of choosing an Edublogs theme for your blog. But would love to hear about:

• What you look for when choosing a blog theme?
• Which themes you have found are easier for students to use?
• Are there any blog themes that really popular with your students?

Need help choosing your Edublogs theme?  – check out The 100 Edublogs Themes Separated Into Categories To Make Choosing Your Next Theme Easier and Edublogs Themes That Allow Comments on Pages!

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That doesn’t sound hard! And a cool way of creating free educational quizzes for your students or for your students to create their own quizzes.

I first saw MyStudiyo in action when Steve Dembo used it to create his “Know Your Edubloggers” quiz back in February.

What I liked about MyStudiyo is how you can:

• Easily embed text, images, audio and video into quiz answers
• Create ‘non-collaborative’ quizzes or “collaborative” quizzes (allows others to add further questions to your quiz)
• Embed your MyStudiyo quiz into blog posts

Embedding MyStudiyo Quizzes Into Posts

1. On your blog dashboard, go to Write > Write A Post
2. Completely write your post adding all text and images including adding your categories, tags and post title.
3. Click Save and View this Post to do any final edits on your post.
4. Register for an account at MyStudiyo and create your own quiz.
5. Copy the embed code.
6. Click on your HTML Tab
7. Paste the embed code from MyStudiyo into your post where you want it to appear then immediately press Publish (DON’T CLICK on Visual Tab to change back to Visual editor).

Here is an example of a MyStudiyo Quiz I created for us to learn more about the slang used by the different cultures? I’ve set it up as a collaborative quiz so that we can all add common slang used in our countries (just click on Add a Question to insert your own questions with answers into the quiz).

About MyStudiyo EduQuiz Contest

Check out the EduQuiz contest terms and conditions here. You have until 12am EST June 14th, 2008 to get your entries in.

Unfortunately I’m disqualified from entering since I have the honor of judging the contest with Steve Dembo. Official judging criteria will be educational content, use of media and feedback, number of participants, integration with other online resources. Haven’t worked out bonus points for my unofficial judging criteria but it’s good to know Steve’s include references to:

• Jonathon Coulton songs (here is a video of him singing)
• Rodeo clowns
• Any of the original three Star Wars movies

Not sure what Steve has against the new Star Wars movies – they work for me

FINAL THOUGHTS

Let me know how you go creating your quizzes and how you plan to use them. Also don’t forget you can add your own questions to my quiz.

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!

Skill level: Medium to Advanced

About Jing

Jing is a free program, by TechSmith, which you can use to instantly capture and share images (with notes if you like) and videos from your computer to anywhere. You can also share these images and screencasts free online at screencast.com. Check out their video tour to learn more about Jing and how to use.

People like using Jing because:

1. It’s very easy to use
2. It’s easy to share images and screencasts
3. It creates superior quality screencasts – doesn’t change or diminish the resolution of your content like some screencast applications will. You can easily record the entire desktop and viewers will still be able to read the text in the screencast.

Embedding Jing

Unfortunately Jings video size is based on your original recording size i.e. if you recorded your entire desktop its size may be 1024 wide by 756. So when you grab the embed code from screencast.com it will be too large to embed in your blog posts and editing the code doesn’t work.

A work around, courtesy of James Farmer, is upload your Jing screencasts to your blog, create an image and link to their file location (this is how James does it for the Edublogs video tutorials).

Here is how you do it:

1. Create your screencast using Jing and save it on your computer.
2. Take a screenshot of the your screencast preview to use in your blog post.
3. On your blog dashboard, go to Write > Post
4. Write your blog post
5. Upload your Jing Video to your blog post by clicking on Browse and navigating to the area of your computer that has the Jing video file you wish to upload.
6. Select the video you want to upload and click open. Be patient –will take time to upload depending on size i.e. several minutes.
7. Click on Edit then copy the URL location of your file.
8. Upload your screenshot to your post and then link your video to your screenshot by pasting URL location of your file.

Here is an example of what it looks like and how it works using Edublogs 5 minute video tutorial on playing with your plugins.

Please note:

1. Maximum upload size of videos to Edublogs Pro is 50 MB.
2. Get extra storage space and benefits by becoming an Edublogs supporter for $39.95 per year.
3. You can also link your screenshot to your file hosted on screencast.com

FINAL THOUGHTS

What can I say? Well it’s not a prefect solution because it isn’t exactly an embed and the simpler solution would have been to link to your file on screencast.com. But the reality is most don’t want to do that so this at least makes it look nicer. Personally I wish that Jing would provide an easy option to create suitable embed code for our blog posts when we embed across from screencast.com.

Do you use Jing? And if so, what do you use it for? Or do you use another screencast program? If so, what do you use and why?

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CoComment

Is it wrong to say I love Martin Weller? Probably but I truly mean it (but you will need to read on to see why I feel this way).

Blogging is far more than just writing blog posts. Making a conscious effort to take the time to comment on posts of other bloggers is an essential part of blogging. I personally sacrifice time I could spend writing more blog posts to comment on other bloggers posts.

Don’t be afraid to comment! What you say is of value and is encouraging to other bloggers (especially new bloggers). Every blogger loves comments regardless of their status in the blogosphere .

So getting back to Martin Weller his current favorite blogging tool is cocomment which he uses for tracking comments he posts on other people’s blogs.

Martin says

cocomment makes me more likely to comment on blogs and thus a better blog citizen

If I had one wish it would be for us all to be better blog citizens.

When you create an account with coComment you install a CoComment add-on which automatically activates coComment when you write comments on all major blogging platforms, on services like Digg, Flickr or Youtube and some Forums making it easier to track responses to comments you leave on other people’s sites.

By subscribing to your cocomment RSS feed using your feed reader e.g. Google Reader or Bloglines you’re automatically notified whenever a person comments on a post that you’ve commented on so you can choose to immediately respond back if you want.

Comment tracking tools make commenting more meaningful because you no longer feel like you left comment drifting in the wind never to be seen or heard again. As a blogger you should be using a comment tracking tool like co.comment!

Jott

William “Bud” Deihl has got me seriously pondering Jott’s benefits for translating voice from a phone onto text to write blog posts (read his explanation in this post). Fortunately for Australian drivers I can’t write my blog posts by talking into my mobile phone as I drive to work since it appears Jott is only available in US and Canada.

Jott is far more powerful than just a tool that we could be using for blogging. So many people have found Jott increases their productivity.

Ken Pendergrass included Jott in his top 3 Web 2.o tools because he uses it everyday to give himself reminders via SMS and/or email. Michele Martin has written an excellent post on how she uses Jott to increase her productivity.

And yet Jott has even more potential. Karen Janowski highlights how Jott is a 21st century tool for learning by providing excellent examples of how we could use it with students in our classrooms.

Phone photo from Flickr by JaJah licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.0.

File Hosting/Sharing Tools

There are so many file hosting and sharing tools that can help us with our blogging. Here are just a few that made it into the Top 3 Best Web 2.0 as recommended by my twitter network and our readers.

Isabelle Jones recommended Scribd because you can upload documents and share them with others i.e. your communities as well as publish them on blogs. I’ve never heard of Scribd before so Kevin Gamble explained “it’s like a YouTube for documents”.

Scribd was nominated 64th top tool in the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list by 155 learning professionals. I would love to hear more about Scribd if you are using it

Whereas Marlene Manto says she couldn’t do without Box.net because it’s great for storage, sharing and collaboration. Box.net allows you to upload large documents, photos, spreadsheets, videos, or zip files to your online space which can then be accessed from anywhere. It means you can store large files online at Box.net instead of using your blog storage space; all you need to do is link across to the Box.net storage location.

Here are Marlene’s instructions on how to use Box.net.

What can we truly say about SlideShare? Not only is it an excellent location to store and share your PowerPoint presentations online but it’s also a great resource for:

• To discover other people’s presentations and slideshows for sharing with your readers
• Visiting to learn the art of crafting a presentation; great for inspiring ideas when creating your own presentations

If you’ve not used SlideShare you definitely need to check it out!

Thanks Dean Groom for including it in your Top 3 Best Web 2.o tools. SlideShare was nominated 14th top tool in the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list by 155 learning professionals.

Here is one of my favourite SlideShare’s by Kim Cofino.

Search Box

Having a search box on your blog matters! As Chris Brogan nicely says

The #1 thing I seek in a blog I’m returning to (versus a newly discovered blog) is a search bar. Why? Because often, I’m returning to a blog to find a story.

Put your search box WAY up high on your page, above the fold, if at all possible. It matters.

Martin Weller included his Lijit search box in his top 3 best Web 2.0 tools (visit Martin’s blog and do a search see how Lijit works).

Definitely I like the idea of Lijit is because I have my content located across lots of websites and this search allows readers to search content on my blog or all my sites (by clicking on the My Content Tab). Plus it provides some really cools statistics on how readers interact with my blog that are emailed weekly or I can check them out online in my account.

But I’m still debating Lijit with myself because when readers click on My Content tab the search will also shows results from other websites – which is really bad. You want readers to stay on your sites not go to other peoples sites.

Would love to hear your opinions about which Search box(es) you like to have on your blog and why? My mind is still very open to the idea of Lijit — so please share your thoughts.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

• Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page?
• Setting Up iGoogle For Your Personal Learning
• Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Web Browser?
• Getting More Out Of Blogging And Edublogs
• Blogging Tools To Help You Blog
• Using Your Twitter Network For Help & Providing Their Recommendations

There’s still time for you to share your thoughts on “What Web 2.0 tools (apart from Twitter, delicious & Flickr) you find indispensable? Name your best 3?” by writing a comment or your own post on your favourite tools.

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