Thursday, January 31, 2013

Friday, Feburary 1 - iPad Apps

Task 1

Today you need to find 10 apps that would be useful in the classroom here at Abilene.
  • Of the 10 aaps five can be apps you are already using like my big campus or pages. 
  • For the other 5 you need to find new apps that you have not used before. This means you will need to search the app store to find more apps. You will not know if an app is good or useful without downloading it or testing it.

The assignment
Create a post including all ten apps or a separate post for each app.
Posts should include
  1. The name of the app
  2. What class it would be useful for
  3. How is it useful (for instance on My Big Campus it lets you organize classes, access, and turn in homework.) These need to be detailed in complete sentences.
  4. A screen shot (press home and power button on iPad) of the app being used on your iPad
  • You can create the post on the computer but you will need to add the pictures from your iPad

Friday, February 1 - Favicon

Friday, February 1 - Favicon

Favicon - January 31

Today's topic:  Favicon


How can one miss the Blogger logo in orange and white, which happens to be its default favicon for any blog. But have you thought of customizing your own favicon and display it in your blog. Adding your own favicon is not just branding your blog but also adds up some sense of professionalism too.


Add a custom favicon to your Blogger blog: "What is a favicon?


The word “favicon” is short for “favorite icon”, and is a 16x16px square icon which is associated with a website (or blog).  Browsers which support favicons will usually display a website’s favicon in the address bar (to the left of the URL), and next to the page’s name in a list of bookmarks. Browsers which support tabbed navigation (such as Firefox and IE8) will also display the favicon next to the page title on each tab."



Before creating your favicon some of the basic points you should keep in mind is that your favicon icon have to be a small image of size 16 x 16 pixels and with an .ico extension. However, you can also use .GIF and .PNG in this case. A very easy and time saving step in creating your icon is to go for one of the free services such as:



FAVICON WEBSITE CREATORS

Alternatively you can download a “ready made” favicon from these sites:

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR FAVICON - two ways:


Favicon - create picture and add to Blogger favicon or add html code into heading


Create an account on Faviocon.cc
Upload or create your image
Save - download picture
Click Design - Layout - and Favicon - upload new picture. 


AN EASY WAY TO ADD YOUR FAVICON CODE FROM HTML IS SIMPLY ADD A HTML GADGET.  NO NEED TO EDIT YOUR HTML CODE!

Friday, January 25, 2013

Friday, January 25 - Web tools

ASSIGNMENT

Find 2 web tools that you could use for a class here at Abilene and create a post.
Remember to include all post elements! - link, pictures(screen shot), explanation( where/what class and how it would be useful)

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Thursday, January 24


Today you will:

  • We will explore Feedjit
  • Add Feedjit to your blog
  • Verify that student link lists all WORK properly
  • Add Blogger App to iPad
  • Compare Blogger App to Full Website
Below you will find two separate blog posts one for:  Feedjit and  one for Blogger App.

Please stay on the class blog and wait for directions.

FeedJit - Thursday, January 24 - Task 1



Feedjit lets you see friends and visitors as they arrive on your blog or website. Know when your best friends read about your latest adventure. If you are a business owner, be alerted when your most important clients view your latest product offering. Feedjit lets you know, right now, who is visiting your site. Simply add the Live Traffic Feed and instantly start seeing who is visiting your site as they arrive.
See the actual identity of hundreds of thousands of Feedjit members when they visit your site including their photo and links to their website and social profiles. You can make new friends and leads by contacting the Feedjit members who visit your site. The Live Traffic Feed turns your unknown readers into real people.

Visit Feedjit and add a live traffic feed.
How exciting!! It actually shows the country, browser, operating system and how a visitor arrives on your site!

Blogger on iPad - Thursday, January 24 - Task 2


  • Today you are going to download the Blogger app onto your iPad.
  • Compare and contrast the Web version vs. App.
Download the Blogger App onto your iPad

Sign in.

View Blog

We will explore the iPad App.

ASSIGNMENT:
  • Create a post.  - App vs. Web created on iPad App
  • In the post - explain the usability on the iPad.  
  • Full web vs. iPad App - what is your preference
  • Are both user friendly? Be specific.

After you have became familiar with the Blogger App, we will switch to Web version. Scroll down and you will find a link that says Web version.


View of iPad App

Web Version view - iPad

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Tuesday, January 22 - Symbaloo

Tuesday, January 22 - Symbaloo

Symbaloo's - Motto - START SIMPLE!

Visit Symbaloo today - click here!

Abilene has its own Symbaloo page!!!
or you can just use Symbaloo.com


Symbaloo is social bookmarking website that utilizes icons.  I love this simple to use social bookmarking website.  Today we will visit and start utilizing Symbaloo.

abilene.symbaloo.com - which is a customized symbaloo education account with our school logo on it.  Symbaloo was generous enough to give us this account to utilize the school year.  Thank you Symbaloo! 

Students and I will explore Symbaloo to see what other types of web mixes are out there that we would benefit from - adding to our Symbaloo page

A simple way for students to share and organize what they have found on the Internet is for them to use the social bookmarking website, Symbaloo. Symbaloo - is an icon bookmarking page - which is most commonly used as a personal start page. By setting it as your homepage on your browser, you can start with your online favorites everyday.

You can create your own "web mixes" of your favorite websites - or create them by category. You can conduct a search on Symbaloo to find web mixes that you can add them to your account. When you create a Symbaloo account, there are webmixes already created, such as, major news stories and news highlights from the NYTimes, Washingtonpost, CNN and Wallstreet Journal.
  • Discover pages with the best links about a subject
  • Create your own pages with favorites
  • Share your page with the rest of the world
  • You can share it with just one person, or publish it in the Symbaloo Gallery!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Today you will:
  • Create a New Page Tab (This page will list your blog guidelines.  More information below!)
  •  Create a set of Blog Guidelines that one should follow.

  • Follow two blogs - search the Internet
__________________________________________________________
Blogging Guidelines

You will create a list of guidelines that one should follow.  Below is some helpful information to help you create your own set of guidelines.


Internet safety is a key factor to consider when using online tools to support teaching and learning.

First, some important rules about blogging.
1. Please, no last names, school names or addresses.
2. Do not link to your personal blog/journal from your school blog; you might reveal information on there that you don’t want to reveal on your school blog.
3. If you want to write your opinion on a topic, make sure you’re not going to be offensive to anyone as you write it.
4. Always make sure you check over your post for spelling errors, grammar errors, and your use of words.
5. Never disrespect someone else in your blog, whether it’s a person, an organization, or just a general idea. You don’t want someone making a stab at what you are passionate about; don’t do it to someone else.
6. Don’t write about other people without permission; if you can’t get their permission, use first names only. Never share someone elses last name.
7. Watch your language! We’re not at home, we are at school, this has to be at least remotely professional looking.
8. Make sure things you write about are factual. Don’t be posting about things that aren’t true.
9. Keep it education-oriented. That means that you probably shouldn’t discuss your plans for the weekend.

Blogging can be an interesting way to voice your opinions, share ideas, keep in touch with family and friends, and experiment. It can be a useful exchange of ideas and information, entertaining and fun.

One key to keeping safe while blogging is to understand what information should be kept offline. As a general guide, it is a good idea to keep things like phone numbers, addresses, school or workplace details, sports teams you play on, and full names private. It is wise to use a nickname and to be careful about the types of photos of you post as part of your blog.

Everyone seems to have an online profile these days, whether it’s as part of a social networking site, through participating in a chat room, or in an online game. It can be a chance for you to share areas of interest with the online world – your thoughts, photos, ideas, opinions . . . publishing this sort of personal information online carries some risks though.



Basic guidelines for bloggers
  • Never offer any personal information including your last name, contact information, home address, phone numbers, school's name, e-mail address, last names of friends or relatives, instant messaging names, age, or birth date.
  • Never post provocative pictures of yourself or anyone else, and be sure any images you provide do not reveal any of the previously mentioned information. Always remember to look at the background of a picture too.
  •  Assume what you publish on the Web is permanent. Anyone on the Internet can easily print out a blog or save it to a computer.
  • Use blogging provider sites with clearly stated terms of use, and make sure they can protect the actual blogs, not just the user accounts, with password protection. (Even so, it's better to assume anyone can see it.)
  • Avoid trying to "outdo" or compete with other bloggers.
  • Keep blogs positive and don't use them for slander or to attack others.
http://blog.safetyweb.com/


Profile
Your online profile can be viewed by anyone, including coaches, employers, and college admissions officers. Are you comfortable with what yours says about you? With 17 million youth ages 12 through 17 using the Internet it is crucial to empower others/yourself to make responsible decisions online. The Internet provides immediate access to a wealth of information and the ability to communicate with friends and family all over the world. However, it is also important to understand the potential risks you can be exposed to including inappropriate material, cyberbullying, or theft of personal information.


___________________________________________________________

ASSIGNMENTS

1.  Create a New Page - Mr. Niehues will go over this with you
 Click Design, Pages - new page - add page Tab to top of blog

2.  Create a blog post - titled:  Blog Guidelines

From the information you read above:  create your own list of guidelines/helpful hints about blogging for others.   You will place your guidelines in a blog post as well as on a New Page.  You can also research the Internet for Blog guidelines.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Tuesday, January 15

Tuesday, January 15

Today you will:

Turn off tracking on own blog.
  • Don't Track Your Own Pageviews- click radio button
 Examine your blog stats.
  • View your audience
  • View traffic source
  • Pageviews all time history
  • Pageviews by country
  • Pageviews by Browsers
  • Pageviews by Operating Systems 
Explore Blogger gadgets.

Take a screen shot and upload an image onto a blog post.
________________________________________________________________________________
ASSIGNMENTS

1.  Create a new blog post summarizing your blog stats.  

Title your blog post:  Blog Stats





2.  Create a new blog post summarizing the Blogger gadgets that you explored.  Explain/describe the tool, what would be the benefits of having this gadget on your blog.  You must list 5 gadgets.  You can also include screen shots of this gadget:  Apple+Shift+4 - select area you want to take a snapshot of. 

Friday, January 11, 2013

Schedule Test

If this blog shows up on or before 2:29p.m., the schedule blog setting is malfunctioning!

Class Blog sites

add you blog url

Friday, January 11th

Friday, January 11th

Today students will:
  • Identify elements on your blog dashboard
  • --click Design
    • Overview
    • Posts
    • Pages
    • Comments
    • Stats
    • Earnings
    • Layout
    • Template
    • Settings
  • Identify Gadgets that Blogger offers - explore
  • Create a link list of all classmates blogs

Friday Jan. 11th

Thursday, January 11th

Today we will:

Share with the class blog topics that you explored on Friday.
--go around the room and each student shares--

Identify blog characteristics:  look at Sweet as Sugar Cookies
  • Blog post - parts of a post
  • blogspot.com - extension at end of address
  • Followers
  • Post Archive
  • Gadgets
  • Heading
  • Description  
  • Profile
  • Labels/Tags - on posts (organize) 
What happens when you follow a blog?
  • Goes to your email
  • Reading list on blogger dashboard
Create a blog to utilize in this course.
  • Add Title
  • Add description (what will this blog be about) Example"Welcome to my blog, this blog will be about web tools and other technologies we learn or use in Computer Essentials" Do Not copy this word for word

Customize blog background and colors
  • Layout
  • Visually appealing - easy to read
Explore Basic Settings:
  • Identify how to change Title of blog and blog address
Create first post - Name it My First Blog Post

Wednesday, January 9, 2013