Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Blog Sampler

Last week I taught a series of workshops for teachers on how to use Web 2.0 tools in their classroom. As part of the workshop we looked at using blogs as a professional learning tool, classroom communication tool, and how it can be used by students.

In the presentations I suggested WordPress as a great blog tool, having used it myself (albeit rarely) while my co-presenter preferred Blogger. Although my co-presenter preferred Blogger, she had recently signed up for an EduBlogs account. She shared that with us, but didn't like the ads that showed up. Later in the week she commented that after changing templates there were no more ads.

Most of the workshop participants chose to use Blogger because it synced with the Google account we asked them to create. Having never used Blogger, I learned it right along with them. What I liked about it was the gadgets you could add and how easy it was to embed all the different types of media we found and created.

Doing all of these project with the participants made me want to add some of the same content to my existing blog. So, I created a new post and added an image. No problem. Then I created a new one about the Animoto videos we created and tried to embed it. I copied the embed code and pasted it into the blog post. Nothing happened. After some searching I found that there were only certain widgets (gadgets for you Blogger types) that allowed for insertion of a video. All I could do- for free that is- was insert a link. I could 'upgrade' my account to add videos. But, as an educator looking for free and easy technology, I wasn't happy with that, so I went in search of better answers.

After some searching I found a blog post discussing how VodPod could be used to upload files and media, then its widget could be used to embed them into a WordPress blog. Great! A free method, but it wasn't very user friendly. All of this got me thinking about how a tech-shy teacher would react to using WordPress blogs. I'm thinking they'd give up pretty quickly. That being the case, I needed to find another blog that would be easy to use and suit a classroom's needs.

That brings me to Blogger! I've also created an EduBlogs blog, which is designed by and for teachers and students. So far my tests on EduBlog have gone well and embedding items has been easy. Now I'm adding Blogger to see which is easier, offers better options and will best suit the classroom.

I'll keep you updated and appreciate any other blog suggestions!

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