Tales of a Technology Omnivore

I love teaching people to blog using Google’s Blogger service. It’s SO intuitive and makes for a great starter blog especially if you intend to teach your participants to use other Google services — they’ll already have an account made (gmail, google docs, igoogle, etc).

One of the downfalls of blogger is the navbar because it has a NEXT BLOG button which leads you to a random site which may contain inappropriate material. Not good for an educational site. So here’s how to get rid of it:

Go to Template > Edit HTML > and place the following code in the template:

#navbar-iframe {
height: 0px;
visibility: hidden;
display: none;
}

PLACE IT where you find other #xxxxxx’s

I stumbled upon this program from Microsoft that is actually very useful. Windows Live Writer is an application “that makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog.” It’s compatible with most blog services and gives you Word-like editing for blog postings. No more suffering with draggy web-based interfaces! Place your pictures where you want, add tables, maps, tags, videos, and hyperlinks, all with ease and simplicity. I like how easy it is to format the flow of text around pictures. I probably sound like an info-mercial but this product has really changed my life and it can change yours too! Try it! You’ll be glad you did!

You can use http://www.addthis.com to make your site easier to be RSSed. Just create an account and get an RSS feed icon for your blog! Then copy the code and add it to your site as a widget. When people click on it they get a very friendly screen that allows them to add it to any of several RSS feeders automatically! Highly recommended if you want to simplify the RSS adding process.

OK So I found a widget that counts how many visitors have been to your site and gives you a detailed report. It’s called Statcounter.com and it’s really amazing what data can do for you. Looking at the site visit statistics I see how many visitors come to this site on a daily basis. Not many I tell you. But enough to make me feel guilty that I haven’t been updating on my target frequency: daily (except on the weekends when I can’t think of anything to write). I’m fully aware that regular updates are what drives repeat visitors which is the key to building readership. So it’s time to practice what I preach! If I want people to come back on a regular basis I should provide new content for them to see on a regular basis.

OK — so Statcounter.com. Create an account there and they give you a widget with directions on how to add it to your Blogger page (or any blog actually). You paste the HTML code in and voila! Site statistics. There are options to make the site visit statistics available publicly and hide the Statcounter logo. Many asked how they can see how many visitors they’ve had? This does that and more. Check it out:

http://www.statcounter.com

Having a camera on your phone used to be a luxury envied by all. But now that most of our phones have cameras it’s commonplace and taken for granted. Maybe I’m speaking for myself but I rarely use my cameraphone to take pictures. I guess it’s because the quality is poor and there is no flash that I’m not motivated to (the photos from my camera phone will never wind up in a frame). But the opportunity to take pictures anywhere is still an exciting prospective that I should be taking better advantage of. The question “pictures of what” pops into my head and leads me to my:

This is amazing. I took this photo with my cameraphone and am writing this entry on the phone! It was so easy. Using my mail to blogger address I sent this email and added the photo as an attachment. And I’m using a regular windows mobile phone. Now I can make entries when I’m inspired.

I’m teaching a workshop for principals called “iLead: Developing 21st Century Skills to Enhance Leading and Learning” for the summer. Just what I hoped would happen did happen: excellent school blogs are taking shape. I created an iGoogle tab for myself and put all the blogs that we’ve created since we started the workshop. From the results I saw several phenomenal blogs that can serve as best practices for principals. I put the RSS feeds for those blogs in the side panel of the workshop blog (http://ilead21stskills.blogspot.com).

Why do I like these blogs?

• Frequently updated
• Interesting, useful information
• An air of optimism and a love of learning in the tone of the writing

Overall these blogs demonstrate the focus we need to know what type of posts to enter and how blogs can revolutionize how we speak to our school community.

You have to check out Ms. Amerosa’s blog from PS 16 in Staten Island, NY.

She uses a blog to instruct children over the summer — soliciting responses to get the children thinking about topics they will discuss in the fall and stirring interest in reading over the summer. One of my favorite things is the blog entry instructing children how to respond to a blog to ensure internet safety. This teacher really “gets it”. Now her future class can begin interacting with her and each other — an example of online learning and extending learning outside the walls of the classroom.

http://msamerosa.blogspot.com/ (check out the student responses in the early posts)