Ever felt like you wished some one had told you about what mistakes NOT to make when blogging before you MADE the mistake?

Well I know I have so here are my five top mistakes made by new bloggers:

#1 Copying and pasting text written in Word into blog post

When you copy and paste text from MS Word, emails, other word processor applications, websites etc into blog posts it transfers extra code which you normally won’t see unless you click on the HTML tab.  Trouble is you mightn’t be seeing this code but your blog might.

This extra code cause problems including changing font size and type, messing up the appearance of your blog sidebars and stopping your blog from loading in Internet Explorer.

Read Why you shouldn’t write your blog posts in Word to learn more!

#2 Using copyright images in blog posts

While a picture is worth a thousand words getting into trouble by using copyrighted images isn’t!  Just because an image is on the Internet doesn’t mean you are allowed to use (even if using it for educational purpose).

Read Copyright and Using Images in Blog Posts to learn more!

#3  Uploading images from digital cameras without resizing

Just because you can upload images directly from your digital camera into a blog post doesn’t mean you should!  Besides taking longer to upload your image, it uses up blog storage space unnecessarily.

To learn more read:

1. How to resize images before uploading
2. Image widths in blog posts
3. Is a picture always worth a thousand words?

#4 Forgetting to Link

Linking is a really important part of being a blogger and linking isn’t hard but for some reason most new bloggers forget to link!

It’s good blogging etiquette to link to:

1. A person’s blog if you mention a blogger
2. The post if you are talking about a particular post on a blog
3. Articles and websites when you write about them

To learn more read:

1. STOP! Don’t Press Publish! Have You Remembered to Add The LINKS?
2. What’s A Pingback? And How To Write Links

#5 Copy and pasting other bloggers posts

Sure it is nice to like another bloggers post BUT you can’t copy and paste their entire post into your own blog post!  Besides the fact you might be breaking copyright, this is both plagarism and extremely bad bloggers etiquette.

Would you accept students work that had been copied? NO! So don’t do it to other bloggers.

FINAL THOUGHTS

These were my five top mistakes that new bloggers make!  What have I missed?  What else do we need to warn new bloggers about?

I plan to follow up with a more detailed post on Why you don’t copy and paste other bloggers posts!  What advice would you give new bloggers on this topic?

Image by skoczek licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.0.

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What’s wrong with this picture?

Spotted it yet?

Yes, I know we’ve had similar conversations but some conversations NEED to be continuing for new educators starting their online journey.

What are your thoughts on:

1. Student photos and how much information is appropriate to use with photos?
2. What else do educators need to consider when starting to blog with their students?

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For those that aren’t aware I’m off on an USA adventure for 3 weeks, from June 21 to July 13, to attend NECC 2009 and network with people.

What these means is:

1. I would love to catch up with anyone attending NECC that wants to chat or ask questions
   • You’ll find me at NECC unplugged
   • Send me a tweet using twitter @suewaters
   • Leave a comment on this post to coordinate a time
2. Probably less posts on this blog during July
3. Less access to provide support in Edublogs Forum
   • Grateful for any help answering posts in Edublogs Forum (willing to reward your efforts with a free 12 month Edublogs supporter subscription)
   • Also love it if you can respond back to any questions in comments on The Edublogger - here is The Edublogger comment feed
4. I may not always make sense due to tiredness caused by insomnia, jet lag and traveling
   • Well known for suffering extreme insomnia when I travel
   • Mere 23 hours traveling to USA (due to stop over in Brisbane for 3 days) and 31 hours return from USA to Perth, Western Australia
5. Chances are I will get lost - there is a reason why my husband says I’m ‘geographically challenged’

Following My Adventures

Unlikely I will blog about my adventures here on The Edublogger unless you and/or your students convince me readers would love to read about them here on this blog!

Instead you can find out what I’m doing (and if I’m lost or not sleeping) by following:

1. my twitter account
2. my Flickr account
3. my Personal Blog

For those wanting to know where in USA I’m going below are all the different airports mapped out!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Thanks James for sending me!

Please feel free to share:

1. Any traveling advice, NECC tips or ‘how not to get lost’ tips!
2. Thoughts on topics you think people would like to hear me present on at NECC unplugged!

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Common question asked is “It’s easy to understand how English or social studies teachers use blogs with students. But how would you use blogs for maths, science, art ….?”

Finding Blogging Ideas

Checking the class blog list, categorized by year and subject area, is a good starting point. These two posts also help:

1. Check Out These Cool Ideas From Class blogs!
2. Looking for Ideas? Here’s some creative ways teachers are using Class Blogs!

But it’s also good to check out teachers with years of experience using blogs with students. Take for example how Darren Kuropatwa uses scribe posts on his class blogs. Darren’s been using this approach with his maths students since 2005 and it can be adapted for any subject area.

What are Scribe Posts?

How it works is a different student is responsible for posting a summary of what happened in class each day and at the end of their post the scribe nominates the scribe for the next day. Here is an example of a scribe post from his Pre-Cal 40S (Winter 2009) class blog.

Darren says scribe posts:

• Forces students to reflect on their learning and explain the material so others can understand
• Allows him to see what aspects of the course content students are struggling with
• Means students who are absent from class can easily access complete, student generated, online course material
• Makes students take greater ownership of their learning
• Encourages him to be a better teacher

Read more about how Darren uses scribe posts here:

1. The Scribe Post - 2005
2. Distributed Teaching and Learning - 2006
   
3. My Class Blogs: Part 2 - 2009

FINAL THOUGHTS

Scribe posts are just one idea on how you can use blogs with students. What are your ideas for using blogs for maths, science, arts or music? What are some cool approaches you’ve used or you have seen others using with student blogging?

This post was inspired from watching Alec Couros’s keynote presentation “Harnessing the Power of Social Networks in Teaching and Learning” — well worth watching!

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Looking for a blogging app for your iPod touch and iphone? Maybe not yet, but we’ve had quite a few people asking what to use.

Sorry but WordPress for iPhone app doesn’t currently support Edublogs blogs but there are other blogging apps available.

Thankfully Mr B. from Teach Me Tekkie blog saved research time by telling me how he has been using BlogPress to post from his iPhone.

All you need to do is:

1. Install BlogPress from your App Store of your iPod touch or iphone
2. Launch BlogPress and add your blog details
   NOTE: Edublogs users need to select WordPress as your blog Service Provider)
3. Click on the Write tab to start writing your post.
4. With BlogPress you can write text, add one or more photos from your iPhone, edit the images and add categories and tags to your posts before uploading.
5. To post just click on Save and then Send Now!

WARNING:

If you haven’t adjusted the timezone on your blog dashboard to your current timezone when you upload your post it may be uploaded as scheduled to post and won’t publish until the scheduled date/time.

Change your timezone inside your blog dashboard by clicking on Settings > General and scrolling down page to timezone.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Always looking for new apps to use on my iPhone (as is many of us). Please leave a comment to tell us about your favorite apps and why you to like these applications.

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Everyone thought “What becomes of students blogs?” was a good question but most struggled for answers! Instead let me help by sharing my thoughts.

We’re dealing with two main scenario:

Dealing with Discontinuing Student blogs

While these two scenario require different approach they both have to deal with student blogs that are no longer required (e.g. students that don’t wish to continue blogging, students leaving the school, blogs not used in their class next year).

You will have a strong urge to delete these no longer required student blogs. Unless the parent, student or school absolutely demands these blogs be deleted I definitely wouldn’t delete them.

These blogs are part of their journey, one day they may change their mind, want to check them out or another teacher might like to use them.

Delete is DELETE; it’s impossible for us to undelete them.

Here is what I would do for student blogs no longer required:

1. Set up an archive page on your class blog with all the student blogs listed under their year group
2. Change the student role on the blog to subscriber as limits their blog access and means they won’t be able to write or publish posts. Also means they can’t access comments or approve them.
3. Disable any comments from being posted on the blog using comment moderation. You may also want to disable the comment notification email.

Supporting Students that continue to blog

For students that want to keep their blog you will need to consider who is responsible for them in the long term. Some teachers will get parents to accept responsibility. Or perhaps you happy to monitor them?

My approach is to monitor all student posts and comments using Google Reader. With separate folders for posts and comments. During holidays number of posts and comments will decrease.

Monitoring means if you need to take quick action, such as editing/deleting a post, you can.

In terms of questions relating to Edublogs supporters and next year’s students:

1. You can create as many student blogs are you want (there are no restrictions)
2. But can only disable ads on up to 30 blogs (can change which 30 blogs at any time)

Disabling student blogs for the holidays

For those educators who need to disable student blogs for the duration of the end of year holidays you have a few option:

• For student blogs on Edublogs - same as for blogs no longer required i.e. change the student’s user role and disable comments then change the setting back in the new school year
• For Student Blogs on an Edublogs Campus site - your site admin may be willing to archive the blog and reactivate it at the start of the school year

Mementos of Their Student blog

Obviously if you don’t delete their blogs they will remain online and be a keepsake. However if you do want the student blogs in alternative formats you could also create a PDF version using BlogBooker.

FINAL THOUGHTS

What haven’t I considered? Missed? Or questions I haven’t thought to answer?

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The students are excited! So are their teachers. The school year is almost ended (for many) and holidays are approaching!

It’s time to get organized for those holidays. And if you’re like Jan Smith you may be pondering what to do with your students’ blogs.

Would love to hear your advice, tips and thoughts:

1. How do you (or would you) “wrap up” the year for any blogging your students have done?
2. What happens to the blogs of students that want to continue blogging? Who looks after, is responsible and feeds them over the holidays?
3. What about the blogs that are being left behind? The blogs of students that aren’t interested in continuing to blog? What do you do with them?
4. How about the memories? The students have worked hard! Do you make copies on their blog on CD, hard copy, PDF …..?

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Whether you are a fan of Facebook or NOT really doesn’t matter.

What does is most people have Facebook accounts. Reading updates and commenting in Facebook is what they are used to whereas posts on blogs isn’t.

Importing your blog feed into Facebook means that people who are most comfortable using only Facebook are more likely to read your blog posts.

Here is how you import blog feed into Facebook:

1. Log into your Facebook Account and click on Profile
2. Click on your Notes tab
   • If you haven’t added a Note before click on “Add new Tab” and then Notes
3. If you haven’t written a note before just quickly write and add a short note (on anything)
4. Now click on the title of one of your notes to open up the Your Notes Tab
5. Next click on My Notes so you can access the link for importing a blog feed
6. Add your blog URL or Feed URL to the import blog field and click Start Importing
7. Now whenever you write a blog post it will automatically feed into your Facebook account
8. Any comments left on your post in Facebook will automatically be sent to your email account associated with Facebook
9. You just click on the link in the comment notification email to log into your Facebook account and comment back just as you would for a comment on a blog

FINAL THOUGHTS

You can only feed one blog into Facebook. If you want to add posts from another blog you will need to use the Add link method. For those new to Facebook you might like to check out:

1. Larry Ferlazzo’s A Beginning List Of The Best Resources For Learning About Facebook
2. The Elluminate recording to Pimp My Facebook

Please leave a comment to share your advice to educators new to Facebook such as:

1. What are your views on allowing students and parents to connect with you on Facebook? How do you handle this type of situation?
2. What features should people new to Facebook learn more about? Can you recommend any Facebook
   “How-tos” for them to check out?
3. What other aspects of Facebook do they need to consider when using it?

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One of the hardest aspect of podcasting is deciding on a site to host them.

Sure you can use a podcast hosting site. But most people don’t realise podcasts can be hosted on their blogs.

Hosting podcasts on a blog can be simpler to set up, is easier for your audience to locate all of your content and you don’t have to deal with negative aspects of some podcasting sites.

In this second post of The Edublogger ‘podcasting series’ I’m going to explain how to host podcasts on blogs so readers who know how to create video/audio can set up their podcast feed.

Hosting podcasts on blogs

There are three main things to consider when hosting a podcast on a blog.

1. You’ll need a podcast feed

For your readers to subscribe to your podcast feed using a podcatcher like iTunes you need a podcast feed to your blog.

The easiest way to create this feed is using Feedburner.

2. All podcasts need to be assigned the same ‘unique category’

If you want to blend podcasts with your regular blog posts you need to add a ‘unique category’ to those posts that are podcasts and burn the podcast feed for that category only (read more about adding categories to posts here).

How it works is in your blog sidebar you will have:

1. Subscribe to My RSS Feed - for all your posts
2. Subscribe to My Podcasts - for all your podcasts

3. You can only insert one media file into the post

If you want your post to be a podcast then adding more than one audio or one video file means that the podcatcher won’t be able to download the podcast.

Creating a Podcast Feed Using Feedburner

1. Register for a free account with Feedburner if you don’t have an existing account
2. Log into your Feedburner Account
3. Add your feed URL to the ‘Burn a feed right this instant‘
   • For example, if I used the category My Podcasts I would burn a podcast RSS feed for http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/category/my-podcasts/feed
4. Tick I’m a podcaster and then click Next
5. Follow the instructions on each of the next pages to burn your podcast feed.

Adding the Podcast Feed to your blog sidebar

1. Inside your feed account click on the Publicize Tab
2. Next click on the Chicklet Chooser and copy the HTML code.
3. On your blog dashboard, go to Design > Widgets
4. Scroll down to Text widget in your available widget area (left hand side of dashboard) and click on Add.
5. Click on Edit on the Text widget that has been added to your current widget area.
6. Paste code for Feedburner in the Text Widget
   • Tip: Change the words ‘Subscribe in Reader’ to ‘Subscribe to my podcasts’
7. Click on Change
8. Click on Save Changes at bottom of Current Widget area (right hand side of dashboard)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Besides using Feedburner to create podcast feeds it is one of the best tools for monitoring how many people subscribe to your blog. Here’s how to:

1. Adding a RSS Feed From Feedburner To Your Blog - for Edublogs supporters only
   
2. How To Add an Email Subscription to Your Blog
3. Redirect Your Blog Feed To Feedburner

Remember ALWAYS subscribe to your own posts, ideally in both Google Reader and Bloglines, and by email, so you can spot immediately ANY issues fetching your feed. And if you create a podcast feed always subscribe to your podcasts using iTunes!

Please share your thoughts on podcasting in terms of:

1. How long, in minutes, and/or maximum file size you use for podcasts
2. What are your preferred file formats for podcasts e.g. mp3, mp4, m4v
3. Do you tell your readers in the title that it is a podcasts? And any other tips for writing podcast titles.

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What do you prefer the most? Blog posts, podcasts or online videos?

Good chance if you’re reading this you probably prefer blog posts. But this isn’t the case for everyone. Similarly some people prefer to write posts whereas other are more engaged creating audio and video.

The key is that most bloggers don’t realise that they can host podcasts on their blog, to cater to their readers who prefer podcasts, while blending them with their regular blog posts.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be running a series of posts here on The Edublogger on podcasting “how to’s”. (I was originally a podcaster before becoming a blogger ) .

What is a Podcast?

The term podcast originated from combining the words “ipods and broadcasting”.

Like blogging one of the most important aspects of podcasts is its RSS feed. The RSS feed is what brings the new information added to a website to you without having to visit the site.

Most people subscribe to the RSS feed from blogs using feed readers like Google Reader and Bloglines.

Whereas those that listen to podcasts usually subscribe to the RSS feed using podcatchers like iTunes. This means the latest podcast episodes are downloaded when iTunes is opened up and atuomatically transferred onto their ipod (or media player) when it’s to their computer.

In simple terms a podcast is audio or video content that you can subscribe to using RSS. Without the RSS it is audio streaming or online video. Please note video podcast are also referred to as vidcast or vodcast.

Best aspects of podcasting include:

1. Podcasts can be listen and/or watched anywhere, anytime and on any type of device (from your computer to media players like ipods)
2. Ideal for those that prefer content in audio or video format

Using podcasts with students

There are numerous ways podcasts can be used with students from you creating podcasts to help their learning to them creating their own podcasts. Lets collectively come up with some ideas by all sharing our ideas on using podcasts!

Can you please leave a comment (or write a post) to share:

1. How you are using podcast with students. Do they listen to any podcasts? Do you create or they create?
2. What software do you use to create your podcasts? Online or desktop?
3. What are your podcasting tips?

FINAL THOUGHTS

The next post in our podcasting series will explain how to host your podcasts on a blog for those readers who already know how to create audio and video files. Followed by posts on “how to” create audio and video podcasts.

Please leave a comment to tell me what other questions about podcasting you would like me to explain!

Meanwhile RSS is one of the most important concepts of using Web 2.0 technology — if you are new to RSS please read this information to learn more!

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