Tag: website

Three New Plugins for Edublogs

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July 22, 2010
by Mark

Picture 2.jpgEdublogs is a wonderful blogging platform, based on the WordPress system, but is set up for teachers and schools to blog safely with others in Education. It is also free for a basic account. They also offer a paid Pro and Campus account as well. This week Edublogs announced that they are supporting three new plugins for their platform to those paying subscribers who have the Pro or Campus accounts. The three updates are;

1. PayPal Plugin – This plugin allows you to collect donations and payments right inside of your blog. Payments for field trips, materials, clubs and more are now easy to manage – and are available in over 100 currencies and countries

2. Calendar Plugin – It is now easier than ever to keep everyone up to date and informed by using this new powerful plugin. It is easy to manage events, assignments, birthdays, or exams right from inside your blog’s dashboard.

3. Facebook Like Plugin – This plugin will place a “like” button at the top or bottom of your posts. Since many of your students or blog readers are probably on Facebook, this helps build community and interaction on your blog.

Edublogs have recently upgraded these Pro accounts with 10Gig storage. It’s a growing platform that has morphed through some good changes over the years. It’s stable and consistent, and for an educator who is toying with the idea of a blog, either for themselves or their class, look at what this platform can offer. At about $3.35 per month, with no ads and up to 50 individual blogs, it’s well worth considering.

Popularity: 6% [?]

: Resources, Web2.0
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Widgets Anyone?

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June 16, 2010
by Mark

EDTechwidgets.jpg

Tim Holt has put together a page of Education widgets that you can quickly and easily embed on your website or blog page. Tim is taking further input on widgets people would like to share. You can contact him via his email address which is located down towards the bottom of the page. Currently listed are;

  1. Widgets from Education Week – Research, Technology, Curriculum and Learning, Top Stories
  2. Teacher Magazine
  3. eSchool News
  4. Education Innovation
  5. BBC News – Education
  6. Edutopia
  7. Educational Technology
  8. Grant Wrangler Grants
  9. ITSE 2010
  10. This Week in Ed Tech

Popularity: 5% [?]

: Resources, Web2.0
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iPhone Ed Application 1,2,3 Sheep from @app_titude

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March 30, 2010
by Mark

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Application: 1,2,3 Sheep (A$3.99 from iTunes)

Last year at the Vitta Conference I had opportunity to hear news about App_tiude, a new application developer who is specifically targeting primary students and schools with their product for the iTouch/iPhone. I received news last week that the first application 1,2,3 Sheep has been launched and is now ready for download from iTunes, and seeing as though they sent me a $10 iTunes voucher to do so, I did.

123 Sheep is a clever and engaging game that was developed in consultation with teachers and has been trialled in schools with students aged 6 and 7. My daughter loves playing with it (she’s in Year One) and I’ll try and coerce her into doing a video review in their near future.

Children explore basic counting concepts in three fun activities – flying a helicopter around the farm, herding sheep into pens and guiding the sheepdog into the truck.

The game difficulty automatically adapts to match their progress, with content based on the school curriculum. Children are drawn to the friendly, detailed graphics, playful audio and lots of humorous encouragement.

There are three fun counting games that this application revolves around, but the interesting extension to this is the ability for it to be used on a class set of iPods with the teacher being able to track and assess each student. As of the time of writing, this functionality has not yet been released but should be shortly.

More information about the company App_titude can be found via their website and you can follow them on Twitter too.

You can find more about the application via their YouTube video;


Popularity: 17% [?]

: Maths, Resources
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Four Web 2.0 Tools from EdTech Integration

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March 17, 2010
by Mark

Just wanted to point your attention to the Ed Tech Integration blog. He’s recently posted an article on four great Web 2.0 tools. Picaboo; a program that allows you to create photobooks. Preceden; a simple and efficient timeline tool. He also mentions flash card creator, Headmagnet. The fourth application is KeepVid, a site that allows you to easily keep the videos on Flash video sites like YouTube. If you haven’t seen his blog, I suggest that you should have a look and subscribe.

Popularity: 12% [?]

: Resources
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Interactive Snowman

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November 17, 2009
by Mark

Application: Interactive Snowman

snowman1

Here’s a cute and worthwhile flash application for the classroom, especially as Christmas is around the corner and the northern hemisphere heads into cooler months. The site gives students the opportunity to build their own snowman.

Why It’s Good

As a junior teacher I would possibly use it as a literacy activity.

I would ask students to create their snowman using the templates provided. Students can choose the snowman’s hat, eyes, nose, mouth, arms, tops and some accessories.

Once they have chosen how they want their snowman to look, they are able to write a short message and give their snowman a name. There is also the option to print their finished product. Alternatively to writing a message, 2nd or 3rd grade students could write a more detailed story about their creation, using their design as a catalyst for their writing.

snowman2

Popularity: 10% [?]

: Literacy, Resources
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