What is Web 2.0?

Click on the link to learn more about Web 2.0 tools Web 2.0
Welcome to the New Web, most often called Web 2.0. It is all about the free new tools such as blogs, wikis, photo and video sharing, and social networking that people are talking about and that many are using already. Our students are growing up and changing the way they learn.
Our students are text messaging, blogging, social networking with MySpace and other Web 2.0 tools. The digital Native enters our classrooms each day powered up. As teachers we do not want them to be powering down. The latest brain research shows that brains of digital natives are developing and responding differently than the brains of digital immigrants and even some of us digital dinosaurs! This research strongly suggests that we rethink the way we engage, empower and educate our students for life in a digital world.

All information in this posting came directly from: http://dcpsintech.edublogs.org/

Photosharing with Flickr

What is Flickr? (http://www.flickr.com/)

Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Let us show you why! Flickr is a way to get your photos and videos to the people who matter to you. And since basic accounts are free, there's no reason not to explore further...


Upload
Upload from your desktop, send by email, or use your cameraphone.

Edit
Get rid of red eye, crop a photo, or get creative with fonts and effects!


Organize
Use collections, sets, and tags to organize your photos and videos.


Share
Use groups and privacy controls to share your photos and videos.

Maps
Share where your photos and videos were taken, and see photos and videos taken near you.

Make Stuff
Greeting cards, photo books, framed prints, Target pick up, DVDs, etc.

Keep in Touch
Get updates from family and friends.

How to Upload Photos
There are 5 simple ways to upload your photos and videos to Flickr
*via the Flickr Uploadr (available for both PC and Mac)
*via iPhoto, Aperture, or Windows XP plugins
*via our upload web page
*via email
* via various free third-party desktop programs

And if you're not near a computer? Snap a photo or video on your mobile phone, email it to Flickr, and have it appear on the site in seconds.

How to Edit Photos
Editing your photos is easy with our partner, Picnik. Get rid of red eye, crop a photo or get creative with loads of different effects! Start by clicking the "Edit Photo" button in the toolbar above your photo.

If this is the first time you've clicked on the "Edit Photos" button, you will be asked to pass through the step of authorizing Picnik to load up your photos. (You'll only have to do this once.) After you've authorized Picnik, edit your photo to your heart's content! Then just click "Save" and you're all done.

Organize
Sets are a grouping of photos and videos that you can organize around a certain theme, such as Our Hawaii Trip. You can use them to highlight your favorite photos and videos, or make an album that is only pictures of your dog, or of photos and videos you've taken with a particular camera.

Collections are a grouping of Sets (or other Collections) so you can organize around grander themes, such as People, Travels, or by year (2007, 2006, etc).

The Organizr is where both Collections and Sets are created. It also allows you to perform common tasks on large batches of photos and videos, such as tagging, changing permissions, or editing timestamps. It’s really rather handy.

Share
With millions of users, and hundreds of millions of photos and videos, Flickr is an amazing photographic community, with sharing at its heart. Groups are a way for people to come together around a common interest, be it a love of small dogs, a passion for food, a recent wedding, or an interest in exploring photographic techniques. And if you can’t find a group which interests you, it’s super-easy to start your own. Groups can either be public, public (invite only), or completely private. Every group has a pool for sharing photos and videos and a discussion board for talking.

Privacy is a common area for concern on the web, but on Flickr it’s easy to control who you share your images with. For each of your photos and videos on Flickr you can set:
*privacy level, which determines who can see your image
*usage license, so your copyrights are protected
*content type, flag your photos and videos as either photos and videos, artwork/illustrations, or screenshots
*safety level, so other members only see images within their specified comfort zones

All information in this posting came directly from: http://www.flickr.com/tour/

How to create a 3-column template

First of all, set your template to Minima (not the stretch template, but any color will do!), then follow these instructions:

Go to Template>Edit HTML, leaving the "Expand widget templates" box unchecked. Now, find this section in the HTML code:

#sidebar-wrapper { width: 220px; float: right; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */ }

Copy this entire section, and paste it directly below. We're going to change the elements I've italicized to the following:

#left-sidebar-wrapper (this makes the css for this section unique) float: left (this will make the new sidebar float to the left of the main column)

This will provide the styling for the new sidebar element which we will create next. Now, you need to find this section further down the page.

Let me explain the elements of this code to help you understand what we've just done: This section tells the browser that the left-sidebar element exists here, and to look in the css for the appropriate styling for this element. This tells the browser the class of the sidebar element and all other elements (widgets) which may be included in this section. The ID of this element must be "left-sidebar" in order to make it unique, otherwie this would cause problems when viewing. It is preferred so that it will feature in the layout, even if no widgets are placed within it. If you preview your template, you will notice that the right sidebar will be beneath the main section at the moment. This is because the outer-wrapper is still only wide enough to accomodate one sidebar. So now we need to expand the oputer wrapper to accomodate this new sidebar. Find this section in the HTML code:

/* Outer-Wrapper ----------------------------------------------- */ #outer-wrapper { width: 660px; margin:0 auto; padding:10px; text-align:left; font: $bodyfont; }

We need to increase the width of the wrapper by the width of the left-sidebar-wrapper, in this case 220px. So, change the value italicized to 880px. You may also want to change the width of the header-wrapper to 880px so that it spans the new width of your blog:

#header-wrapper { width:880px; margin:0 auto 10px; border:1px solid $bordercolor; }

At this point, you should save your template. At present, your new sidebar will not be seen as there are no widgets contained within it, though it will still be present in the markup of the page. Once you have saved your template, go to Template>Page elements in your Blogger dashboard.

We need to create this space in the template's HTML. To do this, we will add a margin to the left hand side of the main posts section. Find the following code in your template's HTML and add the code italicized:

#main-wrapper { width: 410px; float: left; margin-left: 20px; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */ }

This defines a margin space of 20px between the left-sidebar and the main column. You should also ensure you adjust thw width of the outer-wrapper from 880px to 900px to ensure the width of your blog is enough to accomodate this margin too. Either that, or you could reduce the width of your main column/a sidebar by 20px to serve the same purpose.

Finally, save your template and enjoy your new sidebar!

The same principles described here can help you create a three column template from any Blogger template, though you may find that you'll need to adjust the width, margins and padding for your new sidebar in order for it to look the way you would like.

Also, you can configure your new sidebar to float to the right, and have two sidebars on the right of the main column if you prefer. Simply set the CSS of your new sidebar to float: right; instead.

The information in this posting came directly from: http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2007/07/create-three-column-blogger-template.html

How to make a Wordle- beautiful word cloud!

1. Create a Wordle from our blog's RSS feed.
2. Blog it and describe your reaction. Any surprises?
3. Tag others to do the same.
4.Create different Wordle clouds of your blog's RSS over a period of time.

Save your Wordle screenshots in a special folder on your computer or even better create a set on Flickr to store your archived clouds. See what story your Wordle clouds tell as you compare them to each other. Share other uses (at least one) you have found for Wordle (for your students or personally) to your blog post.

37 ways to make blogging easier...

1. Plan out content with pen and paper.
2. Dedicate time each week to think of ideas.
3. Make it easy to record ideas.
4. Build a life of unique experiences.
5. Use WriteRoom for typing.
6. Set limits on the time allowed for writing.
7. Always have a large backlog of content.
8. Follow a lower frequency of posts.
9. Capture interesting tid bits you find with Evernote.
10. Be passionate.
11. Write about a broader niche.
12. Take extended breaks.
13. Don’t write till you drop – stop writing when you’re on a roll.
14. Follow clear structures in your content (headings, sub-headings, bullet points etc).
15. Pick a predominant medium.
16. Ask visitors what they want.
17. Make every piece of content count.
18. Never stop reading and learning.
19. Set higher standards for yourself as motivation.
20. Forget word count – say more with less.
21. Identify the time when brainstorming for you is most effective and stick with that.
22. The moment it’s not fun: STOP! (and come back to it later)
23. Experiment with different mediums.
24. Clear your head with exercise, good food and a glass of water.
25. Write down EVERY idea, no matter how silly it may seem.
26. Clear off other items from your to-do list.
27. Ask visitors to help with research – have them send in quotes etc.
28. Believe in what you’re saying.
29. Be both topical and non-topical.
30. Don’t overthink it – your content is not set in stone.
31. Think in lists.
32. Always be creating content (if only in your mind).
33. Trust that what you have to say is important.
34. Plug your niche(s) into the Adwords keyword tool.
35. Monitor what related blogs are saying.
36. Add variety to your workflow.
37. Be ruthless. If you’re not feeling an article, delete it.

List came from: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/37-ways-to-make-blogging-easier/ by Daniel Scocco

Adding images & other multimedia

To add an image:

You can add an image from your computer or the Web to your blog. Click the image icon in the post editor toolbar. A window appears prompting you to browse for an image file on your computer, or enter the URL of an image on the Web.
Once you've selected your image, you can then choose a layout to determine how your image will appear in your post. The 'Left', 'Center', and 'Right' options allow you to customize the way your blog text will flow around your image.

The 'Image size' options will determine how large the image will appear within your post.
Click UPLOAD IMAGES to add your image, and then click DONE when the notification window appears telling you that 'Your image has been added.' Blogger will then return you to the post editor, where you'll see your image ready to be published to your blog.

You can also publish images to your blog using your mobile device, Google's free photo software Picasa, or a third-party service like flickr.

To add a video:

To add a video to your blog post, click the film strip icon in the post editor toolbar above where you compose your blog text. A window appears prompting you to 'Add a video to your blog post.'
Click Browse to select the video file from your computer that you'd like to upload. Note that Blogger accepts AVI, MPEG, QuickTime, Real and Windows Media files and that your video must be less than 100MB in size.Before uploading your video, add a title in the 'Video Title' box and agree to the Terms and Conditions (you'll only have to do this the first time that you upload a video with Blogger). Then click UPLOAD VIDEO.

While your video uploads, you'll see a placeholder in the post editor showing where your video will appear. You'll also see a status message below the post editor letting you know that your upload is in progress. Depending on the size of your video, this usually takes about five minutes. When it is complete, your video will appear in the post editor.

Want to see this in action? Click the link to watch a video on how to add a video to your blog post: Adding a video to your post

All information in this posting came directly from:
http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=112498#addphotos

Posting to your blog

Once you've logged into Blogger you'll see your Dashboard, showing your list of blogs. Click the blue 'New Post' button to create a new post:

Next, you'll see the Create New Post page. Start by giving your post a title (optional), then enter the post itself:

When you're done, click the "Preview" link to make sure it's ready to go:

Once you're satisfied with your post, click the "Publish Post" button. This will publish your new post for others to see. If your post is still in progress, or not yet ready for publishing, click the "Save as Draft" button.

All information in this post came directly from: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41378