This is my first post. I wanted to see what this would look like for my students, so I’m making a how-to video.
Here is the avatar I made.
Does this look like me?
April 19, 2020
by Denise
0 comments
Test Post
Blog Archives
December 7, 2012
by Denise Krebs
1 Comment
Add Blogging B.E.A.D.
We do writing differently in the 21st century than we did in the 20th century. When I was a student in the last century, I never had an option to make my writing interactive with URLs because there was no such thing as the Internet. I could add color photos if they were developed and printed from film, cut out from a magazine and glued onto my paper, or colored by my own hand.
Ah, but now it’s a different world. We can add all kinds of cool things to our writings.
Here are four ways you can make your writing a better fit for the 21st century. It’s a B.E.A.D. for your blog.
B is for Breadth
Add URLs to help your reader learn more beyond the topic about which you are writing. Link to examples, applications, interesting side bars, or related blog posts by you or others.
E is for Ease
Formatting helps your reader get the most out of what you say. Use more paragraphing on blog posts than you would on a regular paper. Otherwise, people might just take a quick look at your long paragraph of text and say “tl;dr.”
Be kind on the eyes of the readers. Besides paragraphing, you can also vary the fonts by using bold, italics, and HEADINGS as needed.
A is for Aesthetics
Create a beautiful blog post. Add interest with photos, clipart, illustrated quotes and other graphic images. This not only makes it beautiful, but it also helps visual learners better understand your post. Of course, always remember to use only original, Creative Commons, and subscription clipart for your graphics.
D is for Depth
Add URLs to help your reader go deeper into the topic you are writing about. Give background information, definitions, and link to your sources. People who care about your topic will appreciate the links that will help them get to know more about your topic. If you want to go deeper into advanced blogging skills, don’t miss the Student Blogging Challenge every March and September.
Conclusion
Take advantage of the 21st century and your ability to make your blog post much more than just the words. Add value to your blog posts with meaningful links and images. Make it interactive, wide, deep, easy-to-read, and beautiful.
I tried to illustrate what I meant in this blog post.
Do you see evidence of B.E.A.D. in this post?
September 15, 2011
by Shiann
6 Comments
Contributors
We went from copying pictures from Google to learning how to properly post pictures on our blogs. We learned to use the Clipart our school subscribes to. We learned about the Creative Commons licenses on Flickr and how to properly link the picture back to Flickr. We learned how to give proper credit to the people that took the pictures and how to link them back to them. But that’s not enough.
We have used other people’s pictures, but now other people are going to be using our pictures. We are transforming from users to contributors. We will be taking pictures and loading them onto Flickr so that the whole world can see our wonderful pictures and use them for their own uses.
In class we thought of some words to describe the two categories of takers and contributors.
Takers—————————————————————-Contributers
stealing………………………………………………………………………………..giving
copying………………………………………………………………………………..sharing
lazy…………………………………………………………………………………linking back
unaware……………………………………………………………………………..donating
consumer…………………………………………………………………………..producer
irresponsible digital citizen……………………………………..good digital citizen
no permission…………………………………………………….properly cites CC pics
And these are just some of them.
On a scale from 1 to 10 in the world of takers and contributors we are probably a 4, but we are working to one day be a 10.
Our class has a new Flickr account to share our photos. Check it out. We have photos to share.
Posted by Shiann
March 9, 2011
by Denise Krebs
5 Comments
How to Copy and Paste a Google Doc into Edublogs
We all write pieces at times that we are proud of and want to share on our blogs. To do that, we have to retype or copy and paste. Some programs copy and paste better than others. 
Today we tried copying from a Google Doc and putting it into our blog and disaster struck! Look at this crazy code that barreled its way into Melissa’s blog post.
iProxy-Connection: keep alive Cache-Control: max-age=0
Yeah, whatever! Most of the 7th and 8th graders can relate to this mess!
Here are step-by-step directions to take the writing you have composed on Google Docs and bring it cleanly into Edublogs.
- First, copy the work. Use Command-C (Control-C on PCs) Remember: Don’t copy the heading because we don’t publish that on our blog posts.
- Next, come to your blog Dashboard and Add New post.
- Add the Title.
- Then under Visual view, click the colorful button on the far right. It’s called the kitchen sink. About in the middle of the lower toolbar is a button with a T for text–plain text, that is. This “Paste as Plain Text” button is what you need. Click and then Command-V (or Control-V for PCs) and your text will go in. Then click Insert.
- Make any extra formatting you wish. Maybe some bolded headings or color changes.
- Now in either Visual or HTML, it won’t have all that extra crazy code that gave us fits when we tried to paste it directly into the post.
- Going through that one extra step will keep this post having the same nice formatting as all your other blog posts!
- Keep up the great blogging!
If you’d rather watch me do it, I’ve made a video showing the steps on my desktop.
Do I really sound that flaky? (Don’t answer that!)
March 1, 2011
by Denise Krebs
7 Comments
Best Student Blogs of 2010
What do you think? Do you want to take a risk? Do you want to have a great blog? Do you want to have the best student blog of 2011?
If you do, we can take the baby steps needed to make that a possibility! It just takes a commitment to sharing your genius with the world–creating, contributing, connecting, collaborating, and curating.
Think about it, and talk to me if you want to be in the list of the best student blogs.
Visit the Best Student Blogs from last year.
See Aspiring Busker on Flickr.
February 28, 2011
by Denise Krebs
4 Comments
Leave Your Blog URL When Visiting Others
Here are step-by-step instructions for leaving your URL in a comment.
- First, open a new post and call it “playground”. This is one you will not post, but it will remain in draft form, a place to practice.
- On your practice page, write a message about your blog in Visual view. Something like: My blog or Please visit my blog.
- Next, copy your URL from your blog.
- Highlight a word or words you want to link to your blog.
- Then click on the link button and add your URL.
- Finally, move to HTML view and copy the code.
- Paste it into the comment box along with your well-written, thoughtful comment.
After working on your playground post, always push "SAVE DRAFT" not "PUBLISH"
