One of the most successful aspects of my class blog has been the ability for students to take ownership of a part of it.  Students are able to independently log in and write their own content.  Each student has their own category providing quick access to their work. Students can work on their writing in school and at home provided they have internet access. Whatever posts they wrote would have to be moderated by me before being published to the internet.

This is a follow up to a tutorial I did on this topic on how to make this happen.  Last year, Edublogs changed, rather, created, a business model and introduced a paid level of their blog service.  So, something that used to be done for free now requires you to be a paid subscriber.  However, I completely appreciate the need to try something out before committing to paying for something.

Thankfully, is still possible to set your students as contributors to your blog without being a subscriber.  It is, however, more tedious as it involves creating accounts, usernames and passwords for every students one by one.  This process is automated for subscribers.  In my opinion, it is worth the effort.

Fullscreen version.

Click here to see a larger version

Huh?

Just like pressing the buttons on your car radio for your favourite radio stations, you can set the internet to go to your website/blog/wiki/podcast by typing an easy to remember name like portablepd.ca.

Before Domain Forwarding

A few years ago Jane and I maintained class websites.  The URL would look something like this:

http://alornecassidyes.ocdsb.ca/toft/index/index.htm

This was a bit much to ask students and parents to memorize it.  We would send students to our school site first and have them navigate to the links to our sites that were listed there at the time.

Thanks Brent Coley!

I had never seriously thought about getting my own domain name.  I assumed it would be way too expensive and complicated.  Thanks to Brent Coley, a Grade 5 teacher in California, I came across the term domain forwarding.  Here’s how he explained how he got mrcoley.com.

Domain Forwarding is simply a pointer to your website, blog, wiki or whatever.  For example, the “real” URL for this blog is www.portablepd.edublogs.org.  With domain forwarding it can also be found at www.portablepd.ca.

How to get a domain name

1.  Find a registrar. I recommend you go with one that is certified by the Canadian Internet Registry Authority (CIRA.CA). Here’s their list of certified registrars.

This is where we found 10dollar.ca. They charge about $13 a year for each of the various domain names  we use (5nt.ca, 56js.ca, alornecassidy.ca, portableradio.ca, portablepd.ca).

2.  Type in the “real” URL in the admin portion of the site.  10dollar.ca has a “Easy Domain Forwarding” link where you can do this.

3.  Wait a day or two for everything to work properly.

4.  Spread the word about your new domain name.

What if you don’t need the domain name anymore?

Because class assignments change from year to year it makes sense to start up the domain name sometime during summer holidays.  For example, Jane had 5js.ca for a year.  Then, when her assignment changed, she chose not to renew 5js.ca but bought her new 56js.ca name.

Of course you might decide to buy reallycoolteachers.ca (it’s available, I checked.  Act fast though, Jane and I might decide to buy it) and not worry about changing the domain year every year.

Is it worth it?

As far as Jane and I are concerned; absolutely.  The kids get in the habit of going to our class sites (5nt.ca and 56js.ca) for everything.  Very easy.  Very convenient.

OK, but is it necessary?

No. And it costs a bit of money. Honestly, it isn’t that hard to memorize a URL like grade5nt.edublogs.org. And, you could email students and parents the URL and ask them to bookmark it.

Nevertheless, don’t underestimate the coolness factor. Having the 5nt.ca domain name makes our class look like a multimillion dollar company.  Well not quite, but it’s still cool.  At least I think it is…

I’ve heard of some teachers who have their students type in a keyword in a Google search and get to their destination almost as quickly.  I, being the somewhat controlling type, would rather students not be distracted by other sites that come up in a Google search – especially when the words are misspelt.

Hello Nathan!

I’m a Grade 7/8 Teacher from Thamesville, Ontario. I’ve recently started a class blog (http://www.jpepper.edublogs.org) (January 2009) and have stumbled across yours. You have an excellent blog and have some very creative students. After March Break, my class will be starting to work on podcasting. I’ve noticed your class has some podcasts as well.

I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind answering:

1) Is portableradio.ca a place where I could eventually upload my students’ podcasts or is it your site?

2) I noticed on your blog [5nt.ca] that beside each student’s name in brackets is the number of posts they have. How do I get this application to work on my blog?

Thanks for your time.

Jason

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Jason Pepper
Good Shepherd Catholic School
Thamesville, ON

Hi Jason,

I’ll do my best to answer your questions:

1) Is portableradio.ca a place where I could eventually upload my students’ podcasts or is it your site?

Portableradio.ca is the blog that my class (5nt.ca) and Jane Smith’s class of grade 5/6 students (56js.ca) share as our podcast site. The site is designed to showcase the podcasts made by the two classes.

The portableradio.ca site runs off of Edublogs.org.  I see that you are using Edublogs for your blog as well.  You can upload your sound to your blog but the free version limits you to 20MB which very roughly translates into about 25 minutes of mp3 audio.  I put together a video tutorial on how you do that.

If you get hooked on this stuff, you will want to find more storage space.  One options is to become an Edublogs supporter and receive 5GB of storage ($). Or, your school might have its own website for uploading audio.  Once you’ve done uploaded the audio, figure out its URL and link to it from your Edublogs blog.

2) I noticed on your blog [5nt.ca] that beside each student’s name in brackets is the number of posts they have. How do I get this application to work on my blog?

Here’s what Jason is referring to:

I see that your students each have their own blog and you have them listed under “Blogroll’ which, in effect, is a list of links to separate websites.  I don’t know of a way to make the number of posts they write on their individual blogs show up on yours.

In my case, I’ve elected for my students not to have their own blogs. My students contribute to the one blog. That way, I can moderate all posts and comments. I’ve set each student as “Contributor” and list their names as categories. Whenever they write a post, they check off their name a pull-down menu of categories.  Click here for more information about how we set this up. I have a suspicion that some of the things we talk about in this document may now require you becoming an Edublogs supporter ($)

Here’s how I made the number of posts written by each student appear. In your Edublogs dashboard go to “Design” and select “Widgets”.  If you haven’t already, drag over the “Categories” widget into your sidebar.  Click on “edit” and check “Show Post Counts”. Remember this only works with the “Category” widget and not “Blogroll”.

I hope that was useful.  Let us know when your podcast is “live” on the internet.  We’d love to add a link to it here on our PortablePD.ca site.

Until recently, we weren’t able to embed these screencasts directly into our blog.  Instead we would have create a link to another website.  Being self-centred types, Jane and I much prefer to keep our readers on our site at all times!

Predictably enough, I’ve created this screencast explaining how to embed it into a post.

Click here to see a larger version (or right click to download it).

This post has been written on “Using tools like VoiceThread, Voki, mystudiyo, Animoto, SlideShows, Google Documents with students and embedding in blogs posts” as part of The Edublogger’s Birthday Celebration Competition.

This post won!

It just goes to show that the simple act of asking for something might, on occasion, get you what you want.

In my case I decided to leave a post on the Edublogs forums asking for audio and video comments for the blogs.  And, lo and behold, one day later, I got what I asked for.

Have fun trying it out.  Assuming you have a microphone and/or webcam connected to your computer you are good to go.  Start by clicking on “no responses yet” or “45 responses so far” after this (or any) post.  Then scroll to the bottom of the page and select either “Add Webcam Comment” or “Add Audio-only Comment”.  Click “Allow” and then close the window before recording your message. You can still leave a typed message along with the audio and video. Video, audio and typed comments continue to be moderated by Jane Smith and me.

I look forward to literally hearing, and seeing, what you have to say!

Here’s the code you need. It’s a Word file.

Click here for a larger version.

Here’s a screencast on that very topic:

Click here for a larger version

Hi Nathan and Jane,

I have recently been delving into the blog scene for my classroom. I figured I would share as it has our podcasts posted there, as well as some other resources for parents and educators. It is a work in progress, but I am happy with the ease of creation and editing that Blogger has to offer! The site isn’t linked to our school page as of yet as I am still in my “Beta” version of the site and learning all it has to offer. Unfortunately, a lot of the content is blocked by the board filter even though it is educational and safe for viewing. Check it out!

http://wej33.blogspot.com

Thanks again for the inspiration with regards to the podcasts!

Jamie
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Jamie Barteaux
Grade 3 – CCT – W.E. Johnston P.S.