Friday, 20 June 2008
Wordle for tag clouds
Wordle is a rather beautiful way to display tags – prettier than the usual tag cloudit generates “word clouds” from text that you paste in yourself. Like a normal tag cloud, words that appear more frequently in the source text are bigger. Various colour schemes are available. They can be printed out, or saved to the Wordle gallery but there isn’t an option to simply display it on your own blog or website.
Labels: blogs, tag clouds, tags
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:08 PM
Monday, 19 May 2008
How to choose your blog name
If you are setting up a new blog, probably the next important task after choosing your blog niche is to the job of choosing a name for your blog. One of the first questions is whether to have a quirky name that no-one has already got, so that you can easily be found in Google - or choose a keyword carefully based on what people search on in Google and so that they can find your blog by subject.
Here are some key tips for choosing your blog name
- vital to get this right
- choose a descriptive name that is appropriate for your topic
- not too quirky (there are quirky blog names – Boing Boing! - but a new one with a quirky name won't be found as easily by search engines - this blog, for example had a much slower start than if I'd called it E-learning Insights or something!)
- using specific words in the title will give your blog more Google-juice!
- Make sure no-one is using your blog title/name already for a blog or a website
- Chose the name alongside a domain name and make make sure you buy it as soon as you've chosen!
- Don't let it get too long though
- Keep it permanent – you don't want to lose traffic by changing names and/or URLs
Labels: blogging, blogs, choosing name for blog, setting up a blog, starting a blog
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:30 AM
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Stay with Blogger or move to Wordpress?
I've been really busy, lately.
Reach Further have moved offices. We can now be found at
Reach Further Ltd.
Round Foundry Media Centre
Foundry Street
Leeds
LS11 5QP
I've also revamped the website and finally set up a decent Wordpress blog. I'm liking Wordpress, and it's maybe time I moved this blog over to it - or should I stay with Blogger? There are obviously advantages to both. Happy to hear others' opinions.
And one of the main reasons I dislike Blogger at the moment is the way it autocompletes my tags and there doesn't seem any way to stop it without carefully editing everything. Anyone else find it annoying?
http://reachfurther.com/Labels: Blogger, blogging, blogs, Reach Further, women bloggers, Wordpress
posted by Helen Whitehead 2:44 PM
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Putting a blog feed on Facebook
There are so many Facebook apps that I now turn down or ignore most of the Quizzes or role-playing invitations I get on Facebook. However here's FlogBlog - an application that's actually useful - it provides a feed to your existing blog via Facebook. A good way to integrate Blogger or Wordpress (or any other blog with a feed) and Facebook.Labels: blog facebook integration, blogging, blogs, Facebook
posted by Helen Whitehead 1:07 PM
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Issues regarding use of blogs with students
Some questions to think about when planning to use blogs with students:
- What is the purpose of the blog – make sure it is clear – is it linked to assessment? If it isn’t assessed will they bother to use it – probably not?
- Do you use a class group blog or individual blogs? Perhaps you only need one blog in wwhich you as tutor post the questions and assignments etc., and the students merely respond via comments.
- Will they have a choice which blog to use and whether or not to make it or bits of it public?
- What if they already have a blog and prefer to use the same blog, perhaps with a specific tag to make it easier for you and anyone else to read? otherwise they may end up with many blogs, e.g., for each class plus private ones – which is difficult to manage.
- If you specify what blog tool they use, will you use an internal blog provided by the institution or an external one, with all the disadvantages of hosting off-site?
- Do you insist they have a “professional” identity – do they need guidance in the tone and theme of the blog? Can they use a pseudonym or other less formal identity?
- Will the tutor be reading the blog or will everyone in the class be expected to read one another’s? Will students be expected to comment on one another’s posts?
Labels: academic blogs, blog network, blogging, blogs, collaborative working, reflective learning, writing
posted by Helen Whitehead 12:02 PM
Monday, 17 December 2007
Edublog awards 2007
While I've been away with a virus (head rather than computer...) the winners of the Edublog 2007 awards have been announced. They are a great selection of blogs. I was intrigued by the "most influential blog post" which is the one by Karl Fisch back in 2006 which started the "ShiftHappens" meme.
We are about to show the latest version of the video to the staff at an FE College as part of an inspirational e-learning day. I hope they find it as intriguing as the 10 million people or so who have already seen versions of the presentation or video.
It's always as interesting to check out the nominated blogs as well as they winning ones, and some nominated blogs have won in the past...Labels: awards, blogs, e-learning, FE, Fisch, Shift Happens, shifthappens
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:24 PM
Friday, 21 September 2007
Libraries and Librarians in the Blogosphere
Here are some of the most representative library blogs I've found. Some librarian blogs are among the best blogs I've read. Must be something about librarians and information... From the UK, USA and Australia.
Peter Scott’s Library Blog http://xrefer.blogspot.com/ Links
Cambridge University Medical Library http://cambridgemedicallibrary.blogspot.com/ Facts
Spineless (Heriot Watt) http://hwlibrary.wordpress.com/ Facts and Opinions
ILS Blog, University of Worcester http://www2.worc.ac.uk/wordpress/ Opinions
Library Suggestion Blog (Virginia Commonwealth) http://blog.vcu.edu/libsuggest/
Theoretical Librarian http://theoretical-librarian.blogspot.com/ Occasional
Eclectic Librarian opinions http://www.eclecticlibrarian.net/blog/archives/000851.html
Hey Jude (Winner of Best Library Blog in the EduBlog awards 2006) http://heyjude.wordpress.com/
The L Files http://bulibrary.blogspot.com/ Facts and Opinions
Plus some examples of types of blog
•Academic blog – the Adelie blog
•Group blog – Leeds University e-learning
•Personal blog – Stephen Downes
•Business blog – iQubed blog
•Conference blog – Women Business & BloggingLabels: academic blogs, blogging, blogosphere, blogs, librarian, librarian blogs, librarians, libraries, library, library blogs
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:40 AM
Monday, 17 September 2007
Links for week commencing 17th September
Creative Learning Activities with Moodle
Interesting set of slides from Paula de Waal at Padua University about being creative in using the tools available in Moodle. Ideas also applicable for other VLEs - we can all try to be more creative about the tools we've got.
A bit trivial - but an intriguing blog story:
An American "mommy blogger" gained notoriety from this listing on eBay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=130144061675
You then need to read her blog (which is very funny infact) to see what the notoriety did to her blog hits. http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/
More blogs:
Bioethics Bites - a a collection of resources to assist in the teaching of bioethics. This project was established and is maintained by Chris Willmott at the University of Leicester, UK. There are presently three members of the BioethicsBytes team - Chris, Bonnie Green and David Willis. http://bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com/
And Microbiology Bytes http://microbiologybytes.wordpress.com/ "the latest news about microbiology, in a form that everyone can understand." This site is created by Alan Cann, also at the University of Leicester. He also has a blog entirely about frogs
And also (from Alan Cann's education blog) draft guidelines for using external web 2.0 services from the University of Edinburgh.Labels: blogging, blogs, links
posted by Helen Whitehead 11:45 AM
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
Great blog widgets
I've been looking up some good blog widgets.
You can see a few of them in the sidebars to this blog.
Mood display
http://www.imood.com/
Librarything to display a random sample of books from your library
http://www.librarything.com/
Provide a translation of your blog on demand... (Wordpress only: not tried)
http://trevorcreech.com/blog/2006/04/27/translate-widget/Embed your Flickr photos
http://flickrslidr.com/Or use Slide.com to create a slideshow of photos
http://www.slide.com/Get a cartoon updated daily! from Gaping Void
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/002978.html
and lots from http://www.widgetbox.com/
including turning your own blog into a widget - that is, a BLIDGET! (I have my blog as a widget on my website at helenwhitehead.com)
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:18 AM
Thursday, 19 July 2007
Blogs vs communities of practice
A community of practice defines itself along three dimensions:
- What it is about - its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members
- How it functions - mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity
- What capability it has produced - the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artifacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time? (Wenger 1998)
I've been reading an interesting post from back in 2004 comparing blogs and online communities of practice.
In summary:
What blogs provide that other web-based collaboration tools do not:
- Blogs are more respectful of their authors and of their audience
- Blogs are better connecting tools.
What Communities of Practice provide that a network of bloggers cannot:
- Communities are better social structures for problem-solving, knowledge stewarding and innovation
- Communities of practice are better social structures for learning
How blogs and CoPs live together?
- Blogger networks generate communities of practice (and communities of practice generate projects)
- Communities of Practice can use blogs to communicate with the outside world.
I wonder how that discussion would be updated now? Certainly you wouldn't talk about "weblogs" now! I might have a think about this and post my thoughts at a later date.Labels: blog network, blogging, blogs, communities of practice, emoderating, online community
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:06 AM
Thursday, 24 May 2007
Wayne Hodgins: Off course, on target
I've discovered a new blog from Wayne Hodgins
He discusses an excellent online learning resource about tying knots (think sailing!) and describes Pecha Kucha, the fast and furious new presentation format from Japan now sweeping America (of which more anon).Labels: blogs, e-learning, online learning, presentations
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:27 AM
