Herman Wood

iWeb & Classroom Websites

Classroom websites can be the foundation for a one stop shop to fit all the needs of students and parents! In our district, we are not able to provide space for every teacher at this time. You are still welcome to provide your own. There are solutions that provide space and templates that are marketed to teachers, but their drawbacks and cost make the unpalatable to me.

Your starting point on the Mac is iWeb. It's simple. The main problem is if you are trying to maintain more than one specific web site- say a family site and a school site. It's difficult to keep the two separated. Once you're done, you have to upload your site to a web server. Here's the link for iWeb help: http://www.cobb.k12.ga.us/instructionaltechnology/mac/resource_files/iWeb.pdf

Depending on your internet provider, you may already have space provided to you that comes with the cost of internet service. Bellsouth, before AT&T, and Earthlink are local service providers who have reasonably simple procedures for uploading a web page created on your Mac. Comcast is another story altogether. We tried multiple times leading in to last summer to find ways to FTP a website onto personal space on Comcast servers and finally concluded that they just don't want it done. Here's the link to support for hosting: http://www.cobb.k12.ga.us/instructionaltechnology/mac/Hosting_Help.htm

Directions for Earthlink are current as of this writing. Bellsouth, now AT&T, should be updated soon.

To do the upload, you'll need to download and install CyberDuck (approved software on the district list): http://cyberduck.ch/

Here's the directions for CyberDuck: http://www.cobb.k12.ga.us/instructionaltechnology/mac/resource_files/CyberDuck_config.pdf

It's a little geeky, but once you see your web page in someone else's browser window, it's pretty rewarding!

Problems Embedding into Posts or Pages

Some folks are running into problems embedding pictures or calendars into their posts or pages in their TypePad blogs.  I can't isolate the problem, as there is no problem on some PC's, but there is on others.  Seems to be no problem on our Macs in Safari.  Anyway, here's the fix:

On PC's, and in FireFox on Macs, there is a tab called Edit HTML that is visible to the top right of the editable area of your post/page.  If your code is showing (oh my!) instead of your picture or calendar, then edit your post/page.  Copy the code again.  Click the Edit HTML button:

Paste the code you copied a moment ago back in and save your post.  So far, it's worked every time!

Let me know if you need any help!

PS- Happened to me on this post in FireFox on the Mac ; )

Google's Calendar

Google Calendar is a great way to share important dates and times with your students and parents!  As always, you have to have a Google account.  See my prior post on PICASA for more info on creating an account.

Google gives you all the info you need to get started:  http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/topic.py?topic=8556

Once you have some events added, you can go through the process of embedding it into your blog.  Again, Google really comes through:  http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=41207&topic=8573

The help at Google will allow you to paste the code from Google into a TypePad post so that your calendar will appear in a post. If you want it always in the same place, you could give your calendar its own Page, if that has been enabled and set up for you. (Example in the right hand column of this blog under Pages.) Other options include putting it in the sidebar of your blog as a Notes Typelist. An example of that is on this blog on the left hand side. It's a public calendar for Dowell Elementary.

It takes some time and you have to change some settings, but it's a tremendous help to your parents and students.

Google's PICASA for Your Blog

Google provides all kinds of goodies that you can use with or without a blog.  We're going to deal with PICASA in this entry.  PICASA is a service that allows you to share pictures.  Pictures can be viewed in online albums or  inside a blog.  There are many examples on my blog, but here's one:  http://tiscobb.typepad.com/herman_wood/2007/08/basics-of-blogg.html

By pictures, I mean digital pictures or graphics.  Before you can get started, you need to create a Google account.  It's free!  Start by going to Google's account set up help page.

Once that's all set, go to the PICASA set up page.

Here's how to upload pictures from your web browser: http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=10753

You may want to place a work order to have the PICASA software installed on your computer, if it's not already installed.  It is approved, though it is necessary to place a work order for it to be installed.  Besides making uploading easier, it has all kinds of helpful features.

Once you have a few pictures uploaded, you can embed them in your blog!  Start by clicking on an album.  To embed one picture, click on the picture, then look in the right hand column where it says Link this Photo.  You'll need to click it, then it will look like this:

Use the pulldown to select the size you want your picture to be.  Keep in mind that the middle column of most blogs is set to 400 pixels.  Copy the line of code under HTML to Embed in WebSite and paste it into the blog where ever you want the image to appear.  As always, save your post!

You can also create a slideshow from an album.  The only real changes in the procedure above is that while you are in an album, the button for embedding a slideshow is on the left rather than the right.

Here's an example using some pictures I took:

One option you can explore, if it's been enabled for you, is to have a Page just for displaying pictures. Instead of New Post, click New Page, then paste your choice of the html code into the body of the Page. You can see the same slideshow on one of my pages. The link is off to the right.

Putting Images in Blog Posts

One of my colleagues, Lauralyn Sunseri, did a very clear post on inserting images into TypePad blog posts. Go check it out at: http://tiscobb.typepad.com/lsunseri/2007/08/inserting-image.html

Comments & Trackbacks

Comments are a way to allow others to have something to say on your blog. Our district requires that comments be moderated, and all blogs within the district are configured to do that. What moderation means is that the author of the post on the blog must approve the comment before it can be seen on the blog.

To allow comments, set the pulldown under Comments at the bottom of your post to Open:

To moderate comments, click List Comments:

You'll be presented with a list of all the comments on your blog:

You can approve or delete several at a time by clicking the check box next to the comment and clicking either approve, delete, or report spam (Yes, the spammers have found ways to create comment spam! I have seen very little on my blogs.) You can also look at each comment by clicking on the comment to read it and choose whether or not to publish it:

Trackbacks are a different animal. Essentially, it's a way for one blog to let another blog it's being talked about. For more, visit these two links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrackBack

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=93&p_created=1125521344&p_sid=rK3PliJi&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MzUmcF9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPTE4JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9MS4xOCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PXRyYWNrYmFja3M*&p_li=&p_topview=1

Basics of Blogging

Go to http://www.typepad.com/ and login by clicking the Member Sign In button. Once you sign in, you'll see a list of the blogs you contribute to. If this is your first blog, it'll look like this:

Click Begin a New Post. You'll be presented with a window into which you can enter your post:

Once you're done typing the entry, be sure to hit the Save button at the bottom of the page!

Title is just that- the title of the post. Category allows you to categorize posts. You'll need to work with me to help develop a useful set of categories for your school. The default ones are not really helpful. You don't have to worry about a category right now.

The tools are listed in a line below the words Post Body and are really self explanatory. In fact, if you hover over them patiently, it'll tell you what each one is. Images can't be cut and pasted into a post. You can insert them, if you have the image somewhere on your computer, using the insert button that looks like a scenic mountain scene.

Posts can be edited and deleted later by going to the List Post tab. Check the box next to a post and click the delete option at the bottom to delete. To edit a post, just double click it's title and you'll be able to change anything!

TypePad Blog Set Up

To become an author of a TypePad blog, you have to accept an invitation via email to become an author. There are several types of authorship, though we typically use guest for teachers and junior for students.

Watch the spam filter and any junk mail folders you have set up. Invitations have been caught in both. Once you receive the email invitation, open the email from TypePad.com. The invite typically looks like the one below:

The blue link will open a web page. If you're reading your mail in a web browser, you should right click and "open in a new window". The window that opens will look like this, except without my annotations:

If you have joined TypePad before, just sign in on the left and accept the invitation. If you've never joined TypePad, you'll need to click on "Register for Free" on the right.

When you register, you'll create a user name within the parameters TypePad allows, as well as a password of your choosing. Please keep a record of these. TypePad can help you with recovering a forgotten password, but the username can be more difficult to recover.

Once you've been accepted as a Guest Author, you're ready to post.

Calendar for your blog

Google is a great resource. If you think it's just about searching, then you need to look again. One resource of particular interest for management of your classroom is an online calendar. One of my esteemed colleagues has posted info in her blog about this. Go to: http://tiscobb.typepad.com/marcia_ellis/2007/02/so_you_want_a_c.html

I'll be happy to help you get set up!