Technology in our classroom

How do you like my great animation dancer?

Most answers to this quiz can be found in Wikipedia, but you might have to visit a couple of pages to find the answers.  This could be used as an example of Activity 1 in the Edublogger Student Competition.

Note you must be 13 or older to be able to create your own quiz in MyStudyio.

All the images in this quiz were either from flickrcc or wikipedia pages.  There was nowhere in the quiz allowing me to attribute the images.

One of our responsibilities as a teacher, is to make sure you are safe while using the internet, both at school and at home, by teaching you certain skills and knowledge.  But you also have a responsibility.  That is to be internet savvy and protect your online identity.

Most schools do not allow students to have pictures of themselves on their blogs and websites. If they do, parental permission has to have been granted from all students in the picture. Instead, most teachers create an avatar with their students.

Avatars can come from a website on the internet or you can use an image editor  or paint program to change a photo you have that represents you.

Activities for week 2

1. Create an appropriate avatar to represent yourself.  Save the picture as either a .gif or .jpeg or .png .  I noticed many of the challenge participants last year don’t have a blog avatar, but do have a user avatar.

• If using Edublogs, when you log-in to your blog dashboard,  there is a link under the section “Getting started with Edublogs” that allows you to upload your blog  avatar and user avatar in one easy step.  If you are a user like author or editor under your class blog, you should be able to upload to user avatar but not blog avatar.
• Once you have uploaded a user avatar this will appear wherever you make a comment.  Make sure you have your blog URL correctly written in your settings and profile.  So from now on, people will be able to click on your avatar and go straight to your blog. But if your URL is wrong, you will miss out on some interesting visitors.

2. Now create a post to explain why this avatar represents you.  If you are using a class blog, work with your teacher to create a post or page about your avatars. If you have saved the avatars on a drive at school, then your teacher could upload each of them as images with an explanation under each avatar.  Make sure your teacher also creates an avatar.

3.  If you created a Voki, then it can’t be added like an avatar.  Check out this site if you want to add it to your sidebar and check out here if you want to add a Voki to a post or page.  In both these posts, the most important thing is have everything ready in the post or page, including tags and categories before you insert the code under HTML and finally hit publish.

4. Still got time left this week, then make sure you visit the blogs of other participants. Leave me a comment here about some of the blogs you visited and what the interests were of the students you visited.

Remember the most important part of blogging is the conversation you begin and follow up on.

Any age can use these avatar sites:

• Build your wild self – top left
• DoppelMe
• Mini-mizer – top right
• The Hero Factory – top middle

From abi-station:

• Iconmaker
• Illustrationmaker
• Avatarmaker
• Moeruavatar -  on my sidebar

If under 13, sorry you can’t register for these mentioned below. But over 13, need parental or guardian permission.

• Zwinky
• Meez
• Tizme
• Wee World
• Voki

Thanks to this wiki which gave me many avatar websites to visit.

Reminder: Remember if writing a post or comment, mention challenge09 somewhere in your work.

Thanks to William, Jeff, Sam, Michael, Karen and Dale.

WOW!  When I left school yesterday, only one student had a virtual pet in their sidebar.  But when I checked all the blogs today, nearly everyone has got one.  Well done on working out how to do this.  Teaching each other is great in my class.

But I noticed that the width of the pet widget often overlaps into your post area.  Check out Lochie’s post and read my comment about how to change the width and what to change it to.  Remember to refresh your blog to see what difference the changes have made. If it is still too wide, go back in again and make the width smaller.

PS: You might have to change the width in two different places.

As teachers, we have a responsibility to make sure you are being internet savvy and responsible while using computers and mobiles at school.  Hopefully what we teach you will also be seen in the way you use the internet at home or out-of-school hours.

One way of being internet savvy is not to have pictures of yourself on your blog.  So below are a few sites where you can have a go at creating what is called an “Avatar“. Remember though, that age counts when using some websites and if you are under 13, then some of these sites are not suitable for you to use yet. These are where you need to have parental or guardian permission.

Activities for week 2

1. Create an appropriate avatar to represent yourself.  Save the picture as either a .gif or .jpeg or .png . 

2. If using Edublogs, when you log-in to your blog dashboard,  there is a link under the section “Getting started with Edublogs” that allows you to upload your blog and user avatar in one easy step.  If you are a user like author or editor under your class blog, you should be able to upload to user avatar but not blog avatar.

3. Once you have uploaded a user avatar this will appear wherever you make a comment.  Make sure you have your blog URL correctly written in your settings and profile.  So from now on, people will be able to click on your avatar and go straight to your blog. But if your URL is wrong, you will miss out on some interesting visitors. 

4. Now create a post to explain why this avatar represents you.  If you are using a class blog, work with your teacher to create a post or page about your avatars. If you have saved the avatars on a drive at school, then your teacher could upload each of them as images with an explanation under each avatar.  Make sure your teacher also creates an avatar.

5.  If you created a Voki, then it can’t be added like an avatar.  Check out this site if you want to add it to your sidebar and check out here if you want to add a Voki to a post or page.  In both these posts, the most important thing is have everything ready in the post or page, including tags and categories before you insert the code under HTML and finally hit publish.

 6. Still got time left this week, then make sure you visit the blogs of other participants.  Leave me a comment here about some of the blogs you visited and what the interests were of the students you visited.

Remember the most important part of blogging is the conversation you begin and follow up on.

Any age can use these avatar sites:

• Build your wild self - top left
• DoppelMe
• Mini-mizer - top right

From abi-station:

• Iconmaker
• Illustrationmaker
• Avatarmaker
• Moeruavatar -  on my sidebar

If under 13, sorry you can’t register for these.  But over 13, need parental or guardian permission.

• Zwinky
• Meez
• Tizme
• Wee World
• Voki

Thanks to this wiki  which gave me many avatar websites to visit. 

Reminder: Remember if writing a post or comment, mention stubc08 somewhere in your work.

Was reading a blog which had a link to this site, which allowed you to put captions on your photos.  Sorry kids, but again you need to be 13 or older to use it.  I uploaded a photo I took of a bison in Yellowstone National Park when I was there a few years ago.

Have you found any sites suitable for the under 13’s to use which allows “phiddling with photos”?

Thanks again to Larry Ferlazzo for this note about the improvements to the free rice website.  I had been to this site a few times, earning rice to be donated. But now instead of just English vocabulary, you can practise your tables or learn the capital cities of countries around the world.  If you are into chemistry learn the periodic table or practise your French and other languages.  Many thanks for this recommendation Larry.

Original image: ‘ricefields Bali‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23283035@N04/2250582572
by:

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Sorry guys and girls!  You have to be 13 and older to be able to use this site.  But might be good for some of your Olympics work or when you share your teaching lesson next term.  Allows you to animate stories.  I did this one in about half an hour last night.

Take this test and see what you are suited to.  This was my result.  How accurate is that?

If I was a sports person i’d be a Runner

You don’t need others to motivate you, as you think things through and act. Travel is your life, and you prefer to chart your own course and do so away from the herd. Click here to find out what type of athlete you would be…

You think you know where the oceans and continents are on a globe of the world? 

Try your hand at this map building site.  You have a variety of levels to attempt and then you can print out your map when you have finished.

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for his tips on great programs to use.

 Original image: ‘globe‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41894194320@N01/1444006381
by: Katey Nicosia

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

 Students:  can you find some other websites which allow you to practise using a globe and knowing your countries, capitals, mountain ranges etc?