If you want to use a video from Youtube in class, I suggest you register at Zamzar.com and use this to download a Youtube video to your PC. This can then be put on a memory stick and taken in to school for use in class.

And if the slideshow doesn’t make sense, Clustrmaps themeselves have helpfully put up their own instructions on adding their widget to Wordpress:

http://clustrmaps.wordpress.com/html-setup/clustrmaps-on-wordpress/

All Creative Blogs feeds follow exactly the same format: http://creativeblogs.net/feed/ is the RSS feed for this blog. In other words, take your chosen blog’s URL and add /feed/ to the end of it. Other blog platforms won’t necessarily have the same format of URL for feeds, but you can usually spot them easily enough by looking for the link to the feed on the blog itself (often in the footer) or by looking for the orange RSS button. Most modern web browsers will automatically detect if a page has a feed on it.

However, if you follow the link above and look at the Creative Blogs RSS feed you’ll be looking at something that is pretty unpalatable to attempt to read. So, you need an interpreter.

There are a number of ways in which you can read and subscribe to feeds, and I’ll mention three here.

Web Browsers

The first is to use your web browser. Most modern browsers have feed readers built into them. For example, if you have Firefox you will notice that the browser will automatically identify if a web page has a feed on it and shows the orange RSS button. Simply click on the orange button to subscribe to the feed and Firefox will keep tabs on that site for you.

The problem with this method of reading feeds is that it is tied to one computer i.e. only that browser has your list of feeds in it. So it’s better to use a web based feed reader. Also, older browsers such as Internet Explorer 6.0 won’t have this type of feature (you have updated by now, haven’t you?)

Google Reader

If you have a Google account you can use Google’s free Google Reader. Simply log in to Google and click on the Reader link at top left. Every time you enter a feed into the browser address bar or click on an orange RSS button Google will ask you whether you want to add the feed to Google Reader. Within Reader you can organise your feeds into folders and share interesting articles with friends. Because Google Reader is web based, you can log into it at any browser, or even on your mobile if you have a mobile web facility.

Pageflakes

One of the easiest ways to introduce RSS is to use Pageflakes. Pageflakes is a web-based desktop that allows you to customise your own web homepage. On this page, you can include RSS feeds. Here is an example page I have set up for an ICT co-ordinators course. Each course member has their own blog in order to reflect on the course and they can all see what each other is writing by visiting this Pageflakes page.

Each box displayed is a separate blog’s feed.

To add a feed to a Pageflakes page, click on the big “Flake” button, then on the left there is a small link saying “Add an RSS feed”. Simply click on this link and paste your feed into the box.

Here’s the link to the aforementioned ICT co-ordinator’s course.

Why not have a go at creating a school homepage using Pageflakes? You’re not restricted to feeds from blogs, you could add the BBC education feed, local weather feeds, image galleries, games and all sorts.

Explore

Whichever way you choose, do make the effort to explore and understand RSS. It will literally transform the way you use the web.

Blog Rules - Get more College Essays

• Poetry
• Class News
• Welcome to our blog
• Story reading

Embedding into the blog is simple:

1) Select Javascript from the “Embed in” dropdown menu;
2) Choose a size for the Voki;
3) Click “Get code” and copy the code in its entirety;
4) In your blog post, click on the HTML tab and paste the code in. Publish

Get a Voki now!

Click on this link to watch the video: 12/08/2007 03:22 PM

Notes:

This is not podcasting, it is simply a means of uploading a file to your blog and letting your audience play it. You should use this technique as an occasional method of playing audio as you actually upload the audio file to your blog where it will take up a lot of webspace. For proper podcasting where the audio files are hosted elsewhere you should refer to the podcasting tutorial (link here when it has been published)

This technique will only work with MP3 files. The Anarchy Video Player will not recognise .wav or .wma audio formats. It is easy to convert a .wav file to MP3 by uploading it into Audacity (Project > Import) and then converting to MP3 (File > Export as MP3). For .wma files and other audio formats you may need to purchase a file convertor of which there are many on the web.

Download Video: Posted by creativeict at TeacherTube.com.

Download Video: Posted by creativeict at TeacherTube.com.

If you want to view a much higher quality version of this video, follow this link and download the file to your pc before playing.

http://www.creativeict.phanfare.com/album/147344/181978/27411967#imageID=27411967