Video resources on the 'Net

We have all heard about YouTube... but did you know there is a TeacherTube?

Using video to illustrate a particular point, or to make some subject more entertaining is a great tool. Both sites mentioned above have many tutorials and teaching videos; it takes some time to go in and explore, but it is worth it.

URLs for the sites are www.youtube.com and www.teachertube.com

Online tests

There are some great websites out there to apply online tests - students log in to the website, take the test and get their result immediately. Here are two of them:

• www.thatquiz.org - this is a FREE site, with a great database of tests already created; it started as a math-related site so it has lots of math exercises and tests, but now it has tests on all sorts of subjects.
  
• www.classmarker.com - this site has very complete FREE services, and it also provides expanded (premium) services for a fee. (Thx to Mrs. Sylvia for finding this one!)
  

Both sites allow you to create your own tests or use the ones shared in the databank, and in both cases the site keeps the records per class/student and allows you to DOWNLOAD the grades in formats compatible with Microsoft Excel.

Obviously, for these sites to be used for all subjects we would have to have computers available on all classrooms... Not practical at the moment, but how about using them for Math Labs? Or special assignments? Providing extra practice exercises for students to do at home?

Some more info about posting PowerPoint presentations

Some more things about uploading PowerPoint presentations into Google Docs to be used in a blog post:

• When uploading a presentation (.ppt) into Google Docs the maximum size is 10MB.
• When converting a 2007 presentation (.pptx) into 2003 format, the size increases DRAMATICALLY.
• I haven't figured out how to upload larger than 10MB presentations - only thing I can think of at this time is to split the file into smaller ones and upload one by one, then put it back together in Docs (by copy-paste whole slides).

Adding PowerPoint presentations

When adding PowerPoint presentations by uploading them to Google Docs and then embedding, we need to make sure they are PowerPoint 2003 format (.ppt) - the new format is not listed as acceptable (I haven't tested it yet though).

Another Test - can I post a picture directly?

So this test is about posting a picture.

In Google Groups, the only way to add an image to a Discussion post is by sending your post via e-mail - there is no option for adding images.

In Blogs we do have an option to add an image to a post, but I was wondering if it would also work through e-mail.

(Edit: a few minutes later)

It worked - I don't like the picture, it's huge. This is the original size, so if I want to post pictures I have to be careful about checking the size before adding them to an e-mail post.

(Edit 2: 12/09/08)

I manually changed the picture for a smaller one... much better.

I think the e-mail post affected my blog

Maybe forcing the blog to accept the HTML from my previous e-mail was not such a good idea... the template for my blog does not seem to be working as it should.

The other thing I've found out is that as someone said in the course, accessing blogs from school is not that easy because of the "filters" (which are pretty standard for a school); even when the filter gets open, access time is increased considerably.

We did say the blog is supposed to be an "after-school" support tool, but we need to keep that in mind at all times.

(Edit: December 5, 2008)

No, it was not the post. Now everything works fine and I think the problem was the school filter - accessing from home shows everything is OK.

Another test... posting via e-mail

New Test

In this test I'm trying to add posts using e-mail. Since I chose HTML as my e-mail format, the post should reflect all the formatting changes I made to this text; I added a background to the e-mail to see how it will post.

The second part of the test is to send a post deliberately from an account that is not my g-mail account, just to see what happens.

Here goes...

(Edit: a few minutes later)


So, the background didn't work... I had to take it off and re-send the post. The other thing was I had the message sent to my blog as a draft and when I tried to publish got a weird error message regarding my HTML, but the blog gave me the choice to ignore the error and when I did, it posted ok.

To e-mail posts, here's what you need to do:

1. Go to the dashboard and in your blog choose the "Settings" tab
2. In settings, go to the e-mail tab
3. Configure the e-mail for the blog as required
4. Choose whether you want posts to go straight into the blog or go as draft.

This is a nice procedure for being able to post from practically anywhere as long as you have access to e-mail.

This may be obvious but...

If you have more than one blog, clicking on the "B" logo on the top-left corner of your blog will send you to the Dashboard, where you can choose which blog to enter without having to go all the way out to your Google account.

Adding a PowerPoint presentation to a blog

Ok, here is one more test. I'm trying to add a PowerPoint presentation to my blog. When I tried this the first time in the course "Tecnología Aplicada en Educación" it didn't always work, and I think that also had to do with using HTML vs. XML.

Here's the test...



(Edit: a few minutes later)

Here's how I made it work:

1. I uploaded the presentation to Google Docs
2. In Google Docs, I selected the presentation and in the sharing tab I chose Publish/Embed
3. I copied the HTML code that appears in the Embed box, and pasted it in my blog post, using the EDIT HTML tab, not the Compose Tab.
4. I clicked in Publish Post

Voilá! There it is.

My first post - choosing a Template

So, this is the first post in my blog - I'm testing stuff here so I can use it elsewhere. What I'm trying to do tonight is test templates for the blog... let's see if it worked.

(Edit: a few minutes later) Yay! It worked! So, there are two ways of saving/formatting templates:

• classic - this is HTML code; if you want to use a template created in HTML you have to use the "revert to classic" button in the Template tab.
• upgrade - this is XML code; it is the default setting for templates in Blogger so even though the little tab on top of posts and templates says Edit HTML, for the site templates its default setting is XML, which means regular HTML doesn't always work properly.

What I have found out is, unless you are very good at programming code (HTML, XML) you should probably stick to the default (upgraded) way to design your blog; if you choose a template from one of the many websites providing them and it doesn't work, choose another one! It will save time and aggravation.