Here is what is going on: Line 1 includes the jQuery Library hosted by google.
We then have a simple script using the library. Line 3 setting jQuery to noConflict, this means that we use jQuery for our main function name rather than the $ shortcut. I am not sure if I need to do this but it fixed some early experiments. Line 5, this is where we use jQuery, we use it to add a css class of top_up to any link that links to an m4v file. Line 9 add the TopUp javascript library from gettopup.com. This is enough to make m4v videos play in a popup window but in the last bit of the script we just ajust some settings.
Yesterday saw the launch of blogs in Glow. A much requested feature from the beginning it is great to see Glow getting into a web 2 world at last. To set up your blog you need to have creating a blog allowed by your ASM, after that you just add a Blog webpart to a glow page and click create. You can create a private blog, one that can only be viewed by glow users and an open blog, I know which one I'd go for
Alan Hamilton has published a table explaining how glow users roles map to the blog's role: Glow Blogs | #learnerham. I think I'd go for giving any pupils as much permission as I could. At Sandaig Primary the children always blogged with admin rights and they never put a foot wrong.
Yesterday I set up a quick test blog just to see how thing work, I managed to get in first and spent a while trying things out. It is, on first impression, a pretty standard Wordpress set up and I managed to change my theme, add stuff to the sidebar and make a couple of posts. I had a bit of trouble posting an image as there seems to be a wee bug in the system, I'd guess this will be easy to fix.
The blog both integrates into glow, with a version (without media) of the Quick Press area in the glow webpart:
this could be handy if you wanted a text only blog, but I am more interested in the fact that with a public blog you can log into the blog admin directly using your glow login through the magic of Shibboleth.
Feature Requests I'll be making
To celebrate day two of glow blogging I though I'd make a couple of feature requests.
Storage space; at the moment this is set to 10mb: Two header graphics and a couple of other small pics and I am at 3% of this already. My graphics are fairly well squashed (unlike some who should know better ), 10mb gives very little space for audio or video files. I've not tested the upload file size limit. I know Glow has been very good at increasing storage space for standard glow sites when it is needed and hope they will take the same approach here.
Settings, not too surprising but you can't do a lot with these, the one thing I would love to see turned on is the ability to activate the MetaWebLogAPI, this would enable lots of good stuff, the use of specialised blogging clients and, more interesting to me, blogging from mobile devices (ipod touches for instance).
I'll not be lobbying for lots of extra themes, though other folk might, the one I'm using, K2, has a fair amount of customisation available and I don't think the limited number of theme is that important.
Getting started blogging
Especially if done in full public view there are some potential difficulties. I personally feel that the advantages hugely outweigh these, but I also feel it pays to tread carefully. I always used to repeatedly stress to my pupils there responsibilities in publishing to the world. I likened it to a school trip, explaining that blogging was like going out into the world as a school representative. In the same way as I expected excellent behaviour on a trip I expected excellent behaviour on the blog.
Teachers too have their responsibilities, we need to try to get he best out of blogging, introducing it in a structured way. Three years ago I blogged: Starting Blogging in the Classroom and think that is still a reasonable approach.
Ever since I started pupils blogging I have felt that it is a wonderful classroom activity and I hope that the glow blogs will lead to an explosion of classroom blogging across Scotland.
I am also hoping that these blogs will be listed on ScotEduBlogs making that an even more powerful resource.
For quite a while now there has been a fair amount of discussion about how twitter is becoming the main conduit for web 2 type teachers to keep in touch and that blogging is on its way out.
I was interested to hear a couple of views about this on the edonis project podcast recently. Jaye Richards wondered if twitter was just a little too positive, not having space for critical discussion. Robert Jones talked about how it was hard to interest teachers in twitter if they did not already have an online network of some sort.
Although I tweet with a fair degree of enthusiasm I do sometime worry that it twitter takes something away from blogging. I've noticed a decrease in comments here and elsewhere and a decrease in my commenting beyond a quick tweet. For example my previous post here is sitting with no comments but several tweets.
Yesterday I read a few posts that convinced me that blogging is alive and well. I though I'd link to them here:
Margaret Vass posted Learning, Teaching and ICT » A Secondment Whirlwind Tour – 2 Years in 2 Minutes. Margaret's blog is a constant source of inspiration for me and this post has me thinking hard about my professional role. She also points to some of the work she has done on ePortfolios and the main points she has learnt, one What about the pupils?: Comments should go beyond “I think I did OK” or ” I think I have more to learn.” is perhaps relevant to the blogs versus twitter theme.
Mr Mallon, posted some Good Advice from Rolf which he recorded on a trip to CERN. Particle physicist Rolf Landau gives advice to the many Scottish young people who are about to take up Physics. I've not listened to the 59 minute recording yet, but what a wonderful example of the way blogging can provide resources to pupils.
Meanwhile in the English Department Mr W asks What Texts D’you Teach? he is in the market for new texts for his English Department and would appreciate any suggestions. He is collecting them on a google spreadsheet through a form Neil already has a good number of suggestions.
I found all the above on the ScotsEduBlogs front page, but saw the next linked from twitter.
S1 adventures in posterous on Kenny O'Donnell's blog. Kenny gives a rundown of some of the ways S1 in his school have been using posterous. There are some great examples of students work linked. I was particularly interested in the students not only persisted, but experimented with their blogs because it required nothing more than sending their work from e-mail and the suggestions about e-portfolios.
I could of course linked to lots of other great blog posts from around Scotland this week, but I think these give a flavour of the the valuable information and conversation going on. As much as I love twitter posts like the above linger in my mind for longer hopefully helping me in all sorts of ways.
This brief unscientific survey shows the great value of blogs and I'd suggest that the odd visit to ScotsEduBlogs will always interest and inspire at least as much as watching the titter stream.
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For the last couple of days I’ve been testing an iPad. In many ways a compelling device. I’ve not used it enough to come to any real conclusions but though it worth noting some thoughts.
I am using the iPad to write this post & the first thing I noticed is the easy and straightforward typing and the relative difficulty of typing tags such as <:p&rt; to get to a < you need to hit the number keypad and then the symbols one, switching back to letters and then numbers if you need a /.
At first play the things that the iPad seems best at are viewing and reading tasks, for me email, rss, browsing and quick googles. I may change my mind on that one if I get iMovie or keynote. I would love to see GarageBand for the iPad, it would be great with a touch interface. It seems faster to check mail by grabbing the iPad than it is to move to the computer.. The speed that the iPad opens and launches apps is very impressive. I spend a fair bit of time reading RSS and google reader works well. I’ve used the iPhone version of netnewswire but as the iPad version is a bit more expensive than I am used to paying for apps I’ve not got that one. Instead i am using google reader and FeeddlerRRS which is a free reader for iPad FeeddlerRRS uses your google read account too and it seems to work well. I’ve probably read more of my feeds in the last couple of days than the previous week. It is easier to read whole articles on the ipad compared to a phone where I would typically star or bookmark for later consumption. It is also easier to jump to the post and leave a comment. I don’t think FeeddlerRRS works offline though which was an advantage of NetNewsWire on the iPhone. I could load my iPhone and read feeds on the train without worrying about s connection.
Somethings will take a bit of getting used to. I started this post in Pivot’s mobile interface:
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This is pretty nice but I rsn into problems when I ‘minimised’ the page:
I was thinking of this as equivalent to tabs but found when I swapped back to the pivot page after copying a Flickr embed code that the page reloaded and lost my text! I’ve switched to Notes to prevent this happening again and started using another note to hold snippets:
I am also using Flickr to post images rather than uploading them here with TextMate.
I am using 2 free apps PhotoPad to edit pics and the iPhone darkslide app to upload to Flickr. I think in the longer term I’d want a more efficient blogging app or I’d use Mail to post to posterous if I was doing a lot of iPad bloggIng.
I’d be interested in trying out some of the HTML apps if they were iphone priced rather than the slightly more expensive iPad ones. I am not sure I’ll be editing much HTML on the iPad.
What is impressive is the easy to use interfaces with all of these apps. I’ve not had to look of help or instructions on any of them. Things just work. The device is surprisingly delightful: the smooth way menus appear or say TweetDeck flips over to display a webpages link in a tweet is lovely.
I am very interested in seeing how ipads would fit into a classroom and compare use with the iPod Touch. I imagine they would be a powerful shared device, sitting in the middle of a group to be grabbed and passed around better for collaborative work that the Touch.
I am looking forward to testing the iPad in as many ways as I can think of over the next wee while and seeing the possibilities develop.
This is my personal blog, opinions are my own and not those of my employer (the blog is produced in my own time). My opinions are not set in stone, I frequently change my mind, make mistakes and contradict myself.
