customizing your edublog with widgets and themes
DESCRIPTION
Self Learning object (e-torial) to learn how to customize your blog. To download the Powerpoint presentation in order to see all the animations, go to http://www.box.net/shared/vak3xij441TRANSCRIPT
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Creating a blog part 4
Customising your blogThemes, Headers, Widgets
By the end of this e-torial, you will be able
to:
Change the look and feel of your blog
using themes
Create and upload a blog banner
Inserting widgets
This e-torial make use of the following
programmes or tools:
Browser: Internet Explorer, Firefox…
A blogging platform: Edublogs
Outcomes
Tools
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Creating a blog: Making it look good!
Before you start
Signing into your dashboard
Choosing and activating a new theme
Modifying your theme header
Uploading a new theme header
“Widgetising” your sidebar
Inserting interactive widgets
Customising widgets
Inserting a RSS feed widget
Activating your Plug-in widget pack
Adding the ClustrMap widget
Adding the Delicious widget
Adding the Twitter widget
Adding the Flickr widget
Embedding external widgets
Self assessment rubric
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Index
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Before you create your blog….
If you have not done so before,
first work through the previous
blogging e-torials:
Why and What of blogging
The anatomy of a blog
Setting up your blog in
Edublogs
So this means that you….
Already have an Edublog
Have created pages for your
blog
Have done the odd
blogpost..
Purpose
•What is your blog going to be about?
•School? Personal? Organisational?
•Who is your audience? Learners? Parents
Ideas
•What posts have to be included?
•Ideas Folder
•Look for opportunities.
Create
•Where are you going to create it?
•Choose a theme
•Insert feeds, widgets, interactivity
Maintain
•Update regularly
•Look after comments
Action plan
So are you ready to customize your blog to support the focus of what your blog
is all about?
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Sign into your new blog dashboard
Go to www.edublogs.org
and log in with your
username and
password
Go to your blog
http://myusername.
edublogs.org and sign in
using the Meta data widget
If you are already signed into your blog,
you can just click on the, Edit this link
on any of your blog posts.
There are 3 ways to sign
into your blog:
You will be logged into your dashboard, where everything happens!
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Choosing a new theme
There are over 90 themes. How do I
choose?
2 columns, 1 sidebar
right, No custom header
It your choose 3 columns, you will have to stick to 3 column themes in future……
Pick a theme that
allows:
Custom headers
Widgets
If you are going to have a lot of widgets, and want lots of categories, pages
links and interactive elements, choose 3 columns
If you want a more clear sophisticated look, choose 2 columns
How many columnswill I need?
Blog Themes provides blogs
with a distinctive “look and
feel”. A theme also determines:
How many columns &
sidebars (1 or 2)
If you can insert widgets
If you can upload your own
header banner
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Activating a new theme
Click on Design
Themes
Pick a theme!
Click on the theme picture
or link
Visit your site to see if you like
the theme, otherwise repeat the
procedure till you are happy with
your new theme!
Can I change my theme often?
A theme gives your blog a brand, so do not change it too often!
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Modifying your theme header
If you feel like a total header change, you will have to upload a new banner
picture…
Click on Design
Custom Image Header
You can hide the text
You can change the colour of the current header text
Save changes
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Uploading a new theme header
It is a good idea to first create your picture and save it in the right dimensions!
Click on Design
Custom Image Header
Make sure that the
picture you are going to
use has the right
dimensions, if not, it will
be cropped!
Browse to where you
have saved the image
Upload
Click here to open video in Youtube.com, pause to practise!
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Uploading a new theme header
You will see your picture with the part that will be
used lit up!
You can move it to where your header text will be
the most visible
Try to pick an image that has an area where you can see the blog title easily
Crop your header
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Customizing your sidebar
A widget is piece of code that makes it possible to view web elements in
different places across the internet.
The sidebar of your blog allows you
to “mash” and embed lots of
interactive widgets and feeds from
all over the internet!
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
The sidebar Essentials widgets
Don’t overcrowd you sidebars!
Some essential widgets to choose
from
Recent Posts
Tell visitors what you have
blogged about recently
Blogroll (links)
A link list to your favourite
blog writers blogs
Categories
Divides your posts into
more manageable “folders”
Search window
Visitors can search for anything
in your blogposts!
Post archives - Links to past
posts
Subscription option –Get a
following
Meta data (have to have this
one!)
Allows you to log into your
blog dashboard
Link to your blog feeds RSS
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Inserting interactive widgets
Sign into your dashboard!
Click on Design
Widgets
Click on Add next to
provided widget that you
want to insert
Drag the widget into the
correct position on the right
hand side
Remember to save your
changes
How do I add widgets?
Click here to open video in Youtube.compause to practise!
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Customising widgets
Sign into your dashboard!
Click on Design
Widgets
Click on Edit link on the
widget button on the right
Complete the edit form
Remember to save your
changes
Some widgets allow you to edit the way they display and what they display
Various widget buttons will give you different options. Eg in the Category
widget you can give it a different name, and choose if you want it as a drop
down menu or link list. You can also choose to see how many posts per
category item
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Inserting a RSS feed widget
First get the RSS feed by going to the
site/blog that you want to “feed” from!!
Look for and click on the
feed icon
Copy the Url address
(HighlightCtrl+C on your keyboard)
Sign into your dashboard and go to
widgets
Add the RSS widget
Paste the Url (right-click paste)
A RSS feed is a frequently updated stream of news or updates to a site/blog
that can be embedded into any website or blog using a widget or read using a
feed reader. It can keep a site looking “fresh” with automatically updated
content of your choice!
Click here to open video in player
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Activating your Plug-in widget pack
Sign into your dashboard
On the top click on Plugins
Activate
You have to register with the external sites before you add the widgets to your
blog eg Delicious, Clustrmaps, Twitter and Flickr.
Edublogs comes with a Plugin- widget
pack that makes it easy to embed
external sites’ widgets into your blog:
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Adding the ClustrMap widget
To add ClustrMaps to your blog:
Dashboard DesignWidgets
Click on Edit link on the widget
button on the right
The form should have been filled
in for you already!
Remember to save your changes
ClustrMaps is a “must-have” widget for class and student blogs because it
reminds students that they are part of a global voice and demonstrates how
interconnected we all are. (Sue Waters)
ClustrMaps give
you a global
picture of who is
visiting your site!
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Adding the Delicious widget
To add Delicious to your blog:
Work though the Delicious tutorial
and sign up for a Delicious account
Dashboard Design Widgets
Add the Delicious widget
Click on Edit link on the widget
button on the right
Fill in your Delicious username
Complete the no of links to want to
show
If you want to restrict it to only one
tag, fill in that tag
Your Delicious widget can keep your blog visitors up to date with new
resources!
Delicious is a social bookmarking
platform and the last few resources
that you bookmarked will
automatically display on your blog if
you add this widget!
mydelicioususername
To add Twitter to your blog:
Work though the Twitter tutorial and
sign up for a Twitter account
Dashboard Design Widgets
Add the Twitter widget
Click on Edit link on the widget
button on the right
Fill in your Twitter username
Complete the no of tweets to want
to show
Save Changes
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Adding the Twitter widget
Your Twitter widget can keep your blog visitors up to date with what you are
doing and add more people to your network
Twitter is a micro-blogging system
where you give a status update and
create a personal learning network!
twitterusername
Go to your blog dashboard
Design Widgets
Add the Flickr widget
Click on Edit and complete
Paste (Right-click Paste) your
RSS url –Save
Go to your photo-stream
page. (Your landing
page)
Scroll down to bottom
and copy your feed url
(Right-click on RSS
Latest Copy)
To add a Flickr photo
stream to your blog:
Register for a Flickr
account (Yahoo account)
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Adding the Flickr widget
Flickr is a photo sharing site, where
you can store your pictures. A widget
automatically pulls in photos from
your uploaded photo collection.
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
External widgets
There are a myriad of interesting
widgets available for use from
the internet, which you can
embed in your blog!
It consist of a piece of code
which you can paste into a text
box or html page….and Voila!!!
A few widget collections (or you can
create your own) can be found at:
Widgetbox.com
Springwidgets
Widgipedia.com
See delicious tag for widgets
Keep your eyes open for widgets on
your favourite sites!
Go to Widgetbox.com
Search for a topic of your choice
Pick a widget and click on it….
Customize it
Click on the embed icon
Click on the embed code and Copy
Go to your blog dashboard Design Widgets Add Text widget
Edit Paste Save
View your blog!
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Inserting external widgets
Keep your eyes open for widgets on your favourite sites!
Say… I want to insert a quotes widget….
Click here to open video in player
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
Self assessment Rubric
Assess your level of skill: 1 MMMmmm still need more thought/practice;
2 Getting there! 3 Cool- No problems!
This e-torial was developed by maggiev
for the Department of Education for use
by subject advisors, teachers and learners
All e-torials can be found on the
Thutong portal:
www.thutong.org.za
Intermediate ICT Skills: Communicate & Collaborate
About this Presentation information
For more blogging resources, see:
http://groups.diigo.com/groups/blogging
101
It forms part of a online learning pathway
and is a self study tutorial
Part 1: Blog: What? Why?
Creating a blog
Part 2:The anatomy of a blog
Part 3: Registering for your blog
and creating posts and pages
Part 4: Customizing your blog
Part 5: Maintaining your blog