Setting up blog Pages

I have helped a few teachers over the last few weeks to set up blogs through blogger.com
Blogger has the ability to add pages so you can jazz up your blog by adding some interactive games for your students.
Some of the ones I have been showing teachers are Embed Sudoku And another favourite of mine is uploading your photos to jigzone.com and making jigsaws out of them.

To add pages in Blogger, go to Design if you are on your blog and then to Pages (which is down the side) or if you are in your Dashboard go to Pages

• click on New Page - Blank Page
• Name your page
• click on the HTML button and paste in the code of your chose game (Sudoku or Jigsaw) and click Publish
• where is says 'Show Page as', choose Top Tabs, Save Arrangement and then go look at your blog.

To upload a photo to Jigzone, create an account if you don't already have one, click on New to Jigzone, click here 
To add a Photo

• go to jigzone.com scroll down and click on Your Jigzone area at the bottom of the page
• click on Add a Photo
• click on Choose File
• click Open
• click Upload
• then click on Embed/Link
• change the Default Puzzle cut depending on what your students are capable of
• scroll right down to the bottom of the page and copy the code above the last Jigsaw image
• Paste on to your page once you have clicked the HTML button

Have a look at the tabs at the top of this blog, I have added the Pages 'Sudoku' and 'Jigsaws' as examples.

Photo of the Day - Google Presentation and Wikis or Blogs

Andrew wanted to showcase his students 'Photos of the Day'. He thought about just uploading the photos to a wikipage. I suggested he created a Google Presentation, embed it on the Wiki with a link.
So when the students upload their photos to the Google presentation they will be updated on the Class wiki.

Google photo of the day

View more presentations from Jacqui Sharp

Click on link to add a photo to the presentation

Bubblr, create comics or photo slideshows

Run your mouse without clicking over the slideshow to make it move.
Another way of publishing photos in a comic strip is using Bubblr. Search for photos in Flickr by typing in a search word or a user name. Drag the photos you want to use down into the panels, drag the speech bubbles up and type in words. click on After Current to add more photos, click Publish when you are finished. This comic strip will be saved and then you can make the choice of emailing, adding to a blog site or printing.
This could be a great way to motivate reluctant writers as they can search for photos that interest them or they could be photos on certain topics. Be aware though that it is possible to get questionable photos if you type inappropriate words.

Avatars

I have had a teacher ask me if there is site where children can create their own avatars without having to register their names etc. Generally you do have to register but with some sites you can get away with doing a screen capture.

First of all 'What is an avatar?'
An avatar is a computer user’s representation of himself or herself.

If you have a yahoo account you can make avatars where you can copy and paste the code into your Blog site, here is mine!
But this one is not really suitable for children, great for adults. Then I searched specifically for children and found this site Reasonably Clever Block Head Iconiser

To use this picture you need to take a screen capture (Windows users, press Print Screen button on your keyboard, paste into Paint, click and drag around the part you want and copy/paste it into the programme you want to use) (Mac users press Shift, Control, Apple, 4, click and drag around the part you want and paste it into the programme you want to use).

Another programme called Build your Wildself has students creating themselves and then adding animal body parts to finish off as a Wild Self. Once students had created their “wild self”, click on Get a Wild desktop, right click it and select Save Image As and you will have a copy of the avatar.

Kerpoof a site I have reviewed previously in this blog allows you to make avatars but you need to be registered. Once you have registered, go to My Stuff and create your avatar.

Again there is no download feature but you can do a screen capture before you click Save.

And then there is DoppelMe you can create your avatar and when you have finished you can right click, select Copy and paste into the programme of your choice.

Finally Weemee. There are lots of choices to make changes to the avatar, you can screen capture it or register to get the code to insert into your blogs.

Teachers will need to try these out themselves to find out which is the best for their class situation.

Slide - Make slideshows of your photos

Found this site http://www.slide.com/ that make slideshows of your photos, great for showing off a series of photos in a blog. Click on Slideshows to make the slideshow, select the Browse button choose photos from your hardrive by holding down the Ctrl Key and click OK. Choose from the choices of how you want your slideshow to look. The slideshow above has been created in a Puzzle format and the one below is sliding. Other formats available are Collage, Melt, News etc.