Now that you are starting to leave comments on blogs, you need to have a user avatar. There are many websites to create avatars.

I have linked a photo to 4 of the avatar websites. You must save your avatar as a jpeg file.

Step 1. Create your avatar

Any age can use these avatar sites:

• Build your wild self – middle right
• DoppelMe
• Mini-mizer – middle left
• The Hero Factory – far right
• Adventurer Maker – girls only
• Wimp yourself - relates to ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’
• Mess Dudes
• Hogwarts student – girls only
• Mii character
• Harry Potter and others saves as GIF
• Caracature
• Block head – like Lego

From abi-station:

• Iconmaker
• Illustrationmaker
• Avatarmaker
• Moeruavatar -  far left

Step 2. Using printscreen to save your avatar or use the snipping tool

So you decided to create an avatar like “Hero Factory” or “Build your wildself” or “Mini Mizer” where you can’t save it easily. You need to take a picture of the screen first. Most computers have a printscreen button on the keyboard or if using Windows 7 you have an icon called “snipping tool”.

When you press printscreen or use the snipping tool an image of your screen or part of it  is now copied to your clipboard. You will still need to crop and resize to get an avatar that fits well on your blog.

Open MS Paint and click control V to paste your image from the clipboard. To save, you need to go to File>Save As> computer> your drive> open blogging folder> change the name of the file to yourname with ava eg  sueava then underneath change the file type to JPEG. Save.

Go to your drive> open blogging folder and right click on the icon for your avatar image and  “Open with” choose MS Picture Manager. This might be in Microsoft office tools.

In the icons at the top, go to View> task pane.  On the right go to edit pictures > crop.  Now move the black bars on the side of your image in, to crop your picture to what you want in your avatar.

Click OK, then back to edit pictures. Now click on resize. In the box “custom width and height” put  97 in both boxes. These numbers might be slightly different but one has to be 97 and the other smaller than 97. Click OK.

Back up to file>save as> call it sueava2 or similar> make sure it is still JPEG. Make sure you have saved it to your drive again.

Step 3. Upload avatar to your Edublogs blog

Now to upload to your blog or class blog.  Go to your dashboard> users>your avatar> browse to find your image on your school drive>alternate upload.  This is your comment avatar.

If it now looks like a black coloured square then you haven’t cropped the image to the correct size in step 2 using printscreen. Or maybe you didn’t save the image as a JPEG in step 2 using printscreen. Go back and make corrections.

What else can we do with our avatars?

Look at what these classes have done with their avatars.

Grade 3 dreamers, Grade 5N,

Many of you are now starting to visit blogs of classmates or your class blog. Some of you have ventured out and visited students overseas taking part in the student blogging challenge or classes that are also taking part.

What type of comments are you leaving?

• Check out this post  and video from Mrs Yollis’  grade 3 students about how to write a quality comment.
• This teacher created a glogster poster about commenting.
• Check out how these students are carrying conversations through great comments. Max and Abbey, Ethan and Clarissa, Jack and Abbey, Lily and Colton

Are you going to accept all comments?

• Some comments you receive are actually spam – Nike shoes, handbags, essay dissertations etc Often these comments will have a link in them directing you to a website where they want you to buy something.
• Other spam comments often have facebook.com or google.com or yahoo.com in the email address. Sometimes these comments make sense but they will often have a spelling error and they usually have nothing to do with the post you have written.
• Make sure you don’t approve these type of comments but click  spam instead.
• Some people might leave a comment like ‘Wutsup?’ – this would go in the trash.
• Some students who don’t know about quality comments might say ‘This is a cool blog. Please visit my blog at ……’  This would also go in the trash. Or maybe you visit their blog first and thank them for leaving a comment on yours but mention it was not acceptable as it didn’t relate to the post.

In your profile, have you included your user name and your class or own blog URL? Before leaving a comment on another blog that is the same platform as you eg Edublogs, Blogger, make sure you are signed into the blog. This way you won’t have to fill in lots of information when leaving a comment. Will also mean the owner of the blog you commented on will only have to click on your name or avatar and they will be directed straight to your blog.

Your job this week is to visit at least 10 different blogs in your team. One member of the team is to keep a list in Word of the blogs you visited and the comment you left. Your responsibility is to leave a quality comment on the blog, copy what you wrote and put in an email for the person keeping the list.

This is an example:

I went to Kids in the Mid and I left a comment on the commenting post. I said,

Dear Miss W,

I really enjoyed watching that video the grade 3 students made. Could we make one to put on our class blog?

♥ John ♥

In the Dictionary all words are organised under in alphabetical order. In your wardrobe at home clothes are placed in particular draws and hanging areas…in other words ‘organised’. At school your work is organised into specific books for each subject. On your IPOD music is stored in categories for ease of retrieval.

This is what we call ‘categorising’ which effectively enables us to more quickly find and retrieve things we are looking for. This is even more important as we collect ever more material and store it! Well organised ‘bloggers’ also categorise all their posts.

Some students have already found this mechanism for placing their posts etc into categories.Have a quick check on some of your friends blogs who have already created categories to see how effective  using categories is can be.

1. SO! THIS IS HOW YOU CAN DO IT FOR NEW POSTS.

When you write a post your final action is to hit the blue coloured  ‘Publish’ button on the right hand side of your Dashboard so it is saved on your blog. If you LOOK carefully just under that blue button you will  a section named ‘Categories’.  You will see various suggestions for ‘categories like; Home, Friends, School, Sport, Music and others. You can also make up other names for post categories that suit your posts. So when you write your next post, and  BEFORE you ‘Publish ‘it, click on the required category and the post will be saved under that heading. SIMPLE!

2. NOW, WHAT ABOUT EXISTING UNCATEGORISED POSTS YOU ASK!

Again, this is quite easy. All you need to do is go to your Dashboard and bring up ALL POSTS. Then select the post you want to’ categorise’ by clicking the ‘QUICK EDIT’ button. Then you can click on the categor/ies you require and finally hit the ‘UPDATE’ button.  Now, go through your posts and place them in categories you choose……

WEll DONE TO EVERYONE for completing this task today!

Mr Clark.

Last week, you learnt how to create a link on your post. Your readers could click on the link and it would take them to another website or blog.

This week we are going to look at linking images in your posts. Images certainly make posts more interesting to read especially when the image relates to the information in the post.

Can you use any images that are on the internet? The answer is definitely NO!!

But can’t I just go to Google search and use images from there? The answer is definitely NO!!

Not all images on the internet are free for everyone to use. Some newspapers have paid a lot of money for a photographer to take images for their newspaper articles and if you want to use these images, you might have to pay money to either the newspaper or photographer. These photos or blog/website articles are usually called COPYRIGHT.

But there are some photographers who take photos that are free for others to re-use or mix or use for public display. These images have a CREATIVE COMMONS license. Check out this website for information about Creative Commons. Each country has slightly different licenses.

If you get images from Flickr, then here are what the different licenses mean (Thanks Sue Waters from Edublogs for this image)

Notice, whatever license you use, you HAVE to attribute the original author. This means you have to acknowledge the person who created the original image. At the end of your blog post, or linked within the post,  you must attribute the image and you must link the photo back to its original photo page.

Well, how can I safely find images to use in my posts?

Check out Miss T’s blog for lots of places to get photos. They might not all be creative commons so be careful to check out the license involved.

When using flickrcc, you right click on the photo and copy the image location or image URL. Paste this in first when you upload. Then choose where photo will be on post: left or right are good choices. Now go back to the image on flickrcc and copy the http:// part above the photo. Put this in the section: link image to. Remember finally to add the attribution at the end of the post.

When using Compfight, make sure on the left sidebar you have the following in black: tags only, creative commons, show originals and safe.

Once you have found an image you want to use, click on it. You will now go to the image in flickr. Make sure you only use the small or medium size image.

When using Pics4Learning the images are often very large. You might have to download to your computer hard drive, then resize. Remember still to give attribution about where you found the image.

Now for some fun with images

1. Write a post explaining the differences in creative commons licenses. Include an image from Flickrcc giving correct attribution.

2. If you have used images in posts already, go back and give correct attribution or find new images to use with attribution.

3. Write a post about your favourite colour. Find three images and include them in a gallery – check here how to upload and insert a gallery into your blog.

4. Write a sentence using only images – give attribution at end of post.

5. Write a post explaining how to insert images in a post. Include some good sites to find images that are creative commons.

Attribution for images used in this post.

Creative commons license by Sue Waters

Los Angeles from the air by Marshall Astor

Establishing Shot: The 405 by Atwater Village Newbie

Mission Beach Boardwalk by Melinda Kolk

One of the most important skills you need to know when blogging is how to:

• link to other people’s websites,  blogs and photos

Let’s look at creating a link.

You recently visited another blog such as “The Blogger’s Cafe” , “Student Blogging Challenge” or “Travelling with Mr Davo Devil“. While you were there you got a great idea for a post you could write about on your blog eg the parks we have in our local area.

When you write your post about the parks, it is polite to acknowledge that you got the idea from another blog. To do this, you include a link back to the post  where you got the idea.

So how do you add a link? Sue Waters, from Edublogs, does this very well, so I am going to have you visit her post about linking.

…………………………………………………

To prove to your ICT teachers that you can add links in your posts (this is part of your checklist activities), write a post about linking and why it is important. Add links in the post to both this Kids in the Mid post and also to Sue Water’s post.

Also write a post about visiting three of your school friends’ blogs. Write about a post you enjoyed reading in their blogs and create a link back to that post.

This might start like this:

Today I visited Isabella’s blog and read her post about the Scout and Guide regatta. Reading that brought back memories of the times I also went to Snug for the regatta when I was in Guides.

Looking at Isabella’s blog, did she link correctly in her posts? How can you tell if she did or not?

Or maybe you could write a post about joining the student blogging challenge. Make sure you include a link to the post about registering and also a link to the page with the student participants (Check in header area). Mention some activities you think we should do in the challenge. Maybe you have started visiting other student blogs from overseas. What did you enjoy about their blog posts?

Attribution:

Try embedding a jigsaw. Make sure you check size of width and height to see if you can change them. Also remember to copy the code, come to your post dashboard, write your post including title, tags, categories then change to HTML tab.

Paste the code in and immediately hit the publish button.

So the blog you were given by Miss W earlier in the year now belongs to you!!

You have set up your blog during ICT lessons – about page, sidebars, widgets, tags, categories, blogrolls, written posts, learnt how to add images and made sure the settings were correct.

Now you need to personalize the blog – make it yours.

How can you do that?

Look at other student blogs and answer these questions.

• What does the blog title have to do with the posts in the blog?
• What do the widgets have to do with the posts in the blog?
• What does the about page say about the main idea for the blog?
• How has the owner made their blog look different to other blogs you have visited?
• What have they embedded into their blog other than writing and images?

Here are some great examples of student or class blogs that are very personalized – perhaps you will get some ideas from them.

Teegan – check out her widgets and how they link to websites

Duy – what does his header and widgets say about him?

The Space Between – check out the links on the left sidebar – try some of these and mention in a post

Sahiba,  Abbey,    Mrs Krebs class, Mr Avery’s class, Youth class blog,

Do you want to try and be creative to personalize your blog?

Check out the links in the ‘Links ICT’ in our blog header. Have a go trying out these different web tools and embedding them in your blog. Write a post explaining how you did the embedding, so other students can use your instructions.

If you find a great web tool that Miss W hasn’t mentioned in the ‘Links ICT’ page, leave her a comment or send her an email at:

You’ll notice we have a new widget in our blog sidebar – it links to a great game that helps with eradicating hunger around the world.

When you go to Free Rice, sign up using your blog username and a suitable password you can remember. When you have been notified of your membership, log in and join the group sormid67. This is being run by Miss W or tasteach.

I wonder how many grains of rice we could earn as a middle school during the second half of the year?

To find out more about eradicating hunger and how you can help, visit these websites:

World Food Program – check out the student resources

Women4women – check out the video and the choices women have to make regarding food

Do you know of any other games we could be using that are about problems around the world?

Leave a comment here when you have joined and tell us how many grains of rice you earned on your first day.

PS You might need parental permission if under 13.

You have now had your own blog for at least three months. You have done the following things to make sure your blog is working well. You have:

• changed your settings and chosen a new theme
• created both user avatar and blog avatar
• created an up-to-date page about yourself
• created at least three  categories for your posts
• added at least ten links on your blogroll under three or more headings
• added most basic Edublogs widgets on your sidebar

You then sent an email to Miss W asking for ads to be taken off your blog. You had to include links to five posts you had written that were your own choice.

Now it is time to improve your blog; to personalise it; to make it look like it belongs to you rather than the teachers at school.

Are there any questions you have about what you can include on your blog?

Leave a comment below about how you think your blog could be improved.

Original image: ‘untitled‘

by: romana klee  Released under an Attribution-ShareAlike License

Many students still have ads on their blogs. Do you want them taken off? Once you have the ads off, you will then be upgraded by Miss W and you will get lots more choices of what you can do on your blog.

You will have more themes to choose from, you will be able to add more interesting widgets, you will be able to create Vokis and embed video and animoto in your posts.

So what do you need to do to get the ads taken off?

Miss W must be able to see the following on your blog:

• blog avatar
• user avatar
• up to date about page
• random facts post
• 5 posts of your own choice – none set by Miss W for ICT or literacy

Widgets including:

• recent comments
• recent posts
• pages (unless in your header)
• categories (must have at least three different categories)
• blogroll (must have at least 10 links under three  headings)

Please send Miss W an email when you have finished all these things. If you have already sent me an email, check again what must be seen on your blog especially the widgets, and then send me a new email as I have deleted the old ones today. In the email, please make links to the five own choice posts you have written since the beginning of this year.