blogability

Outline for today

• Introduction to Web 2
• Blogging with Blogger
• Using a feed reader (I-Google)
• Introduction to wikis
• Blogs and wikis on Minerva

There are lots of places where you can set up a blog or a wiki. some of them are listed in the sidebar under ‘resources’.

Today, following on from Joe Bennett’s workshop, we’ll be looking mainly at Edublogs which has some excellent features for teachers.

We’ll also look at the new blog and wiki tools in Minerva. Before deciding which to use, you might want to read this post!

Here’s an excellent tutorial on finding and using images from the web, particuarly useful for all of us who need images for presentations or websites but worry about all that copyright stuff …

Internet for Image Searching

The tutorial was written by the people at TASI (The Advisory Service for Images). There’s also masses of stuff on their website.

You may also be unaware that the university subscribes to a number of image collections which you can ransack any time as long as you are using them for educational purposes. As a reminder of the autumn season, here’s one from Bridgeman Education. Bridgeman is available on campus. Find it on the Library’s Electronic Services page.

On Mon March 10 the lucky staff of Sion Hill campus get to join the blogability project!

During the workshop we’ll look at some of the links on this blog before you get to set up your own.

If you’re following a blog (or ten!) or want to know when something new happens on a favourite website, keep up to date by using RSS techonlogy.

Nearly every blog and website sends out a message about itself in the form of RSS (Really Simple Syndication).

This video explains how to make use of it.

When you have watched the video, sign up for a feed reader (or aggregator) page at one of these services, then get subscribing!

Google Reader

IGoogle

Netvibes

(Worksop Christmas Tree by Respect AKP on Flickr)

Welcome to workshop members on Wednesday Dec 19th.

This blog is the handout for the session!

You can also use this Word Document as an aide memoir .

Otherwise the links on the right should tell you all you need to know, or contact any of the IT Support team for individual help.

Please post any further comments here.

Slideshow by Phil Bradley on Slideshare

[slideshare id=70878&doc=umbrella20074057&w=425]

Math in wiki-spaces

http://blog.wikispaces.com/2007/05/math-in-wikispaces.html

Getting to grips with Latex

check chapters for maths

Download Texaide to convert formulae to Latex

For this workshop programme I’ve divided the blogs and wikis workshop into two,

• Blogs and Other animals
• Wikis and Collaborative Spaces

This is in recognition of the fact that people usually want to do one or the other rather than both, and that it will be easier to support people during the workshops if they are all on a similar task. There will still be some overlap in content .

Up to now the workshop has covered setting up a blog in Wordpress or Edublogs, but this time we’ll start with Blogger, which is probably easier for a complete beginner to master in one session, and also the platform likely to be favoured by students. If time allows, we’ll go on to look at other blog sites, or a follow-up session can be arranged.

Using Blogger requires a Google Account, but if anyone doesn’t have one, they can set that up on the day.

You can now register for a Wordpress blog on Bath Spa’s own server at

http://apple.bathspa.ac.uk/wordpress/

The blog will look pretty much like this one, though there are fewer options on the dashboard/site admin menu.

Here’s one in action.