Mobile Technology in TAFE

Don’t you get frustrated with mess? I do! But I’ll procrastinate how I can clean up the mess until I can’t take it anymore. Only then will I take action.

Today was my blog cleaning day! I’ve finished what I can but still not happy (are we ever totally happy with blog cleaning?). Anyway let me show you what I’ve done so you can give me your thoughts

Importance Of Blog Cleaning

Unfortunate fact of life, we do judge a book by it’s cover! People are more likely to both read our posts and subscribe to our blog if it’s pleasing to their eyes.

We need our blogs to immediately engage first time readers, highlight that we offer great information that they will like, so they want to subscribe to our blog.

Photo from Flickr uploaded on October 4, 2007
by metz79 licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.0.

Changed Block Image Header

I use Cutline theme for my blog because I want a clean template, with pages along the top and ability to add a tagline.

The concept behind a blog tagline is to create a memorable phrase that sums up the tone and premise of a blog. Ideally all blogs should have a tagline since they instantly tell first time readers what your blogs all about and whether you write posts in topic areas that interest them.

Unfortunately Cutline doesn’t include a tagline but it does include a customisable header which means I can add the tagline to the image in my blog header.

But I’m not the most creative person so wasn’t happy with my image. Hoping my new image header with a person staring at the ocean and my tagline Helping Others With Web 2.0, e-learning and m-learning are better.

This is what my previous header looked like:

Decluttered My Sidebar

Sidebar clutter is bad because it can make your blog look messy and pulls readers attention away from what you want them to do (read your posts)!

Saying all that I think Kirsten’s comment on my I’ve Gone Widget Crazy post is important to consider:

I sort of view sidebar widgets as being partly for the blog owner and partly for their readers. So I guess if they make you happy then that’s what counts. I don’t see them as distracting, but then I’m a total global spatial and my mind is probably full of widgets.

But some of the clutter had to go!

1. Removed my blogroll

Bloggers often feature a list of their favourite blogs in the sidebar of their blog; this list is commonly called a blogroll and these are important to edubloggers. One of the reasons for adding a blogroll is so your readers can use this list to locate other blogs worth reading — you are saying “these are some blogs I like - which are worth checking out!”

Trouble is my blogroll list overwhelms my side bar so I’ve relocated it to a page on my blog. Sure some won’t be happy with this but it was that or no blogroll. And now have a pretty link to it

Check out my blogroll here!

2. Rearranged My Subscribe To This Blog Links & Information

I want new readers to subscribe to my blog!

Your RSS feed, email subscription and advice on how to subscribe to your blog needs to be obvious! So I’ve made it look nicer and hopefully it’s grabbing readers attentions with the icons I’ve added (check it out at the top right hand side of my blog).

3. Added a Translate This Page Widget

I’ve added a Google translator widget to my blog to make it easier to read my posts in words other than English as I have many readers that English is not their main language.

I also tried to find an Aussie slang translator but had no success. My readers definitely need this! As Kate Quinn pointed out in comments I used this aussie slang “main drag to refer to the main road through the town” in a post.

4. Changed the name of My Categories Widget

Tags, categories and search widgets are important because they help your readers locate the information they want on your blog (read more about the difference between tags and categories here).

I’ve changed the heading of my categories widget to “Some of the things I write about” because I felt the word Categories didn’t have much meaning to many of my readers.

5. Customised My CoComment Widget

Kirsten convinced me of the value of having a Cocomment widget on my blog when she said on my I’ve Gone Widget Crazy post:

As a blog surfing addict I like the cocoment reader widget - if something you have commented on else where catches my attention then I can follow it and explore further. I also know can come back to your site and follow other comments of interest - so I like that widget

So I’ve adjusted the size of the widget and changed my cocomment widget’s title to “My Comments on Others Blogs.”

6. Where I Share

I wanted to add a Show Yourself Widget like Vicki Davis has on her blog (located in her left sidebar under the title of “Where I Share”). Unfortunately this is one code I can’t seem to embed in this blog. So instead I’ve added an About Me Widget from MyBlogLog but it’s not really what I wanted.

If you know of a better widget please let me know

Added A Visitors Map

While I was busy decluttering my sidebar I couldn’t help looking at more widget to add.

I fell in love with Ronaldo Lima Frappr visitor’s map and had to have one. Absolutely no logic in my desire and since it caused clutter I’ve added it to my About page — which makes completely no sense!

But cheer me up add your name to my vistors map!

FINAL THOUGHTS

What have I missed? MyBlogLog for “Where I Share” isn’t working for me. Can you recommend a better option?

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Great news!!! I’ve been asked by Robin Ellis and Darren Draper to talk about blogging with educators participating in Open PD.

Slight problem! Minor really — hardily worth mentioning but it’s at 5.00 am tomorrow morning my time (their local time of 5-6 pm US Eastern Time Zone on Wednesday April 9).

Time for a confession — I’m not good at waking up in the morning. I never hear the alarm go off when it wakes up my hubby. So I’m enlisting hubby’s help to make sure I’m awake on time. He’s not 100 % reliable at this either forgetting or, worse still, waking me way too early to find out what time I want to be woken up. Image by VanitasPhotography.

So I’m thinking perhaps I could also get you to help out in two ways?

1. Join us for Open PD

Open PD session is from 5-6 pm US Eastern Time Zone on Wednesday April 9. I would love you to share your thoughts on blogging and help out if hubby forgets to wake me up.

Anyone and everyone are welcome. Ustream and Skype (here is the link so you can join the session) to encourage global participation. I always gain so much from attending these Open PD session.

2. Share Your Blogging Experience & Tips For New Bloggers

I like to stress that the most important aspect of blogging, and where the true learning happens, is in the conversations. So I’m hoping you will write a comment on this post or write your post (which links to this post) so I can show them how blogging conversations work.

So can you please tell us about:

• Where you blog and how long you have been blogging for?
• Why you blog? How does it benefit you or your work?
• How blogging has helped your students and how long have you been blogging with students (if applicable)
• Why you feel blogging is important
• What are the 3 most important tips you would share with a new blogger?

FINAL THOUGHTS

Thanks for helping out :). Open PD will be talking about blogging for the next two weeks (April 9 & 16) so there is plenty of time for you to add your thoughts to be part of this conversation.

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If you’re not already subscribing to the RSS feed from your own blog using a feed reader e.g. Google Reader it’s time you did! You can’t always guarantee readers will tell you there is a problem .

What happened to Martin Weller (The Ed Techie) yesterday is a classic example of the need to subscribe. Martin uses Typepad which unfortunately experienced a brief problem with their feed service on TypePad. Some TypePad users were affected, where another blog’s entries appeared to be coming from their feed.

Yesterday in the feed from Martin’s blog was 10 new posts on motherhood which surprisingly enough weren’t his, but were from Jumping Monkey’s blog. I read his blog and didn’t realise the problem due to the sheer number of blogs I subscribe to; I thought I must have added an unusual blog to my readings.

He wasn’t alone in experiencing this problem; Craig’s Movie Blog and Not About Tech were both replaced with The London Blog. Michael Willits (Not About Tech) contacted Typepad who advised him that the problem was with Typepad and not Feedburner.

Added benefit of subscribing to your own blog feed is you see your posts how they are seen by readers. Means you pick up any problems such as issues with font sizes, image size/alignment and removal of content (e.g. embeds like SlideShare, Voicethreads and videos may not appear in your post when viewed in a feed reader — appears to be influenced by which blog platform you use).

While I’m at it! My personal request is if you want me to subscribe to your posts please make sure you have your feed set to full feed not partial. I virtually never click on the more link for posts that are partial feeds — I don’t have the time SORRY.

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So what does make a good blog?

Tara Ethridge asked the Classroom 2.0 community “What are your top 3 blogs you’d recommend others to read about web 2.0, collaboration or anything technology-related?” so that she could create a list for teachers at her school of the most commonly recommended.

While I like the idea of helping teachers locate blogs to read — there is no way I would ever consider promoting 3 blogs!

Image by Brothergrimm.

People Are Individuals

Graham Wegner’s What Makes A Good Blog masterfully captures the essence of why it is an issue for me. Several weeks ago Graham and I had a discussion using twitter on what we like/don’t like in blog posts. As Graham says:

We found that we both appreciated very different qualities in the readability of blogs. What I might find artful and clever wordsmithing might be painful reading for another. Step by step instructions with annotated screengrabs and how-to-be-a-great-whatever appeal to some people but have me reaching for the “Mark As Read” button.

As individual’s we each have our own personal preferences of what we like and don’t like. Now that Google Reader has linked Reader with Google Talk so now all your shared items will be visible to your friends from Google Talk, and vice versa its become plainly obvious how unique individuals are in terms of what they see as a good post/blog.

If someone asked you to recommend books to read — you would start with first finding out what type of books the person likes to read. Pointless recommending Murders, Mysteries or Thrillers when they liked romances; or better still they actually hate reading books but love watching movies.

Trouble is when a person hasn’t been exposed to reading blogs — they don’t know their personal preferences. Provide a limited selection of Shakesharpe like blogs when Barbara Cartland better suits their style or vice versa — may mean they don’t learn to appreciate the value of reading blogs.

My Advice

My advice to educators new to reading blogs is to:

highlight that as individuals we each look for very different qualities in the readability of blogs — perhaps start with Aseem Badshah Top Education Bloggers or edubloggers based upon Technorati’s rankings. When you find blogs you like — take the time to check out blogs in their blogroll since these may include similar type authors

While personal preference influences what people identify as a good blog; there are practices that will make you a more effective blogger — here are My Advice On Being A More Effective Blogger!

FINAL THOUGHT

Thanks to Tara Ethridge for starting this great conversation, Dan continuing it and inspiring Graham to write his response. Although Graham - I’m thinking I need some screengrabs to finish it off — ROFL.

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Blogging is all about having the conversations — not talking to yourself! True conversations, which is what we want to achieve, is when we all, author and commenters interact.

Managing Comments on Other People’s blogs

I’ve many tips for keeping up the conversations on blogs but I believe the most important is being very effective at managing my comments on other people’s blogs. I use co-mment, which tracks my comments, and it notifies me automatically by sending the comment to my Google Reader account. This way when a person comments on a post that I have commented on I can choose to immediately respond back if I want. Co-mment means I can effectively manage my conversations, and they can be near instantaneous.

Setting up Co.mment Account

1. Go to co.mment and click on Get an account to set up your account
2. Click on Tool/Setting link and follow instructions to add bookmarklet to your web browser

Add A Post You Want To Follow To Co.mment

1. Write your comment on the post you want to track
2. Then click on the Co.mment bookmarklet in your web browser — make sure you are logged into your co.mment account

Subscribing To Your Comments From Co.mment Using A Feed Reader

There are a few options for recieving updates of new comments on blog conversations you are following:

• Read them directly on your tracking page at co.mment
• Subscribe by email — means you receive e-mail alerts when new comments are posted
• Subscribe to your tracking page RSS feed using a Feed Reader i.e. new comments are delivered to your Feed Reader

Subscribing using RSS is the most efficient method because you can use it to manage all the information you receive e.g. comments from your co.mment tracking page, latest posts from blogs you read, your friends Flickr photos.

Responding Back To Comments

By subscribing to my co.mment tracking page using Google Reader I’m quickly notified when a person comments on a post I’m tracking so I can quickly choose to respond back if I want.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Do you use comment tracking applications? If so, do you prefer co.mment or cocomment and why? What are your tips for achieving true conversations on blogs?

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Finally I can shared some really cool and exciting news of my latest venture. A few weeks ago James Farmer, founder of Edublogs, approached me to ask if I was willing to be the editor of The Edublogger, a blog set up by Edublogs dedicated to helping educational bloggers with using emerging technologies in education, share their own experiences and promote the blogging medium.

The concept was that I would keep doing the kind of stuff that I already do well, but also do it at a central place within Edublogs. My passion has always been about HELPING OTHERS learn how to use these technologies; so I jumped at the opportunity! Bit of an understatement — but I am extremely excited to be involved with The Edublogger because it increases my potential to interact and connect with a larger community, hopefully helping even more people.

What This Means?

Well I will be continuing to blog, as usual, here at Mobile Technology in TAFE and will be blogging at The Edublogger. To be honest, at the moment, while it is all exciting there is also a sense of fear as you can probably imagine moving to blogging in a more central location.

I would really appreciate your help and support as The Edublogger journey gets underway. Definitely feel that I need to do more tweaking with The Edublogger. Would love some help with an audit of The Edublogger. How does the About page sound? Were there better words I could have used? Does it need more images? Not convinced by the tagline “Tips, tricks, ideas and help with using web 2.0 technologies and edublogs” — what are your thoughts? Can you recommend a better one? Are there any widgets I need to add/remove?

Also if you can tell me what interests you, in terms of what topics you would love to read on the Edublogger, that would also be great!

FINAL THOUGHT

Special thanks to Chris and Kate (quinncd) for letting me use their photos (of me) on The Edublogger site! For those that were wondering about what keeps me going — look closely at the photo!

Thanks to all my readers who take the time to read my posts and for letting me know that what I write makes a difference in your life. Hopefully you will also join me at the Edublogger - here is the link to it’s feed Subscribe in a reader

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Sure it is nice when a blogger posts on the topics they normally write on but it is also enjoyable when they occasionally share what is happening in their life. Why? Because you can now connect with them as a real person; not just someone who always seems to be talking business.

For me, these glimpses of their lives make their blogs stand out in the blogs I read. Let me give you some examples from edubloggers! I have been really worried about Cathy! Is her eye allergy getting better, will they have a solution so that she can work in her new library? I also feel for her with the long drives and a bit worried about Wes driving her car! Sarah, like me, loves her wireless laptop but has learnt using it outside sunbathing is not a good idea! Dean gave himself a book of his blog for Christmas sounded cool while his daughter’s dog eating his SD card was not so cool (poor dog)!

Funny aspect of these types of posts — readers remember them but don’t necessarily comment. Who cares! So let me finish off by sharing a bit of what is happening in my life lately!

What I have been up to!

Well it is summer in Australia which means I am my long summer break and don’t go back to work until February! This is when I go absolutely crazy and for some unknown reason start spring cleaning the house. Beginning to think the house is messier now than before I started! And I have gotten rid of soooo much stuff!

Also now with some down time, where I don’t feel tired all the time, I take the opportunity to do some renovations. So I ordered a new wardrobe system for our W.I.R which has now just been installed! Finally after 15 years in the house are clothes can now be neatly put away. A bonus was my hubby had to repaint my ensuite, bedroom and W.I.R (not sure if he enjoyed his short Christmas break )! Off course this meant new curtains for my bedroom — which for some unknown is not a concept that a husband can understand! And while I was at it ordered new curtains for one of my kids bedrooms!

Meanwhile I have been remembering holidays prior to kids. I am thinking they were easier! Oldest son (Mr13) broke his foot 1 week before Christmas (diagram of how he broke it is here!)….was mending well until we decided that Go-karting was an activity outside the house which would be okay. News flash! Parents are not always right! He couldn’t walk on it for 2 days this week. Then there is youngest son (Mr9) who has been crying on/off for last two days because he has been missing his friends. Good news is I now know how to build a megablock Helicopter after yesterday afternoon playing with Mr9!

FINAL THOUGHTS

So are you like me? Do glimpses of their lives make their blogs stand out in the blogs you read?

Would love to hear what you have been doing! If time, please write a post and let me know so I can drop past your blog!

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Confession! Been a bit quiet lately because I have taken some time to smell the roses — read books, watch meaningless TV. Really relaxing but has made me struggle with blogging. [Image by Auntie P]

So today I decided that if blogging is not happening it is better to step away and do a podcast - especially since my poor podcast site has been neglected as a result of blogging. So made time to edit audio I recorded at Perth’s PodCamp. Probably some irony in the fact it was Kathryn Greenhill’s presentation on Blog Fodder which is full of excellent advice on blogging in terms of:

• what to put in posts
• who are your audience and are you attracting the audience you want to write for
• what sort of voice do you want to project from your blog (i.e. the image you want people to have of you) and how this may be different your readers perceptions
• the different ways you can write posts
• solutions for bloggers block

Definitely worth taking the time, especially if you feel like me, to listen to this Blog Fodder podcast by Kathryn Greenhill.

Kathryn’s presentation still makes me laugh because I made the mistake of asking what voice I project from my blog. Very loud response from all was RANT. After I debated it, Kathryn was nice enough to ask me what I was doing??? Her response was - “Ranting! About whether I rant”. I believe I lost the agreement??? PS they did mean Rant in a nice way

Unfortunately I had to edit out the really good audience participation because their audio was too low (the audio was recorded using a lapel mic attached to a video ipod) — so you will not hear the rant debate or other great discussions in Blog Fodder podcast but all is not lost — you can check it out in this video recorded by Stuart Greenhill.

FINAL THOUGHT
Now to get back to the roses! Just started a new book

Michele Martin (The Bamboo Project) has written some excellent posts on Getting Started with Blogging: Advice for New Bloggers from her readers and Maintaining your Blog: More Advice for New Bloggers from her readers. [image by Auntie P]

Unfortunately I was busy back when Michele asked Readers for their Advice for New Bloggers so was unable to provide my advice; but since I have now caught up I thought I would add my tips to bloggers in this post.

I should also add that Brian C. Smith (Streaming Thoughts) Welcome to Blogging post also inspired me to expand on the tips I gave his readers. Make the time to read the comments on his post and add your own comments to it! Worth the read to glimpse the thoughts of commenters at different stages in their blogging journey — from no experience to ones who already have their own blog.

Blogging is about conversations not writing posts

The most important aspect of blogging is the conversations. Engaging with others , sharing each others ideas and thoughts so that all gain because because each individual sees a different perspective - giving all greater “food for thought!”. The more effective you are as a blogger the greater your gain will be from these conversations.

Here are my tips for being a better blogger:

1. Subscribe to numerous, diverse blogs

The more posts you read the better you get at working out what works/doesn’t work and how to present information in a manner that will engage readers. Start out with a few blogs that interest you, and as you become more efficient at reading, increase the number you subscribe to.

Reading blog posts is part of my daily routine –note “my blogs I read list” doesn’t reflect the number of read of blogs I read which is expanding all the time. Here is my tips for locating and subscribing to blogs.

2. Actively engage in commenting on other’s blog posts and your own posts

Demonstrate that you are commented to conversations by commenting on other people’s blog posts and by responding back to comments on your own posts.

You can’t expect people to engage in conversations with you and share their thoughts if you don’t make the effort to interact with them on their own blogs. Part of my daily routine of reading blogs involves making time to comment on other people’s posts and responding back, if appropriate, to further comments on these posts. Once again it is about the conversations not just commenting.

I use co-mment to tracks comments I have written on other people’s blog posts — it notifies me automatically of any new comments by sending the comment to my Google Reader account. Here is my explanation of how I have set up co-mment to do this.

3. Have a blogging routine

The more you write the better you will become as a writer. A blogging routine helps you stay on track — new bloggers either write lots of posts initially and then drop off; or struggle to write any posts.

Some people I know prefer to blogging once a week, Kathryn Greenhill (Librarian Matters) routine is 3 times a week and I have found whenever possible I try to blog once daily — it is all about what works best for you and your lifestyle. I try not to blog more than once a day because I know it can be overwhelming for my readers; even once daily can be a struggle for them which is why Kathryn sticks to 3 times weekly.

4. Make a commitment to improve your blogging skills

I was part of 31 Days to Build A Better Blog and I can not stress enough how much this improved my ability to blog.

If you are serious about improving your skills I strongly recommend that you work through the tasks I have adapted from the 31 Day Blog Project for new bloggers and more advanced bloggers. But more importantly work out a way of forming a community to undertake this challenge — even if you need to use chocolate as an incentive. Your knowledge gain will be greater working as a team and you are more likely to complete the tasks when working in a community (you can always join us for support at Better Blog Community or ask me for support).

Understandably time is always an issue so will understand if you don’t do the tasks however I do strongly recommend that you at least Write Your About Page and Run an Audit on Other People’s Blogs (refer to Day 2 and Day 3 tasks towards the bottom of this page).

5. Remember to focus on the Bulls Eye

Ideally you need to keep your posts short and sweet (mine are too long! but luckily work most times).

When you write your post focus most of your content on the MUST KNOW, include a bit of SHOULD KNOW and keep the COULD KNOW to a minimum! Full explanation of the bulls eye principle can be found in this post.

1. Must Know - What is the most important information you are trying to tell your readers
2. Should Know - what is the additional information that is less critical
3. Could know - What is the other information which could be of further use but is not essential

6. MOAN - Focus on How You Lay Out Your Post

My number of blog subscriptions is currently 171 — this means I read a lot of posts per day!!! If you want me to read your posts you need to make your posts really easy to read.

Pay attention here are my pet hates:

Bloggers that don’t use full feeds! — PLEEEEASE switch to full feeds!!! With the number of posts I read do you honestly think I have time to click on READ MORE?

Lack of Paragraphs — Can I say here that some of the educators are the absolute worst offenders. What The? Very simple:

• Break your posts up with paragraphs
• Short paragraphs are better than long
• Make the first sentence of each paragraph make me want to read! My secret = I read the first sentence of each paragraph — if these don’t grab my attention you have lost me!
• Use headings and where suitable dot points/bullet points to break up the post into manageable bit size chunks (Michele Martin is really good at doing this)

Use Italics sparingly, if at all! — posts with italics slow down my reading speed= not happy! Posts that are entirely italics are not read!

Use standard size text font — I know of at least one blogger who looks like they are enlarging their font size. DON’T! I can’t read it - not pleasing to my eyes!

Don’t embed videos, slideshares etc into posts without an explanation on what you have embedded, why you have embedded it and pleeease add link to the original location of the embed! Feed Reader, like Google Reader, strip your embed from the post. This means I am often left with a blank looking post or worse still I don’t even realise that the Feed Reader has stolen the great video that you really thought I needed to see!

FINAL THOUGHT

Hope my tips have been of help — here are more of my posts on blogging that may also help!

Bound to have missed some tips on blogging — What tips do you feel are essential for being a better blogger?

Annelieske and I was fortunate enough to have dinner with James Farmer (Edublogs founder) and Cait when we visited Melbourne.

Since our dinner I have been reflecting on what James said about online communities like Ning. He said that a Ning community may initially start off well but in the long term will always struggle because for one simple reason — “ownership.”

Firstly I should explain why am I worried about about online communities floundering.

Well I do spend considerable time reflecting how to make online communities work because:

1. If I want to effectively use social networking and online communities with my students, for educational purposes, I need to understand what will make it thrive and why it will flounder.
2. I am working with the aquaculture industry in my State looking at ways to use these technologies to support their training needs.
3. I set up etools and tips for educators Ning community to assist others become involved with using emerging technologies.
4. We are planning to implement social networking tools within our College.

So what does James mean?

Well, people are more likely to participate if they feel a sense of ownership – which is what a blog give you. Communities set up by an individual lack this sense of ownership which means members are less likely to feel obligated to participate. They don’t own the space so there is less emotional reason for them to buy in to be involved.

Geek Squad Story

This reminds me of the story about the Geek Squad and how Robert Stephens spent considerable time and effort creating an internal wiki for his employees to use for communicating, collaborating and sharing resources — only to find slow uptake of it use. When he investigated the matter he found that they had formed their own community, for exactly this purpose, but were using the online game Battlefield 2.

The Geek Squad story is my favourite because it keeps me focused on the fact that you can spend a lot of time building what you think is a site that is “a goer to ensure community interaction” but that does not mean people will use it.

Answers?

Would love to have all the answers but community interactions are really complex.

Think about how people interact in f2f situations like within a kids sport community — what makes individual donate so much of their time when others won’t (you know the individuals who coordinate the canteen, cook all the food while others sit on the sideline)? What drives people away from these communities?

So what are some strategies that might help Ning type communities? Well I have written some of my thoughts previously in my post on creating thriving online communities. I agree with James — ownership will always be an issue and will not be easy to overcome.

I am more willing to become involved if I feel a sense of obligation to the individual who set up the community or a very strong bond to the group involved. For example of the individual or group has willingly helped me, as I have helped them, off course I will go out of my way to participate. But if everything has felt like a one way street — where I am always expected to give with nothing in return — forget it - not interested.

Also don’t expect people who have not been involved in online social networking to suddenly understand or want to social network. This is not how it works.

And don’t use the whole digital natives/digital immigrants myth to justify why you should be using social networking tools with our youth. Or that because our youth already know how to social network they will help you out. Pleeeease they social network totally differently from how we need them to network. Most youth social network with mainly their f2f friends and are very good at using the tools they like to use. Whereas we need to learn to mass collaborate with a global audience with a wider range of tools.

So what are your tips? Have you found some online tools better than others for social networking? And if so, which ones? How have you managed to get encourage the development of an online community?