SpeakPipe is still in beta, which is a way for the company behind the service to allow for it to be used, but they are open about the fact that their might be a few bugs or missing features.

What this does is place a nifty “Send Voicemail” button on the side of your blog where visitors can make a recording which is then emailed to you. You can access the mp3 recording from their website, or you can even download the file to keep.

In less than five minutes, I was able to create a free SpeakPipe account, add the widget to my blog, and make my first recording! I’ll show you how below.

Why Would I Use This?

The more I thought about this, the more uses for SpeakPipe on a blog came to mind:

• Reading fluency assessments
• Language learners speaking practice
• Projects and presentations of all kinds
• Band or choir chair tests and auditions
• Providing feedback to students on their own blogs

Surely there are more – leave your ideas in the comments below!

Adding SpeakPipe to a Blog

1. Go to SpeakPipe.com and create an new account

2. Go to ‘Settings’ in the top right after logging into your new account

3. Scroll to the bottom of the ‘Settings’ page and copy all of the code in the Widget embed code box - using Control + C or right clicking on the code and selecting ‘Copy’

4.Go the dashboard of your blog and click on Appearance > Widgets

5. Drag a new blank Text widget into any of your sidebars – it does not matter where you put it

6. Paste the code from SpeakPipe into your blank Text widget

7. Leave the title of the widget blank and click on Save

Final Thoughts

As of now, this service is completely free, but there is no guarantee that will remain the case once they exit beta.

My first thought was that this would be infinitely more useful if it worked when visiting a blog from a mobile device or tablet – but unfortunately that doesn’t (yet) seem to be the case.

You can see the Voicemail button in action on Larry’s class blog here – though I’m sure he would not appreciate you testing it out and sending him a message.

While you won’t find a bigger fan of technology in education than me, as I read through all of the different news articles and blog posts about this announcement, something just didn’t sit right.

Here’s why…

Rant #1 – You Don’t Own Your Content

Most of the concerns I have with the announcements made today revolve around the iBooks Author app.

This fun-looking application is marketed as a way for educators to make their own engaging “textbooks” or course supplements that students can read. It is designed so that it is easy to add content, images, and videos.

As you can see in the screenshot below from iTunes, the content you create is designed to be made available on the iBookstore. You are encouraged to sell your book – but it can only be sold through the iBookstore – effectively meaning Apple would own your content.

That being said, you can also create a PDF version to give away as you see fit – though PDFs wouldn’t be as interactive and you wouldn’t be able to then import your book into any other platforms.

Note: When I originally published this post, I missed the part about creating a PDF version and ranted about how you wouldn’t be the true owner of your content as you can’t take it with you. As pointed out in the comments below, this is a good step in the right direction.

Rant #2 – You Can Do Better

There are plenty of other tools out there other than iBooks Author that will let you create content to share with students.

For example, blogs make it easy for teachers to upload images, videos, discussion starters, and other information for their students.

And with blogs, you can export your posts to other blogging platforms, create an e-book that can be read on tablets of all kinds, and much more.

Put a mobile-friendly theme on your blog and much of the benefits of having content in an iBook form can be achieved, keeping it all open and easy for every student to access from any tablet, mobile phone, or computer.

Rant #3 – Not A Game-Changer

Most disappointing of all, the announcements today by Apple do not result in any major way of changing the way we approach education. This isn’t really Apple’s fault, as nobody has yet to crack this one and do it well.

In Apple's "walled garden", the digital textbooks and teacher-created content is all only available in iTunes, which limits wide-spread access.

You still have “curriculum” being created in advance and given to teachers and students exactly like textbooks always have been. Now, those textbooks are just lighter, cheaper, and more fun to read (all of which are great things!).

Students are still thought of as “content consumers” in this scenario as opposed to active participants. The new iBook reader allows for easy highlighting and note-taking, which is useful, but there isn’t a way to discuss texts or collaborate with others. It is in these more interactive tasks that students construct their own knowledge and learn best – not through passively reading and playing with images.

What we still need to figure out is a way to manage the individual needs of students – a system that makes it possible to provide a truly differentiated curriculum that is accessible whenever needed. Combine this with an assessment process that continuously keeps teachers, students, and parents informed about strengths and weaknesses. This way, they can work together to make strategic choices about which learning experiences to work through next. If only all of this were easy to build!

No question we are in an exciting time in education as we learn what will work best for students. We’ve yet to understand what will be the true power of a device (an iDevice or otherwise) in the hands of every student at all times. But that day is coming.

And while this post is a bit harsh on Apple, definite props to them for taking the discussion to the next level!

What do you think?

This post was a rather quick mind-dump after absorbing all of the news and taking a look at the new toys. I would love to hear your opinions and even be proven wrong!

In 2011, I went on a fantastic holiday (vacation) in Canada and U.S.A. for 11 weeks. I drove about 10.000 miles in an automatic car on the wrong side of the road without using a GPS or mobile phone. I visited about 25 different classes arranged by 12 teachers in my PLN.

I didn’t write a blog about my experiences though.

“What!”, you say, “Yet you are writing here about blogging?”

Mr. Davo Devil eating dessert!

Instead of me writing the blog, I had my travelling companion, Mr Davo Devil (#mrdavodevil) write about his adventures. Now, Mr Davo Devil is a soft toy from Tasmania. Naturally, by the name, you can tell he is a Tasmanian Devil.

He wanted students and teachers from around the world to participate in his travels, so after each post he would ask questions or have students create avatars etc. He also had a section where students could ask questions or try to answer those left by other students. A map of his journey was also included.

Since returning home (Mr Davo Devil hid in a classroom in Los Angeles), I have also created a blog for another soft toy called DUsquirrel. DU stands for down under and he will be touring Australia and New Zealand over 2012. His hashtag will be #dusquirrel.

If you are a teacher in Canada/USA and would like to have Davo visit you during 2012/2013, please fill in his booking sheet and we will try to get him to you on time. You may keep him for about a fortnight (two weeks) but he must be at his next stop by their date.

If you are a teacher in Australia/New Zealand and would like DUsquirrel to visit, please check the months he will be in your state and make a booking on his sheet.

I have also started searching the net to find other toys travelling their state, country or world. Check these out:

Tommy the travelling Teddy
Ed the bear
Eddie everywhere
Salt and Peppa
Magnie the whale
Rohi the kea

Do you know of any other travelling toys we could add to this list?

Certainly there were next to no 1-to-1 initiatives or tablets in schools – and mobile computer workstations were just starting to be used.

Getting to the point, the face of blogging in education is way different now then it was just a few years ago.

On Edublogs, the two most popular types of blogs have traditionally always been:

1. Classroom – Teachers providing updates and resources for students and parents
2. Professional – A place for educators to share ideas and collaborate with each other

But over the past couple of years, there has been a new kid in town. It’s gone from a few brave teachers here and there that have pioneered the way for others to becoming standard practice in many schools and programs.

It’s student blogging, and it is here to stay!

And we couldn’t be more excited about it. There has always been students using Edublogs in various ways, but now with more devices available and an increased focus in writing and technology use and various curricula, more and more students are finding themselves blogging in school – young and old and across all subjects.

As discussed in this Time Magazine article, research shows that there are more benefits to blogging then you might first think – including improving student self-esteem and confidence offline and outside the classroom.

What does all of this mean?

Well for starters, it means that we at Edublogs have to do an even better job of making it easy for educators to create and manage large numbers of student blogs. We have tons of great tools already in place, especially on our Edublogs Campus sites, but we definitely recognize there is room to improve.

Yesterday we announced a few new tools to help with teachers that need to moderate and approve all comments and posts on student blogs – and there’s a bunch more in the plans for 2012. We believe that the learning benefits of blogging with students is maximized when students have their own personal blogs that they can take ownership of. Our system is designed (and will continue to improve) to let that be a reality in a safe, engaging, and easy to manage way.

This also means that the online community of educators that are blogging with students is growing. Through twitter, blogs, and other means, we need to develop ways to better facilitate collaboration and connect teachers and students that share similar goals. We’ve seen some of this through blogging projects such as this and the twice-yearly Student Blogging Challenge, but putting systems in place that bring it to the masses would be truly powerful.

What do you think? Are you using blogs with your students?

What Edublogs features or community resources would you like to see?

Photo: Teacher With Students from BigStock

Here’s a few different ways you can do it!

Using a blogging app

There’s a wide range of blogging apps available for smartphones, iPads and android tablets.

They vary considerably in terms of ease of use and functionality.  You can read our review of iPad blogging apps here.

Personally I’ve found they can vary in terms of reliability – an app that works well previously can suddenly experience problems (but maybe it is me since I do have a lot of blogs connected to my apps?).

The best option for quick image upload is probably the WordPress app which you can download for free.

To be able to use any blogging app XML-RPC first needs to be enabled.

XML-RPC is automatically enabled on Edublogs.org blogs if you are using an Edublogs Pro blog or a blog which has had extra features enabled using an Edublogs Pro blog.

If you are using an Edublogs Campus (and most likely WordPress) blog you’ll need to enable XML-RPC within your blog dashboard in Settings > Writing.

You aren’t able to enable XML-RPC on free Edublogs.org blogs.

When adding your blog to any app you need to select the self-hosted WordPress blog option for your Edublogs or Campus blog.

Below’s a quick overview of the post interface to help you.

All you need to do is click on Add Image to insert an image into your post.

Using a mobile web browser

You can choose to write posts directly within your blog dashboard using your web browser on your iPad.

For the most part everything works pretty well except you need to be aware of the following:

1. You can only write using the HTML editing mode as the visual editor isn’t supported by an iPad.
2. You’ll need to use a browser like iCab mobile as most of the mobile browsers don’t support the upload of images.  Uploading images using the web browser on an Android isn’t possible.

However, there’s still a trick to inserting images using iCab mobile.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Click on the ‘Add Image’ icon
2. Select and upload your image
3. Click on Show next to the image you uploaded
4. Copy the Link URL
5. Click back in the web browser toolbar to return to your post
6. Click on ‘img’ and paste your Link URL

Posting by email using Flickr

Posting by email to your blog using Flickr is a really cool and simple if you use Flickr.  This is a really handy option for when you’re out or if you have multiple students posting to a class blog.

All you need to do is first set up your Flickr account to upload by email to your blog.

It’s as simple as:

1.  Log into your Flickr Account.

2.  Go to Sharing and Extending tab under your Accounts.

3.  Click on More Sites and Select WordPress.

4.  Add your blog details and click Next.

And I’m sure it’s directly related to running four different web browsers daily on my computer for work.

But it constantly reminds me how which web browser you use directly impacts your internet user experience.

Here’s our review on what educators need to know about the top web browsers.

And our challenge to you is to trial some of these web browsers for 2 weeks to work out which browser is the best for you!

The top five most used web browsers in 2011 were:

1. Internet Explorer
2. Firefox
3. Chrome
4. Safari
5. Opera

Key browser facts to be aware of are:

• Internet Explorer continues to dominate the web browser market because it comes with the Windows operating system and many users aren’t aware that there are alternative web browser they can use.
• Internet Explorer’s dominance is decreasing because tech savvy users find the alternative web browsers are faster at loading sites and have less issues than Internet Explorer.
• Firefox and Chrome are the most commonly used web browsers by tech savvy users.
• Educational institutions often only allow one web browser to be installed on their computers due to the reluctance to provide support for alternative web browsers.  This attitude is slowly changing as awareness of the benefits of alternative web browsers increases.
• Some educational institutions continue to use outdated versions of Internet Explorer (IE 6 and 7) which greatly impact user experience (negatively).
• You can run more than one web browser on your computer at the same time without causing any issues.
• You should always check your website or blog in Internet Explorer, preferably IE 8, because this is the browser most likely used by people visiting your site.  You can find that a website looks fine in other web browsers but look differently or loads poorly in Internet Explorer.
• You can check whether you’re using the latest version of a web browser by checking the version number, usually located under Help > About in your web browser, with the information on Browse Happy.

Top Browser trends in Education

The top browsers used by visitors to all 1 million+ of the blogs on edublogs.org provides a good indication of changing browser habits in education and schools.

The sudden drop in Internet Explorer usage in July is directly related to the school holidays in the Northern Hemisphere where educators and their students are able to use the web browser of their choice on their home computers as opposed to what they have to use on their school computers.

When compared with data from StatsCounter you’ll notice Internet Explorer usage in education is lower than data collected for all Internet users while Safari is higher reflecting the higher percentage of Mac use in schools.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Market Share

Overview of the Top Web Browsers

Internet Explorer

Microsoft Internet Explorer might be the most widely used web browser but it isn’t the best web browser.  It tends to be slower loading and more prone to being unresponsive than some of the alternative web browsers.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox is one of the best web browsers and includes an extensive feature set.  It’s interface is fairly similar to Internet Explorer making the change over from  Internet Explorer easy for the new user.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is the web browser developed by Google.  It has rapidly grown in popularity this year and recently become the second most widely used web browser (based on StatCounter stats).

It has a minimalistic user interface that is different from other modern web browsers.  However, once you get use to the differences you’ll soon appreciate how fast, simple and stable Chrome is to use.  It also include features that aren’t part of other web browsers such as:

• Incognito mode – handy for opening different accounts for an online tool using the same web browser (great for testing student and teacher accounts) or when you want to browse in private without it being recorded in your histories.
• Google Sync – allows you to sync your bookmarks, settings, theme, and so on between different computers running Chrome.

Apple Safari

Safari  is Apple’s web browser.

While it is most commonly used on Macbooks, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch; you can install it on a PC.

Opera

Opera uses a very minimalistic user interface similar to Chrome.

Final Thoughts

Are we missing any tips and advice you would give on web browsers?  Do you have any favorite add-ons to add to our list?

Please leave a comment to let us know!

So it’s exciting to see Skitch, the service that allows you to quickly annotate, edit and share screenshots and images, release their Skitch for iPad app today.

This is an invaluable app, for those like me, looking for fast ways to annotate images on their iPad.

Key features are:

• Similar to the Mac version, Skitch for iPad includes an arrow tool, text tool, drawing tool, shapes tool, crop tool and a cursor tool.
• Ability to import an image, take a photo, create your own drawing, browser a web page and take a screenshot and annotate a map using the inbuilt Google Maps interface.
• Extensive share options including share by mail, Twitter, save to camera role and full integration with Evernote.
• It’s free to download.  Read more about Skitch for iPad here.

Skitch has been available for Android users since August and if you’re an Andriod user you can read more here.

Check it out!

Here’s a screenshot annotated using Skitch’s iPad app:

It’s incredibly easy and intuitive to use.

Here are some tips to help you with its main annotation tools:

Final thoughts

This is definitely an app worth checking out!

My favorite apps include:

1. DropBox – for sharing files across multiple computer, devices and with work colleagues
2. Flipboard – for reading links shared via twitter
3. IM+ – for instant messaging using Gtalk
4. Instapaper – for reading items bookmarked on my computer on my iPad
5. Kindle – for ebook reading
6. Reeder – for reading RSS via Google Reader

Congratulations to all those that made it onto the short listed nominations and apologies to all those whose site or nominated sites don’t make it – it’s always a very tough decision!

But what I’d like to talk about, and thank, are all the unsung heroes of what we do!

Because behind each and every one of us that works hard at doing what we do and supporting others there are husbands, wives, children, students and administrators who are extremely patient and understanding.

So here’s my thanks!

For all those times:

• I’ve destroyed dinner (almost set fire to the kitchen)
• Been distracted while you’re talking (and focusing on something else)
• I’ve suddenly vanished (to suddenly be located on my computer)
• Worked through the night (while trying hard to not let any one notice)
• For the weird places I’ve been tweeting/IMing from (when I REALLY shouldn’t have)
• and all the other things I’ve probably done and left out

— thanks to my husband and children for being understanding.

And for each and everyone that supports what we all do — thanks!

None of us could do it with out your support!

Hopefully this also inspires each and everyone of us to make time to thank those that support us….

PS don’t tell my husband I stayed up too late writing this post

With so many options now available, we’ve decided to show you how easy it is to decorate your blog for any holiday or season!

We’ve also set up a demo blog so you can check out what a live blog looks like when you use different options to customise with a particular feel!

Adding a Custom Background

Most themes now allow you to set your own custom image header and custom background.

Yet most people are unaware of how easy it is to add a custom background to achieve a more customised look while adding a personalized touch to their blog.

The first step is to search for a free background you’d like to use.  Numerous websites provide a wide range of suitable free images and backgrounds.

Here’s some sites to get you started:

1. Free Christmas Wallpapers
2. Webweavers Free Clipart
3. Free webimages & Clipart
4. Background Labs
5. Layouts for Christmas
6. Christmas Free 4 All
7. Animated Gif Net
8. Cartoon Cottage

Once you’ve located an image you would like to use, all you need to do is right mouse click on the image and select Save Image As (or Save Picture as) to save a copy of the image onto your computer.

Now uploading your background is as simple as:

1.  Go to Appearance > Background inside your dashboard.

2.  Click on Choose File, select the image you want to upload and then click Upload.

3.  Once it is uploaded select your preferred display option and then click Save Changes.

And when you check your blog you should now see your new custom background!

Student bloggers often like using an animated gif for their background.  All they need to do is locate the animated .gif they want to use, save it onto their computer the same as you would save any other image, and then upload it as a background.

Of course, animated gifs can be a bit overwhelming when used as a background and Ronnie made me remove my pretty ones

Adding a Custom image header

Custom image headers, like backgrounds can really add to the look and feel of a blog.

You can easily make your own or search for a free image header to use.

Here’s some sites to get you started:

1. Guides & Tips Bogger
2. Free Christmas headers
3. Free Web headers
4. Free Header images
5. Theme headers

Once you’ve located an image you would like to use all you need to do is right mouse click on the image and select Save Image As (or Save Picture as) to save a copy of the image onto your computer.

Tip:

1. For the best quality use the recommended image header dimensions for your chosen theme (recommend size for your theme is displayed on Appearance > Header)
2. I use Snagit to resize and adjust my image headers to the correct size before uploading.

Now uploading your image header is as simple as:

1.  Go to Appearance > Header inside your dashboard.

2.  Click on Choose file, browse for the image on your computer and then click on Open.

• Only .jpeg, .gif, and .png files can be used for image headers.

3.  Next click Upload 

4.  Your image will upload and if it isn’t the exact dimensions you’ll need to select the area you want to crop and then click Crop and Publish.
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And when you check your blog you should now see your new custom image header!

Adding widgets to your sidebar

And don’t forget the longtime-favorite Let It Snow plugin on Edublogs which adds falling snow right on your blog!

Leave a link to your decked-out and holiday-trimmed blog below so we can all get in the festive mood.

Seasons greetings and happy blog decorating!

The Student Blogging Challenges have been going on for FOUR years now – all started and maintained by the fearless and hardworking volunteer, Sue Wyatt. The original challenges are all archived on her old class blog here.

For the past two years, the challenges have ran twice each year at their own URL, studentchallenge.edublogs.org, and the challenges have improved the writing, blogging, and digital literacy of thousands of students world wide.

It is never too late to use or adapt the challenges for use with your own students!

Here’s a list of 10 of our favorite activities to get you started:

1. Sept 2010 – Getting Your Blog Lookin’ Good
2. Sept 2011 – Widgets and Games (My Place)
3. Sept 2010 – Avatats, Animoto, and Voki
4. Sept 2010 – Categories, Tags, and Quality Posts
5. Sept 2010 – Images and Fair Use
6. Sept 2010 – The Comment Game
7. Sept 2011 – Digital Footprints and Digital Citizenship
8. March 2011 – Infographics
9. October 2011 – Creativity
10. May 2011 – Assessing and Reviewing Your Blog

Be sure to follow us on twitter or facebook to be kept up to date about the next round of Student Challenges – most likely to start sometime in late February.

Happy blogging!

Photo: Students On Computers from Bigstock