How to Embed a YouTube Video in a Blog Post

Posted on March 22, 2012 by

Leaving a Comment on Someone’s Blog

Posted on November 25, 2011 by

We are learning how to be better commentors on blogs. Here are some thoughts from our class discussion.

Refer to the facts of the post: Comment on the things that are interesting and new to you
Make Connections: Relate and compare things you are reading in the post to things that you already know.
Ask Questions: What about the content of the post is confusing to you? What don’t you understand? Remember that there will ALWAYS be questions in an active thinker’s mind!
Give Your Opinions: Make judgments about what you are reading. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Like? Dislike? Do you support or oppose anything that you have read? Why?

You could use the following sentence starters below to help you begin your comment

This reminds me of…
This is similar to…
I wonder…
I realized…
I noticed…
You can relate this to…
I’d like to know…
I’m surprised that…
If I were ________, I would ______________
If __________ then ___________
Although it seems…
I’m not sure that…

Adapted from: Bill Ferriter’s Digitally Speaking

Code

Posted on October 3, 2011 by

Destiny Quest Widget

Posted on September 26, 2011 by

You can now add a Destiny Quest Widget to the side of your blog! It will look like this on your sidebar!

Here’s how:

Log into the back end of your own blog
Click on Appearance, Widgets
Drag a Text widget box over to your sidebar

Click the link below to download a pdf that contains the code you need to copy
Very Important! when prompted, click Open file – do not click Save file)

htmlcode_destinyquest

Copy the code from the open pdf file – make sure you copy all of it.
Paste the code into the text widget.
Remember to click Save in the Text widget box!Your text widget should now look like this:

Don’t type anything in the title of the text widget!

Check out the front of your blog and see if it’s there – click on it and it should open a new tab right to Destiny Quest!

Good Comments & Great Comments

Posted on September 5, 2011 by

Today in Grade 3, Ms H and the students were talking about “what makes a great comment”. We also talked about making “good comments” into “great comments”.

After much discussion and brainstorming, here’s what we came up with.

A good comment:

Is positive
(it doesn’t make someone feel bad about themselves)
Is always polite
(that means it’s not mean or nasty and there’s no swear/curse words either)
Stays on topic
(your comment matches what the author of the post is talking about)
Is more than one word!
(one word comments are not very helpful and neither a lot of exclamation marks!)
Sometimes disagrees with what someone says in their post
(but remember Number #2 – and explain why you disagree)

A great comment is everything from 1- 5 with an added extra!

Is useful
(gives a piece of advice on how to make the post better or improve something, if possible)

What does everyone else think? Have we missed anything?

Image used under Creative Commons License by Mis Miah: https://www.flickr.com/photos/35438812@N00/4191979465/

Guide to Navigating A Blog – Made by Grade 2 Students!

Posted on September 5, 2011 by

Hi there, new Grade 2/3/4/5 bloggers! Check out these very clever Grade 2 bloggers from MJDGS and the video they made to teach their parents how to navigate their classroom blog.

Blog Tutorial from langwitches on Vimeo.

What did you think? It was pretty awesome wasn’t it? Do you think we could make something similar for our parents?
How do you think MJGDS students put this together?
How much did they prepare before filming?
What do you think they prepared before filming? During filming? After filming?
What would we have to do to make our video just as good?
Could all the grades work on one video together or do we need a video for every grade?

Youblisher

Posted on March 23, 2011 by

Wylio – Embedding Creative Commons Images & Attribution Made Easy!

Posted on March 9, 2011 by

Introducing Wylio.com Updated scroll to bottom

To use when you need to embed a Creative Commons image in a blog post.

This site is SO simple, so easy and only 4 steps from finding a creative commons image to embedding it in a post for your blog!!

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

All images uploaded with Skitch!

You can still use compfight – but wylio is so much easier for embedding creative commons images & the bonus is the attribution is done for you – all in only 4 EASY steps!

*Update**

Wylio.com - free pictures

Of course, in this ever changing world of technology – Wylio has changed slightly since I first posted about it!
Due to it’s growing popularity ….. Wylio now requires you to create a free account & login to use. You can use your google account if you have one!

My advice, for classroom teachers would be to create a class google account for Wylio – one email address, one password – for the whole class to remember.
(A class google account can come in handy for all kinds of other things in the classroom – another blog post for later).

Changing Your Blog Theme

Posted on February 1, 2011 by

Over the Winter Break, we upgraded our blogging platform and add some very cool, new themes. Soon we will also be deleting some old themes that either don’t work or don’t look good.

If you are using one of these themes on your blog you’ll want to change your theme in the next couple of weeks.

CAUTION: Changing your theme can cause you to loose your widgets. Write down the order of your widgets and and copy and paste any code you have into a document before updating your them.

Themes to be deleted the first of February:

72 Class
Anarchy
Black Letterhead
Blue Moon
Borderline
Chaotic Soul
Day Dream
Gental Calm
Hemingway
Man-ja
Redoable
Veryplaintxt
Primitivo

Check out the new themes we’ve added!

EvoLve

Twenty Ten

This theme is so good that it’s the new default theme for all ISB student blogs. It’s a great theme, easy to use. You can pload your own picture to use as a header, customize the menu, and the widgets always work!