tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45597161921961696262024-03-12T21:13:29.707-04:00OU Digital TeachingThoughts about teaching online from an online instructor at the University of Oklahoma. Quick URL: Teaching.LauraGibbs.netLaura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-13170436501056326792020-08-11T11:32:00.003-04:002021-08-08T11:03:21.227-04:00Summer2020 Blogging Fest<div style="text-align: center;"><i>I retired from teaching after the Spring 2021 semester, but I'm still here, and glad to answer questions about blogging, RSS, etc. I'm at Twitter <b><a href="https://twitter.com/OnlineCrsLady">@OnlineCrsLady</a></b>... and I have a new blog: <b><a href="https://lkgbooks.blogspot.com/">Laura's Bookshelf</a></b>.</i></div><hr />Back in March, I published some notes about blogging in case people were interested in setting up a blog to use in conjunction with all-of-a-sudden teaching online; those notes are here: <b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/be-there-with-blogging-guide-for.html">Be There with Blogging</a></b>.<br />
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Now that the impossible semester is over, I will be taking some time to this summer to share some more detailed information about blogging, both as a strategy for fully online courses but also as a strategy for any course, including classroom-based courses. I've taught using student-blog-networks for years, and I can highly recommend it as a way for students to document and share their learning. When students have <i>their own space</i> in which to write and in which to interact with other students, it has a completely different feel to it than an LMS discussion board. In a blog, you can be yourself, creating your online presence week by week, post by post, a personal continuity that just does not happen in a discussion board which belongs to everybody/nobody. When a blog is yours and when you share that blog with others, it's fun and exciting in a way the LMS rarely is (at least in my experience).<br />
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So, to help people explore both blogging and student-blog-networks this summer, I've divided the <b>Summer2020 Blogging Fest</b> into two parts:<br />
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<b>PART ONE</b> is focused on <b>getting started with your own blog</b> and learning about how blogs work.<br />
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<b>PART TWO</b> is focused on <b>building a blog network</b>, which is useful if you decide you want to start blogging with your students.<br />
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So, <b><i>if you are new to blogging</i></b>, start with Part One to see if you actually like blogging yourself. If you enjoy blogging, then you might be interested in moving on to Part Two, learning how to set up a network so that you and your students can blog together, sharing and also connecting in your individual blog spaces.<br />
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And <b><i>if you are already a blogger</i></b>, you can skip Part One and jump right into Part Two, learning how to connect individual blogs into a blog network using a free tool called Inoreader (no programming required!).<br />
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I have a few more posts to add about logistics of course design and student blogging, but all the technical posts about blogging and blog-networks are done.<br />
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So......... here we go:<br />
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<b>Part One: BLOGGING</b><br />
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In this part, I will be talking about blogging in general, and the specific how-tos I include will use Google's Blogger by way of example (although you will be able to apply the same techniques and strategies on other blogging platforms).<br />
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<b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/starting-blog-your-first-post.html" target="_blank">1. Starting a Blog: Your First Post</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-urls-homepage-and-posts.html" target="_blank">2. Blog URLs: Homepage and Posts</a></b><br />
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<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/online-identity-and-pseudonyms.html" target="_blank">3. Online Identity and Pseudonyms</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/configuring-your-blog-for-comments.html" target="_blank">4. Configuring Your Blog for Comments</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/other-basic-blog-settings.html" target="_blank">5. Other Basic Blog Settings</a></b></div>
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/links-in-posts.html" target="_blank">6. Links in Posts</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/images-in-posts.html" target="_blank">7. Images in Posts</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/embedded-media-youtube-videos-and.html" target="_blank">8. Embedded Media: YouTube Videos and Playlists</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/embedded-media-twitter-npr-soundcloud.html" target="_blank">9. Embedded Media: Twitter, NPR, SoundCloud</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/editing-existing-posts.html" target="_blank">10. Editing Existing Posts</a></b><br />
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<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-labels-and-dates-for-navigation.html" target="_blank">11. Blog Labels and Dates for Navigation</a></b></div>
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-themes-and-layout.html">12. Blog Themes and Layout</a></b><br />
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<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-sidebars.html">13. Blog Sidebars</a></b></div>
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/labels-for-navigation.html">14. Blog Sidebar: Labels for Navigation</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/rss-email-more-sidebar-boxes.html">15. Blog Sidebar: RSS / Email / More</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/html-sidebar-boxes.html">16. Blog Sidebar: HTML Boxes</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/posts-and-pages.html">17. Posts and Pages</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-backupexport.html">18. Blog Backup/Export</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/btbguide-embedding-blog-in-canvas-or.html">19. Embedding a Blog in the LMS</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blogs-and-diigo.html">20. Blogs and Diigo</a></b><br />
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<b>Part Two: BLOG NETWORKING</b><br />
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In this part, I will be talking about RSS in general, and specifically about how to use Inoreader both as an RSS feed aggregator, and also for running a student blog network. I'll also add some tips about student networking via comments.<br />
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<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/what-is-rss-and-what-is-inoreader.html" target="_blank">1. What is RSS and what is Inoreader?</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/subscribing-to-rss-with-inoreader.html" target="_blank">2. Subscribing to RSS with Inoreader</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-display-options.html" target="_blank">3. Inoreader Display Options</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/more-about-rss-for-blogger-comments-and.html" target="_blank">4. Blogger RSS for Comments and Labels</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-folders.html" target="_blank">5. Inoreader Folders</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-tags.html" target="_blank">6. Inoreader Tags</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-rules.html" target="_blank">7. Inoreader Rules</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings.html" target="_blank">8. Inoreader Export: HTML Clippings (Folders)</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings-tags.html" target="_blank">9. Inoreader Export: HTML Clippings (Tags)</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/summer-2020-blog-fest-okay-ive-reviewed.html" target="_blank">10. Embedding HTML Clippings</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/more-about-export-rss.html" target="_blank">11. More about Export: RSS</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/12-more-about-export-opml.html" target="_blank">12. More about Export: OPML</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-bundles.html">13. Inoreader Bundles</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-star-for-workflow.html">14. Inoreader Star for Workflow</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-search.html">15. Inoreader Search</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/more-about-rss-diigo.html">16. More about RSS: Diigo</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/17-more-rss-news-podcasts-padlet-etc.html">17. More RSS: News, Podcasts, Padlet, etc.</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/07/comments-and-randomizers.html">18. Comments and Randomizers</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/07/building-culture-of-feedback.html">19. Building a Culture of Feedback</a></b><br />
<b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/07/blogs-and-completion-based-grading.html">20. Blogs and Completion-Based Grading</a></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkBLhjzrFyBoaCgyTtt_awATLn7YVBGPcwwwi4ktJs1eQ64tA4uxbivKIbb8NlSJmWzTcA1aFMbleGQISM5oKzJZCn9LG4cPPtIWPML34VNT6aDHVveMUhFYrgiD0AvwkUk9lkp0Geys43/s1600/f91f3d27-f825-4177-863a-75a076536d23.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="cat typing on laptop" border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="1000" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkBLhjzrFyBoaCgyTtt_awATLn7YVBGPcwwwi4ktJs1eQ64tA4uxbivKIbb8NlSJmWzTcA1aFMbleGQISM5oKzJZCn9LG4cPPtIWPML34VNT6aDHVveMUhFYrgiD0AvwkUk9lkp0Geys43/s400/f91f3d27-f825-4177-863a-75a076536d23.jpeg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Behold! I have a blog of my own.</i></div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-56119455878535477922020-08-05T13:46:00.000-04:002020-08-11T11:40:44.189-04:00Latest Posts via Inoreader<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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These are the latest blog posts! Just click on the title of a post to go to that post in its blog:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="3300" src="https://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1005987531/tag/Summer2020post/view/html?cs=m&t=Summer2020%20Blog%20Fest%3A&n=12" tabindex="-1" width="100%"></iframe>Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-17699395532318746422020-07-09T15:08:00.003-04:002021-04-09T10:54:55.941-04:00Blogs and Completion-Based Grading<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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And here we are: the final post in the series, where I'll say a few words about blogs and completion-based grading. I'm an advocate of ungrading in general (see book chapter here: <a href="http://grading.mythfolklore.net/">Getting Rid of Grades</a>), and I definitely do not want to be in the business of grading students blogs or their blog posts.<br />
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Here's what I do instead:<br />
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Each assignment in the class has a simple checklist for completion. When a student finishes an assignment, they log on at the LMS and take a true-false quiz for that assignment: they see the checklist again there, answer "true" (which is the "correct" quiz answer), and the points go in the Gradebook automatically. For more details, see this post: <a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/canvas-tips-gradebook-declarations.html">Gradebook Declarations</a>.<br />
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Sometimes it's just super-short, like when students leave comments on each other's blogs:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv_QSPKttG2549FhTFYKyOPtGoEA8PdYIpKCXKCFhi9e3XNY13F-q0smJASevxGJjMU662Fbgfdk6EnMCHbtFmjrMRTePv3AfCAFiG__soEvzd9AU7rMJgraKuxCC2yWr8_PfP0sdF_36P/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+2.50.37+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="126" data-original-width="536" height="93" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv_QSPKttG2549FhTFYKyOPtGoEA8PdYIpKCXKCFhi9e3XNY13F-q0smJASevxGJjMU662Fbgfdk6EnMCHbtFmjrMRTePv3AfCAFiG__soEvzd9AU7rMJgraKuxCC2yWr8_PfP0sdF_36P/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+2.50.37+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Sometimes it's a longer list of items to check on for completion, like when students publish a story in their blog:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOmNzPGBv8ze983GUMT7KdUt406gMQzDjBWmHaUInla29hHddbo915uxKH7_THtytBAzWDn1TR3C-OiG__-XRQNYsuFOjmQdF_RfuA3l4kzf-tzxVs2V7q4HWG78XC-YIap1EUtEJ80RJ4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+2.51.44+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="626" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOmNzPGBv8ze983GUMT7KdUt406gMQzDjBWmHaUInla29hHddbo915uxKH7_THtytBAzWDn1TR3C-OiG__-XRQNYsuFOjmQdF_RfuA3l4kzf-tzxVs2V7q4HWG78XC-YIap1EUtEJ80RJ4/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+2.51.44+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Here's how that looks in the LMS (and this system works for any LMS that has true-false quiz questions, which means any LMS):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1-rhInhmUvv7F0qNlt92yTG4xqS98iO6bMvP0wHKwJTv4HGj1f0EAKW7DTuoGRfSr50WrKr8npzbZDDxPe6MPPOzUsTCKTjEPjPQ4_OoYhbQIF6lAft-Bj8VaTaEClRUtEXgK7aYjlEXE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+2.58.45+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="685" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1-rhInhmUvv7F0qNlt92yTG4xqS98iO6bMvP0wHKwJTv4HGj1f0EAKW7DTuoGRfSr50WrKr8npzbZDDxPe6MPPOzUsTCKTjEPjPQ4_OoYhbQIF6lAft-Bj8VaTaEClRUtEXgK7aYjlEXE/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+2.58.45+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Now, practically speaking, sometimes students do rush through a Declaration, treating it as a kind of "terms of service" agreement that you click on without reading. When that happens, like if I notice a story post that is way too short or way too long, or perhaps the image isn't working, etc., I just contact the student with a quick email letting them know they need to fix the post. It's not a big deal; I just refer them back to the checklist and ask them to let me know when the assignment is complete. I use tags at Inoreader to keep track of things like that; as I watch the posts go by, I add a tag called "pending" to a post that needs fixing up, and then I remove that tag when the student lets me know it's done.<br />
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I use this approach of Gradebook Declarations for all the work in my classes, putting the students fully in charge of that grading process. Even if that's not an approach you want to take, it can still be useful to think about what kind of blogging assignments lend themselves to this "checklist" style of assessment so that you can let the students take responsibility for that, while you can focus your time and attention on follow-up and feedback rather than record-keeping.<br />
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So......... that is the last of the posts, and I hope this has been useful. For me, all these different pieces: blogging, blog networking, and ungrading all fit together as part of an overall course design approach which is based on mutual trust and also mutual support. I hope you will find some useful ideas here, and I'm glad to brainstorm and talk about blog-based course design anytime!<br />
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Happy Blogging!!!<br />
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<i>Descartes Cat says: I think, therefore I blog.</i></div>
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(made with <a href="http://cheezburger.com/">cheezburger</a>)</div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-83386890362457994442020-07-09T14:17:00.002-04:002020-07-09T15:09:00.192-04:00Building a Culture of Feedback<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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I've already dedicated a segment of this blog to feedback posts, so I want to link to that first of all: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2019/03/feedback-resources.html">Feedback Resources</a></b>.<br />
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What I'm going to do in this post is just link to each of those posts and then add a few comments here specifically about how blogs and blog networks come into play:<br />
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<a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/feedback-feedback-bootcamp.html">Feedback Bootcamp</a>. Just as blogging is new to most students in class, feedback is also something new... and feedback is a lot more complicated than blogging! So, in the same way that I make sure to provide lots of specific support for students learning how to blog and how to feel confident about blogging, I do the same with feedback. Students start leaving the more social, informal comments on each other's blogs already in Week 2, but for the more substantive comments on each other's projects, there's a five-week exploratory process where students learn about giving and receiving feedback. They write blog posts with their thoughts as part of that process, and I learn so much from reading those posts, and that in turn helps me do a better job of providing students with feedback later on.<br />
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<a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/feedback-my-diigo-bookmarks.html">Feedback: My Diigo Bookmarks</a>. I've mentioned before how much I like Diigo, and this "Diigo Library" of bookmarks is something that my students find very useful as they browse and explore class materials. Blogging is great, but when you have a large body of materials that you want students to explore, Diigo can be a really good way to do that. For more about Diigo, see the other posts in this series: <a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blogs-and-diigo.html">Blogs and Diigo</a> and <a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/more-about-rss-diigo.html">RSS: Diigo</a>.</div>
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<a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/feedback-feedback-gallery.html">Feedback Gallery</a>. This project is a great example of how you can get students to help you figure out the best strategies to use for your classes. Just ask; they will tell you! So, for this project, I used a Google Form and asked them to share the best comments they had received from other students, and I then sorted those sample comments into a Google Doc to use with future students. Students had easy access to all the comments they had received because of the convenient way that all the comments they receive are accessible through their blog dashboard. For example, here's how the comments look in my class blog dashboard:</div>
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<a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/feedback-student-to-student-advice.html">Student to Student Advice</a>. This is a fun example of a randomizer that I use in the class announcements blog! I've written about randomizers like that here: <a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/html-sidebar-boxes.html">HTML Sidebar Boxes - Randomizers</a>. Each time the <a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/">daily announcements blog</a> comes up, you can see a bit of random advice there:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhUWuLLlNkMmwB-OBBHE9kUGXbdY2qBsx9jon9sgYaa7ZU01bKv05WbYMYe8KKg0g8z6h_J8ygDSpTblVcs3ZE2509JghZc93MosQ9okY7uI4-4Cykh3Cv50QmC09h2Qwysb8hicbmvisw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+2.14.51+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="817" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhUWuLLlNkMmwB-OBBHE9kUGXbdY2qBsx9jon9sgYaa7ZU01bKv05WbYMYe8KKg0g8z6h_J8ygDSpTblVcs3ZE2509JghZc93MosQ9okY7uI4-4Cykh3Cv50QmC09h2Qwysb8hicbmvisw/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+2.14.51+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://grading.mythfolklore.net/">Ungrading: All-Feedback-No-Grades</a>. Having a blog network where students document their work provides a solid foundation for ungrading. Students "declare" their work in the Gradebook (more about that in the next post), and each declaration leaves some kind of visible trail in the blogs. So, if students forget to do a declaration (and that does happen), it's not a problem at all; they just send me a note with a link to the post they forgot to declare and I can manually add it to the Gradebook. No fuss, no trouble.</div>
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And that makes a perfect transition into the next (and final) post, all about <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/07/blogs-and-completion-based-grading.html">Blogs and Completion-Based Grading</a></b>.</div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-87073611919361641732020-07-09T13:33:00.002-04:002020-07-09T14:19:05.592-04:00Comments and Randomizers<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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I've written up all the technical notes about blogging and blog networks, and in these last few posts, I'll share some comments about the logistics of how I run my classes, hoping that these ideas might be useful to others. All classes and contexts are different, though, which means each person has to find their own solutions. I'm glad to help brainstorm anytime about this kind of stuff; you can find me at Twitter: @OnlineCrsLady or send me an email at laurakgibbs@gmail.com.<br />
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<b>Weekly commenting</b>. Students actually have two commenting assignments each week: they comment on the story posts at each other's blogs, and they also use the blog space to leave each other comments about their project websites. The comments on the story posts are short and more social in nature, but the comments on the projects are more detailed since those comments are feedback for students to use as they work on project revisions. Taken together, these two commenting assignments account for one-third of the work that students do in the class each week, so it's definitely an important part of the class (the class is roughly one-third reading, one-third writing, and one-third commenting). Most students are really excited to see each other's work and interact in this way, and some students do additional commenting each week for extra credit (and there are also extra credit reading and extra credit writing assignments; the extra credit is a way for students to tilt the balance of the class in favor of the assignments they find most fun and/or useful). You can see what a typical week looks like here if you are curious: <a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/103903723/week10">Week 10</a>.<br />
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<b>Commenting at blogs</b>. The commenting feature of blogs is their weakest point, and I'll be the first to admit that. At the same time, I've stuck with the standard blog comment space as the student interaction space and that has worked well for me. Here are some advantages of using the blog commenting space for me:<br />
* students keep their focus on the blog network as our "classroom" which in turn motivates them to do a good job with their individual blogs<br />
* students get ideas for their own blogs from visiting the blogs of other students<br />
* students have control over their blog comments: they can delete comments if needed (although spam or other unwelcome problems is not a problem; if it were a recurring problem, I would take a different approach)<br />
* I can keep an eye on the blog commenting overall because there is an RSS stream for comments that I can view in Inoreader<br />
* my students can comment on blogs of students in the other classes I teach (the classes I teach have a lot of overlap, and students are usually very curious to see what's going on in the other class)<br />
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<b>How to support commenting the blog space</b>. There are some things I do to make sure the blog commenting goes well, starting from the very beginning of class:<br />
* I explain to students how to configure the blog commenting options right away when they set up their blogs<br />
* I leave comments on students' blogs during the first week to make sure it's configured properly and also to model good commenting (most of my work in the first week of class is commenting on the new blogs)<br />
* I have a troubleshooting page for the kinds of technical problems people sometimes run into with blog comments (usually browser-related problems)<br />
* I'm a co-student in the class which means I have a blog too, and students are leaving comments on my blog too; I'm sharing that experience with them<br />
* I promote a culture of feedback throughout the course; more about that in the next post<br />
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<b>Commenting alternative: LMS</b>. If I did decide to abandon blog comments (for example, if spam or unwelcome comments became a problem), then I would opt for having the commenting in the LMS discussion space, with each student having a discussion board space of their own that I could link to. The drawback here is that this solution would not work for students commenting on students in other classes. For other people, that might not be a problem at all, but for me that would be a huge drawback. Still, it would be do-able, and I consider the LMS to be my emergency alternative which I can put into play if needed. There are other possibilities too, like a dedicated Padlet for each student or a dedicated GoogleDoc or GoogleSlides. So, I do ponder these alternatives as "just in case" options, but my current system is working good enough (and I am definitely an advocate of good-enough... the rhetoric of "excellence" really leaves me cold; I'm very glad for good-enough solutions!).<br />
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<b>Randomized commenting</b>. The way I spread comments out through the whole class is by using a randomizer each week to assign students to comment on one another. The power of random means that, over time, the commenting gets distributed throughout the whole class (it's another good-enough type of solution; not perfect, but definitely good enough).<br />
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There are lots of different ways you can create a randomizer. Spreadsheets, for example, are a great way to randomize: just put the student names in one column, and put the blog links in another column, and then randomize one column (plus jiggle any individual item if a student gets randomly assigned to their own blog).<br />
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You can also create an actual randomizer that displays a link; that's what I do, creating a javascript randomizer that I can then put in the webpage with the assignment instructions. Here's a screenshot:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkr1h8tbDxJKYU_-ZUvs9EFjGGdcrjQbAvVT1v4RgzvPBoSNQRv622VOPqEo-N8bQM44HjqR-p31i-QknGQSco_gzR5WilZ1rEP7e_V5o8lAYoaD-z3e0B5FA8udnx7yA3-bY6LW3_a7JN/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+1.13.00+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="747" height="90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkr1h8tbDxJKYU_-ZUvs9EFjGGdcrjQbAvVT1v4RgzvPBoSNQRv622VOPqEo-N8bQM44HjqR-p31i-QknGQSco_gzR5WilZ1rEP7e_V5o8lAYoaD-z3e0B5FA8udnx7yA3-bY6LW3_a7JN/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-07-09+at+1.13.00+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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As you can see there in the screenshot, I ask the students to comment on each other's story posts and also the Introduction post at the blog so that they are getting to know each other over the course of the semester (and if they've already commented on the Introduction post at that person's blog, I ask them to pick some other blog post to comment on; each blog always has lots of posts, and it's fun to just choose any post of interest to comment on).</div>
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For more about randomizers (I LOVE RANDOMIZERS), here are notes to a conference presentation I made: <b><a href="http://domains.lauragibbs.net/">Domains.LauraGibbs.net</a></b>. I am proud to say that the tool I use to create these javascript randomizers, <b><a href="http://rotatecontent.com/">RotateContent.com</a></b>, was built by a student of mine many years ago, and the tool is still going strong all these years later.<br />
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So, that's a very quick overview of the blog commenting process... and in the next post, I'll talk more about the culture of feedback in the class as a whole: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/07/building-culture-of-feedback.html">Building a Culture of Feedback</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-25974748687504309802020-05-31T16:43:00.003-04:002020-07-09T13:40:21.559-04:00More RSS: News, Podcasts, Padlet, etc.<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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You can use any RSS feeds in Inoreader, which means blogs and also other RSS sources like Diigo. In this post, I'll provide a quick overview of some other places you are likely to find RSS.<br />
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And remember, if you can find the RSS, you can make it part of your content network at Inoreader, which means you can then export that content out to other web spaces like inside your LMS, your course website, in a blog, etc.<br />
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<b>News Sources</b><br />
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News sources often have RSS feeds, and they often have specialized feeds based on the different content areas that the news source includes.<br />
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Just as one example, our student newspaper, the OU Daily, has an RSS feed: <b><a href="http://www.oudaily.com/search/?f=rss">OU Daily RSS</a></b>. I can subscribe to that feed in Inoreader, and have that display inside Canvas LMS, etc.<br />
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I could also create a folder with different news sources; for example, here is an education news folder I use in my Inoreader:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglGZyXbZyER6fq4BP0-Ql_5DVPqkCndiKkXsEwj6RvZ2KUbSgpYk6Z2FoTRqyTh0x_SFT84_qAxUaiu1GnSz6wnCeyGK2BIwpKNvJ02eBdNdJdpO0sa-gSQvSnaNWx2O6hTn8CX_y9i7o_/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+4.28.03+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglGZyXbZyER6fq4BP0-Ql_5DVPqkCndiKkXsEwj6RvZ2KUbSgpYk6Z2FoTRqyTh0x_SFT84_qAxUaiu1GnSz6wnCeyGK2BIwpKNvJ02eBdNdJdpO0sa-gSQvSnaNWx2O6hTn8CX_y9i7o_/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+4.28.03+PM.png" /></a></div>
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One way to use news sources like this is to curate a stream of special interest to your students. So, for example, you can scan through the news articles in a folder, and use a special tag to indicate items of interest to your class, and then having that tag be the stream that appears in your LMS or in your class website.<br />
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<b>Podcasts</b><br />
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Podcasts are basically blogs with audio enclosures! So you will find that many podcasts offer RSS feeds. A quick search of "<b><a href="https://www.inoreader.com/search/feeds/podcast">podcast</a></b>" for feeds that people have subscribed to already in Inoreader returns over 4000 results. That's a lot of podcasts! :-)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBZpHIjWsZ8mOctkvLE1VmJDzAGDDdC38GJsO6rOk7qUFjL_IuvasxWH8Pl1grWPYVMwfNs7RbBScxxaImzG6gsD55qfbksx3BwPX9kCvOXzZeomzjotpAGX3K8PTUf0bHEsEHSvrkpMaH/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+4.31.00+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="891" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBZpHIjWsZ8mOctkvLE1VmJDzAGDDdC38GJsO6rOk7qUFjL_IuvasxWH8Pl1grWPYVMwfNs7RbBScxxaImzG6gsD55qfbksx3BwPX9kCvOXzZeomzjotpAGX3K8PTUf0bHEsEHSvrkpMaH/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+4.31.00+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Not all podcasts will have easily discoverable RSS feeds, but if you have a favorite podcast and they have not made the RSS feed easy to find, contact the podcast developer. They probably can give you the feed address. If not, your inquiry might prompt them to turn on the RSS feature (for example, at SoundCloud, the RSS feed is not automatic, but it's easy for a podcaster to choose to turn on <b><a href="https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003570048-Setting-up-your-podcast-s-RSS-feed">SoundCloud's RSS feature</a></b>).<br />
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<b>Padlet</b><br />
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Padlet is a popular tool with teachers, and it has RSS, so you can subscribe to new content in a Padlet via Inoreader. Just paste in the Padlet address, and Inoreader's autodiscovery will find the RSS feed for you:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2MAACqYFvqhfPb8FlsOTbq_8XbuCTwTXsyTEA1uPXGUObh0eIBADZeqmFQ7JFLhyphenhyphenNt81z2-sJbm0K9lvfyj4tacDS7X5VDEmbtKTB4V-Pr1L27Qt029Awx2IUxNzcUj-yYDxGSaJ4Hjce/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+4.36.48+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="952" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2MAACqYFvqhfPb8FlsOTbq_8XbuCTwTXsyTEA1uPXGUObh0eIBADZeqmFQ7JFLhyphenhyphenNt81z2-sJbm0K9lvfyj4tacDS7X5VDEmbtKTB4V-Pr1L27Qt029Awx2IUxNzcUj-yYDxGSaJ4Hjce/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+4.36.48+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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So, if your students are creating content with Padlet in addition to their blogs, you can add the Padlet content feed into the same folder as the student blog feeds. It's all RSS!<br />
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<b>Hypothes.is</b><br />
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I don't use Hypothes.is with my classes, but it is a powerful tool, and it has RSS features. Maybe somebody who is using Hypothes.is will experiment with Hypothesis RSS feeds in Inoreader. Some resources to help with that:<br />
<b><a href="https://web.hypothes.is/help/atom-rss-feeds-for-annotations/">Atom & RSS Feeds for Annotations</a> </b>(from Hypothes.is)<br />
<b><a href="https://cogdogblog.com/2019/02/duct-taping/">Hypothes.is RSS Feed Widget</a></b> (from Alan Levine, RSS guru)<br />
If you have examples or tips to share of Hypothesis RSS and Inoreader, let me know!<br />
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Okay, that is the last of my Inoreader blog posts; the remaining posts in this series will be about other aspects of running a student blog network, starting with <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/07/comments-and-randomizers.html">Comments and Randomizers</a></b>.<br />
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-20679112842495227182020-05-31T15:52:00.001-04:002020-05-31T16:44:10.188-04:00More about RSS: Diigo<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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So far I've emphasized RSS content from blogs (since the focus here is on running a student blog network), but you can also use Inoreader to collect and redisplay content from other RSS sources. In this post, I'll show how you can use the bookmarking service Diigo to generate RSS content.<br />
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<b>Diigo Bookmarks</b><br />
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I wrote a post here earlier about some basic Diigo bookmarking features, including how you can snag thumbnail images for the items you bookmark: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blogs-and-diigo.html">Blogs and Diigo</a></b>. See that posts for how to use Diigo to bookmark web content.<br />
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In this post I'll focus on how you can subscribe to Diigo RSS and then mix that content in with other content in Inoreader, exporting it to your class website or to an LMS.<br />
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<b>Diigo RSS</b><br />
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At the bottom of every Diigo display page, including search results, you will see the RSS icon, which you can click to get the RSS feed. The icon is to the right of the display options:<br />
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For example, here is the RSS feed address for the items that I've tagged with #ungrading:<br />
<a href="https://www.diigo.com/rss/user/lauragibbs?key=d6f0bfedadf90c44b2909bdea8e9f77e&query=%23ungrading&sort=updated">https://www.diigo.com/rss/user/lauragibbs?key=d6f0bfedadf90c44b2909bdea8e9f77e&query=%23ungrading&sort=updated</a><br />
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It's a scary-looking URL and the contents are not user-friendly either, but that's exactly what Inoreader needs in order to turn that RSS feed into an Inoreader display, like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf0dcwW5LXPxBnqi-yjmItDTIrx7Yb4m5giecDNbaOvl2UncK0BaXLkjl_2jmS6Geb0tIiESIt8HdaSSuBBZ7gxKGsUWYN0LLZsib3-gufkFPT8V29dz7p73CEuS3oAeKfElbkfOfoFGJT/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+3.43.25+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="633" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf0dcwW5LXPxBnqi-yjmItDTIrx7Yb4m5giecDNbaOvl2UncK0BaXLkjl_2jmS6Geb0tIiESIt8HdaSSuBBZ7gxKGsUWYN0LLZsib3-gufkFPT8V29dz7p73CEuS3oAeKfElbkfOfoFGJT/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+3.43.25+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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It's just like the feed for a student blog, except this time the RSS is coming from Diigo. One thing to note is that it does not update as quickly as a blog feed does (I think Inoreader pings the feed every hour), but you can hit the manual refresh button if you want Inoreader to ping the feed for the latest results.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQvkwS6-sUsdz6YLOii-GS19gTinD6VuaYFidXwih5m_0K9gTfOulBdf6Tukr_fgQpWKRVGGwSziLuL-nMvvtdXwuKnKN8QlNAs2AW6f8FJTA9G1SwzI7yvGtaV90bp-XN-i58nJzZtWkL/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+3.44.02+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="66" data-original-width="368" height="57" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQvkwS6-sUsdz6YLOii-GS19gTinD6VuaYFidXwih5m_0K9gTfOulBdf6Tukr_fgQpWKRVGGwSziLuL-nMvvtdXwuKnKN8QlNAs2AW6f8FJTA9G1SwzI7yvGtaV90bp-XN-i58nJzZtWkL/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+3.44.02+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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With a pro account, you can also boost the refresh rate on selected feeds (you can manage feed boosts via the Subscriptions panel in your Preferences).<br />
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<b>Inoreader Export for Diigo RSS</b><br />
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So, just like you can export student blog content using <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings.html" target="_blank">HTML Clippings</a></b>, you can do the same with these Diigo bookmarks that Inoreader grabs via the RSS. Why would you want to do that? Well, Diigo is one of those sites that blocks the use of iframe to embed Diigo inside another site. That means if you want to display Diigo bookmarks inside a website or inside the LMS, you need to use a service like Inoreader to do that.<br />
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So, in the same way that I embed the student blog stream in Canvas, I can display a Diigo bookmark stream in Canvas also. Here's a Canvas display of <b><a href="https://canvas.ou.edu/courses/59823/pages/feedback-articles">Diigo bookmarks related to feedback</a></b> for example:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn4R2la5WOIIIraOZBnojClJD__dNpwbdxxtd1FhyphenhyphenO9kB3PCzu2hKGsTf1kvyf4Mvi2Nh0GMEqm2-955fTwJHTWYRs13UHI3yEjBuWvZzF6-lg0C9hZOSRupv7HOfNTYridCN00NM7ufo7/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+3.50.03+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="835" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn4R2la5WOIIIraOZBnojClJD__dNpwbdxxtd1FhyphenhyphenO9kB3PCzu2hKGsTf1kvyf4Mvi2Nh0GMEqm2-955fTwJHTWYRs13UHI3yEjBuWvZzF6-lg0C9hZOSRupv7HOfNTYridCN00NM7ufo7/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+3.50.03+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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And here's an example of a Diigo stream embedded in a Google site; these are <b><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/ungradingslowchat/resources">resources related to ungrading</a></b>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimkBMcwxnn0OJy-69CnKY_DQJUHLHHirsAC65SliRpCkcQtKBDeEwVzxHsnABrgU_JcdtqsFKu-hewK-gBIHsCN4qc_H3z4CjpDI23EEiiSSotqbNlsyX6v5FKNeh5aYn76q-DE803e4Ra/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+3.48.25+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="878" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimkBMcwxnn0OJy-69CnKY_DQJUHLHHirsAC65SliRpCkcQtKBDeEwVzxHsnABrgU_JcdtqsFKu-hewK-gBIHsCN4qc_H3z4CjpDI23EEiiSSotqbNlsyX6v5FKNeh5aYn76q-DE803e4Ra/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+3.48.25+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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In both cases, I am using the Inoreader HTML Clippings to display those Diigo bookmarks, and it updates automatically as I bookmark and tag new items in Diigo.<br />
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Anywhere that you can embed an iframe, you can embed Inoreader content... which includes Diigo bookmarks. Even the thumbnail image shows up. Diigo is a powerful tool, and with Inoreader you can share your Diigo content more widely and in new contexts!<br />
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So, Diigo is one of my favorite non-blog RSS sources, and next up I'll provide a quick overview of more RSS content sources: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/17-more-rss-news-podcasts-padlet-etc.html">News, Podcasts, Padlet, and more</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-1617253521862687802020-05-31T14:28:00.000-04:002020-05-31T15:53:08.495-04:00Inoreader Search<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
<br />
The Inoreader Search features are amazing; I'm not even going to try to document them all here. Instead, I'll refer you to this overview of <b><a href="https://blog.inoreader.com/2015/03/inoreader-how-to-stay-in-know-with.html">Inoreader Search features</a></b> (including the very powerful Active Search, which is a pro feature).<br />
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What I want to discuss here is the free Inoreader search feature which allows you to search all the content in your Subscriptions, including folder-specific searches. That is what gives you <b>the ability to search all your students' blog posts</b>. I use this feature in all kinds of ways, but one of the most important is to make connections between students.<br />
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For example, as I am reading the Favorite Places posts during the Orientation Week, one student might mention a specific city or vacation spot, etc., and I'll remember somebody (but who?) also mentioned that place; I just use Search to find the other student, and then I can leave comments for both students alerting them to their common interest. Or I'll notice that someone did a version of the story of how Ganesha got his elephant head; I can use Search to find other students who did a version of that story and let them know so they can compare versions, etc.<br />
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In the LMS, student content is spread out through different parts of the system (discussion, assignments, etc.), and there is no global search in Canvas (on the very sad subject of Canvas Search, see this post: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-paradox-of-canvass-big-data-and.html">The Paradox of Canvas's "Big Data" and Lack of Search</a></b>). With an Inoreader student blog network, all the students' work leaves a trail in their blog, and Inoreader's Search feature lets me follow those trails and find connections.<br />
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One of the biggest advantages of digital content is being able to search that content. So, the lack of good search features in Canvas is one of its biggest drawbacks... while the search features in Inoreader are a big plus!<br />
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<b>How Inoreader Search Works</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
You can search in a specific feed (i.e. an individual student's blog), or in a specific folder (i.e. all the students in a class), or a specific tag (i.e. a specific assignment).<br />
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To search in a specific feed, for example, click on the feed in the left-hand menubar to highlight that feed, and then type your search term in the search box. You will then see results for that specific feed:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdRU90LH1JKDZXCRY2CbqAfNYpAC3IDKcRw1bErnuloYSTaNvzGQ4raC_F274eQk_v5sCqP2eVZfSsReRmiRPQsmXUjQPaZhURjcequ6TCMIVML6eixSWZgIh-fOfFoYwkXvYYyzvFuh6/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+2.18.19+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="873" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdRU90LH1JKDZXCRY2CbqAfNYpAC3IDKcRw1bErnuloYSTaNvzGQ4raC_F274eQk_v5sCqP2eVZfSsReRmiRPQsmXUjQPaZhURjcequ6TCMIVML6eixSWZgIh-fOfFoYwkXvYYyzvFuh6/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+2.18.19+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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You can also click on various filtering options; for example, you can expand the search the folder level using that dropdown, as well as other search filtering options.<br />
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As always, the Inoreader URL is very clear, and you can even bookmark a search term if you want:<br />
https://www.inoreader.com/search/subscriptions/music<br />
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The URL does not contain the feed-specific parameter; it just shows the search term: music. If you bookmark that URL, it will show you "music" across your subscriptions, which you can then delimit using the dropdown filters:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxN7v8raTX2onMK4l8p434MyME8z1J2uhvV9lM8UuxRYyDJPIVkDXdvu3xUPlT0JBicSG8XqwrJbeJ8BzRXBshUMxAK267q67VAwhdUdc-mmO9VJS5egIsdce0Imc9rWFlsdL7-GCd7cCI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+2.25.03+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="254" data-original-width="625" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxN7v8raTX2onMK4l8p434MyME8z1J2uhvV9lM8UuxRYyDJPIVkDXdvu3xUPlT0JBicSG8XqwrJbeJ8BzRXBshUMxAK267q67VAwhdUdc-mmO9VJS5egIsdce0Imc9rWFlsdL7-GCd7cCI/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+2.25.03+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I don't actually have any search terms that I bookmark, but I really appreciate how Inoreader URLs work. If there is a search term you want to bookmark in your browser, you can do that easily!<br />
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Next up: I'm going to revisit the power of RSS and talk about RSS content sources beyond the blogging world, starting with <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/more-about-rss-diigo.html">Diigo RSS</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-35104030371172032502020-05-31T14:01:00.001-04:002020-05-31T14:28:36.410-04:00Inoreader Star for Workflow<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
<br />
I often joke that Inoreader is my LMS, and I certainly spend way (WAY) more time with Inoreader every day than I do in Canvas, my school's LMS. In this post, I want to describe one of my favorite features for workflow in Inoreader: the Star feature. If you use the Star feature in Gmail or Google Drive, you already know how the Inoreader Star works: it's a simple flag that you can turn on or off for any content item (i.e. any student blog post).<br />
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The way I use the Star in Inoreader is <b style="font-style: italic;">to let myself know that I've left a comment on a blog post. </b>That's important for me in two ways:<br />
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<b>Star for specific assignments</b>. During the <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/12763866/orientation#TOP">Orientation</a></b>, I leave a comment on every student's Favorite Places Post and on their Introduction. Those are the only posts of the semester where I leave a comment on every post, and it takes me a while to do that. I finish all the Favorite Places comments during the first week, but it takes me another week or two to finish all the Introduction posts. To keep track of that, I go to the tag for that post and I use the list view, adding the star as I comment one each post:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBEtnERxWY5sEHbRTxfg9Q5DJ6G1Blyq_YkKR7PnTpjYtGY4-8m60o2PbRrXz7LW3JC-ca4O9CrgjpLSDtq6GfCfTevhtLZdMwv0FTKNgLgwYRe016GTeukIk0uyFPtOfs3ZYi3IVgSJ89/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.53.24+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="557" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBEtnERxWY5sEHbRTxfg9Q5DJ6G1Blyq_YkKR7PnTpjYtGY4-8m60o2PbRrXz7LW3JC-ca4O9CrgjpLSDtq6GfCfTevhtLZdMwv0FTKNgLgwYRe016GTeukIk0uyFPtOfs3ZYi3IVgSJ89/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.53.24+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I know I'm done when every post in that folder has a star.<br />
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<b>Star for individual students.</b> Aside from the Favorite Places and Introduction posts, my comments on people's blogs are random; the blogging space is really more for the students to interact with each other (I mostly interact with them through their projects). But I do comment on a few blogs at random each week along with posts the jump out at me for some reason in the stream, and I use the star to mark the blogs I've commented on. That means I can also look at an individual student's blog overall and see how often I've commented:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4U0Tj_lqSHvUZcDTwRB3fTp1Fj-k7JMaWTjyO7mDjj2cjiZhvdQeBzjMQ4HNnwhqle1HBtk2jqwNe5attHkBaqxewleZ4gmOee3U_NC753RO_q8PriNdwYwrpGEkojgHrlzvNwbi3_fCS/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.56.20+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="640" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4U0Tj_lqSHvUZcDTwRB3fTp1Fj-k7JMaWTjyO7mDjj2cjiZhvdQeBzjMQ4HNnwhqle1HBtk2jqwNe5attHkBaqxewleZ4gmOee3U_NC753RO_q8PriNdwYwrpGEkojgHrlzvNwbi3_fCS/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.56.20+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I rely on the randomizer to help me comment on everybody's blogs periodically, but I can also review all the blogs very quickly by clicking through them to see where there are stars.<br />
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So, the Star is very useful for me in keeping track of my interaction with the students in their blogs. Next up: the <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-search.html">Inoreader Search</a></b> feature, which I use to help me connect one student to another.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-15671112829573564522020-05-31T13:43:00.002-04:002020-05-31T14:02:14.029-04:00Inoreader Bundles<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
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The Inoreader export in the form of <a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings.html">HTML Clippings</a> is a premium feature, but you can also combine and share feeds in the form of Inoreader Bundles, which is a free feature. For someone to view your Bundle, they also need to have an Inoreader account (again, a free account works). You can find out more at the <b><a href="https://blog.inoreader.com/2014/10/bundles-collect-share-and-discover-best.html">Inoreader Bundles page</a></b>; here's a quick overview step by step:<br />
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<b>Make a Bundle</b><br />
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To make a bundle, go to the Preferences (click on your user image in the upper right-hand corner), and then choose Bundles from the Collaboration menu.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSmC_JjzlrYRmvdCdRwaAWBLzITzCuZ4u6j-60-mE7SXjsPFDQjtoqUiia8qCez3qLoD6hyphenhyphen7oDsdRd9qgypmThTgb6v-xVLQgxEe_uji4zvgOuDIGGyN4BD5sQdhzWh4nrucIAV0JR3g91/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.32.40+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="583" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSmC_JjzlrYRmvdCdRwaAWBLzITzCuZ4u6j-60-mE7SXjsPFDQjtoqUiia8qCez3qLoD6hyphenhyphen7oDsdRd9qgypmThTgb6v-xVLQgxEe_uji4zvgOuDIGGyN4BD5sQdhzWh4nrucIAV0JR3g91/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.32.40+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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You will then see the Bundles screen which lists all the Bundles you have made, plus a New button in the upper right-hand corner.<br />
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You can browse your feeds by folders as you add them to the Bundle, so if you have all your course-related feeds together in a folder, it's easy to add them quickly to the Bundle. (But remember, if you add new feeds to that folder later, you'll need to come back and add them to the Bundle too.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wruXgtOE7GifvGf_ZlVD5fGlRtGNyENcHEZA_GKDDEBUTuTGlcAINnuvEdK09M3-oE0cGTmoPDq964fn5PaCt-AB96UmXqxmB2WC691njW4UaavSeCbmXEgOhDrAUGexx5jYC3lrHS5X/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.34.45+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="791" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wruXgtOE7GifvGf_ZlVD5fGlRtGNyENcHEZA_GKDDEBUTuTGlcAINnuvEdK09M3-oE0cGTmoPDq964fn5PaCt-AB96UmXqxmB2WC691njW4UaavSeCbmXEgOhDrAUGexx5jYC3lrHS5X/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.34.45+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Remember to click Save when you're done.<br />
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<b>Share the Bundle</b><br />
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You can then click on the Share icon to get the address for the Bundle which you can share with others. For example, here's the address for the Summer 2020 Blog Fest Bundle:<br />
https://www.inoreader.com/bundle/0014cd640a7d<br />
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As you can see, a Bundle URL is not specific to your account, although you are the only one who can edit the bundle. You can share this link and anyone with an Inoreader account will be able to view the Bundle. You have the same different viewing options for a Bundle as for other Inoreader content:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHnaWJiGa3dgqoiDDDRmY06ob7q9168_IdCShM1TdXt-dtUt7RQVkqmjN5S1FHlZA66XQMqKG3pgkIj8r-E8Eq_0BpKWAyDUEZ5IY4z8ya5c6cqqxOJzh5jUVD5zRjVIzwPR_ckSqHTK7u/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.39.27+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="761" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHnaWJiGa3dgqoiDDDRmY06ob7q9168_IdCShM1TdXt-dtUt7RQVkqmjN5S1FHlZA66XQMqKG3pgkIj8r-E8Eq_0BpKWAyDUEZ5IY4z8ya5c6cqqxOJzh5jUVD5zRjVIzwPR_ckSqHTK7u/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.39.27+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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So, for example, here's the card view of that Bundle:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXxOVyOuRumevaygMSvE5YjfH8sLavXFnFKJIyhzVDzVBKOx-A137rF44aox4U64BioRZDHDtq3caC0nwy0IYUKCh8sZeU_WMTTrC8-6ufUOXYgijhlwcINYjjSrHvoGKYbO0HNW9XkUe8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.42.58+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="857" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXxOVyOuRumevaygMSvE5YjfH8sLavXFnFKJIyhzVDzVBKOx-A137rF44aox4U64BioRZDHDtq3caC0nwy0IYUKCh8sZeU_WMTTrC8-6ufUOXYgijhlwcINYjjSrHvoGKYbO0HNW9XkUe8/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-31+at+1.42.58+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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That's it! I don't have a lot to say about Bundles since I focus on the HTML Clippings export feature for sharing Inoreader content with other people. But if you want to use just the free Inoreader and make the class stream accessible to your students, this is one way to do that. Especially if you want your students to learn how to use Inoreader for themselves, a class Bundle would be a great way to get started.<br />
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Next up: one of my favorite features for workflow in Inoreader: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-star-for-workflow.html">Inoreader Star for Workflow</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-32857338742945487332020-05-29T17:47:00.000-04:002020-06-18T10:45:51.634-04:00Blogs and Diigo<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
<br />
This post may or may not be of interest: I want to say a few words about how I use Diigo as a way to manage blog content and workflow. Blog labels (tags, categories) are useful up to a point, but if you want to have even more powerful ways to keep track of the contents of a blog, especially if you are using the blog to manage hundreds or thousands of pieces of content, Diigo is a fantastic option. When I am doing major content development at a blog, I bookmark every post in Diigo and use Diigo to manage the content development and editorial workflow.<br />
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<b>What is Diigo?</b><br />
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Diigo is a bookmarking tool that allows you to bookmark webpages (and, yes, blog posts are webpages!), while adding tags that you can then use for searching and filtering. You can also include chunks of text with each bookmark, either text that is automatically copied from the blog (what you have highlighted when you bookmark goes into the record) or content you add later. You can also snag thumbnail images to go with the bookmarks.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhobulfnbvdWdNXns44O0-yC4uCbQHtpTdP0hzr5dL7U-lryILhl8hNCEIG1KlkqPQZ1f1ii03fAvc-DGJ2tq44JRuHDL6BF2kKxtKrzRYHYK9o7ZX9-3mt_NO3GQZQPNzLGItqLfy1Sk6j/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+5.10.37+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="870" height="117" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhobulfnbvdWdNXns44O0-yC4uCbQHtpTdP0hzr5dL7U-lryILhl8hNCEIG1KlkqPQZ1f1ii03fAvc-DGJ2tq44JRuHDL6BF2kKxtKrzRYHYK9o7ZX9-3mt_NO3GQZQPNzLGItqLfy1Sk6j/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+5.10.37+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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To see how that works, you can browse the Diigo account I currently use for content development. These are <b><a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/laurakgibbs?query=%23100blog">my 100-word stories</a></b>, for example. For the 100-word story project, it's really ideal; I include the actual story in the bookmark!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYZ8ohwuQLDPSEETL5cUbFTVLe1sH7ofjnm4S6XD1chshjMXDeyK61FskzSSZjMQu5L1y49wvMQ9HWQU_tOs4x2rSL1y6K4J2_zhyUcOXSowDmNA8QwTu2hPPqD2Z53nGEk0WTY8RiC7yM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+5.22.33+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="869" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYZ8ohwuQLDPSEETL5cUbFTVLe1sH7ofjnm4S6XD1chshjMXDeyK61FskzSSZjMQu5L1y49wvMQ9HWQU_tOs4x2rSL1y6K4J2_zhyUcOXSowDmNA8QwTu2hPPqD2Z53nGEk0WTY8RiC7yM/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+5.22.33+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Each of those items in Diigo links a blog post. I use labels at the blog itself for basic navigation, but I have a much more elaborate set of tags at Diigo that allow me to manage the book production process that I am using to select blog posts, edit them, and then arrange them into OER books. (That's a new project this summer; I am hoping to complete four microbooks: each one will have 200 of these 100-word stories).<br />
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<b>Diigo Features </b><br />
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Diigo has a ton of features; I'll just list here some features that are of great value to me personally:<br />
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<b>Boolean Searches</b>. I'm able to use Boolean operators like NOT in order to search and organize my content. That's the single biggest advantage over the blogging label interface. Diigo is so powerful that way, and I can even bookmark those searches since the search parameters are in the URL. For example, a bookmark for the India stories that are going in the India book (versus stories I am skipping and saving for future use):<br />
<a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/laurakgibbs?query=%23100india+NOT+%23india%3Askip">https://www.diigo.com/user/laurakgibbs?query=%23100india+NOT+%23india%3Askip</a><br />
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<b>RSS</b>. Diigo has RSS for tags AND for Boolean tag searches, and it even includes the thumbnail image in the RSS. More about Diigo RSS:<br />
<a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/more-about-rss-diigo.html">RSS: Diigo</a><br />
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<b>Reports</b>. I use the Report feature to snag content to use in my book drafting process for the 100-word stories. It works great! Here's what a typical report looks like; I copy-and-paste into my text editor: I just search, choose bulk-edit, then select-all, and then generate report:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZ_ABdkX30LaIEMEGP9HS-cMhrqPpd-vbSZdhhD87JR3U2y3S7SxXM4lm29JOYhfMqvIh6vslK-4TZqAR6PjL3t0vspV9D2gVTndNley0Y_lCJ5IPDoUuC9MZgM2ihedxVN1MYUVgqNSo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+5.41.46+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="814" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZ_ABdkX30LaIEMEGP9HS-cMhrqPpd-vbSZdhhD87JR3U2y3S7SxXM4lm29JOYhfMqvIh6vslK-4TZqAR6PjL3t0vspV9D2gVTndNley0Y_lCJ5IPDoUuC9MZgM2ihedxVN1MYUVgqNSo/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+5.41.46+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Browser Tool</b>. When I am bookmarking blog posts in Diigo, I use the browser tool to make that really fast. (I label the blog posts as Diigo:no or something like that; then, after I bookmark in Diigo, I change the blog label to Diigo:yes; that way I know what I've got where, and I can do a count of the posts to make sure I haven't lost anything in the process.) I'm usually using the <b><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/diigo-web-collector-captu/pnhplgjpclknigjpccbcnmicgcieojbh">Chrome tool</a></b>, and there's a cross-browser bookmarklet here, plus mobile apps: <b><a href="https://www.diigo.com/tools">Diigo Tools</a></b>.<br />
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There's so much more I could say here, but I'll leave it at that for now. If people have questions about using Diigo to manage blog-based content projects, let me know and I'll be glad to elaborate in more detail. I've been using Diigo for a few years now, and I like it more and more with each project I complete.<br />
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And now........... on to blog networking with RSS and Inoreader: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/what-is-rss-and-what-is-inoreader.html">What is RSS and what is Inoreader?</a></b><br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-20673882038481828512020-05-29T15:30:00.001-04:002020-05-29T16:12:54.862-04:00Blog Backup/Export<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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I've covered the basic content side of blogging so far — <b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/starting-blog-your-first-post.html">creating a blog and posting</a></b>, <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/configuring-your-blog-for-comments.html">comments</a></b>, <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-labels-and-dates-for-navigation.html">labels</a></b>, <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-themes-and-layout.html">design</a></b>, <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-sidebars.html">sidebar</a></b>, <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/posts-and-pages.html">pages</a></b> — and now I'm going to finish up with some housekeeping and organizational tips.<br />
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In this post, I'll talk about how to export your blog for backup purposes and also for migrating from one blog platform to another. I'll be explaining how to do this in Blogger, and you have even more backup options (including auto-backups) in WordPress.<br />
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<b>Blogger Backup</b><br />
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To export a copy of your blog, just go to the Settings, and then scroll down to Manage Blog:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHR5WpGXJDyj0kqjEKAhOcIxsBQzk1QnOnNOYEwbtIT5u4_x2sQTe8ybI_ww3otII2aZOi6_0MwapnMlmnZqdUT1LnHeWHoKdCSgI7UXZUuj_17eUaS42Cbr1eLF6qIztwNwi_6peUAnKl/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.24.25+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="196" data-original-width="419" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHR5WpGXJDyj0kqjEKAhOcIxsBQzk1QnOnNOYEwbtIT5u4_x2sQTe8ybI_ww3otII2aZOi6_0MwapnMlmnZqdUT1LnHeWHoKdCSgI7UXZUuj_17eUaS42Cbr1eLF6qIztwNwi_6peUAnKl/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.24.25+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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The option you will choose is Back Up Content.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Nm7kTP255nSPUJfX2-y4KtYSz4QidB_L0_BIeORsWAFeACMXik85h3hYnGydnXTs8SERQk-lrttDt0jFZUCXzftdF58QlCP6vyVMtArLt-eGmc_VFvPuRbB9Yc3Atps_Gu2KeGeHIJ4D/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.25.17+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="103" data-original-width="347" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Nm7kTP255nSPUJfX2-y4KtYSz4QidB_L0_BIeORsWAFeACMXik85h3hYnGydnXTs8SERQk-lrttDt0jFZUCXzftdF58QlCP6vyVMtArLt-eGmc_VFvPuRbB9Yc3Atps_Gu2KeGeHIJ4D/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.25.17+PM.png" /></a></div>
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When you click Download, Blogger will generate an XML file which will download to your hard drive. This will not affect the content of your blog; it's just a backup file that you can also use if you want to export the content to another Blogger blog or to a different blog platform entirely, like if you want to migrate your Blogger blog to a WordPress platform.<br />
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I've never actually had to restore a blog from a backup, but it's a good practice to have, and I encourage my students to back up both their blogs and their websites, just in case. (I've got an extra credit assignment they can do each week, backing up their work and also reviewing the week's announcements; here's how that works: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/87378496/backup">Back-Up, Check-Up, and Review</a></b>.)<br />
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Okay, that is a very important but not very exciting aspect of blog maintenance. Now on to something way more exciting: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/btbguide-embedding-blog-in-canvas-or.html">Embedding a Blog in Canvas</a></b> (or any other LMS which allows site embedding).<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-41926774143208192392020-05-29T15:15:00.002-04:002020-05-29T15:31:20.971-04:00Posts and Pages<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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In this post, I'll be talking about Posts and Pages. Posts is the usual term for the content you publish at a blog, and posts are generally displayed by date, newest to oldest. Pages, on the other hand, are a way to create content at a blog that is not date-based, and which usually has a separate navigation system. You can create Pages at Blogger and at WordPress; it's a pretty standard feature in blog platforms.<br />
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I'll confess that I don't use Pages a lot because I prefer to do my blog navigation by way of <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/labels-for-navigation.html">labels</a></b>, and also by <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/labels-for-navigation.html">hacking the date/time stamp</a></b>. But I have used Pages at some of my blogs, so I'll give an example of that below, and then explain how Pages work at Blogger. The Pages ecosystem at WordPress is way (WAY) more powerful than at Blogger!<br />
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<b>Pages at my Myth-Folklore UnTextbook</b><br />
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The UnTextbook is one of my biggest blogs, with thousands of pages to support the 100 reading units that I've prepared for students to choose from. Pages were useful to support semester navigation, as opposed to content navigation. So, across the top I have Week-by-Week Pages for navigation, while in the sidebar there is content navigation (short titles for all the units). You can see how that works here: <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/">Myth-Folklore UnTextbook</a></b>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihjD0Nbo84MI73GAg9YOP4x7FTv_qfW8WMnjGmaDxnbHp2h1ySD7kJ-joE9uB7v3tiWMDWYcwHKLSTj1kQBQg5lGfchMffnLkn8voSdroor0V9AMq6PbQhEkNzUZEiPwvHt_D_PArX0rAB/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+2.58.55+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="988" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihjD0Nbo84MI73GAg9YOP4x7FTv_qfW8WMnjGmaDxnbHp2h1ySD7kJ-joE9uB7v3tiWMDWYcwHKLSTj1kQBQg5lGfchMffnLkn8voSdroor0V9AMq6PbQhEkNzUZEiPwvHt_D_PArX0rAB/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+2.58.55+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Here's what that Pages area looks like in the Settings: Layout.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvkYqij5Xs_Fm1pU7ly8i3PaYfVFpQr6gRkGBV32db7zZG6Hq8uvdhbeaUU4Q_U0R5brebKZ9tqQs-v4H3XvJCikv9XhQ4ldbebsH53i0sImcV2z84o-givn5pseV3CtnR196J5WSPc_F/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.01.00+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="155" data-original-width="804" height="76" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvkYqij5Xs_Fm1pU7ly8i3PaYfVFpQr6gRkGBV32db7zZG6Hq8uvdhbeaUU4Q_U0R5brebKZ9tqQs-v4H3XvJCikv9XhQ4ldbebsH53i0sImcV2z84o-givn5pseV3CtnR196J5WSPc_F/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.01.00+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSAlqgar2Ea4u9MDYBbw6Azf6jIoBCFoAzr8iWDqzHkjUN097rk1eUve4uFk2v50690XORTfpZuf0pBZ3Dpa3Nk5KvH1Ip5WzAMDwPMgBhhsUMJo5rtrOmnw04emAs3UaL9WZtONhydYkj/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.01.44+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="475" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSAlqgar2Ea4u9MDYBbw6Azf6jIoBCFoAzr8iWDqzHkjUN097rk1eUve4uFk2v50690XORTfpZuf0pBZ3Dpa3Nk5KvH1Ip5WzAMDwPMgBhhsUMJo5rtrOmnw04emAs3UaL9WZtONhydYkj/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.01.44+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Below are some specific tips on creating Pages and designing the Pages navigation.</div>
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<b>Pages Content</b></div>
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The Pages area is accessed through the left-hand navigation, and in the new Blogger interface, you add a new Page with the plus-button in the lower right-hand area (I'm still getting used to this new interface, but it will be useful for my students since it has a lot of design features in common with Google Sites, which they also use, like this plus-button).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0RVVet99J83agomQdxorvrgKM8MaXyq7kb5fVQHUXuY9AIKJYj_3IYV433gqFW9Wk7nGQtukKYmiudD9rHXAzr13guQfDRnI0fmVdGYOPxQMZt5j8nksqcFmfQTjiARXHYKCKPy4g5ap/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.04.12+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="226" data-original-width="554" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0RVVet99J83agomQdxorvrgKM8MaXyq7kb5fVQHUXuY9AIKJYj_3IYV433gqFW9Wk7nGQtukKYmiudD9rHXAzr13guQfDRnI0fmVdGYOPxQMZt5j8nksqcFmfQTjiARXHYKCKPy4g5ap/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.04.12+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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The editor for a new Page works just like the editor for a new Post, except that there is no date/time stamp and no labels. The only settings for a Page are comments, and yes, you can have comments on Pages, like for a Post.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrHGBIB90-OIfTjpf0irdgSf41-ZkZ8EfPwhsHVG7_IG6i76uplhANQn5UPxjKbjJug_pNbrhOqqP1E4aa-ZaxpEXj9y17IYhfiOWXOmAc8xzrKXj850EFQvtKH0y0biKYU59KjOfqZkm9/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.06.08+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="852" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrHGBIB90-OIfTjpf0irdgSf41-ZkZ8EfPwhsHVG7_IG6i76uplhANQn5UPxjKbjJug_pNbrhOqqP1E4aa-ZaxpEXj9y17IYhfiOWXOmAc8xzrKXj850EFQvtKH0y0biKYU59KjOfqZkm9/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.06.08+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I'm using "About Me" as a sample Page here because creating an "About Me" area at your blog is typically the kind of thing you might do with a Page instead of a Post.</div>
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<b>Pages Navigation</b></div>
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In Blogger, the Pages are something you add to the blog Layout. For some of the Themes, the Pages widget is already part of the default Layout, and for other Themes, you need to add Pages like you would add the other gadget options:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6x9wLR9b6yHKnaZuTghMce62FCxa2Cl9PiDCkTPHYZg7faWlHwM7CXtcRfU2i2dp-3A2y-uFZ8Q6-l9C_SPrUAG52Ap4YRzAZ4PrlZVLja3ivufsJdPpXIlfmQosMpKY5enojQeSYq5eX/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.11.04+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="118" data-original-width="514" height="73" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6x9wLR9b6yHKnaZuTghMce62FCxa2Cl9PiDCkTPHYZg7faWlHwM7CXtcRfU2i2dp-3A2y-uFZ8Q6-l9C_SPrUAG52Ap4YRzAZ4PrlZVLja3ivufsJdPpXIlfmQosMpKY5enojQeSYq5eX/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.11.04+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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After you have added Pages to the Layout (and you can put the Pages cross-column along the top OR it can go in a sidebar), you can then click on Edit, and you will see a variety of options, turning pages on or off in the navigation display, and dragging-and-dropping for the order in which they appear:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvkYqij5Xs_Fm1pU7ly8i3PaYfVFpQr6gRkGBV32db7zZG6Hq8uvdhbeaUU4Q_U0R5brebKZ9tqQs-v4H3XvJCikv9XhQ4ldbebsH53i0sImcV2z84o-givn5pseV3CtnR196J5WSPc_F/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.01.00+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="155" data-original-width="804" height="76" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvkYqij5Xs_Fm1pU7ly8i3PaYfVFpQr6gRkGBV32db7zZG6Hq8uvdhbeaUU4Q_U0R5brebKZ9tqQs-v4H3XvJCikv9XhQ4ldbebsH53i0sImcV2z84o-givn5pseV3CtnR196J5WSPc_F/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.01.00+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2H1msaeGFZ1hhyphenhyphenxHKoaeAeSrIj-ku429klXCPPavcitHit6ZL-qpxez6th21KSrWIccX0IcBCA-lElxzj2UEmGAuaOAcfjU4B2Acyt1cyXoJrBVh541slBR_o5d6UsYvQm0URw9Egj62-/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.12.24+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="454" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2H1msaeGFZ1hhyphenhyphenxHKoaeAeSrIj-ku429klXCPPavcitHit6ZL-qpxez6th21KSrWIccX0IcBCA-lElxzj2UEmGAuaOAcfjU4B2Acyt1cyXoJrBVh541slBR_o5d6UsYvQm0URw9Egj62-/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.12.24+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Note that this is also how you can add links to external webpages as part of your blog navigation, organizing those links together with the Pages links.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5rJIBTy6KFeMA9mgqfZf0S7eqtj618xjHBYlO6myZ9z93wAY4b9rENJFnbSMKcL0pKoe61PYfrVauyv3OCXSgURnDox_a74cgkYviAApyj2Rq7f1vHx0KdwvWM4CnAi6eg5sq8yyw8Cg9/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.12.38+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5rJIBTy6KFeMA9mgqfZf0S7eqtj618xjHBYlO6myZ9z93wAY4b9rENJFnbSMKcL0pKoe61PYfrVauyv3OCXSgURnDox_a74cgkYviAApyj2Rq7f1vHx0KdwvWM4CnAi6eg5sq8yyw8Cg9/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-29+at+3.12.38+PM.png" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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So, in addition to the labels-and-dates way of organizing Posts, youcan also use these manual methods for designing the navigation of your blog site with Pages.<br />
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Okay, those are the basics of blog Pages... and next up is some housekeeping: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-backupexport.html">how to back up and/or export your blog</a></b>.<br />
<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-79617935317800575962020-05-24T14:33:00.000-04:002020-05-29T15:16:21.337-04:00HTML Sidebar Boxes<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
<br />
The sidebar box I use most often is the HTML box, which allows both HTML and Javascript, as you can see:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMG4GSyx-9GsaxxluOEuy5rbGAW4RjQ6tmKy7VtreG0foKgDSjJuTyYmxMsUx85YfdUy0-1bN6XVqmhc0xqzLeAm6qDHqGYSI-pDQkrQoL5LVwl_e-Ls1qVeGfnz9SDX8RgcOrAB8OHySM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.15.26+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMG4GSyx-9GsaxxluOEuy5rbGAW4RjQ6tmKy7VtreG0foKgDSjJuTyYmxMsUx85YfdUy0-1bN6XVqmhc0xqzLeAm6qDHqGYSI-pDQkrQoL5LVwl_e-Ls1qVeGfnz9SDX8RgcOrAB8OHySM/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.15.26+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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The ability to use Javascript like this is one of the main reasons why I've always used Blogger instead of WordPress (the free WordPress.com blogs do not allow Javascript; I suspect that is also true of Edublogs, but I am not sure).<br />
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You can install as many of these HTML boxes as you want, pasting into the box whatever HTML, including Javascript, you want to use:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqMbNNQr4CbeTaQ-EmEPe470UwV1DB9tYqDXtkHdoAe0j7NJY-k8woB7AXhNd6ono2STAbh4TVvYBOrxpN5fHZO8K1Jt9AEJzbfCJuizD2TdbZVZpZLHNn1RaVGgsdvItQ-n5Le-MseZ-q/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.56.43+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqMbNNQr4CbeTaQ-EmEPe470UwV1DB9tYqDXtkHdoAe0j7NJY-k8woB7AXhNd6ono2STAbh4TVvYBOrxpN5fHZO8K1Jt9AEJzbfCJuizD2TdbZVZpZLHNn1RaVGgsdvItQ-n5Le-MseZ-q/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.56.43+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here are just a few examples of the ways I use the HTML option at my various blogs:<br />
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<b>Randomizing Javascripts</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
In the sidebar of this blog, you'll see random mindset cats and random tarot cards, and those are just a few of the many randomizers I've created to use in my blogs.<br />
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I also share them with others! For example, if you want to use the mindset cats, you can get the javascript to copy-and-paste here: <b><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2014/08/scripts-for-random-cats.html">Random Mindset Cats</a></b>. Here they are in action!<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<script type="text/javascript"> var display = "random" </script><script src="https://widgets.lauragibbs.net/gmcats/growth400.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>
<hr />
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I use a free tool, RotateContent.com, to create the randomizers, and here's a presentation I made for Domains 2019 about that: <b><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vS6SRnSdo5zDobmxu1XTjYjDNUH1db3SV-YGzIjXurMSU89o7IYUdb7fAYQg-Neb-Uz6bJnwUUgky26/pub">Turn HTML Tables into Javascripts for Distributed Content Everywhere</a></b>.<br />
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I also did a presentation on javascript randomizers for CanInnovate 2019: <b><a href="https://onecaninnovate.blogspot.com/2019/10/test.html">Javascript Magic in Canvas</a></b>.<br />
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If you have questions about any of that, let me know. I'm always glad to preach the gospel of randomizing javascripts!<br />
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<b>YouTube Playlists</b><br />
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Even though they are tiny, you can embed YouTube playlists at width 200, height 125, and they will play in a sidebar.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="125" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLrWYQjLLbXcgfQhMaJdYAS_e2R5JzGNE8" width="200"></iframe></div>
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That's my <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWYQjLLbXcgfQhMaJdYAS_e2R5JzGNE8">Maati Baani playlist</a></b>, resized, which you can paste in a sidebar. For more about YouTube Playlists, see this earlier post: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/embedded-media-youtube-videos-and.html">YouTube Videos and Playlists</a></b>.<br />
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<b>Google Slidedecks</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
As my students create their projects, I create a slide in a slidedeck for each project, and then I can embed that slidedeck in the class announcements sidebar.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjRzLeLs9x_tIfiitgbIuZ8i3wwEW0fXdWpLrKFURxbIx4ijuOsr9CMXxIKRAxY35s6XfWsM0UQcx6j18zOO3vnnYF0PXXk7RNy7TXtoAJNKByNynJIPFMStcF-33BE3UptVqM22YgCduc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.13.45+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjRzLeLs9x_tIfiitgbIuZ8i3wwEW0fXdWpLrKFURxbIx4ijuOsr9CMXxIKRAxY35s6XfWsM0UQcx6j18zOO3vnnYF0PXXk7RNy7TXtoAJNKByNynJIPFMStcF-33BE3UptVqM22YgCduc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.13.45+PM.png" /></a></div>
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I embed the same slidedeck in the class projects webpage and in Canvas too. To embed a Google Slidedeck, just choose File: Publish to Web, and then select Embed, and customize the size (for a blog sidebar, 200 pixels is usually a good size):<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAScDu4WVPBPc3d_ViDF2a7FibP4MnpilJHpYD7ccHhBFVD-Mw3scxTUYOG7bCMwhNV341zGPHSyG1XZlDdeF1hM6SgoGtaexHQApY4EHphto48LtCYK18zZgK8QWpiZXle1cn93JBuUQ2/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.16.33+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="527" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAScDu4WVPBPc3d_ViDF2a7FibP4MnpilJHpYD7ccHhBFVD-Mw3scxTUYOG7bCMwhNV341zGPHSyG1XZlDdeF1hM6SgoGtaexHQApY4EHphto48LtCYK18zZgK8QWpiZXle1cn93JBuUQ2/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.16.33+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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I even added a randomizer to my Google Slides so that I can randomize the deck, putting different projects up at the top. I randomize the deck, and the new order appears everywhere the deck is embedded.<br />
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<b>Twitter Widgets</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I have a dedicated class Twitter account, @OnlineMythIndia, which is separate from my own Twitter account, @OnlineCrsLady. The class Twitter feed is one of the most important parts of the class announcements blog because I can be adding new content all day so that there's always something new!<br />
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To embed a Twitter widget, just go to <b><a href="http://publish.twitter.com/">Publish.Twitter.com</a></b> and paste in the address of the Twitter account, then choose Embedded Timeline, and then customize for width, height, etc.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRFhBIOBarAYX7LQQPATDCw1QtyZ4IIGcVN55dgDtzAFAetdfCXPZ1ewsMeRLkxUEq3Tz71K4QnGgAPq99h8IBBYzNlUtWuxSW67FMLU23hZYk-H7BYypq8WlYlwwl3m7J5QJoeIi9u3tG/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.21.37+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="599" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRFhBIOBarAYX7LQQPATDCw1QtyZ4IIGcVN55dgDtzAFAetdfCXPZ1ewsMeRLkxUEq3Tz71K4QnGgAPq99h8IBBYzNlUtWuxSW67FMLU23hZYk-H7BYypq8WlYlwwl3m7J5QJoeIi9u3tG/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.21.37+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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You can embed ANY Twitter stream; it does not have to be your own. So, for example, you could embed your school's Twitter stream or the Twitter stream of your student newspaper, some other news source: any Twitter account you want!<br />
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<b>Text-and-Image HTML</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
In addition to the dynamic options above, I also sometimes create a static HTML box with just text and image. For example, the Suggestion Box box, with a link to the Google Form I use for (anonymous) suggestions.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi23M0cTPXwUEoNmrtaeXYr76zFCrOOAyr_RGWiOtCuh2JLI8oxdx1qYF-Vw3J8s6eiErMSi3-Ir1j1uzzZl8qMCAk3tSF3cgrSOYtUW_fdoO4oX33mmpOLT0cB2AzmfOmWnT2TKc42lEt8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.27.55+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi23M0cTPXwUEoNmrtaeXYr76zFCrOOAyr_RGWiOtCuh2JLI8oxdx1qYF-Vw3J8s6eiErMSi3-Ir1j1uzzZl8qMCAk3tSF3cgrSOYtUW_fdoO4oX33mmpOLT0cB2AzmfOmWnT2TKc42lEt8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.27.55+PM.png" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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The trick with doing text-and-image is that you do have to be able to host the image somewhere, displaying it by URL since the HTML box editor does not have all the editing options that the regular blog post editor does. For an example of combining a static image with a randomizing javascript, see this post: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/yijing-in-sidebar.html">Yijing in the Sidebar!</a> </b>(You can use that same process to combine a static image with text, like in the example of the Suggestion Box.)<br />
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Okay, I think that's all I have to say about blogger sidebars, which means it is on to <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/posts-and-pages.html">Posts and Pages</a></b>.Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-56410584417845145262020-05-24T13:35:00.002-04:002020-05-24T14:33:26.482-04:00RSS / Email / More Sidebar Boxes<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
<br />
If you added a <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/labels-for-navigation.html">Label navigation box</a></b>, you saw that there were lots of different sidebar gadget options to choose from. You can explore all those on your own; in this post, I'm going to zoom in on the types of sidebar content I find myself using in my blogs.<br />
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<b>RSS / Recent Posts</b><br />
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One of the options you can choose is <b>Feed</b> which allows you to add RSS feeds to your blog sidebar. You can find lots of information about RSS feeds in the Inoreader section of this blog. Right now, suffice to say that RSS is a way you can get fresh content from blogs, news sites, podcasts, etc.<br />
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So, for example, if you want to add a "Recent Posts" box to your sidebar, you can do that by adding the RSS feed of your own blog. Here's how that works:<br />
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<b>1. Add box. </b>Go to the Dashboard Layout, and select a new gadget sidebar box. This time, choose Feed:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEialYJz-L854GugSZnrcvJrVbIwjJmEUEyR2hBzyEcfdCOmSWIPW1jCkTwTLhGvQytqUuTDkLn4IAzE7Wx3NrbP8xObP-KljbaPb-OxbON4bYCHMsQni9FeM7k-tXxveY23-xA3bxHl9LhT/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.16.01+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="129" data-original-width="518" height="99" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEialYJz-L854GugSZnrcvJrVbIwjJmEUEyR2hBzyEcfdCOmSWIPW1jCkTwTLhGvQytqUuTDkLn4IAzE7Wx3NrbP8xObP-KljbaPb-OxbON4bYCHMsQni9FeM7k-tXxveY23-xA3bxHl9LhT/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.16.01+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>2. Add feed address</b>. Then, paste in the address of your blog in the dialogue box:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMNlFTeHf1LwKypRkVyIr3WrDeW9kbl1molJX52FVmaGYRxnV-6Pzdj128CIkgqycmY6iA_7MQw9e0GREgh0tapLLLtjhDsU_oHm8olM6o5oFL6LNpYd_1DPrO22yaJRhCW_XZmWt5wyDj/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.20.22+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="129" data-original-width="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMNlFTeHf1LwKypRkVyIr3WrDeW9kbl1molJX52FVmaGYRxnV-6Pzdj128CIkgqycmY6iA_7MQw9e0GREgh0tapLLLtjhDsU_oHm8olM6o5oFL6LNpYd_1DPrO22yaJRhCW_XZmWt5wyDj/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.20.22+PM.png" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b>3. Configure</b>. You will then see a preview where you can select various options, including the title you want to display in the sidebar box. You can change it to "Recent Posts" if you are displaying the recent posts at your own blog.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaKYPLfxqeGTnhb4XWerKGVWUv7JIosxI4IysX5vgTBLCH2KWQ5819hc1h548YkdTpbj31k-CvpOd1rfb80D9tIKgOMw4uLk4o9ODXmOYd-_ApGi6a9YEgfvJaRTy-oCUTsF3HYMRmJXvK/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.20.36+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="491" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaKYPLfxqeGTnhb4XWerKGVWUv7JIosxI4IysX5vgTBLCH2KWQ5819hc1h548YkdTpbj31k-CvpOd1rfb80D9tIKgOMw4uLk4o9ODXmOYd-_ApGi6a9YEgfvJaRTy-oCUTsF3HYMRmJXvK/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.20.36+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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You can add as many Feed boxes to your sidebar as you want. So, for example, you could snag an NPR feed that is relevant to your class, a feed from some other news source, etc. There is a lot of RSS out there, and that's a great way to bring fresh new content to your blog sidebar.<br />
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<b>Email Subscription</b><br />
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Google acquired Feedburner.com several years ago, which is the service it uses for email subscriptions to blogs; it's an excellent service (I was using Feedburner before Google acquired it). To get lots more information about email options, you can log on at Feedburner, but the basic service works just fine. All you have to do is install the email box in your sidebar, and users can subscribe.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHOEJj84wU3jGB5nTgBrAqvDnP80V4YSeSVCnLrBtdx8HrlHvNYi63Qp7-2I3iVn67Ulj7kAeQ7CV7i-BJBGd8-yQScww1ovG7h-l90zX74jKjOmnhl4bdzTPpWCElDY-mlH20xOTVH1m9/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.15.55+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="80" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHOEJj84wU3jGB5nTgBrAqvDnP80V4YSeSVCnLrBtdx8HrlHvNYi63Qp7-2I3iVn67Ulj7kAeQ7CV7i-BJBGd8-yQScww1ovG7h-l90zX74jKjOmnhl4bdzTPpWCElDY-mlH20xOTVH1m9/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.15.55+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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To see how that works, go ahead and subscribe yourself. You'll see that there is a confirmation email you have to click (that's to prevent spam), and then you will receive an email daily if there is new blog post content. Each of those emails also contains an unsubscribe link.<br />
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I always encourage my students to subscribe to the <b><a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/">class announcements</a></b> by email, and many of them stay subscribed even after the class is over because most of the class announcements content is for fun and exploration, which includes exploration even after the class is over.<br />
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<br />
<b>Blog Search</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Another useful box to include is a search box, especially if you are using one of the dynamic themes that does not have a search box across the top of the blog:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJt_2nb4W2r41AKzyRLXv2GZvIIQROWYAQ0qtD8mTyQoM03AAbDsOoVGCzYtDHKO6wX0vAydjcpIgJI-8KfcWh0-IphteijIJR8ZoWgUBFBV7xtokY7xsheEJ2GtDfQsI5aEmoT5u_vzAM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.15.19+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="62" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJt_2nb4W2r41AKzyRLXv2GZvIIQROWYAQ0qtD8mTyQoM03AAbDsOoVGCzYtDHKO6wX0vAydjcpIgJI-8KfcWh0-IphteijIJR8ZoWgUBFBV7xtokY7xsheEJ2GtDfQsI5aEmoT5u_vzAM/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.15.19+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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One of my biggest complaints about Canvas LMS is that it does not have any search options for the course content in the LMS. Especially if you are using blogs to present course content to students, including a search box is a good idea.<br />
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<b>Featured Post</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
The "Featured Post" option is something that is included by default in some of the newer Blogger themes, and it can even be used in the post column, not just as sidebar content.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlNj1_MhY4Hgam41NlPt1XHq9CjP9P1u_URs4pBSID19DEmT7A9rafeowNl_CUnnO6yEuu_X2X-meteS45li0k-tmRpPUu3UylkO-cbOZo1Et0Incpcnxo-scx8RaTY_s8e9bc0F-ID-8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.15.14+PM.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="65" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlNj1_MhY4Hgam41NlPt1XHq9CjP9P1u_URs4pBSID19DEmT7A9rafeowNl_CUnnO6yEuu_X2X-meteS45li0k-tmRpPUu3UylkO-cbOZo1Et0Incpcnxo-scx8RaTY_s8e9bc0F-ID-8/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.15.14+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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When you install this option, you can configure it in various ways which makes it quite useful:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl_8e8j_S2XPk-_QxszvqO1X3AN_A3szA8URPlJqTacLW5Bo45EY3LBnesFeQgaZaZmjJAKuHge7CFSfZVgwHp_-gW9oxAnurxoeNUw0ts3H1RdPqCScOniubuiH1bAhaW0Pj2X4IzSHwu/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.34.00+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="554" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl_8e8j_S2XPk-_QxszvqO1X3AN_A3szA8URPlJqTacLW5Bo45EY3LBnesFeQgaZaZmjJAKuHge7CFSfZVgwHp_-gW9oxAnurxoeNUw0ts3H1RdPqCScOniubuiH1bAhaW0Pj2X4IzSHwu/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+1.34.00+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I just wish you could install more than one featured-post box (the way you can install multiple label boxes), but unfortunately you can only install one Feature Post box in your layout.<br />
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So, those are some of the preset Blogger sidebar boxes that I really like, and next up is the make-it-anything-you-want sidebar option: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/html-sidebar-boxes.html">HTML Boxes</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-26612721249572625462020-05-24T12:40:00.000-04:002020-05-24T13:35:54.789-04:00Labels for Navigation<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
<br />
One of the things I like best about blogs-as-websites is that you do not have to design the navigation system. Instead, you let the content itself generate the navigation. Your readers use automatic features like "next post" or "previous post" to move from one post to another, and you can also add features to the sidebar to provide further navigation options, like a search box, an archive box, recent posts, etc. The most power of these sidebar navigation options is LABELS. If you make sure that every blog post has at least one label, and if you put the label navigation box in the sidebar, presto! You have provided a navigation system for your whole blog.<br />
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In this post, I will explain how to install and configure the Blogger Labels feature in the sidebar. In WordPress, there are categories and tags; WordPress categories are more or less like Blogger labels, and Blogger does not have a tag system. If you are using WordPress with your students, you'll want to make sure to provide some recommendations on using categories and tags; I make sure to explain about Blogger labels right from the very start in my classes.<br />
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<b>Labels in the Sidebar</b><br />
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As part of the <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/12763866/orientation">Orientation Week</a></b> in class, I ask them to add the Labels to their sidebar. Specifically, after they add their Introduction post, which has the label "Introduction," they add the Labels sidebar widget: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/12763857/introduction">Introduction and Labels</a></b>. That means everybody can access their Introduction post from every post in the blog. So, no matter where they end up at someone's blog, they can find out more about that person.<br />
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Here's how that works, step by step:<br />
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1. Go to Layout in the Dashboard menu.<br />
2. Click on Add a Gadget.<br />
3. Find the Labels option and click the plus button.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN5IQ9RSOBQIu2NmfITcjTLB_sKdkRPDwrJ4wC_5-zdXX3PGlG8GzZc3arNmLvV1QY8RC6TuiiMuPSjtdrxjBe3jZBnw87b1XJTgqeQMxCZZ0Teu1FV_buzwuD_cPiZYYvRTfqANoIFNKB/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+12.21.33+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="533" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN5IQ9RSOBQIu2NmfITcjTLB_sKdkRPDwrJ4wC_5-zdXX3PGlG8GzZc3arNmLvV1QY8RC6TuiiMuPSjtdrxjBe3jZBnw87b1XJTgqeQMxCZZ0Teu1FV_buzwuD_cPiZYYvRTfqANoIFNKB/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+12.21.33+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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4. The default configuration is fine, although you can choose from various options. Click Save when done.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDgOijUztWcUHBFRnsJK0HDQd8FZUJK0Ahl1Vc2if-iKH6DY7SaCGomrP2j72TFtGXhByE4vq1od0gmAcjXKPGIs-sAlP3pfs_ZP3_nxISdc_8JsBo05P08ddn7pXyl0GSPTOoy45v94SG/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+12.22.37+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="418" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDgOijUztWcUHBFRnsJK0HDQd8FZUJK0Ahl1Vc2if-iKH6DY7SaCGomrP2j72TFtGXhByE4vq1od0gmAcjXKPGIs-sAlP3pfs_ZP3_nxISdc_8JsBo05P08ddn7pXyl0GSPTOoy45v94SG/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+12.22.37+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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5. You can drag-and-drop the new Labels box in the layout to position it wherever you want it to go, including in the cross-column space across the top of the blog.<br />
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<b>Multiple Label Boxes</b><br />
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One of the best things about Blogger is that you can add multiple label boxes (in WordPress, it's not easy to add multiple category boxes). So, for example, if you have lots of labels, you can divide the navigation up into multiple boxes. Some of my students do that, for example, by having one box to navigate the blog content by week (Week 1, Week 2, and so on), and a separate box to navigate the blog by content (Stories, Readings, etc.). To divide up the label navigation by different boxes, use the "Selected Labels" option in the configuration.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBBcsxFr0WwWIpsvZroGehpNdM-woK_4JMqVBgH-xjxyyWxGoG-QVhKaMyBh1TfYQwe1jghu8a3EgVei3x_PK5XjHFnJXBiwoJyOsD3kw23m-FyTEodAZcVAo11C_Voi0iik4H5FsWzlHV/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+12.32.03+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="505" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBBcsxFr0WwWIpsvZroGehpNdM-woK_4JMqVBgH-xjxyyWxGoG-QVhKaMyBh1TfYQwe1jghu8a3EgVei3x_PK5XjHFnJXBiwoJyOsD3kw23m-FyTEodAZcVAo11C_Voi0iik4H5FsWzlHV/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+12.32.03+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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The trick here is to remember that if you add new labels later on, you'll need to manually add them to the label box later. If the box is displaying "all labels," any new labels are displayed automatically, but if you use the "selected labels" option, then no new labels are added to the box automatically; you have to remember to do that yourself.<br />
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<b>Editing Labels</b><br />
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If you need to change labels on a post, delete labels, add labels, you can do that by editing the post.<br />
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In addition, you can also do some editing of post labels via the Blogger Dashboard. The label-editing interface is one of the biggest changes between the old Blogger display and the new Blogger display, and I'm honestly not very happy with the new display. I'm guessing I will get used to it, but I'm still opting to use the Classics Blogger display for now because I rely heavily on labels at all my blogs, and being able to bulk-edit labels on multiple posts is something I do a lot, and that seems to be much easier to do in the Classic Blogger display.<br />
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I'll have more to say about that later when I write about coordinating a blog with Diigo for workflow and project management.<br />
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<b>More Tips about Labels</b><br />
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By default, Labels display alphabetically, so it's a good idea to be systematic about that. You can always go back and edit labels if you want to make changes so that the alphabetical display is working the way you want.<br />
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Labels are case-sensitive, so make sure to keep that in mind.<br />
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You can use punctuation and spaces, so if you want to use colons or other punctuation marks for a kind of organizational hierarchy, that works!<br />
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At the same time, you don't want labels to be too long, especially if you are using a narrow sidebar in which to display them. So, even though you can use multiple words in a label, don't let it get too long.<br />
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Don't be shy to use labels just once. In the case of my students' blogs, they have only one post with the Introduction label and only one post with the Comment Wall label, for example. The whole idea is that people should be able to get to their Introduction post or their Comment Wall post from anywhere in the blog, and the label is what makes that possible.<br />
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Okay, I think that's all I have about labels. Next up... <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/rss-email-more-sidebar-boxes.html">RSS, Email, and Other Sidebar Boxes</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-7703401125279861982020-05-24T11:59:00.001-04:002020-05-24T14:03:44.494-04:00Blog Sidebars<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
<br />
I'll confess: I love blog sidebars! That is probably my favorite design feature of blogs. Every blog of mine has a sidebar, and sometimes, I use two, like at my <b><a href="https://microfables.blogspot.com/">100-Word Stories blog</a></b> and at <b><a href="https://religiousreading.blogspot.com/">my class blog</a></b> (I take my class as a student each semester, so I blog together with the students, doing same assignments they do). Some of the content in my sidebars is static, but most of it is dynamic in some way so that there's something new or different, something "going on" that can catch people's attention and surprise them in the sidebars every time they reload the page.<br />
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In this page, I'll provide a quick overview of how sidebars work in Blogger, and then in the following posts I'll zoom in on specific types of sidebar content and how to add them to your blog.<br />
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<b>Sidebars and Blogger Themes</b><br />
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As I mentioned in the discussion of <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-themes-and-layout.html">Blogger themes and layout</a></b>, there are basically two generations of Blogger themes. In one set of themes, the sidebar(s) are always visible, and those are the themes I prefer: <i>Simple, Picture Window, Awesome, Watermark, Ethereal, Travel.</i> You can customize those themes to display one, two, or even three sidebars; use the "adjust widths" panel to set the widths of the columns:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmmZRAuoG33z8-RmpyLZBoMZL7ZqFtrElQm6YTummkJLaD6g22_AbJt7LIwpg_AWDpi1CwJSUdwILN0LTH4tdjuKoUIQI-3mUN-od-J94fMbmZoSKEAKbK_KhX72e5QmHfshdI2rkJrcnO/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+11.44.13+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="555" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmmZRAuoG33z8-RmpyLZBoMZL7ZqFtrElQm6YTummkJLaD6g22_AbJt7LIwpg_AWDpi1CwJSUdwILN0LTH4tdjuKoUIQI-3mUN-od-J94fMbmZoSKEAKbK_KhX72e5QmHfshdI2rkJrcnO/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+11.44.13+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Most of my students stick with just one sidebar, although they will sometimes play with moving it to the right or the left of the post column.<br />
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In the Blogger themes that use dynamic resizing (<i>Contempo, Soho, Emporio, Notable, Essential</i>), the sidebar column does not appear unless the display is very side; most of the time, you access the sidebar using the hamburger menu at the top of the page. When you click on the menu, the sidebar panel slides out:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFeMPwZeu0gsom4bz3zHMWEIuIiBaOuSKKeLTTTH9iH2vuZ0eXdKdY2NU3n-tDU2SWODXr-6UJwocpEciVjtTMVZF3Ge97duyIx1OsDqkZmBzPl12y4zlAJlhvkx4xTSLF4l2Q1PSPhje2/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+11.50.04+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="721" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFeMPwZeu0gsom4bz3zHMWEIuIiBaOuSKKeLTTTH9iH2vuZ0eXdKdY2NU3n-tDU2SWODXr-6UJwocpEciVjtTMVZF3Ge97duyIx1OsDqkZmBzPl12y4zlAJlhvkx4xTSLF4l2Q1PSPhje2/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+11.50.04+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Even though the sidebar is not always visible with those blog themes, you can still choose to add content to that sidebar, just like with the sidebars that are always visible; in that screenshot, you can see the student added a picture of her dogs to the sidebar.<br />
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<b>Mobile View</b><br />
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I should also mention that all Blogger blogs have an automated mobile-view, and sidebars are suppressed in that mobile view. To see how your blog will look on a phone, just add ?m=1 to any blog or blog post URL. For example:<br />
<a href="http://bestlatin.blogspot.com/?m=1">http://bestlatin.blogspot.com/?m=1</a><br />
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Here's a screenshot:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvrinhjieWLH3L9s1q27iAF8xU_Fs7WmhzGs5ny0nuQwEIPI5QC2DHuLjZ-gGspcxpJZQth7_iu-VwON-Vk3T3LPayuFHJMIfbDmoGquNUrxKaOMoxH-jdJJRFy-sTTrje536Qns0iIRsd/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.00.17+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="705" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvrinhjieWLH3L9s1q27iAF8xU_Fs7WmhzGs5ny0nuQwEIPI5QC2DHuLjZ-gGspcxpJZQth7_iu-VwON-Vk3T3LPayuFHJMIfbDmoGquNUrxKaOMoxH-jdJJRFy-sTTrje536Qns0iIRsd/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.00.17+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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So, it's important to remember that your students might be viewing your blog on a phone, not seeing the sidebar. If there is essential content that they need, you need to link to that from inside a post rather than expecting them to find it in the sidebar. There's also an option to force the blog open in regular web view even on the phone; you'll find that down at the bottom of the display:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmb-9aEygdkVMyZtw-RiEvyKNAp5rUMKYR5Of_UXMwR80IcasghZbrLBYwj5BtMSKjclTjZm2qYGL5xundj3-5DwiasAa82JGx_rQP3SHLOpqP2qYe0oIyW_SRqaFNwb3kVNsmRJJe5Ymq/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.02.26+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="121" data-original-width="365" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmb-9aEygdkVMyZtw-RiEvyKNAp5rUMKYR5Of_UXMwR80IcasghZbrLBYwj5BtMSKjclTjZm2qYGL5xundj3-5DwiasAa82JGx_rQP3SHLOpqP2qYe0oIyW_SRqaFNwb3kVNsmRJJe5Ymq/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-24+at+2.02.26+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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It's definitely a plus for me that Blogger has a good default mobile-view. Since students sometimes send me URLs that include the m=1 part of the address, I know they've been viewing the content on their phone.<br />
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<b>Sidebars and Blogger Layout</b><br />
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You control the sidebar content and positioning through the Layout option in the Dashboard menu:<br />
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You can also put sidebar content horizontally above or below the post column; you can just drag-and-drop gadgets into the Cross-Column space above the posts or into the Footer below the posts. Some students choose to put their blog label navigation box in the cross-column space along the top of the blog, so that it functions like a traditional website menu.<br />
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If you decide to use Blogger Pages, the Pages menu defaults to that cross-column space, but you can also drag-and-drop the Pages menu down into the sidebar column. I'll have more to say about Blogger Pages later.<br />
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Next up, the most important use of the sidebar: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/labels-for-navigation.html">blog labels for navigation</a></b>!<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-88484111115206064152020-05-21T10:33:00.001-04:002020-05-24T12:00:09.145-04:00Blog Themes and Layout<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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When we reach blog themes and layout, that is where Blogger and WordPress really diverge. With WordPress, there are no limits to what you can do, both in terms of the thousands of templates themes through the WordPress community and the way you can program those themes to function in any way you want, not just in terms of the design layout but also with dynamic behaviors.<br />
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With Blogger, everything is much more limited, and for beginning users, that can actually be a good thing. You can teach students about the separation of content and design, so they can see how it's possible to change the look-and-feel of their blog by changing the theme, while all the content stays the same... and they are not going to get themselves lost as they experiment with the design options. There are a limited number of Blogger themes, along with a limited range of layout options. That means the Blogger blogs are more-or-less the same to navigate while also conveying a feeling of originality. So, at least for me, I'm very happy with the way my classes work out: most students choose Blogger blogs which they tinker with in their own ways, while some students also want to work with WordPress which means that the students using Blogger also get to learn about WordPress blogs too, seeing what their fellow students are doing with their WordPress blogs.<br />
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And now here's a quick overview of themes and layout in Blogger:<br />
<br />
<b>Themes</b><br />
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In Blogger, you access the theme option from the Blogger dashboard:<br />
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There have been three generations of Blogger themes: a first generation of themes (now deprecated, although you might still see them in existing blogs still online from back in the day), a second generation of themes which emphasize the sidebars, and then the newest generation of themes which are mobile-friendly and use dynamic resizing, hiding the sidebar by default. Since I am a big fan of using the blog sidebar (more on that later), I always choose from that second generation of themes, but most of my students prefer the newer generation of themes.<br />
<b><i>Sidebar Themes</i></b> (older): Simple, Picture Window, Awesome, Watermark, Ethereal, Travel<br />
<b><i>Mobile Themes</i></b> (newer): Contempo, Soho, Emporio, Notable, Essential<br />
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I should also say something about the <b>Dynamic Views</b> theme, which is a really fascinating experiment that belongs to the older generation of themes but which does not emphasize the sidebar. Instead, Dynamic Views offers many different views which the user can choose from. It's a really cool idea, and it's a theme that is popular with my students. But here is <b>an important word of warning</b>: there is a bug with the Comments in the Dynamic Views theme. If someone leaves a comment, and then later changes their mind and deletes the comment, it will cause the comment display for that post to jam up. The other comments do not disappear from the administrative Dashboard view of Comments, but they will not display at the blog, and it will also be impossible for people to leave new comments on that post (it does not affect other posts at the blog). Pretty much every semester I have to write a few students to alert them that this has happened to one of their Dynamic View posts so that they can repost the contents of the jammed-up post in order to make it possible for people to leave comments and/or for them to edit the post to give a link to another post where people can leave their comments. Some students decide to switch to another theme as a result, and that's fine too; it really depends on how attached they are to using the Dynamic View theme for their blog.<br />
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<b>Customizing the Theme</b><br />
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After you click on a theme to select it, you can also customize it:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxW3-y_OSdqCxwGzhMy4Eak3f6YvJBCRqUrXC5ItkSuVH0q4f7MK42lFgOqZVdf5-R8e2dfVWgZOLppGKd7_JBG2VSxKSg-c6jxmznWYshZK_fcTt9oxuV8dcsPYl7nArprwu5MTcaD7fW/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-21+at+10.12.01+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="472" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxW3-y_OSdqCxwGzhMy4Eak3f6YvJBCRqUrXC5ItkSuVH0q4f7MK42lFgOqZVdf5-R8e2dfVWgZOLppGKd7_JBG2VSxKSg-c6jxmznWYshZK_fcTt9oxuV8dcsPYl7nArprwu5MTcaD7fW/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-21+at+10.12.01+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Customization means things like choosing the background image, color scheme, along with setting default widths and other layout features. The "advanced" panel is basically a way to adjust CSS settings for fonts, colors, etc.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRvaRtL59OMo5YFqy4siA9Jgai5lYFRxODoir0jEvzFPx5VF7AbTnxiO0lkzokUhU8Jbj13cDh03GJ6fM0WBUNZ2MoSvNlYYv5ufG054Tv1adgIG3TI4Y3zgcqsxAh3jo0kbv2RqWVDd6d/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-21+at+10.13.49+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="513" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRvaRtL59OMo5YFqy4siA9Jgai5lYFRxODoir0jEvzFPx5VF7AbTnxiO0lkzokUhU8Jbj13cDh03GJ6fM0WBUNZ2MoSvNlYYv5ufG054Tv1adgIG3TI4Y3zgcqsxAh3jo0kbv2RqWVDd6d/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-21+at+10.13.49+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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If you are using one of the themes with sidebars, the Layout panel here is where you choose whether to have one or two sidebars, the width of the bars, and how they are positioned; I'll say more about that later.<br />
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<b>Layout</b><br />
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In addition to customizing the theme, you can also customize the layout of the actual post pages using the Layout menu; you'll find that just above Themes in the Dashboard left-hand menu. The Layout is how you customize things like the top navigation bar, the header area, and the post area. If you are using a blog with a sidebar, this is where you add actual content to the sidebar. (I'll say more about the sidebar content later.)<br />
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You can drag-and-drop the boxes of content to rearrange the layout, and then you can click on the pencil to edit any box.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmM1NAXI_pyt6pDOs9jDkVIWMQdFAsygJe5GApzCRr5wYy6YTceU4aPTZRpZDa_HgIbo9VmukqAzECqWkav9-LOsiAZ_qvVYb43oIoFEgznIPQKi_KV_jGsDeqnO-3qRF5CuYFdWH-86I5/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-21+at+10.16.55+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="57" data-original-width="545" height="41" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmM1NAXI_pyt6pDOs9jDkVIWMQdFAsygJe5GApzCRr5wYy6YTceU4aPTZRpZDa_HgIbo9VmukqAzECqWkav9-LOsiAZ_qvVYb43oIoFEgznIPQKi_KV_jGsDeqnO-3qRF5CuYFdWH-86I5/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-21+at+10.16.55+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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With regard to managing your identity, I already mentioned how you can edit the Post area in order to un-display your author byline on posts.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidMMMMEPVqLfvaldBsKSwAJiiqn6v_42U7tXwdd0D3kinYZ9ryYW1kVKE7g8Qpbg5Lu0cdBsdrrqZ1KFPTn_fRzh7fzUqF3yueGGBC21l2STUdnG9qTpHOPa4gv3lN4jvj6fAqHcguE8aL/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-21+at+10.19.41+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="336" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidMMMMEPVqLfvaldBsKSwAJiiqn6v_42U7tXwdd0D3kinYZ9ryYW1kVKE7g8Qpbg5Lu0cdBsdrrqZ1KFPTn_fRzh7fzUqF3yueGGBC21l2STUdnG9qTpHOPa4gv3lN4jvj6fAqHcguE8aL/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-21+at+10.19.41+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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You will see similar types of configuration options available depending on which content area you are editing.<br />
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In my classes, some students really get excited about configuring their blogs, while others just choose a theme and don't make any changes to it during the semester, and that's fine. My goal is to give students the opportunity to learn about blogs if they want, but exploring blog design features is not something that's required. Over time, though, as they visit other students' blogs and see the different design features at those blogs, that often inspires them to try tinkering with their own blogs, and I've got a series of <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/12763893/techtips#BLOGGER">Tech Tips</a></b> that they can do for extra credit if they want (along with Tech Tips on many other topics as well).<br />
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Next up, as promised...... <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-sidebars.html">Blog Sidebars</a></b> (one of my personal favorite things about blogging!)<br />
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-37695854003593373252020-05-19T11:23:00.001-04:002020-05-21T10:34:09.873-04:00Blog Labels and Dates for Navigation<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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As you've realized by now, a blog is a website, a specialized kind of website where the content is organized in date-based order by default. Having the content in date-based order is great for all kinds of purposes, but sometimes you might want to organize and view the content in different ways. In this post, I'll talk about using labels for blog navigation and also how to hack the date/time stamp for more navigational control.<br />
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<b>Blog Labels</b><br />
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I mentioned earlier about how useful labels can be (or, in WordPress, categories and tags) for blog navigation, which is why I recommend that you put at least one label on a blog post. You can always add labels later if you want, either by editing the post, and you can also do some label filtering and editing for multiple posts in the blog dashboard.<br />
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By default, Blogger displays labels down at the bottom of each post as links; when you click on the label, you will see a new view of the blog content: it is still in date-based order, newest to oldest, but the only posts are the ones with that label. So, for example, you can browse my <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/search/label/Twitter%20Highlights" target="_blank">Twitter Highlights</a></b> at this blog:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0WpRRBHwD2KMhopmkSEm6BW3THMPnYs6BU9yeyggkGvi9sVudV3OFAdsjz_-hF13kYPMG8XP4pactAjOLblVyycqZ71Du2v9fV_pN4l8cj0Onr8NC9HUHjSO79kF_lI6F2juk4Tf-T8_r/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-19+at+10.53.09+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="99" data-original-width="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0WpRRBHwD2KMhopmkSEm6BW3THMPnYs6BU9yeyggkGvi9sVudV3OFAdsjz_-hF13kYPMG8XP4pactAjOLblVyycqZ71Du2v9fV_pN4l8cj0Onr8NC9HUHjSO79kF_lI6F2juk4Tf-T8_r/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-19+at+10.53.09+AM.png" /></a></div>
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By using labels, you make it easier for readers at your blog to explore and find related content. In a traditional website you have to build that navigational experience manually, but in a blog, that navigation structure emerges automatically based on the labels you are using.<br />
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You can also use sidebar widgets to help readers navigate your blog using the labels. You can even have a label that is used just for one post only; that is what my students do with their Introduction posts, so that there is an instant link to the Introduction post from any page of their blog, using the label navigation widget. For example, here's a screenshot from a student blog (this student chose to have Spanish be the default template language for her blog, which I thought was cool; that's why it says "etiquetas" instead of "labels"):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPrQfj3ziVlBTcAyInrXPpUnaUWmqWLbV9BOpDt9vXxNRMlQ51QygPUxb91l0m5eWwIGYgcWR5BFF6oyFBoo8F4Sd-6p9Zy59F0ZkywFcVcpytgIQg5X59mlQSlUSQOaVHNi2l2PJodHzf/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-19+at+10.59.50+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="171" data-original-width="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPrQfj3ziVlBTcAyInrXPpUnaUWmqWLbV9BOpDt9vXxNRMlQ51QygPUxb91l0m5eWwIGYgcWR5BFF6oyFBoo8F4Sd-6p9Zy59F0ZkywFcVcpytgIQg5X59mlQSlUSQOaVHNi2l2PJodHzf/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-19+at+10.59.50+AM.png" /></a></div>
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One of the advantages of a Blogger blog over the standard WordPress blog, in fact, is that you can have multiple label navigation widgets in the sidebar if you want to give your readers a wide variety of ways to navigate the blog. I'll have more to say about configuring label navigation widgets later.<br />
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In my classes, students use two kinds of labels for their work: a category type of label (Reading, Story, etc.) and a week label (Week 1, Week 2, and so on). So, for most assignments, each post has two labels: one for the type of assignment, and one for the week. That allows students to browse and review their own work in two different ways. With just one click, they can see all their reading notes, all their stories, etc. displayed on a single webpage, OR they can click and see all their work for a given week displayed on a single webpage. That is a powerful tool for self-assessment and reflection! Students don't have to do anything special to make that happen except to remember to add labels to each post, which is why I prompt them to do that each time with the assignment declaration checklist (more about declarations and checklists later).<br />
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<b>Hacking Date-Time for Navigation</b><br />
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So, you can use labels to organized the posts at your blog, and that is often all the kind of organization you need to provide. If you are using your blog for content development, though, you might need to organize the content so that the display is not date-based.<br />
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For example, I built the <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">UnTextbook for my Myth-Folklore class</a></b> in the form of a blog. There are 100 different reading units, and each reading unit has around 20-30 posts. And yes, there really are around 3000 posts at the blog. (Trust me: you don't want to put 3000 pages of content inside an LMS; use a blog instead!)<br />
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The way I organized the reading units is by hacking the date/time stamp. So, for example, here is the <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/search/label/Unit%3A%20Cherokee%20Myths" target="_blank">Cherokee Reading Unit</a></b>. All the posts in that unit have a label, and then the posts are organized by date/time with the overview post at the top, followed by the first story, second story, third story and so on. The dates/times on those posts are not the date/time at which I added the content at the blog. Instead, I created those dates/times in a spreadsheet and pasted them into the blog post in order to organize the content in the right order.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE6rFlT3czKb-gRL23kzISjnW_qlNkh-GXniu8pGJ8GgFFFdb0a4Q5yyNLBw2w0E6n8MaB1p_bh5w9V5pgk9xmJpI-aSuhgZEG9VmpPkaxk_z-FyIzKpZ1T9DtDGn6EUWn1xrFy3wlcWqe/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-19+at+11.12.53+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="214" data-original-width="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE6rFlT3czKb-gRL23kzISjnW_qlNkh-GXniu8pGJ8GgFFFdb0a4Q5yyNLBw2w0E6n8MaB1p_bh5w9V5pgk9xmJpI-aSuhgZEG9VmpPkaxk_z-FyIzKpZ1T9DtDGn6EUWn1xrFy3wlcWqe/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-19+at+11.12.53+AM.png" /></a></div>
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I've suppressed the date/time display from the posts (more about how to do that later). The date/time are not important for the readers at this blog; instead, the date/time information is just something I use as the blog author to control the way the content is displayed for the blog's readers.<br />
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<b>Simple Hack: Top Post on Homepage</b><br />
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One simple date/time hack you can use is just to change the year on a post to THE FUTURE so that it will show up as the first post at your blog, staying above the new content you are adding.<br />
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To do that in Blogger, just publish the post with the default date. Then, go back in and edit the post to change the year to be one year in the future, and publish the post again. Blogger will not remove the post from the display; it will stay there, and because the future is "newer" than any current date, it will stay up at the top of your homepage display.<br />
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<b><i>Note: you can also schedule future posts to be published at a future date/time in your blog!</i></b> I do that every day with my daily announcements, writing them up in advance and scheduling them to publish on the correct day.<br />
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This hack depends on publishing the blog post first, and THEN changing the date to the future, as you can see with the post currently on the homepage of this blog, dated 2021:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzS75U2iF02GlYDrRzwmRcltsbmcKTNj__1PTmkQRLSCS9yHOG7mmlmTu0Of3aT-uk238NEntN-asTSIdREBkbbLsDwlWBl_fPVjxwx61q54eFVZdEgDhRD4KbbBx3CHFy7M_VIELnWowp/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-19+at+11.19.32+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="1033" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzS75U2iF02GlYDrRzwmRcltsbmcKTNj__1PTmkQRLSCS9yHOG7mmlmTu0Of3aT-uk238NEntN-asTSIdREBkbbLsDwlWBl_fPVjxwx61q54eFVZdEgDhRD4KbbBx3CHFy7M_VIELnWowp/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-19+at+11.19.32+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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At this blog, I don't usually do that, since this blog usually functions like a regular blog, with newest content at the top of the homepage, so I have not suppressed the date display. When this summer blog-fest is over, I'll change the date on that post back to 2020, and it will revert into the usual date-based display order.<br />
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So, that's the last post I'll be writing about posts and content... starting with the next post, I'll shift over to design options, starting with <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-themes-and-layout.html">Blog Themes and Layout</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-53186675072080926432020-05-18T13:52:00.001-04:002020-05-19T11:23:48.360-04:00Editing Existing Posts<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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One of the best things about using blogs as writing spaces is that you can encourage a process of continual revision. Editing existing blog posts is easy on any platform; below are some tips about editing existing posts at Blogger.<br />
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<b>Open a post for editing</b>. To open any post for editing, just click on it in the Posts view of the dashboard. It's that simple!<br />
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In the old dashboard, there is an actual edit link if you hover over the post, but you don't have to use that link; just click on the post title and it opens that post for editing:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcy29Iih1mTwRdOg-PH-XhW5iHTUurZ9RhNZyk-73GQKXduEIIjVYpkXpvkFT4r1vACq6jsTODOER3dwZ5GJpxyZgHQGPgiFa3T1hLXeZwC2pWcrWpx2IaNVJug-YeM9z6_1Cd7_pJL7Mw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.33.27+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="58" data-original-width="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcy29Iih1mTwRdOg-PH-XhW5iHTUurZ9RhNZyk-73GQKXduEIIjVYpkXpvkFT4r1vACq6jsTODOER3dwZ5GJpxyZgHQGPgiFa3T1hLXeZwC2pWcrWpx2IaNVJug-YeM9z6_1Cd7_pJL7Mw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.33.27+PM.png" /></a></div>
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In the new version of the dashboard, posts look like this; just click on the title to open for editing:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8iLuUc_TcQRw3MXU1nLA-rjkhoBAMZE2TMW68syPo7DvgvVJjUuYOAsTOe7pQa3og8CKUGfWiflLdC1Nnb2oQFHbhYfDSZjO1H96UlnvalBHev8W-E5IBY9N7gAGsll4PDXveRLTupyR_/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.32.15+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="79" data-original-width="391" height="64" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8iLuUc_TcQRw3MXU1nLA-rjkhoBAMZE2TMW68syPo7DvgvVJjUuYOAsTOe7pQa3og8CKUGfWiflLdC1Nnb2oQFHbhYfDSZjO1H96UlnvalBHev8W-E5IBY9N7gAGsll4PDXveRLTupyR_/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.32.15+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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There are no longer edit/delete/view hover links; instead, you just click on the item to open it for editing.</div>
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<b>Clear Formatting: Tx</b>. One of the most common problems with formatting is when you copy-and-paste from another text editor like Word or GoogleDocs. When you copy-and-paste, that often brings in formatting that does not work in the context of the blog. If you have a dark template with light font, for example, the dark font from another application might become invisible. The solution is the "clear formatting" option in the editor, or Tx.<br />
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In the old editor, the Tx button is at the far right of the editing menu:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqzblskd2ezEQazo6kBEsWDvKpq62_pWUMR-YTxjjs57COxkpFSvZHxch2ToArX_Fuj49aAt7kUzgba67nZIFksjmnsQsorccn0LkU2lS1Fu5tiyJc2Vsa5pe1VQ54ZvKywzgD9JO2WB4t/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.44.13+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="92" data-original-width="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqzblskd2ezEQazo6kBEsWDvKpq62_pWUMR-YTxjjs57COxkpFSvZHxch2ToArX_Fuj49aAt7kUzgba67nZIFksjmnsQsorccn0LkU2lS1Fu5tiyJc2Vsa5pe1VQ54ZvKywzgD9JO2WB4t/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.44.13+PM.png" /></a></div>
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In the new editor, the "clear formatting" option is under the three-dot menu to the right that expands the editing menu:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpMvqPBSZfioulUFYPK6B9MIufRpwphelwYwvLRkXL0ZbwC0j3yMqVIYU_BAu-F8JaBAPQeha7Nbm4jlWmIr4nzoOJdDdUcffz4ZC42w776ccOn9nLm6Vm6O-IBxVdfZ2wAucxXPKlskJC/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.42.17+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="219" data-original-width="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpMvqPBSZfioulUFYPK6B9MIufRpwphelwYwvLRkXL0ZbwC0j3yMqVIYU_BAu-F8JaBAPQeha7Nbm4jlWmIr4nzoOJdDdUcffz4ZC42w776ccOn9nLm6Vm6O-IBxVdfZ2wAucxXPKlskJC/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.42.17+PM.png" /></a></div>
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Just highlight the whole post, then hit the Tx button, and that will strip away the formatting. You might need to go in and remove extra line breaks that get added, along with any bold, italics, etc. that you wanted.<br />
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<b>The "pencil icon</b>. One of the reasons I continue to use an "old" Blogger template (one that predates the latest templates which use mobile-first design principles) is that those templates feature a pencil icon in each blog post (visible only to the blog author) which allows you to instantly open the post for editing.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju_4lrxUtYjELLIjtNqh5y3d4sL6-H0M4UqPU4JpF-hnK6QMnnnf4NWueiEudyp64fG45URHYzFiEV3Bv1Vgn3ddZARbadln8I8Jb5k6EHlMP6b9nm50szF4-6fpkmke6dLSoEjMmZ5x0v/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.29.54+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="67" data-original-width="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju_4lrxUtYjELLIjtNqh5y3d4sL6-H0M4UqPU4JpF-hnK6QMnnnf4NWueiEudyp64fG45URHYzFiEV3Bv1Vgn3ddZARbadln8I8Jb5k6EHlMP6b9nm50szF4-6fpkmke6dLSoEjMmZ5x0v/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.29.54+PM.png" /></a></div>
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This feature is turned on by default in posts for that generation of templates; it is not available in the newer templates. I'll have more to say about the different generations of Blogger templates in a later post.<br />
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<b>Spellcheck</b>. Finally, this is not exactly related to editing an existing post, but you might be wondering about a spellcheck in Blogger. There is not a spellcheck feature; instead, you need to turn on the spellcheck feature in your browser, which will then provide the red squiggle for typos when you edit in Blogger. So if I type spellcheckk here in Chrome, I get the red squiggle, and if I then right-mouse click on that word, I get the following menu options:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWNLJNABaS3WOmzCq77ndmla0M8TzeJ-cpitxIfN_tAObquB_Gbr9QrA52iQYFzqpAc7fITHJLK2wkc3WouPDPSmklkU9GIfZIQZnskkv31x8gfGdySc_4FuXT8d1JlOxHIV7UxmryyKx_/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.46.33+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="145" data-original-width="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWNLJNABaS3WOmzCq77ndmla0M8TzeJ-cpitxIfN_tAObquB_Gbr9QrA52iQYFzqpAc7fITHJLK2wkc3WouPDPSmklkU9GIfZIQZnskkv31x8gfGdySc_4FuXT8d1JlOxHIV7UxmryyKx_/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-18+at+1.46.33+PM.png" /></a></div>
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The specific spellcheck features vary by browser; I have some notes for students about that here: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/119416194/tools" target="_blank">Week 1 Orientation: Tech Tools</a></b> (see "Browser Tune-Up"). If you can get students used to using the spellcheck features in their browsers, that will help them in all the typing they do online: email, blogging, anything they type in a browser-based text box.<br />
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Next up: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-labels-and-dates-for-navigation.html" target="_blank">editing post dates and labels</a></b> for navigation purposes!<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-91097032508253975712020-05-17T13:30:00.002-04:002020-05-19T10:49:54.221-04:00Embedded Media: Twitter, NPR, SoundCloud<hr />
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<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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You can use the same HTML view to embed all kinds of dynamic content inside Blogger posts. You can include iframe content, and you can also include javascripts (being able to include javascripts is one of the key factors in my choice of Blogger as a free/ad-free blogging platform: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/btbguide-choosing-platform-and-why-i.html" target="_blank">Why I Use Blogger</a></b>).<br />
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In this post, I'll list some of the other kinds of embedded media I include in blog posts, especially in my <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/03/btbguide-advantages-of-blogging.html" target="_blank">daily class announcements</a></b>. There are literally hundreds of websites that provide dynamic content that you can embed, and once you get comfortable with copying-and-pasting the code into your blog posts, all of that content is just waiting for you to use it!<br />
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<b>Twitter</b> <b>tweets</b><br />
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You can embed individual tweets in a blog post, and this is definitely desirable when that tweet contains some kind of embedded media itself, like a video. For example, my students really enjoyed this Minecraft version of our campus. Here's a <b><a href="https://twitter.com/UofOklahoma/status/1253022737708220417" target="_blank">link to the tweet</a></b>, and here's the tweet embedded:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-dnt="true">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
When you miss campus so much you make a <a href="https://twitter.com/Minecraft?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Minecraft</a> version yourself. We love it <a href="https://twitter.com/emilyalorenz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@emilyalorenz</a>!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CampusBeautiful?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CampusBeautiful</a> <a href="https://t.co/clsZj7awCg">pic.twitter.com/clsZj7awCg</a></div>
— Univ. of Oklahoma (@UofOklahoma) <a href="https://twitter.com/UofOklahoma/status/1253022737708220417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>
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To embed a tweet, just click on the down-arrow menu in the upper-right corner of any tweet and choose embed.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHr01bn3FPWt4p7Dodt8fawNvUlgg-6rBtLZdgG4XNiYJFx1Qda8rKsKzVu86PNM1Gyl8VPD8Cn2qQw9oBuYbApwmEuVhqCmH4Ty1MeWx9oKZP6T_3k-xgu6sI2twG0K64_xiu_vwOUBQF/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+1.19.11+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="651" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHr01bn3FPWt4p7Dodt8fawNvUlgg-6rBtLZdgG4XNiYJFx1Qda8rKsKzVu86PNM1Gyl8VPD8Cn2qQw9oBuYbApwmEuVhqCmH4Ty1MeWx9oKZP6T_3k-xgu6sI2twG0K64_xiu_vwOUBQF/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+1.19.11+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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You can copy the code as is, or you can customize it; I usually customize it by opting out of the replies and the tailoring.<br />
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<b>Twitter widgets</b><br />
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You can also embed an actual Twitter account so that the most current content is at the top. For example, here is our student newspaper, the <b><a href="https://twitter.com/OUDaily" target="_blank">OU Daily</a></b>:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a class="twitter-timeline" data-dnt="true" data-height="500" data-width="400" href="https://twitter.com/OUDaily?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">Tweets by OUDaily</a> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>
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To embed a Twitter account like that, just go to <b><a href="http://publish.twitter.com/">Publish.Twitter.com</a></b> and choose the options there. There are lots of widget options available!<br />
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<b>NPR audio</b><br />
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I often will hear something on NPR that I want to share with the students. Sometimes I do that just as a link, but you can also embed NPR audio. You'll see the link when that is available on the NPR page, with the usual <> symbol:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirxhuWuy2aSvStGCA73hf9LbN7HdINswBb2n6Es89IFCv6XuKGlXf5GKynrzx2bJsGjdjyBGXFqWV-bnG4cLzUOS0dVXOu1FQuv0G0abCQvOE8ZLM0IenfZOgZ7GJ4-5S28CcgRDFf81as/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+1.25.53+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="785" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirxhuWuy2aSvStGCA73hf9LbN7HdINswBb2n6Es89IFCv6XuKGlXf5GKynrzx2bJsGjdjyBGXFqWV-bnG4cLzUOS0dVXOu1FQuv0G0abCQvOE8ZLM0IenfZOgZ7GJ4-5S28CcgRDFf81as/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+1.25.53+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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So, for example, here is an inspiring <b><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/28/823071293/art-critic-jerry-saltz-on-his-new-book-how-to-be-an-artist" target="_blank">interview with Jerry Saltz</a></b>:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="290" scrolling="no" src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/823071293/823071294" title="NPR embedded audio player" width="100%"></iframe></div>
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<b>SoundCloud audio</b><br />
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<b><br /></b>SoundCloud also has some great embedding features:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrkm-aMFMkzMw1ezmbqscmLOAbHSkNm28Xr5hvkF3x1ftytYACMqvYZlO5XXaThIHvH55xmjFNB4fmN9vRrZxtWhp98vEhPtRnbZ8WLms_BUnzl3qGxmwb5p6wtZq_YrfwPkq8PsS2u52/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+1.29.20+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="304" data-original-width="418" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrkm-aMFMkzMw1ezmbqscmLOAbHSkNm28Xr5hvkF3x1ftytYACMqvYZlO5XXaThIHvH55xmjFNB4fmN9vRrZxtWhp98vEhPtRnbZ8WLms_BUnzl3qGxmwb5p6wtZq_YrfwPkq8PsS2u52/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+1.29.20+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Here's a Karsh Kale song I really like: <b><a href="https://soundcloud.com/karshkale/hallelujah-ode-to-a-sunny" target="_blank">Hallelujah- Ode To A Sunny Day</a></b><br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/37695552&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe></div>
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Those are just a few ideas. If you start poking around you will probably find lots of examples of dynamic multimedia content you can embed in your blog posts, and you can teach your student how to embed all this multimedia in their blog posts too, sharing the media long with their own comments and thoughts about it.<br />
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Next up....... <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/editing-existing-posts.html" target="_blank">editing existing posts</a></b>! (Short version: it's easy!)<br />
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-31100075606116033962020-05-17T12:30:00.002-04:002020-05-19T10:49:54.184-04:00Embedded Media: YouTube Videos and Playlists<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
<br />
One of the most powerful things about blog posts is that you can embed other kinds of media here: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/images-in-posts.html" target="_blank">images</a></b>, but also videos along with dynamic content from other sites like tweets, podcasts, etc.<br />
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<b>Copying-and-Pasting in HTML View</b><br />
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Most of the time when you are embedding media, you will need to be prepared to use the HTML view of the post, pasting in the HTML code that you have copied from the media source. That is not as scary as it sounds, I promise. The key thing is to come up with a system to help you navigate the HTML view so that you know where you are copying and pasting. The way I do that is to type zzz wherever I want to paste the HTML code. So, for example, if I want to center something (which I usually do), I type some text for context, and then I center and type zzz where I will be pasting, like this:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6fIF2icTKVz2Yh_A7aZdfxNnrxbqfo5WbuPgdoXt4CEKC5Z5ubyjmLohbZcgL6ZUFgiqtgAbdPOnYyunzNTMDImrgNcXUsER7PA3zvFAH1tujjxIjqUWl4bAnpCIeY0TNPtz1krvkVWhU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.11.24+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="679" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6fIF2icTKVz2Yh_A7aZdfxNnrxbqfo5WbuPgdoXt4CEKC5Z5ubyjmLohbZcgL6ZUFgiqtgAbdPOnYyunzNTMDImrgNcXUsER7PA3zvFAH1tujjxIjqUWl4bAnpCIeY0TNPtz1krvkVWhU/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.11.24+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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And then, I can go to the HTML view of the post, use Control-F to find zzz and I can delete the zzz, pasting in the HTML code instead.<br />
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To access the HTML view so that you can copy-and-paste the code, you switch from the Compose view to the HTML view:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Old editor: upper left-hand corner</i></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwSbhaidRyaMT2-SJmlaGzT20diwy1lAqOrWC0ArOE1xBrGu62OEQuHBpFzucJkCjA6wRtxZb9OvgZeUR3E7N2QNS7gDdmoq7dnq9B6NTJI9sXMQGI4kVpmZXYlz0zPi8i7OioYtbQWBnM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.13.52+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="57" data-original-width="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwSbhaidRyaMT2-SJmlaGzT20diwy1lAqOrWC0ArOE1xBrGu62OEQuHBpFzucJkCjA6wRtxZb9OvgZeUR3E7N2QNS7gDdmoq7dnq9B6NTJI9sXMQGI4kVpmZXYlz0zPi8i7OioYtbQWBnM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.13.52+PM.png" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>New editor: upper right-hand corner <> symbol</i></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOf5OaiQVXqiXQ1ZissrefForzg_A7x6dcl8z2TjoKUbMPKqdM2Yc5bDLosrKg1Uq8-WgiM3b7-zISuWsHGc3mYg7zd7kS-QxJOwVvHEFhu0BkhbiFjyEJXBTTKzIi8ulSscL0bef7LVu5/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.14.17+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="41" data-original-width="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOf5OaiQVXqiXQ1ZissrefForzg_A7x6dcl8z2TjoKUbMPKqdM2Yc5bDLosrKg1Uq8-WgiM3b7-zISuWsHGc3mYg7zd7kS-QxJOwVvHEFhu0BkhbiFjyEJXBTTKzIi8ulSscL0bef7LVu5/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.14.17+PM.png" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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And then just switch back when you are done copying-and-pasting. Depending on the type of media you are embedding, you may or may not see the actual media displayed while you are editing the blog post. Sometimes it may just show up as a big blank white space but, don't worry, you can see how it actually works after you publish the post.<br />
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<b>YouTube Videos and Playlists</b><br />
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A key thing to remember about videos is that you may need to adjust the height/widget based on the size of your blog post. As a general rule, I always adjust videos to be 400 pixels wide, 225 pixels high. You will see those height/width parameters in the code you copy-and-paste from YouTube.<br />
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So, for example, when I go to a YouTube video I want to embed, like <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6rP-YP4c5I" target="_blank">Shakira's Try Everything</a></b>, I click on the share icon, then the <> embed panel, and Google gives me the code I need to use:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLhcrWrEufvbul50lhExbjr7EfpgJYSqk4rzu1ZeXXbYki26Tv9vgNW_Ar9P7fc4S40MtSDQLFBPB3RwLU72GsFe-42dNWI3tcfFE2W0FDTjKQPAVTB-4nkgDsjie0U4vxZLxyseeb9n7Z/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.21.15+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="234" data-original-width="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLhcrWrEufvbul50lhExbjr7EfpgJYSqk4rzu1ZeXXbYki26Tv9vgNW_Ar9P7fc4S40MtSDQLFBPB3RwLU72GsFe-42dNWI3tcfFE2W0FDTjKQPAVTB-4nkgDsjie0U4vxZLxyseeb9n7Z/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.21.15+PM.png" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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I copy the code, paste it into my blog post (see above), and I manually change the width/height parameters. It comes out like this:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/c6rP-YP4c5I" width="400"></iframe></div>
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Even more powerful is when you embed playlists so that your students can have a context for the video they are watching, with easy access to more videos that you have put into the playlist. So, for example, here is a video from my <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWYQjLLbXcgfQhMaJdYAS_e2R5JzGNE8" target="_blank">Maati Baani playlist</a></b>; it has 33 videos in it, and the embedding loads the whole playlist which users can navigate as a playlist:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO2wFetWCjm82-F26Y5htpOSvg6_oGQTLWxrI2rDCZZKM85_QoLvzyeHl0ank_OtMnXZIOdVQ-g5-jGD3eWgzjloH4xNfwjeaZ3laf46j_ut1HlG6F8jwXUzwMMXrQGUrmfsmNW6QOOi6D/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.26.53+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="167" data-original-width="378" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO2wFetWCjm82-F26Y5htpOSvg6_oGQTLWxrI2rDCZZKM85_QoLvzyeHl0ank_OtMnXZIOdVQ-g5-jGD3eWgzjloH4xNfwjeaZ3laf46j_ut1HlG6F8jwXUzwMMXrQGUrmfsmNW6QOOi6D/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+12.26.53+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Here's how that works; just click on the hamburger menu in the upper-right to navigate the playlist:<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLrWYQjLLbXcgfQhMaJdYAS_e2R5JzGNE8" width="400"></iframe></div>
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Playlists are a YouTube superpower; if you are not saving videos in playlists, it's a great thing to do, making the videos even more useful when you share them with your students. Plus, embedded playlists update automatically everywhere they are embedded as you add new videos!<br />
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Next up: more <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/embedded-media-twitter-npr-soundcloud.html" target="_blank">embedding with Twitter, NPR, and SoundCloud</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-70372597831861788972020-05-15T13:14:00.002-04:002021-02-27T13:29:13.555-05:00More about Export: OPML<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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In addition to <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings.html" target="_blank">HTML export</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/more-about-export-rss.html" target="_blank">RSS export</a></b>, I want to mention OPML export, which is a file format that can be used to export groups of feeds, specifically so that you can move a collection of feeds from one RSS reader to another. In other words, you can share your folders with other people, including people who use Inoreader as their feed reader, or for them to use at another feed reader like Feedly.<br />
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OPML is one of those export options you see when you click on a Folder, and then View Folder Information:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBY3uWptpq8mtv2Jzig9xlfRVgwTPTY65oqOwBjfOaHFd5XBMQardbz3GBt2t0KOFih6avINBxhmphavWoN1m_sKdmf-L9bWrOoEtFC-sr5o-R-9nkDcMuolQnG2r0iMdvhxCowlVH3K3C/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+12.55.36+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="91" data-original-width="542" height="66" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBY3uWptpq8mtv2Jzig9xlfRVgwTPTY65oqOwBjfOaHFd5XBMQardbz3GBt2t0KOFih6avINBxhmphavWoN1m_sKdmf-L9bWrOoEtFC-sr5o-R-9nkDcMuolQnG2r0iMdvhxCowlVH3K3C/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+12.55.36+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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When you click on OPML, you will see the XML file that provides all the information about the feeds in your folder. For example, this is the file for the Summer2020 Blog Fest folder I've created this summer:<br />
<a href="https://www.inoreader.com/reader/subscriptions/export/user/1005987531/label/Summer2020BlogFest">https://www.inoreader.com/reader/subscriptions/export/user/1005987531/label/Summer2020BlogFest</a><br />
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<b>Static OPML</b>. Notice a big difference here from the RSS option: this is a list of the feeds in that folder at this time. If I add new feeds to the folder later, people who have subscribed to the feeds using this file in the past will not automatically be subscribed to the feeds I've newly added. So, for example, I can take this URL, go to Feedly, and subscribe to those feeds. Feedly opens the OPML file and then gives me the option to click-click-click to subscribe to those feeds individually.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWRf41wgVG3hwnp7LkT6cWLPF9MN60cKBe50wTQJzED1Jy22TganR_nFY2IowIp-CFxwaw1fWX08bDvPwuYT1-J9YBzQKRQ7Wz3V1Sm3lwX3avGzkWITmszgqVdLN54zNK1HCuhN8gVdyz/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+1.00.47+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="648" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWRf41wgVG3hwnp7LkT6cWLPF9MN60cKBe50wTQJzED1Jy22TganR_nFY2IowIp-CFxwaw1fWX08bDvPwuYT1-J9YBzQKRQ7Wz3V1Sm3lwX3avGzkWITmszgqVdLN54zNK1HCuhN8gVdyz/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+1.00.47+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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To be honest, because it is static, and because the Feedly interface for the import is so poor (at least, I am not.a Feedly fan), if a student is subscribing with Feedly, the <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/more-about-export-rss.html" target="_blank">RSS export</a></b> is way better.<br />
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But for people who are using Inoreader........ there is an amazing option: dynamic OPML subscriptions.<br />
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<b>Dynamic OPML.</b> This is an ingenious feature at Inoreader that (so far as I know?) is not available at other feed readers: dynamic OPML. With Inoreader, you can subscribe to an OPML file address, and then Inoreader will ping that file, just like it pings RSS sources, updating that OPML file to reflect new subscriptions. For more about how that works, see the details from Inoreader here: <b><a href="https://blog.inoreader.com/2014/05/opml-subscriptions.html" target="_blank">OPML Subscriptions</a></b>.<br />
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This type of dynamic OPML subscription is available for people using the free Inoreader service, so if your students are using Inoreader, you offer them the option of subscribing to the dynamic OPML file for your class folder if you want. That would mean that, instead of just seeing all the class content as a single feed, they would see all the individual blog feeds in the folder.<br />
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So, to subscribe to the OPML file, you would go to Preferences - Import - OPML Subscription.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5HqJ7rW0bAgh_5Mw0ssQO-LiNT1TfvgPjic7QgjXomCFVtcQHrCjcyf5RlLb7n_0kcXEo1EKzUIumxeHmM8ELbYNug8QNi3kP3sEZSHyAAqbEKl6soxWmbYs_giV6dzmw8uwDrPojKg3Z/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+1.07.30+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="252" data-original-width="806" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5HqJ7rW0bAgh_5Mw0ssQO-LiNT1TfvgPjic7QgjXomCFVtcQHrCjcyf5RlLb7n_0kcXEo1EKzUIumxeHmM8ELbYNug8QNi3kP3sEZSHyAAqbEKl6soxWmbYs_giV6dzmw8uwDrPojKg3Z/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+1.07.30+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Presto: like magic, your students see the same folder and feeds that you do, which allows them not only to browse the network as a single content stream, but also as the individual blog feeds of students in the class.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNOvV_ajBXv0UhZlqR7hVoD9x4oRBCk3egOFr01sm6B2iStTsqTaVbDRxc61PnDCIqjydLgrWKtn7-95oes_4EBS6u2C8qMflYhjbNsB2DQ5bmqC1q-hFtgFHwGSVwJKFUUavFL1s8xqUX/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+1.08.03+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="1028" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNOvV_ajBXv0UhZlqR7hVoD9x4oRBCk3egOFr01sm6B2iStTsqTaVbDRxc61PnDCIqjydLgrWKtn7-95oes_4EBS6u2C8qMflYhjbNsB2DQ5bmqC1q-hFtgFHwGSVwJKFUUavFL1s8xqUX/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+1.08.03+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Plus, as you add new students to the class, the feed updates automatically! For free accounts, those updates to OPML subscriptions happen just once every 24 hours, but that's fine!<br />
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I don't know about you, but whenever I load up an OPML subscription like that in Inoreader I just kind of gasp: it's one of those magic moments where I think about the seriously smart people who build these data standards and applications. It is just SO COOL.<br />
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Okay, now that we've covered those three types of Inoreader export, I will move on next time to talk about <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-bundles.html">Inoreader Bundles</a></b>, which is a way to browse and share collections of feeds within the Inoreader system. (And, unlike export, Bundles are part of the free Inoreader application.)<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-45364019608580177502020-05-15T12:51:00.001-04:002020-05-15T13:15:31.461-04:00More about Export: RSS<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
<hr />
<br />
In previous posts I talked about <a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings.html">Inoreader HTML export</a> for <a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings.html">folders</a> and <a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings-tags.html">tags</a>, and also how to <a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/summer-2020-blog-fest-okay-ive-reviewed.html"> embedding Inoreader HTML</a> in other webspaces like websites and the LMS. In this post, I want to talk about another one of the ways you can export folders and tags, and that is with its own RSS feed.<br />
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First of all: why would this be useful? Here are just three possibilities:</div>
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<b>Share your curated content. </b>Exporting by RSS is a way to share curated content (tags you've created, folders you've created) with others who are interested in that topic. (If you use Twitter, it would be similar to someone subscribing to one of your Twitter lists.)</div>
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<b>RSS in your class webspace. </b>Another way this could be useful is if you have some kind of RSS subscription feature in your LMS or other course portal. You could create a course-related tag and use that tag to send all kinds of content to your LMS via that RSS feature. (I honestly don't know if any LMSes have features like that... but they should!)</div>
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<b>Students subscribing to course content. </b>Finally, if you teach your students about RSS and encourage them to learn how to use an RSS reader (Feedly is great for students, for example; more user-friendly for beginners than Inoreader), the RSS export feature makes it easy for them to subscribe to the class blog network and/or to specific assignments or other class-related content in their own feed reader.</div>
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<b>How to export folders and tags as RSS</b></div>
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You already know how to do this! RSS is just another one of those export options that you see after you turn on the export for a folder or for a tag. Just click on a Folder, then click on View Folder Information (using the little down arrow next to the folder name in the top navigation bar to open the options); you'll then see the RSS link among the export options:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijmGTa9jIbSxKjuz1aqcxPb7Hq7xC8DL2LFGffO9ABdvl9Isv_EJy1z-kIpREwd9dZxh-mL5m-aGXKBx8k7-q_a8mrZ5GuXc-TOz4BCDte6gIZoXYW9nMkqTGfHmRYWV-AD1tazB5Kt4Tc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+12.38.14+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="234" data-original-width="557" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijmGTa9jIbSxKjuz1aqcxPb7Hq7xC8DL2LFGffO9ABdvl9Isv_EJy1z-kIpREwd9dZxh-mL5m-aGXKBx8k7-q_a8mrZ5GuXc-TOz4BCDte6gIZoXYW9nMkqTGfHmRYWV-AD1tazB5Kt4Tc/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+12.38.14+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Here's the URL for the RSS feed that you will then see:</div>
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<a href="https://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1005987531/tag/Summer2020BlogFest">https://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1005987531/tag/Summer2020BlogFest</a></div>
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So, for example, I could share that link with students, and they could subscribe to it in Feedly or in Inoreader. Here's what that looks like in Inoreader, for example; as you can see, the difference is that instead of seeing the individual feeds in a folder, the person just sees one continuous stream of content because this is just one feed that they have subscribed to:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr1SVcfda4SZtkZqDHQHTciBZvp6Q0RvHjBT1Pdo-ru2TLZd6T4vdK1ECWazaPfrkfV5PNn67U4BkXstJaBfDIWAStbaXEeyk02RXS30aU_0I8S7ox7ppq5qEcdjN9z3D4v6GhcHlV-bg_/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+12.42.32+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="1037" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr1SVcfda4SZtkZqDHQHTciBZvp6Q0RvHjBT1Pdo-ru2TLZd6T4vdK1ECWazaPfrkfV5PNn67U4BkXstJaBfDIWAStbaXEeyk02RXS30aU_0I8S7ox7ppq5qEcdjN9z3D4v6GhcHlV-bg_/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+12.42.32+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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And you can use that same RSS feed to subscribe with Feedly:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6tauemNr7E_LAN5w6enRZZiAAtyWjYY_VLI4TTHJVmlmoz8DhEbwx55YFzmFDlAVtSCjVSaX4PANjrVm5iuRNwqecGRFhHB5OK_GLQ0KVUeDuSIdApmsK2EzHMaXSqgbd4C8wZmG1qAw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+12.49.46+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="923" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6tauemNr7E_LAN5w6enRZZiAAtyWjYY_VLI4TTHJVmlmoz8DhEbwx55YFzmFDlAVtSCjVSaX4PANjrVm5iuRNwqecGRFhHB5OK_GLQ0KVUeDuSIdApmsK2EzHMaXSqgbd4C8wZmG1qAw/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-15+at+12.49.46+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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What's very cool and convenient is that this RSS feed reflects the contents of my folder dynamically. As I add new blogs to my folder, the content of those blogs will go into the feed. The subscriber doesn't have to do anything differently; all the contents of all the feeds in my folder will appear via the RSS export.</div>
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Next up: I'll explain about <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/12-more-about-export-opml.html" target="_blank">Export with OPML</a></b> which is a way to export the actual feeds in a package, as opposed to the consolidated content stream as RSS.</div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4559716192196169626.post-66636143864577067302020-05-14T13:25:00.003-04:002020-05-15T12:52:13.308-04:00Embedding HTML Clippings<hr />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><a href="http://summer2020.lauragibbs.net/">Summer 2020 Blog Fest</a></i></b></div>
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<br />
Okay, I've reviewed some information about <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings.html" target="_blank">folder export</a></b> and <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/inoreader-export-html-clippings-tags.html" target="_blank">tag export</a></b>, and now I want to talk not just about the HTML page that Inoreader generates for the export, but also the iframe code snippet you can use to embed that page inside a blog post, webpage, or LMS Page.<br />
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You might have noticed that Inoreader provides you with an iframe snippet in the HTML export dialogue box:<br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />
<img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="563" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgukyxjxhzAPdTfwvK2ECIUYosBIXLbTojJW_50TbnuPgm389fR-QEUAS32O9vV0W8aHvWcCh7gszSTCVwFK9OdKVXMvqXtWCKobsGzNJVIMIusRdo9mYoKkuUA74JHWrQadVVcuecAGCpz/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-14+at+12.12.34+PM.png" style="background-color: white; border: none; color: #113bcc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.82px; position: relative;" width="400" /></div>
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In the same way that the URL for the HTML page updates as you change the parameters, so does the iframe snippet. When embedding content, usually the width and height parameters are the most important, and of course you can also select all kinds of other iframe parameters. I'm not an expert, but that's all that's going on here: Inoreader is taking the address of the HTML page and then giving you the iframe code snippet you need to embed that HTML page with the various iframe parameters. If you are an iframe expert, you can edit that code snippet however you want with the iframe parameters you want to use.<br />
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<b>EXAMPLES</b><br />
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So, probably the best thing I can do here is just show examples of how/where I've used the iframe option to embed Inoreader content in other spaces.<br />
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<b>WEBPAGE. </b>I already shared earlier how I use Inoreader to embed a stream of my latest blog posts (combined across multiple blogs) here at my own personal homepage, <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.net/">MythFolklore.net</a></b>.<br />
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Here's that snippet:<br />
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<iframe width="700" height="900" src="https://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1005987531/tag/Laura%20Blogs/view/html?cs=m&n=3&w=620" frameborder="0" tabindex="-1"></iframe><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW-skJJggNkt7s5ZeEl6jhqyVh1UnIcBi8uGQbNvBpgrJkXO9mce6FBYVgKtZ4uqxu17XYtij_R9sTBjrosgSs20KSd1mgBaJ2WXy9BzzKpOLSHknQ2R3g1hWj1OeX3J7mehHHDpEsUlqM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-14+at+1.05.57+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="707" data-original-width="957" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW-skJJggNkt7s5ZeEl6jhqyVh1UnIcBi8uGQbNvBpgrJkXO9mce6FBYVgKtZ4uqxu17XYtij_R9sTBjrosgSs20KSd1mgBaJ2WXy9BzzKpOLSHknQ2R3g1hWj1OeX3J7mehHHDpEsUlqM/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-14+at+1.05.57+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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As a class-related example, here's a webpage in the class wiki where I share the content stream for a specific assignment in class: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/110525725/wikipediatrail" target="_blank">Wikipedia Trails</a></b>. Especially at the beginning of the semester, it can be helpful for students to see examples of other student work for an assignment, so I include these pages together with the instructions so that students who learn best by example can take a look.</div>
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Here's that snippet:</div>
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<iframe width="620" height="800" src="http://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1005987531/tag/OU%20WikipediaTrail/view/html?cs=m&t=Snippets:&n=50&w=500" frameborder="0" tabindex="-1"></iframe></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrRCuSRXCOXMBw327V3CGeeoj82PM-qfJztzqKyjXKditMuDt-6O7BZ_zxsbNTemd3lACOESLEXzhCKL4w118ClvFWV1lZz1Kip_kEBABwoxOXbc1Dg2N3hai9xFMYJaPJUQ5sK-MEHskL/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-14+at+1.19.12+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="745" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrRCuSRXCOXMBw327V3CGeeoj82PM-qfJztzqKyjXKditMuDt-6O7BZ_zxsbNTemd3lACOESLEXzhCKL4w118ClvFWV1lZz1Kip_kEBABwoxOXbc1Dg2N3hai9xFMYJaPJUQ5sK-MEHskL/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-14+at+1.19.12+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>BLOG POST</b>. You can see how I embedded the Summer2020 blog stream in this blog post: <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/latest-posts-via-inoreader.html" target="_blank">Latest Posts via Inoreader</a></b>.<br />
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Here's that snippet:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="3300" src="https://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1005987531/tag/Summer2020post/view/html?cs=m&t=Summer2020%20Blog%20Fest%3A&n=12" tabindex="-1" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQWdYP2Joxcmo7mIonrvy3JBkOIiJyZ3uYrcRO8ysanfNLvkYemNputVLslNxzjoEWM744KSGgsE9PMJQcsHaeL7PHVA5vcQw3e0W6Qs0oTsgpDC8NbnpT2hz2w3OhkLbFdi-DxnSPHJqb/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-14+at+1.08.20+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="1005" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQWdYP2Joxcmo7mIonrvy3JBkOIiJyZ3uYrcRO8ysanfNLvkYemNputVLslNxzjoEWM744KSGgsE9PMJQcsHaeL7PHVA5vcQw3e0W6Qs0oTsgpDC8NbnpT2hz2w3OhkLbFdi-DxnSPHJqb/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-05-14+at+1.08.20+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>LMS</b>. This is one of my very favorite things: embedding the class blog stream inside Canvas. It's the Canvas blog invasion! This is also where students "see" the blog network as a whole, and I use this page as a jumping off point for some assignments in class.<br />
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Here's that snippet:<br />
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<iframe src="https://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1005987531/tag/OU%20MFPosts/view/html?cs=m&t=Snippets:&n=50&w=600" width="720" height="5000"></iframe><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWHr_9jkpm6i-73JPMe9Nb8RaBwIwOgMtW10J0vfJaPmwkgC_EILAW4rizcjLqksyxmxpHKf1q8-Is0JxQgxgai_hdzTZjEoIt6E9rsgjA5ubrpPKsUuu2EeQB6FbdF6838MoC7wfHJgar/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-05-14+at+1.12.10+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="657" data-original-width="735" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWHr_9jkpm6i-73JPMe9Nb8RaBwIwOgMtW10J0vfJaPmwkgC_EILAW4rizcjLqksyxmxpHKf1q8-Is0JxQgxgai_hdzTZjEoIt6E9rsgjA5ubrpPKsUuu2EeQB6FbdF6838MoC7wfHJgar/s400/Screen+Shot+2020-05-14+at+1.12.10+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Okay, those are some examples, and I'm glad to brainstorm about ideas and possibilities anytime. I export lots of content from my class blog streams (and also from Diigo; more about that in a separate post), and it's fun to think about new ways to re-use content, putting it in new contexts that add new meaning and purpose.<br />
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What's up next? I'll talk about <b><a href="https://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/05/more-about-export-rss.html" target="_blank">Exporting as RSS</a></b>, which is also a great way to share the Inoreader content that you are collecting.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com