Edubuzz.org has been updated over the holidays, so if you’ve an edubuzz blog you’ll notice changes to the admin screens. If you just need a quick tour of the basics, get your speakers on and watch the 5-minute video (11MB, opens in full-screen), or use the player below.
The good news is these changes make WordPress easier to use. The more advanced options, for example, have been moved below the Write Post screen to make the interface less intimidating for new users. This will make it easier for more students and staff to get started with web publishing.
Some new features have been added in response to feedback from WordPress users world-wide. These include:
- the ability to set the size of image thumbnails, and to use mid-sized thumbnails
- the replacement of the separate Upload area, which confused some people, with “Add Media”
- a full-screen editing option
- easier, more obvious, options for making posts appear on future dates
Jeffrey Zeldman provides a good 10-point summary of the key changes.
Of course, if you need a bit more assistance, please get in touch by leaving a comment or by email.
Could an edubuzz blog potentially be a place where all East Lothian Parent Councils - and Parent Forum members - get involved with what’s happening across the county?
Some time ago we set up the “Parents” blog (http://edubuzz.org/blogs/parents) to support consultation on the draft Parental Involvement strategy (20 pages, pdf, 800KB).
Now that the Parent Councils are up and running, meetings are now taking place of the East Lothian Association of Parent Councils. That raised issues of communications between the individual councils.
- How do Parent Councils keep in touch with what other councils are doing?
- Where can you find links to East Lothian Parent Council web sites?
- Where can you find updates on what’s happening county-wide, such as the Association meetings?
Our current plan is to use the Parents blog as a place to share this information, and hopefully promote the integration of all parents into East Lothian’s leading networked education community. If you’d like to contribute to the site, please get in touch and we’ll help get you started.
Over at Windygoul Primary, Emma Griffiths has today posted a short film of small group work in the nursery, focusing on listening skills, building literacy, and co-operative group behaviour using “The Tiger Who Came To Tea”.
It’s another good example of how the combination of classroom video cameras, combined with web publishing, now enables useful sharing of classroom practice at very low cost.
Another recent example was by Mhairi Stratton of East Lothian’s Maths Recovery team, who published a short video showing how real-world problems can be used to help children develop their own strategies for problem solving.
Here’s an outline of what’s involved in publishing these videos:
- Connect the video camera and start iMovie or Windows Movie Maker.
- Import the original digital video file.
- Export the video in a suitable format, e.g. a low resolution Quicktime movie.
- Upload the video file to Google video, and copy the URL of the video’s web page.
- In your WordPress post, click the yellow “A” toolbar button (for Anarchy Media Player) and paste the URL in where requested.
- Publish your post - done!
