Thing 3 . Set Up Your Blog

It's time to set up your very own blog to begin recording your progress and thoughts on the MA On a Stick. There are several free online blog hosting services including Wordpress & Typepad, but we recommend Blogger, a Google product. If you have never written or read a blog, here is a quick explanation:



Your "news" in this blog is your progress on the Things. Your community of people who will be reading your blog are the other students in MA On a Stick--and maybe teachers, parents, and others--who are reading your blog posts. So keep that in mind when you post.

Before you start:

• You will need a Google Account to set up your blog. If you don't have one, Blogger will prompt you to set one up. Consider setting up a separate account for this project, not your usual email. In Blogger, your email becomes your username. Your display name is how your posts are signed. Don't use your real name--use initials or a nickname.
• You will need a blog name--this is what appears on the banner like MA On a Stick.
• You will create a URL. This must be unique, since it is your blog address. Be sure to check availability.
• Remember that we will be able to see your blog title and blog address. Create a name that reflects the On a Stick program, but is uniquely yours.
• Please remember your URL address. You can bookmark it on your home computer.
  

Set up your blog by following these steps:

Blogger Settings

1. Be sure that you have enabled comments. We want to comment on your posts, as do other MA bloggers.

Under the Settings Tab, click the Comments link.

1. We recommend the second choice under Who Can Comment? Registered Users.
   
2. If you want to moderate comments (review all comments before they are published) scroll down and turn moderation on.
   
3. If you want others (up to 10 people) to know when you receive a comment, you can enter their email addresses in the box near the bottom of that page.

Click Save Settings once you are done.

2. Under the Setting--Basic tab, chose No under Let search engines find your blog--this is a safety issue since you are students.

3. Select your template.

• The fun part--Blogger has several templates so choose one that fits you. The first Choose Template screen has only a few; choose one. If you want to experiment with other Templates after your blog is set-up, go to Layout and choose Pick New Template. You will see many more choices. Try some; it is easy to see how your blog will look in the different choices.

Hints

• If you run into problems, check out Blogger's Help file and Tutorial.
• Be sure your blog title appears on the masthead of your blog. Go to settings and enter it in the Title box if it does not appear.
• Spend some time exploring the features of Blogger—spell check, how to upload photos or video, font choices, text size and color, and more.
  

4. Create an avatar. (Optional)

• An avatar is an online representation of yourself. Go to http://avatars.yahoo.com/ to design an avatar. There are many choices for appearance, accessories, pets, etc. (You will have to set up an account if you don't use Yahoo!) You can make an avatar that resembles the "real you" or create an entirely new you (If only it were so easy!)
  
• Save your avatar and export to your blog.

5. Register your blog.

• Click here to register your blog. Once you have clicked the Register button, you are registered. You will not receive a confirmation email. SurveyMonkey, the tool we use for registration is very reliable; we will get the registration.
  
• We will add you to the MA On a Stick blog list in the motherblog sidebar. We will not list your name; only your blog's name. Remember, it may take a week or so to get your blog on the mother blog. Don't panic (and don't re-register!)--it will get there as soon as we can get it up.
  

You’re ready to start posting!

Whenever you complete a Thing, write a post reflecting your experience with the Thing you accomplished. Please clearly label each entry in your blog in with Thing number and the subject. We just need to be able to see which Thing you are doing. Read and comment on other MA bloggers’ posts, too. That’s part of being part of this library learning community. And everyone, likes feedback.

Each of your posts should provide insights into what you’ve discovered and learned. Share what worked for you, what didn’t, what you’ve shared with your colleagues, any surprises, frustrations, and eureka moments. We will offer some blog prompts to get you thinking, but don’t feel limited by those—splash out and share!

Each participant must have her/his own blog to record progress.

If you have the time and interest, explore some of Blogger's features:

1. Add features from Blogger's selections on Layout and Settings pages. Add a blog roll of blogs of your fellow participants or of other interesting blogs you've found. Add photos or video. How about a poll?
   
2. Add third party features to your blog--visitor counts, email subscriptions and more. Feedburner and Sitemeter are two sources of additional features.
3. Be sure to blog about your experience with the other blogging software and/or third party features. Any features you think all blogs should have?

Thing 4. Online Word Processing Tools

Many people use email and attached documents to share various versions of a project. This may work, but there are several obstacles to smooth exchange and editing. Attachments may not open or you or your collaborators may not have the same software program or the right version to open and edit a document. It is easy to lose track of which is the current version with all the changes.

Web 2.0 tools make collaborating on creating a document or other publication easier. Documents are online and available from any computer with Internet access. Edits are easy to make and save. The program saves a document’s history with all changes made and indicates who made the changes. A full set of word processing tools makes formatting simple. Click the toolbar buttons to bold, underline, indent, change font or number format, change cell background color and so on.
There are several online office suites of tools. We will try out GoogleDocs. You need a Google account to use it.

You can use Google Docs to create basic word processing documents, presentations, or spreadsheets from scratch or you can upload your existing files. Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. You can share documents with a select group or make the document public.

Watch this introduction to Google Docs from Common Craft Show

Similar Tools
These online tools are similar to GoogleDocs.
Zoho Docs
Windows Office Live

Activities
1. Request access to this Google Doc. You will be given access as a collaborator, which means you will be able to edit the document.
2. Optional Set up a GoogleDocs account of your own and create a document for collaboration. Be sure to uncheck the boxes that let others invite collaborators and invitations may be used by anyone. This is a security feature. Invite others to collaborate.

Resources
Tutorials for Google Docs on YouTube
Google Docs Help

Blog Prompts
These are just to get you started. You don't have to answer any or all of these questions; they are just to help you think about something to say.

• Have you used online document creation/editing in the past? Which sites?
• Can you see a use for this in your work?
• Did you have any problems gaining access? Using the document or editing it?
• What are the pros and cons of using Google Docs or another online collaboration site?
  
• Can you see your teachers suing or encouraging using Google Docs in class? Why or why not?
• If you use Google Docs in class, be sure to blog about it!
  

Thing 5. Google Tools

Everyone uses Google. It has even become a verb--Googling. One of the things that makes Google so appealing in addition to the search is the range of tools that are available if you have a Google account. We could have 23 Things All About Google! However, in this Thing, we limit the exploration to some of the more useful, non-search tools and some of the lesser-known features of the search tools. You can find all Google Tools here.

For this Thing’s activities, choose at least one item from each category and experiment using it. Rather than re-create all of this info here, you will be re-directed to the More Things On a Stick wiki for the Google tools. Keep in mind this was written for library staff; if something says, "How would you use this in your library?" think school instead.

There are brief descriptions of the services and links to the Google tutorials/info about the tool and when available, other links to reviews, blog posts, and other evaluative information. If available, similar tools or services from other sources are listed if Google is not your cup of tea for everything you do.

Search Tools

• Alerts--Get email updates on any Google search term
  
• Google News--One search retrieves aggregated list of headline news
• SearchWiki--Customize Google search results
  
• Web History--Track your Google use

Productivity

• GMail--a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that email can be more intuitive, efficient, and useful.
• Calendar--free online shareable calendar service.
  
• Sites one click Web-site creation to collaborate & share info with family, friends, work, or groups.

Everyone should try this one--Goog-411. Put that right into your speed dial!

Blog Prompts
Think about these things when you blog.

• Which tools did you try?
• Are any of the tools useful for you, your family, school, other activities--teams, clubs, etc.?
• Useful in school?
  

Thing 6. Beyond Google: Other Search Engines

Google may be first choice for searching, but there are other search engines that may produce useful results. How each search engine finds its results is a big secret, but you can look at the results returned to determine which is most useful for your purpose. Your searching will be more efficient and return more results if you take a few minutes to compare the search results from various search engines (Google, Ask, Yahoo, MSN) and metasearch engines (Clusty, Dogpile). Different search engines may be better for certain types of searches.

Activities
1. Watch this short video about Web Search Strategies from Common Craft:



2. Run the same searches in more than one search engine and compare the results. Try Ask.com, Yahoo!, MSN, or another one you know and use. Use both broad terms (eg cardinal) and narrower terms (cardinal baseball). How did the results compare?
3. These tools can make the comparison easier:

• This tool shows results from LiveSearch, Google, and Yahoo. It gives Best Results, but also shows unique hits from each search engine.
• This guy has a way to show Google and Yahoo results side-by-side.
• This tool gives an interesting visualization of Google (top) and Yahoo (bottom) results.

4. Meta search engines they make it easy to send a query to several search engines at once. DogPile and Clusty are two to try.
5. Visual search engines display results in a more graphical format. Try your search in these search engines: Kartoo displays a visual map of results. Quintura gives both a graphical result as tag cloud and a list.
6. This is a different approach to visual display of information. Just for fun, try MusicPlasma.

Blog Prompts
Some ideas when you blog.

• How do the search engine results compare to the database results? Did you get similar or different results from different search engines? Meta-search engines?
• Are there different features offered by various engines which you like or dislike?
• Did this exercise change your opinion about any of the engines you tried?
• Did you try MusicPlasma? What did you think?

Thing 7. Photo & Images

Time for some fun. Flickr, SmugMug, Picasa, Photobucket, and other sites offer online storage for photos. You can put your images on Facebook and MySpace, of course, but these services offer some other features. And since you have your privacy settings on "myface" set so only your invited friends can see them, you may want another service to share other photos with family, friends, team mates, and others. As always, be smart about what you post and how you identify people and places in the photos.

Photo-sharing Web sites have been around for quite awhile, in Internet terms. Flickr (now owned by Yahoo) took the idea of photo sharing and turned it into an online community. Flickr (and others) allows users to upload their photos and then share them with family, friends, or the world. Users can “tag” photos with descriptive words and phrases--what librarians would call keywords—to help users identify and search for photos. Here is a photo from Flickr tagged Minnehaha Academy:

by aaron landry
http://www.flickr.com/photos/s4xton/432350075/
(What's this?)


First watch the Common Craft video "Online Photosharing in Plain English." Then choose
A.
1. Take a good look around Flickr and find an interesting image that you want to blog about. You can explore Flickr photos, search the tags, view various groups, and more without a Flickr account.
2. Use any keyword(s) (baseball, cats, Minnehaha, Minnehaha Academy whatever…) to find photos with those tags. When you find an interesting image or group, comment on your experience finding images, using Flickr, and anything else related to the exercise.
3. Read this from Blogger about using images. Then, following those guidelines, upload the image to your blog, if the photographer lets you download or link to her photos (be sure to credit the photographer). Don't forget to include a link to the image in the post.

--OR-- the more fun option B.

1. Create a Free Account in Flickr (note that Flickr is now part of Yahoo! If you have a Yahoo! account for email or MyYahoo!, log in with that.).
2. Then take a few pictures of something around school.
3. Upload these to your new Flickr account and tag at least one of the images with MA On a Stick. Be sure to mark the photo public.
4. Add one or more of your images to your blog. You can add the image in one of two ways:

• Flickr's blogging tool (need a Flickr account to see the button) lets you click the Blog This button (right above the picture) and add any public photo on Flickr to your blog. Be sure to give credit to the photographer, if it is not your photo.
• Blogger's photo upload feature lets you add photos from your computer or from the Web and choose the placement in the blog post. Click the little photo icon in the toolbar on the New Post page—it is in the row of tools above the post box. Follow the instructions in the pop up box.

Keep in mind that when posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures to your Flickr account that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.

Resources

• Flickr Learn More tour (6 steps)
• Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials
• Keep up with Flickr news via the Flickrblog

More ways to explore:

• Flickr: Popular tags
• Interesting- Last 7 days
• 365 Days of Library Pictures in Flickr

Blog Prompts
Share your Flickr-ing thoughts:

• How might you use Flickr ?
• Do you use Flickr or another photo hosting service? Which one? How does it compare to Flickr?
• How do you feel about having your photos public (note that you can mark your Flickr photos private, too)--any concerns?

Thing 8. Photo Editors & Image Generators

Remember when we said to fuzz up your pics of recognizable people before you post? Need a way to do that? These online photo editing tools offer this feature and many other fun ways to manipulate your photos. Although not as robust as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, these tools are free, Web-based, easy to use and have some fun features. Also in this Thing are some image generators--add fun to your blog posts (or social network site) or other publications by generating some copyright-free clip art.

Photo Editing Tools

• Picnik--no account necessary unless you want to store and re-use photos
• Photoshop.com Basic--free online version of Photoshop with limited tools. Registration required.
• Sumopaint.com--lots of image editing tools. Registration required.

Image Generators Note that most of these generated images can be used on Facebook, etc., too.

• Image Chef--generates simple images you can customize and the copy the code to embed in blog or other site.
• Glass Giant--need to copy and save image (right click and save as on PC. control click and save as on Mac)
• bighugelabs--no account needed unless you want to save and reuse pictures. Works with Flickr if you allow access to your account. Many fun ways to manipulate your photos and create new stuff. Like this Warholizer.

More Tools & Resources

• 21 Free Online Photo Editing Tools from 10,000 Words.net
• Splashup

Activities
1. Upload a picture or two to Picnik or another photo editor and play around with the editing features. Save and share on your blog.
2. Use the image generators to create something to add to your blog.

Blog Prompts

• See any uses for these tools? For school? For home?
• Which ones did you use? Were they easy to figure out?

Thing 9. Student 2.0: Research Project Calculator & Citation Tools

Students—and adults—are often stymied when faced with a research project. It is daunting to determine your question or thesis statement, find the resources you need to answer the question or support the thesis, evaluate the mountains of information that can result, and then synthesize and summarize the relevant information in order to draw a conclusion based on the information. All that before you present the results in a cohesive product that explains the process and the conclusions. It is a lot of work to do research! But you know that.

There are some Web 2.0 tools that can make students’ lives easier when doing research. If you tend to procrastinate or end up with piles of notes or slews of bookmarks, the Research Project Calculator can help you schedule, organize, and manage a research project. It is far more than a "calculator." It offers email reminders, research guidance, and support materials. It doesn’t look very Web 2.0, but it gets the job done.

The Research Project Calculator (RPC) is based on the University of Minnesota Assignment Calculator for undergraduate students. The RPC was created to help secondary students plan for and navigate the research process in an ethical manner, using reliable resources. In addition to providing a timeline, deadlines and reminders, the tool offers a strategy.

The first rule of conducting research is to have a plan and the RPC does this by breaking the process down into the following five steps:

1. Question
2. Gather
3. Conclude
4. Communicate
5. Evaluate

The beauty is that the five-step approach will serve you not just for academic research, but for all personal and learning-related information problems you confront. The process the steps teach will assist in a job or car search, a health care crisis, or choosing a career. Just about any decision can be broken down into these five steps. Follow them—especially the gather and evaluate steps—and you will find the information you need to make informed decisions.

Citation Tools

Remember that rant about plagiarism in Thing 2? One way to be sure you aren't plagiarizing is to have your citations in order so you can put them in your bibliography and footnotes. An online citation creator helps do this. Note that some teachers think this is the "easy way" and it is, but it is also a tool to be sure you have the information you need for accurate citations. You do need to understand the elements of a citation (author, title, publication date, edition, publisher, page numbers, URL, volume number, etc.) and also which citation format your teacher expects. Remember, you are responsible for the accuracy of the citation in your fianl project. Be sure to check that what these generators produce is right according to a particular style.

Commonly used style manuals include MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), Chicago Manual of Style, and Turabian, to name a few. When you get to college, you will need to know which your professor expects, too, because different disciplines often use one over another.

Tools to Try

• Son of Citation Machine--Creates citations in each of the four styles listed above for print and non-print sources.
• EasyBib-MLA format only in the free version.
• eTurabian-Turabian citation generator.
• Bibme-Generates all four styles.
  

Activities

1. Play around with the RPC. Set up an email reminder so you can see what you get in the emails. Note that the RPC uses a generic algorithm to calculate due dates—your teachers may have different dates.
2. Browse the student resources in the RPC. If you choose “essay” as your report format, you will get different support materials than if you choose “slide presentation.” Note that these schedules/materials can be adapted to other types or presentations. The storyboard tools in slide presentation will work for a video, for example.
3. If you have a project coming up, try using the RPC to manage it.
4. Try out one or more of the citation tools for a non-print and print source. Were there any errors?
   
5. Would these tools be useful for you?
   

Blog Prompts

• What features/steps of the RPC did you like? Why?
• How do you think the RPC can help successfully do research?
• What additional resources do you need in order to be successful?
• What do you think of the citation tools? Have you talked about these with your teacher? What style manual do they use at MA?
  

Thing 10. Online Bookmarks

The bookmarking feature of browsers is great--if you only use one computer. And if you can find the bookmarks in long lists or in the folders you created. But what if you aren't at that computer or you can't remember which folder you put the bookmark in? How can you find your bookmarks? Online sites like Delicious solve this problem by keeping your bookmarks online and accessible from any computer.

This video explains Delicious:



Activities

1. Sign up, give it a try. Think of a good user name that you won't forget and remember your password, too!
   
2. If you have a computer at home or a laptop, install the Delicious buttons on your browser so you can easily bookmark or share sites with your fellow delicious users.The tool bar buttons really make it easy to use Delicious.
   
3. Go out and find some sites, then "tag" those sites as you post them to Delicious using your handy browser button. How do you tag sites? Simply put in a series of keywords that you feel best describes the site. For instance, some good tags that would describe this site would be: learning minnehaha_academy Web2.0
   

   Delicious may suggest keywords, but you may be the first to tag a site or you don't like those keywords. Use keywords that make sense to you.
   

4. To find your bookmarks go to "http://delicious/username", and replace "username" with the name you've chosen.

In addition, you can use Delicious when you take notes for research. Here's how Delicious can help you keep track of Web sites for a research project.

• When you find a site, tag it with a keyword related to that project. Use that same keyword every time you find an appropriate site. You can add other tags, too, but connect the site to your project.
• In the notes box, write a description or reason you are bookmarking this site. It can be short (lots of volcano pictures), but this is useful for you and for others using delicious.

As the video noted, many users find that the real power of Delicious is its social networking features. This is useful if you like to share links with others or if you are working on a group research project and want to share links.

In addition, you can see how other users have tagged similar links. Following their links lets you discover other Web sites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as peering into another users’ file folders, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's folders helps to build an expansive knowledge network.