blogging – Page 3 – Random Connections

Eight Years of Blogging

April 4, 2011 Tom 1 Comment

Miscellaneous

Today marks the eighth year I’ve been blogging in some fashion or other. I never thought I’d keep at it for so long, but here were are in 2011 and I’m still writing. In 2003 blogs were fairly rare, and most people had never even heard the term. I had seen a couple of blogs, … Read More “Eight Years of Blogging” »

Easy(-ish) Video Embedding

September 29, 2009 Tom No Comments

EdTech, General Technology, Internet

Random Connections

Easy(-ish) Video Embedding

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Part 2 of 2

In Part 1 I covered the easy stuff. Working with audio is trivial compared with working with video. Not only do you have many more file types and codecs, but now you’ve got to worry about aspect ratio for HD and compression quality. Given two video files with the exact same file extension, one might work in one situation, but the other may not. It can be maddening.

The easiest thing to do is to upload your files to a video sharing site such as YouTube or Vimeo. However, sites like that are usually blocked by school districts. There is SchoolTube and TeacherTube, but sometimes those can be problematic, too.

Less likely to be blocked are sites built on the Ning.com platform. A Ning site is free, and will support up to 30 videos as long as each is no larger than 100 MB. That’s fairly generous, and will support most classroom needs. Videos that are uploaded to the site are provided embed codes for blogs and social networking sites. Here’s a sample video I recorded in Space Mountain on a trip to Disney World…

Easy Audio Embedding

September 23, 2009 Tom No Comments

EdTech, General Technology, Internet

Random Connections

Easy Audio Embedding

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This is part 1 of a 2-part series…

I’m a BIG fan of embedding. The ability to take media files from one location and use them in another context creates learning environments that are rich and appealing to students. I like it even better when the process is simple. Embedding is now a standard feature for most social networking sites. YouTube was one of the first, and now most media file hosts have followed suit. On just about any media site now days you can find something like the image below which allows you to copy the code and paste it into another site.

Bottom line – most teachers are uncomfortable with coding of any kind, so it’s got to be easy. Most can do the copy and paste, but if you have to manipulate codes, it can be a problem. Unfortunately, there are times when a simple cut and paste is not available. A resource (such as YouTube) may be blocked by a district, or you may have an original file that you would prefer not to upload to a social networking site. That’s where these tutorials come in. I’ll show you how to create your own embed codes so that you don’t have to worry about blocked resources.

Google Web Elements

May 27, 2009 Tom No Comments

General Technology, Internet

Google has made it easy to add cool stuff to your website with the release of Web Elements. Each of these elements have been available for some time now, most with embed codes or API’s readily available. Web Elements is a collection of eight tools in one easy-to-find place, each with a simple interface and … Read More “Google Web Elements” »

Four “B”‘s for Successful Blogging

September 26, 2008 Tom No Comments

EdTech

Yesterday afternoon I had the privilege of addressing the Lambda Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International on the topic of blogging for educators. I modified one of my previous presentations, bringing it up to date a bit. Usually I start out by asking the teachers what they think of when they hear the word … Read More “Four “B”‘s for Successful Blogging” »

Embeddable Google Books

September 24, 2008 Tom No Comments

General Technology, Internet

From Lifehacker.com I stumbled across this post on the Google Operating System Blog about a method of embedding Google Books into blogs and web pages… Google made it easy to embed in a site any book available at Google Book Search. You can add a fully-functional widget using this code: <script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://books.google.com/books/previewlib.js”></script> <script type=”text/javascript”> … Read More “Embeddable Google Books” »

Cleaning House and Updating Links

July 31, 2008 Tom No Comments

Internet, Miscellaneous

One of the hardest things about maintaining ANY website, whether it be a blog or just plain ol’ HTML, is keeping external links updated. Websites change, become irrelevant, or just stop working altogether. Every now and then you just have to clean house. When I first started using WordPress there was a component called “links”, … Read More “Cleaning House and Updating Links” »

SCETV Day 3 – Reflections on Censorship

April 25, 2008 Tom No Comments

EdTech

Today was a jam-packed day. I had three sessions back to back, then it was time to drive home. There was one last session on basic Google Earth, then two on Geotagging. Yesterday during the late afternoon I had drive around Columbia snapping pictures so that I would have some shots for tagging.

The first session went well, then it was a mad dash to the other ETV building for geotagging. It was a small room, so we had a rather information demonstration/discussion. Both sessions went very well, and my photos showed up in Google Earth exactly like they were supposed to.