Adding a Site Visit Counter & Revolver Map

A site counter is a great way of recording how many visits you have to your blog and where they are when they watch. A great motivator for blogging often.

A good odometer type hit counter is http://www.tinycounter.com/create.php

There are different forms but of map counter and some that I like are Revolver maps and WhoAmungUs.

To get the web-counter go to the above website.

Revolver Maps

Follow the instructions and enter the html into an html gadget on your sidebar.

Whos Amung Us

You may also like http://whos.amung.us/maps/customize/. Their maps are live maps so little stars light up as people visit from different locations. Kids love it when they see lights in other countries.

Adding audio with AudioPal

I like AudioPal a lot because there is no need for username and passwords for the service to work. You can record 60 seconds at a time. Plenty of time for classroom use.

You can either speak directly into the AudioPal via your laptop's inbuilt microphone or upload an mp3 file you have recorded earlier.

It prompts you to allow Flash recorder- this just reminds you that it is accessing your computer.

When you're done with recording you can play it back to see if you like it or re-record.

Enter your email address to GET IT. AudioPal will send you an email with a link to the embed code.

Copy the embed code and enter it in the html tab on your blog post or html gadget on your side bar!

It will look and sound like this on your blog.

Adding an embeded a Google Presentation

A Google Presentation is another great way for children to contribute to your blog.

Make a Google presentation by going to Google Drive and CREATE a Presentation.

Make a slide for one student with their name on it, then duplicate it for as many children as you want to contribute.

Change the name on each slide so that each child knows where to write.

Make sure it is open for everyone to edit without a log in by sharing it to edit without needing a log in. Change that when the editing was completed.

Then put a link to that presentation on the blog so the children would know where to find it.

Children then go to the blog, click on the link, find their slide and fill it in. I believe that twenty people can edit a Google presentation at one time so as many children as there are computers can work on editing.

When everyone has done editing close it off by making it so no one can edit it so no cherub could wreck it and write stuff in the holidays that you don’t know of.

After all the children have finished editing publish it and put the embed code under the html tab in the blog post.

To publish and embed click the little downward arrow by the SHARE tab.

The default size is about right for Blogger but you can make some publishing changes before you grab the embed code.

To publish the embed code click on the HTML tab next to compose in the blog post.

Here is how it will look on your blog when finished.

Adding a Calendar

Use you Google account to go to Google Calendar.

You will have to log in first.

You will be able to see it on the top right of your Google search page. The first time you click on it you will be asked to enter your country and time zone, then click save.

You will taken to a calendar that it on the day view. Change it to month!

To enter your new events double click on the empty square of that day. You can make the event for a whole day or a particular time span. Click save.

To embed your calendar click on the cogwheel to take you to the calendar settings.

Click on CALENDARS- then click on your calendar's name.

You will see the embed code that you can just embed it or you can customise the colour and size of your calendar before you embed it.

Read your options then copy the embed code at the top of the page.

Paste the embed code into an html gadget or in the html tab on your blog.

Adding Links in the Sidebar

Adding links to the side bar of your blog really adds functionality and interest to your blog.

Firstly copy the URL web address of the website you want to link to.

To add a gadget go to the OVERVIEW. Then go to the LAYOUT.

Click on ADD A GADGET.

Scroll down the list until you find Link List and click the plus button.

Write the title of the list- like Maths or Spelling or just 'Links'.

Copy the URL web address in the box. Write in the website name.

Click add link and then SAVE.

To add further links VIEW the blog and click on the spanner to edit the Link List.

Repeat what you did before but you won't need to write a new title. 

After you have added the new link into your list you will see the two links. Use the up and down arrows to change the order of the links.

Click save and update.

Link a Delicious Bookmark Account

Delicious is a social network for saving your bookmarks in the cloud. Not only is it handy for saving your own bookmarks but also for sharing them between other computers you use and linking with other people who are interested in the same sort of things that you are interested in.

I have two Delicious accounts- one for my teacher links and one for class links.

For an example...

I intend to use the resource School Journal Level 2 February 2012.

I want learners to be able to access ANZAC Button resources mentioned in the journal as I want the children to visit the websites and not randomly access the internet as many sites are too hard for them to access as the URLs are too long for children to be able to copy them. I also want easy access to the websites as I might want to use them each year and I don't want to have to repeat myself.

• The teacher resource sheet- http://literacyonline.tki.org.nz/Literacy-Online/Teacher-needs/Instructional-Series/School-Journal/TSM-2012
• A YouTube video of ANZAC Heroes Song- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgC9bOB1l2g
• Our previous ANZAC podcast http://allanah.podomatic.com/entry/2007-04-25T20_38_39-07_00

So I save the bookmarks to Delicious or Diigo, adding annotation to the links and link to the account from the sidebar of the blog so learners can easily access complicated web addresses

Here are links to my delicious accounts so you can see how it works.

Class Moturoa Delicious Account

Allanah's Delicious Account

Then link it in the side bar along with the other links. You put an easy access bookmarklet on your toolbar so you can save links with one click.

When you save a bookmark to Delicious or Diigo you can tag it to multiple folders- eg maths, juniors, wikis, DLO.

Or you can also link to one tag in your Delicious or Diigo account. In this way children have easy access to suitable web sites with one click.

Adding a Clock

Adding a clock is fun thing to do.

Go to the link below and choose a clock that you fancy!

Clock Link

Click on where is says View the HTML tag.

Accept the terms.

Then select the colour of the clock you would like.

You will see the clock that you picked and just underneath it will be the html embed code.

Select your timezone.

Highlight the embed html code and copy it into the ADD A GADGET (HTML/JAVA SCRIPT) part of your design layout that we talked about in previous posts.

Save the changes and now you have a clock in the sidebar!