[e-learning]
You can do it!Bringing it all together.
You have a web gallery, and notes and materials on a web log. Now you need a place to bring them all together so that students can access them from a single site and not have to try and remember a pile of awkward urls.
Your own web site!
Until recently you would have needed expensive software and a good understanding of coding and things like file transfer protocol, not to mention web space itself, to make your own web site. New technology and web tools now provide all sorts of help.
In the links are several web tools that are currently available and both free (and ad-free). Googlepages requires you to have a gmail account and can be a bit of a strange interface for some. Protopage is very simple to use and worth a view but doesn't yet handle the 'summary of headings' type of lnks (RSS) that we need very easily. Otherwise it's a good contender. Sitekreator has a delightfully neat screen layout and some excellent templates but it's not particularly intuitive to use yet, being very new yet. It's still worth looking at if you are, or when you become, more familiar with web page creation generally. So, for this project, I'm recommending Pageflakes. There's nothing to download. It's all done on-line. You make your page(s) and then publish them.
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Pageflakes
There is a link to the Pageflakes main site on these pages. You'll be presented with a sort of sample page or three, comprising what the developers call 'flakes' which are panels containing various elements that can be incorporated and arranged on your pages.
These panels can be dragged around the screen with your mouse. Just click on one and move it to a new location. Now, of the 100+ flakes available you will only need two or three for the purpose of this project so close all of them and we'll start from scratch.
Title
At the top of the page is a tab. Click on that and you'll find that you can rename the page - you may want to use a course title or topic, maybe. Remember that you may be using this page for a wide range of links and things. (It's that easy to change later, by the way).
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Introduction
You'll want to tell visitors what the p[age is all about, explain what's there and how to use it or ramble on about something course-related. To put some text on the page you need a 'note'. Click on the Add flake button and choose note. A panel opens that you can type in. Type what you want and then add the panel which will drop into place. Unless you've changed the format, the page will have three columns and panels will resize themselves to fit on the left, centre or right of your page. It's easier to move panels if you close the Flake selection panel. (You can add to this panel, change the font or colour or move it elsewhere, later.)
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Links to web sites
This is for all those links you have in a Word document or scribbled on various scarps of paper. Add a flake called Web page and enter a short title and the url of each site. Then add the panel to your page and drag into place. You can use several panels for different sets of links if you like.
If you're feeling really cool you can try the 'Bitty Browser' panel. This will provide a preview of a web site right there on your page.
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To do list
This is a useful panel -either to remind you of things that are outstanding or to tell students what to do and mark off when they've done them. It's the To do panel and you just select it, complete as many entries as you wish and put it where you like.
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A link to your image gallery
Your gallery is really just a web site. So linking to it is similar to adding other links as above.
You could also use a Note and, by copying the web address of your gallery and pasting it into the note, but Pageflakes will not (yet) make it an active link people can click. However, you do get space to write a bit about it if you wish.
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Flickr albums
Pageflakes has a special Flickr panel. This is for people who have Flickr albums. The links on these pages include one for Flickr which is an alternative to Picasa but users are limited to three albums in the free version. If you have one, though, just enter your Flickr ID and your images will be featured on the panel with a link to your albums.
Another use of Flickr is for finding images related to certain topics. It may be helpful to provide a source of images on a detain topic or related to a particular keyword. By using a tag, you can set a Flickr panel to display and link to user images which have those tags.
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An image
Adding an image to the page can break up the text a bit. Pageflakes will not store your images, though. They need to be on-line already. If you've done the Picasa bit, however, you now have on-line images so follow these steps to add one to your page.
1 Visit your gallery (you don't have to log in, just visit) - use a new window (Ctrl+N in Internet Explorer or use a new tab in Firefox).
2 Find the picture you wish to use.
3 Right click on it and select Copy Image Location (or note the address in the browser window)
4 Go back to your Pageflakes page and add another Web page panel.
5 Paste (or type) the location where indicated on the panel.
6 Click the >> or Go symbol. Check the box for this to be the Home page for that panel.
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Links to your notes
You could simply list your notes and make links to them in a web note or a web link panel. To do so requires each of the urls for your individual web log entries, though, which might be a bit tiresome. The simplest way is just to have a link to your web log but here's a really cool idea - use an RSS feed to list your headings and have just the first bits of your notes appear on your site!
This is the new web at its best. If you have created a Blogger web log it will have an RSS feed associated with it. Check the Blogger notes to see how to find this if you haven't done this yet or made a note of the address.
The address you will need ends in ' . . /atom.xml'
Instead of Add Flake, use the Add Feed button at the top left of the Pageflakes site. Then click on Enter feed and you'll have a space to paste in (or type) the address. With a bit of luck, your web log headings will magically appear. Drag the panel into place. When users click on a heading they will get an introduction to the notes, or possibly the complete notes, depending on settings in Blogger. Pictures will not appear but there will be a link to the source if they wish to see your notes as published. See some examples in the website notes.
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Other RSS feeds
Now you can see the value of Really Simple Syndication you may wish to use some other 'feeds'. Many sites now have them, from BBC to zoos, and there may be one or two that could support your course and be of interest to students. The nice thing about 'feeds' is that they get updated automatically so should you or the Beeb, for instance, add something or change it, then the display on your site will be updated as soon as it is published.
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Publishing your site
So far, all you have done with Pageflakes is to create a page that you can access on your computer. Now you need to allow others to be able to access it.
Click on the page tab and then on Publish page. Pageflakes will then allocate an address which will be something like http://www.pageflakes.com/your-id.ashx# If you have more than one page, look under Publish Settings (top right of the page) for a specific link if required.
That's the address of you own web site, with links to materials, notes, galleries and available anywhere via the internet.
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