As my wife makes a number of renovations in our house, I’ve felt inspired to make a few to this blog. The recent upgrade to WordPress 2.5 (now 2.5.1) was as usual easy and as many know offers some very nice features. I’ve added a widget sidebar which is much easier to manage. Wordpress now offers instant upgrades of plugins as well.
I took a page out of Clay’s blog and added two new plugins/widgets. Both honor and promote commenters who play such an important part of my learning. CommentLuv is a nice way to allow commenters to have their work promoted. The comments are often the most interesting part of any blog as witnessed by my last post. When I find a gem of a comment or even one that irritates or engages me in some way, I quickly want to find out more about that person and their perspective. While linking their name is usually good for me, I’m guessing many may not think to click. This way it’s more obvious. Those who aren’t interested in the promotion can turn it off but why would you? Also Top Commenters is another way to credit frequent visitors.
The renovations my wife has in mind are intended to create a more inviting area to entertain guests and share with our friends. Mine too.
Entries (RSS)
April 25th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
See the ‘big plans’ for tomorrow weren’t so bad after all.
Small question- what does parse your last blog post mean?
AllanahKs last blog post..Animoto Educational Account
April 25th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
AllanahK,
Parse simply means it will seek out your blog to determine what your latest post is, which in your case is one about Animoto.
April 26th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Okay, what’s my commission?
And now let me check out that last post.
Clay Burells last blog post..The Art of the Opener: Charlie’s Hook
April 26th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Well looks like the upgrade was hugely successful. Didn’t I see the top commenters the other day? I was actually somewhat embarrassed to see my name at the top, especially after all my unwarranted (or maybe warranted) popularity recently (which I really don’t want to go into.) You see, I came over when I saw how viral the Promethean Board/Smart Board post was going, thinking I’d add to the mix. That is when I saw the Top commenter list…
But since I did decide to respond, I’ll chime in about the PB/SM argument, albeit in the wrong place. I worked in a district rich in technology, but poor in terms of teachers adopting the tools as an instructional component in their classrooms. Enter Promethean. One was even placed in the library. So I began making sure the teachers would see their students interacting with the board. Of course their response was kids could always do computers. So I sought out ways to help them — Pomethean Planet was a big part of it too. But when their kids began going back to class and asking why don’t you use your Activeslate or the eggs (activotes) this is when teachers began asking more. I am happy to report many of them have totally embraced their boards. I called a local technician, and for roughly $20 a room, we had our TV distribution system configured to go through the projectors. The classes involved with a Spanish teleclass suddently LOVED having a board sized TV. Being able to search for standards-based lesson was a big winner. AND the fact that teachers could download and modify, and in most cases improve shared material from Promethean Planet was also a big seller. Yes, I can still reflect on those who use it as a glorified wall sized worksheet–fill in the blank no less, but it is a beginning.
I also write because the support at Promethean is phenominal. I was having a hard time getting my Slate to synch up. I jumped right in a forum. Before I knew it, the very next day 2 guys from CSI (the crew who installed our equipment) were at my school looking for me, and fixed the issue. I was stunned, and even voiced fear that i had incurred a bill for my school. They said no, but because of my description of the issue in the Promethean Forum, their boss called and sent them to correct it–it was not something I could fix. I must also give kudos to CSI, as they have been wonderful too.
Last, while I am pleased with Promethean, I don’t think it is as important which brand you go with as it is what is done with it in the classroom. If I had to choose, I would definitely choose Promethean based on my experience. But if i had the option instead of having one to one laptops in my school, now that would be the ideal. But the tools and the technology won’t help until student engagement is addressed. The tools are one expensive way to address that, but they are definitely not a cure all. Engagement in the classroom is a mindset, and one far too few teachers worry about, tools or not. But I suppose that is another blog post to be written for some other day.
Nows I want to see the Comment Luv parse my blog. Chris Craft is helping me get set up for my own domain–coming soon, maybe. I’m a slow learner on somethings.
April 26th, 2008 at 7:40 am
I see the two widgets you added and now I am thinking about changing to wordpress. I think my class would be much more likely to post comments on the posts that I don’t require them to comment on. (Maybe if I quit reading other people’s blogs I won’t know what I am missing. Ignorance could be bliss?)
wmchamberlains last blog post..Poster Contest Winners
April 26th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I’ve been debating about moving to wordpress from typepad, but I didn’t want the trouble of switching everything. You do have so much more flexibility than I do, though! I do feel invited to share here:)
scmorgans last blog post..According to Jane
April 26th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Looks like you and me were both doing blog cleaning yesterday when perhaps we should have been up to other tasks
. Saw the photo on Flickr with your wife painting and was thinking I could send hubby (who is a painter by trade) to help.
I must admit I like the idea of the CommentLuv — it’s cool.
Top commenter is interesting — not sure if I like or not. For example why is Wesley’s blog the only one that actually creates the link to his blog? It also makes me wonder what ratio of commenting you have on their blogs? Anyway probably thinking too deeply about it all.
Sue Waterss last blog post..The Messy Aspects Of Blog Cleaning
April 26th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Sue,
I”m not sure why Wes is hyperlinked other than maybe because he guest blogged for me and is a registered user of my site.
April 27th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
You know it’s going to turn into a contest to get to that top spot, now…
Ian H.s last blog post..Awesome & useless
May 4th, 2008 at 3:36 am
There is another nice plugin you may have heard about which is called keywordLuv
Oliviers last blog post..Deux jours à tuer