In this the last lesson of the week, we’ll learn how to insert images and videos into your blog posts. When I started blogging this was quite a complicated procedure, but you’ll laugh at how easy it is now. As you will discover today, it takes very little skill or effort to include an image or video in a post.

You can view the lesson here, or by typing the following address into your browser:

http://www.swict.com/resources/wordpress/video/08.asp

This lesson takes 3 min, 15 secs.

In the next lesson on Monday, we’ll look at adding links into your site.

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At the Scottish Learning Festival this year, I heard numerous people questioning Perensky’s perceived wisdom regarding the Digital Immigrant/Digital Native divide.

In a chance discussion yesterday with Maggie Irving, Education Support Officer for ICT in Argyll & Bute, she threw a third tier into the equation (how’s that for a mixed metaphor!) – that of ‘digital holidaymakers’.

What does she mean by digital holidaymakers? Quite simply, they aren’t trying to emigrate anywhere. They are quite happy where they are. Worse still, when on digital holiday, they’ll try the new customs, quite happily go through the process and then at the end of their time in ‘digital land’, go back home to their own comfortable customs – they way they do things quite satisfactorily already.

Do you know any digital holidaymakers? Quite probably yes. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of leading in-service training on any ICT, you’ll definitely have met some. They are the ones that will attend in-service training as it’s a ‘day out’, go through the process of learning new things, cope well with the new ideas and then leave at the end of the day having shelved absolutely everything they learned – it was a day out of school after all, and the tutor was quite entertaining.

You’ll have met them on a day to day basis too. They are the ones that will incorporate ICT into lessons, units and topics where it explicitly says so. They are the ones that will use ICT to teach skills exclusively and make no connections to anything elsewhere in the curriculum. They are the ones that use the interactive whiteboard only on the day the QIO or HMIe comes to visit.

How do we crack this problem? I think there are two issues here:

1. We need to be less prescriptive. Fortunately, everything I have heard about Curriculum for Excellence seems to be pointing in this way (but would share Michael Fullan’s observation that it is too fuzzy/woolly/indistinct). People need to know that it’s ok to experiment.

2. Our culture needs to be more accepting of variety. This needs to come from the top down – teachers and students need to know that it’s ok to submit that report as a video or podcast instead of printed A4. How you change that culture is a whole other post!

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So far, we are up and running with our blogs, we know how to post, and have changed the way the site looks using themes. But what do you do if you want to change or delete a post? This lesson shows you how.

You can view the lesson here, or by typing the following address into your browser:

http://www.swict.com/resources/wordpress/video/07.asp

This lesson takes 1 min, 29 secs.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at adding images and videos to posts.

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One of the first things you’ll want to do with your blog is make it your own, by changing the look of it. The look of your blog is managed by ‘themes’, so today we’ll find out all about working with themes. (Note: designing or editing the stylesheet associated with your theme is not covered in this introductory lesson)

You can view the lesson here, or by typing the following address into your browser:

http://www.swict.com/resources/wordpress/video/06.asp

This lesson takes 2 minutes.

Tomorrow, we’ll learn how to edit or delete a post.

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In the lesson for today (the only one that should have been posted today – sorry for information overload!), we’ll look at viewing your site. This may seem really obvious to many of you, but when you start out blogging, it takes some getting used to.

You can view the lesson here, or by typing the following address into your browser:

http://www.swict.com/resources/wordpress/video/05.asp

This lesson takes all of 57 secs.

Tomorrow, we’ll learn how to change the presentation of your site.

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In this lesson, we’ll look at how to write a post.

You can find the lesson here, or by typing the following address into your browser:

http://www.swict.com/resources/wordpress/video/04.asp

This lesson takes 1 min 44 secs.

In the next lesson, we’ll look at viewing your site.

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Ooops! It was a long weekend here, and with a dead laptop I couldn’t post lessons 3 or 4 – sorry!

In this lesson, we’ll look at how to log on to your blog.

You can find the lesson here, or by typing the following address into your browser:

http://www.swict.com/resources/wordpress/video/03.asp

This lesson lasts for 1 min 25 secs.

In the next lesson, we’ll look at writing a post.

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Yesterday my computer died. Of all the days too! I ended up having to cobble together a presentation for the one place your really shouldn’t do ‘off the cuff’ – I’m trying not to think about the data I’ve lost forever on a machine that I’ve carried around for the last three years. I’m also totally gutted, but trying not to think about that either!

So, today I have my Mac with me. I’ve never been so happy to see it either. Hopefully that will mean live blogging and twitter today at day two of the Scottish Learning Festival – not here, but over on connected live.

(I’m almost tempted to close the comments on this post – as I can just imagine the comments you Mac lovers are going to make!)

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In the lesson today, we’ll look at how to get your own blog with wordpress.com

You can find the lesson here, or by typing the following address into your browser:

http://www.swict.com/resources/wordpress/video/02.asp

This lesson lasts for 1 min 41 secs.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at logging on to your blog.

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… well here at least. The rest of my online activity for today and tomorrow will most likely take place in two places – connected live and twitter. Please join in and find out what we in Scotland are up to with education – no matter where in the world you are coming from!

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