Blogger in Draft

Blogger in draft allows a number of additions to your blog to improve the functionality and appearance of your blog. Not only can you customise your background but you can select the font type, colour and size of vaious sections of your blog. Captions can be added to images and locations in google maps can be added to posts.
To select in image it is necessary to first of all export them to you picasa account. If you don't want to do this simply click the "return to blogger" button at the top.
Any changes that you make can be previewed before you apply them to your blog so feel free to have a play. To view blogger in draft click here. There is an excellent video which outlines its features.

Spelling City

Spelling City is a wonderful support for childrens' spelling. It allows words to be entered, saved and the computer can then test the child and provide a range of fun games to reinforce the learning.
This link is a screencast that demonstrates how to publish a child's list so that it can be practiced at home without having to log in.

Embedding Keynote in Blog

After much experimentation I have embedded this screencast which demonstrates how to embed a keynote in your blog. If you wish to manually advance your show choose to export with PDF then embedit; if your show has automated transitions, choose to export as quicktime and use vimeo. Click on the link below to view the screencast, it will take 20 seconds or so before it plays, be patient.
http://www.screencast.com/t/ODM0MzE5Z
Below are the two versions of the same file: vimeo and embedit. You can view both embeds in full screen by choosing the enlargement in the lower right corner. Note the differences in presentation style between the two.

Vimeo (Quicktime)

Text + Images from room15 on Vimeo.

Embedit.in (PDF)

Creating interactive activities

3rd party websites such as classtools.net and mystudiyo.com, allow you to create interactive activities and quizzes then embed them in for others to play. Classtools gives you a range of templates to choose from. Mystudiyo creates multiple choice quizzes that can include images and video. After following the instructions to create your activity get the HTML code and paste it in your blog.

They can serve a number of purposes: knowledge review, assessment, child created to assess learning or a classtools template can be left fairly blank for the child to complete given a few requirements. eg use the timeline to summarise the chapters of a novel. Some classtools activities can be made and posted on the blog within 2 minutes for children to do for homework. The image below shows an example of the postit template. the cog at the bottom right corner provides you with the HTML code to embed and the save function allows you to save as a web archive on your hard drive.
These are just two of many sites that serve such a purpose.

I can't continue my document at home!!!!

Yes you can. Save your document as a word or excel or powerpoint document (file>export>word/excel/ppt) on the server or hard drive. Open Google Documents. Sign in to your Google account if you haven't done so already. Choose the Upload button. Search for the document you wish to upload to Google Docs then choose start upload. When the document has uploaded you will be able to share the document with others to help you work on it, even from the other side of the world, or download it to open it in Google docs. This means that when you return home you log in to Google Docs and open your document. Having exported the file as a microsoft compatible document means you can continue working on it at home. If you have an Apple, you don't need to export.