Guest post on official Facebook in Education blog

I was invited several months ago to create a guest post on the official “Facebook in Education” blog. My post went up today and can be found here (full link below). I’m happy to see that Facebook has vision and dedicated staff towards seeing this massive platform put to use in education.

As a Learning Management System the Facebook group enabled important educational exchanges, but there are a few additional features that could make this platform even more useful. The ability to see all contributions made to the group by a single person would enable a teacher to view all comments, links, pictures, videos and even “Like” buttons used by a student within the group page.  This would enable an instructor to easily track and measure student engagement. Adding the ability to make separate photo albums would enable an instructor to differentiate contributions posted from different classes. If Facebook groups also had the ability to add applications, a teacher could feed information from other sources, via RSS or SMS, directly into the group page. Finally, if Facebook had the ability to host document and slideshows, there would be no reason to use Google Documents or another document hosting service – students could read documents or view lecture slides without leaving the group page.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-in-education/using-a-facebook-group-as-a-learning-management-system/10150244221815570

Bugs in WordPress

I’ve been battling a few of the bugs in WordPress including the RSS feed for this new blog. One of the solutions? Make a new post and publish. Let’s see if it works…

Nope, not working.

It might be this blank line bug:

http://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/error/WPBlankLine.html

This will be the one true…

Anthony Fontana blog.

I have kept blogs at:

http://themultichronicclassroom.blogspot.com/

https://blogs.bgsu.edu/anthonyfontana/

and

http://anthonyfontana.vox.com/

From this moment on… this will be the one place I blog. If I do keep another blog (like the one for The Net Jockey at http://thenetjockey.com/) I will repost those things here. Soon, this page will look like the rest of AnthonyFontana.com and be equipped with my Tweeters, 12secs, and more. Stay tuned.

Add the new facebook app

Click here to get the new BGSU Facebook Application:

http://bgsu.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=41501853292&ref=ts

This application allows Facebook users to quickly read thru the top 10 Headlines of many BGSU RSS feeds, including blogs from blogs.bgsu.edu and Campus Update.

Blogging with ScribeFire

Testing a blog post with ScribeFire suggested by Terence over at TerenceOnline.

If
you are a blogger and want increase your production, give ScribeFire a
try. This is my first post using the tool so hopefully it works well.

RSS Feeds and myBGSUonline

I spent a few hours messing around with RSS feeds on myBGSUonline.com today. While I’ve had (way too) many blogs in the past… I have to admit that I’m a WordPress n00b. So when I finally settled on this theme (“Light”) I was baffled by the fact that it didn’t already have an easy to find RSS logo and feed on it. It wasn’t until I watched this tutorial video (thanks Terence!) and took his suggestion to add the ‘meta’ widget that I now have a link on my page called “Entries RSS”.

So, if your students are going to use myBGSUonline be aware:

• Some themes come with RSS logos and feeds built in and others must add the ‘meta’ widget.

OR

• They can add the ‘RSS’ widget and use their URL feed (click on the menu part of the widget)
  
  • Example: For the RSS address use http://www.example.com/feed/
  • This will provide a little RSS logo that when clicked, adds the feed
    
    • There is a down side to this option: Next to the RSS logo is the title you choose. Clicking on that word and not the tiny tiny RSS Logo will only reload the page and not add the feed. This option may seem a bit overwhelming for first time bloggers.

    

* Take a look at the sidebar on this blog as I have enabled BOTH features.

Private Blogs – No RSS

There is no way to get an RSS feed on a private blog (or one that you can only view by invitation). However, this isn’t just true on this site, I’m pretty sure it is true on Blogger and elsewhere. The drawback? Your students cannot keep private blogs while you keep the nice RSS Reader (a savior when it comes to grading 40 blogs a week!)

The solution?

I will probably have my students choose the radio button option (Options > Privacy) “I would like my blog to be visible only to registered users from blog community.” This will keep the blog from being posted on the myBGSUonline frontpage and therefore secret, but not restricted. At the same time, I can still use my RSS Reader and view all my students’ blogs from one place.

The up side?

Students may create a blog on myBGSUonline that has anonymity. There are no ‘author profile’ pages that automatically link from a new blog. When assigning the creation of a blog I have always made it clear that they are writing in a public space and therefore are free to choose an anonymous blogger identity and blog name.
* Keep in mind that in the past, my blog assignments have been private, i.e. they do not have to share their address with anyone but me. This takes advantage of blogs as an accessible web-log, but not its web 2.0-comment capabilities.

Secure Pages and Private Blogs

I’ve just started a new page (called “Password = Password”) describing some of the privacy features here at myBGSUonline.com. This page requires a password to view… and as you can tell from the title, the password is “password”.

Some of this information may be found elsewhere on the myBGSUonline site or in the FAQ (I usually test, until I break the thing, then go to the FAQ). So if it needs changed, updated, or corrected please let me know.

MyBGSUonline allows user to:

• create password protected pages (not blogs) on a blog
• create more than one blog (is there a limit?)
• create private blogs visible to only:
  • the myBGSUonline community
  • or select registered myBGSUonline members
• create ePortfolio sites that may include a blog, but not as the front page

MyBGSUonline does not allow users to:

• invite non-myBGSUonline members to read their private blogs
  • and subsequently only individuals with an @bgsu.edu email can register as myBGSUonline members
• use categories (or tags) to separate posts into individual RSS feeds

Thus far we have more pro’s than cons!

Next I will test RSS feeds for private blogs in my RSS Reader (Google Reader).

Road test

This post made using my BB Pearl.

myBGSU online blog

This is just a test drive of the wonderful mybgsuonline.com blogging system created by Terence Armento and IDEAL.

For more information about me please visit AnthonyFontana.com.