In addition to enjoying the Fire Works this weekend I spent time adding some new features to my blog that I hope you will find helpful in terms of navigation and content.

My RSS Feed is easier to find and use. Several of my twitter friends wrote recently asking how they could subscribe to my blog. I have to admit the RSS feed that came with the template I use is very subtle. You can click on the circles/semi-circles found on the orange bar. However, if you use Chrome as your browser (like I do) you will find that when you click you see a lot of gibberish. To help resolve that problem I have added a new RSS feed available at the top of the left-hand column of my site. I also added a subscription page (see the subscribe link on the orange bar). The new feed appears to “play nice” with all the browsers I use.

I added a Web 2.0 visual cloud. Now, you can visually search through the Web 2.0 apps, search tools, and generators I have reviewed and written about in the past. To access the Web 2.0 cloud click on the Web 2.0 link found on the orange bar of my blog. Then, simply click on a logo image to link directly to the post describing the site. I plan to update the cloud each week. I am such a visual person, the visual cloud really helps me quickly link back to some of my old posts. You might try a similar visual cloud strategy as you develop web resources for your students…many students will click on a picture or image before they will click on a hyperlink. At any rate, I hope you find my pictorial Web 2.0 cloud helpful!

Check out my Title Index. In addition to the Web 2.0 cloud, I added a Title Index so you can browse through the titles of past posts and quickly link to any of them. The link can be found on the orange bar at the top of the page. The most recent posts are found at the top of the page. I will update my list at the end of each week.

Did you find my video content widget? I am experimenting with a new widget I found at VodPod. VodPod helps people bookmark and collect their favorite videos from any site. VodPod also has several tools that make it easy and simple to publish your video collection to any site, so people can watch those videos from any webpage you have established. VodPod widgets are a great way to add video content to a blog or website. Scroll down the page and look in the column on the left of my blog to view several videos that I collected over the weekend. The videos in the widget will change as I find and add video content that I feel is relevant to Education Technology and 21 Century Skill building.

Actually, I am pretty intrigued with VodPod from the standpoint that it is so easy to collect videos and add them to my account. The account is user specific and easy to set up. And, I do really enjoy the various options the application offers in terms of adding video content to Facebook, blogs, and webpages. Initially, I thought VodPod might replace Fliggo as a place to house my favorite videos, however any of the videos I collected using VodPod do link back to the original source (and, we know that most video sites are blocked in the school environment). As it stands I still favor Fliggo as a housing vehicle in the K-12 school environment since the videos I upload to my Fliggo account only track back to my account (not back to the original source…YouTube, for example).

I will continue to use Fliggo to display videos that may be accessed on a school network, but I do play to use VodPod as my video bookmarking devise. While you are home over the summer check out VodPod and Fliggo. A lot of the video content on the web is simply outstanding and viable for use in the classroom. As you are reviewing video content you can save it to your VodPod account. Then, upload the content you have bookmarked to your Fliggo account or convert the videos and save them to thumb drives (see my School-Friendly Video Saving and Sharing Strategies post for details).

Sorry…I got a bit side-tracked from the original intent of my post (by now you have no doubt figured out that I do love love exploring Web 2.0 apps!). I hope you enjoy my blog revisions/additions. Please feel free to leave a comment that includes feedback about the revisions I made or better yet…suggest additional ways that I can improve the site to make it a more useful tool for your “teacher toolbox.”