Widget Workshop

Widgets are wonderful, helpful, contained, coded, practical, and fun. When I first discovered widgets, I didn't know that these little snippets, these tiny programs in a box could be so powerful.

Amazingly, my first widget was media player widget called Dizzler. I wasn't even thinking of using widgets as educational tools. I wanted to listen to music while I was online, and the widget from Dizzler fit the bill in the beginning. One very cool aspect of widgets like this is the flexibility of the LOOK of the widget. You can pick a SKIN that can make the widget look different. Mine was a butterfly, and I enjoyed using it. Later, I found other media player widgets.

As time went on, I discovered widgets that could keep track of the number of people who visited my site. My first tracking widget was My World Visitor Map.

When I was invited to join an educational social network, I first learned of static widgets. They are often called badges. They are usually widgets that you click on to get to the mentioned website. If you belong to a certain network, like Classroom 2.0, then you can get a badge to put on your website to help others find their way to Classroom 2.0. Most badges are invitations really.

The focus on widgets here is historical. I am using widgets to describe some of the simple ways a person can use widgets for a variety of purposes that WILL change over time. As a person's experience develops, it seems to me that their use of widgets matures.

For myself, I began to look to other educators blogs, websites and profiles where I gathered many ideas about the direction my interest and use of widgets would move. The next widgets I downloaded were interactive widgets, widgets that have content that you can manipulate. Some great examples of that type of widget include Voki, Flickr gadget, and del.icio.us tag cloud. These widgets may be considered excellent teaching tools and remain favorite interactive instructional tools, even now.

To learn more about widgets, read Learnings from the Widget Roundtable, a discussion by Dave McClure (who helps teach the Stanford Facebook class, and runs the Graphing Social Patterns conference), Justin Smith (of Inside Facebook), Rodney Rumford (of FaceReviews), and Jeremy Owyang, of how widgets could be classified.

Go Elfster!

Trying out new interactive websites is what it's about, and I have tried out many (> 150) since August, 2007. Some of these WEB2.0 applications have been duds and duplicates of other applications that work better, but other new applications are excellent. These more effective new applications are easy to use, free to use, well-organized, helpful and fun.

I use these criteria to determine a web application's COOL factor, and Elfster has a very high COOL factor. This is a web application that Steve Dembo, a Classroom 2.0 and Twitter networks colleague, introduced to our network.


Using Elfster, Steve set up a EduTwitterverse Secret Santa group for those in the group who wanted to participate. I was curious, so I signed up. Steve set a spending limit and gave basic instructions. All throughout the gift exchange, Elfster helped Steve manage the entire program through excellent, well timed, information and reminder letters. Plus, he was available on Twitter. Thanks, Steve! Elfster was a great find!

When you join an Elfster group, you fill out a profile page. It includes information about gift preferences with available URLs that fit the spending limit.

Each EduTwitterverse Elfster received the name and profile URL of their Secret Santa recipient, so I read the profile information about mine.

To make it even easier, I found my secret friend and followed her on Twitter. She reciprocated. The Twitter colleague who received my name started following me, so I followed her. We add new followers on this EduTwitterverse group all the time, so I didn't figure out that one of my new Twitter colleagues was also my Elfster until she sent me a notice about my gift to Heifer International. Cool!

My secret pal made no specific gift requests on her profile, she just said, "Be creative!" That was scary! LOL! Then I remembered COFFEE! It was very interesting that my secret EduTwitterverse pal had posted a tweet about coffee a few days before we knew who are secret friends were.

It seems to me, this gift exchange became an excellent way to share cultural experiences with someone in another part of the world.

There is no more creative coffee selection than French Market Coffee. Based in New Orleans, French Market Coffee is the brand served almost everywhere in the area, including Commander's Palace, Gallatoire's Restaurant and other famous New Orleans area restaurants.



I like to buy from New Orleans merchants whenever I can, so that was another plus for French Market Coffee. Lastly, is their fantastic website. It is easy to use and they have excellent information at the French Market University. I ordered a gift set that included French Market coffee and chicory, mug and beignet mix, so my secret Twitter pal could really experience the New Orleans effect. Another plus: it only took 2 days from the moment of my order to my secret pal's receipt of the gift....that was awesome! Thanks, French Market Coffee staff!

For myself, I had requested that a donation be made in my name to Creative Commons or Heifer International. My secret Elfster agreed that Heifer International was a cool opportunity to give a gift that keeps on giving. She bought a share of chicks to be sent to a family who will raise them and send their offspring to another family. It was a very wonderful experience for me to know that my secret Elfster saw value in my choice of gifts, and I thank her very much.

While my Twitter colleagues and I really enjoyed this secret Santa exchange, Elfster has greater potential for social networking. I can imagine endless possibilities to use this for social networking with friends, family and school.

The Elfster exchanges don't even have to be about monetary gifts. For instance, teachers or students could send invitations or URLs for their favorite website, online game or web application. Each person could list their area of interest in their profile, say science, and their Elfster could send them a valuable URL.

What are some of your ideas of ways we could use Elfster for educational purposes?

Check out Elfster, and see what you think.

"Welcome to My Web!", Said the Spider to the Fly

When teachers find new technology, whether it is hardware or software, evaluation is critical. As a teacher, you want to determine efficacy. Is the new technology efficient, easy to use and accessible? One of my favorite tools in my efficacy evaluation toolbox is the KID TEST.

Here is how the KID TEST works. Put the device or software out where students, or any KID, will see it. See how long it takes them to tell you about it. The faster they find it, use it, and share the new technology the higher the KID TEST score.

As they tell you about it, the KID TEST rank can increase or decrease with their discussions of descriptions and uses the students discover. I always appreciate using the 5 point Leikert scale to document my technology evaluations, including the KID TEST.

Recently, I performed the KID TEST when I found two new widgets that a teaching colleague, Jonelle, was using on her Classroom 2.0 profile page. To me, they looked very unique, so I thought students might like to use them.

To find out if students will like them, I must perform the KID TEST. Before I start the KID TEST, I like to tryout the technology myself. I inserted the two widgets, Weather Pixies and VOKI, in my n2teaching blog. Both of these widgets are informative and interactive. Each has an avatar that you select. The avatar in Weather Pixie is dressed appropriately for the weather in your area in a little scene with the temperature, etc. The VOKI avatar's eyes track the movement of the mouse when it is the vicinity of the widget and it will talk when you click on the PLAY button. This is my public education oriented blog, and I often share information with students here.

To practice the KID TEST, I always use my kid as my practice tester. I placed my widgets online, and I waited. After a few days, my kid, Dena, asked me about one of them. I told her, and that was that. Interesting, appealing, but no immediate knowledge transfer. Probably a 3 on a 5 point Leikert Scale for the KID TEST.

A few days later, we were discussing various bits of code that she has used recently, while I posted a blog entry. When I scrolled down to check out my map widget, I passed over the VOKI widget. Dena asked, "What's that?". I replied, "That's the other widget I discovered on my colleague's profile page." I mentioned that the image I used was the closest I could find to fit me, and she said, "I like it."

We discussed the fine points of VOKI. Dena said, "You can type what you want it to say?" and "Can you use your own voice?", so I told her that both options were possible. She says, "Wow, I like it!"

Then Dena proceeds to tell me that she has been looking for a widget like this, but the only one she found was a talking widget service that costs $19.99 per month.

OK, I know an opportunity when I see one, so, while I was traveling to the VOKI website, I asked if she wanted to see the website. A enthusiastic yes, bumped up the VOKI tech evaluation score, so off we went to the website.

Dena was impressed with the great variability and opportunities to use VOKI.

Try it out, I give VOKI a 5 out of 5 on the initial KID TEST, and I hope you will see all the possible uses a teacher could have for this creatively cool widget.