Technology Tips for Professors to Students

To get students set up on a blog, these are the sites I would suggest:

http://www.wordpress.com
http://typepad.com
http://eblogger.com
http://blogger.com
http://www.squarespace.com
http://www.thoughts.com
http://livejournal.com
http://blogcrowds.com
http://www.vox.com/

These are just a few. There are many, many more.

Podcast Instructions:

A podcast is an audio file sent to the web. You probably already know this. Here are some sites where students can get podcasts going:

http://www.wordpress.com - students may need to pay extra to upload really large files, such as documentaries
****The same goes for all of the ones above

There are other sites that will allow you to upload large files for free:

www.podbean.com
www.podomatic.com

This one may be for a fee:

www.podcast.com
www.podango.com

There are podcasts for just about every major mainstream radio station from the BBC, NPR, CBC, RCI, FAN590, CHFI, etc…

Video Blogs or Video Podcasts:

Video blogs are when students would do a commentary piece, a talk show that is more casual – anything appropriate for student work and/or the nature of the web. Every site I have listed at the top will give a student the ability to upload video onto their blog. As I have mentioned before, there may be an added fee to support the high megabyte size of these files.

Video Podcasts – these are more professional pieces of work put to the web. Either check out or show these two websites are doing Internet TV, and essentially on-going video podcasts:

www.dex.tv
www.therealnews.com/t/

If you would like to see a multimedia online magazine that I have created through Wordpress.com, check out http://kakonged.wordpress.com. There you will find blogging stories, pictures, podcasts, video blogs and video podcasts. I highly recommend you start one yourself if you can find the time so you can show it to your students. It is tremendous fun and I know you would really enjoy it.

More on multimedia magazines...to create an online .pdf copy of a magazine here are some sites:

http://www.joomla.org/
http://drupal.org/
www.xanga.com
http://www.uniflip.com/

Design Information:

If you want a really unique design for your site…here are some sources where if you have some money…you can get it done:

http://www.doodlebuddesign.blogspot.com/
http://wp-design.org/
http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/02/19/so-you-want-to-create-wordpress-themes-huh/
http://wp-design.net/
http://wpdesignblog.com/
http://wpdesignpro.com/
http://fleuron.com/?gclid=COaX3_W9npsCFSgYagodyRJ3Bg

This list is always developing and growing.

Making Money From a Blog or Online Magazine

Many people have been talking about how to make money from a blog or any online presence such as a magazine, newspaper or podcast. Can you blame them? It takes a lot of work and dedication to put such things together and to be compensated for it just seems to make sense.

I currently have this business model where I am looking for writers who would essentially work on a commission basis. They would write advertorials and receive 80 per cent of the income they earn - I would receive 20 per cent for editing the material and posting it to my site Donna Magazine. That magazine is done through Wordpress and currently that particular blogging platform does not take advertisements unless you are willing to pay big bucks.

So I hope the plan I have been thinking about for four years will work out. Please do wish me luck...I need it.