Thing 12: Blog Widgets

Review the widget you selected. Are you getting comfortable with embedding code? Do you belong to other online communities? Are relationships formed online as meaningful as face-to-face relationships? Why do you think MySpace and other social networking sites are so popular with kids today?

Okay, I give up. It has taken me 3 hours now to embed a widget in blogger with no success. I know this works because I have the same widgets on other sites and it only took 1-2 minutes. I followed all the directions several times and it will not embed. I even tried several different widgets. I am not spending any more time on this because the problem has to be inconsistencies within blogger. I find that what does not work one day will work the next so maybe I'll return to this at some future time. BTW - the big white space at the beginning of this post actually contains the html code in compose and edit html screens but won't show up in preview. In the meantime I have posted widgets on my blog page. The widget I wanted to add you can find at:
http://www.gmodules.com/ig/creator?synd=open&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwidgets.clearspring.com%2Fcscallback%2Fgallery%2F484b55292f9fbe88%2Fgooglegallery.xml&lang=en
I chose this widget because I think it is beautiful and calming to watch fish in an aquarium. It also fits visually with the color and theme of my blog page. It is not interactive although I do use other interactive widgets where visitors can play with a cat, feed fish, or play a game on another site.

I am quite comfortable with embedding code. I have belonged to other online communities for over three years and often embed code from pictures, videos, and widgets I find online. It’s a lot of fun to share what you find and it’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Relationships formed online are certainly different than face-to-face relationships but I don’t think one is necessarily always more meaningful than another. I do think they fulfill different needs. For example, on Facebook I have contact only with people I have previously met face-to-face (family, co-workers, friends). However, on Eons I am “acquaintances” with people I’ve never met and have no intention of ever meeting face-to-face. We call ourselves “friends” online because we have an interest in common, such as cooking or wine.

Kids are naturally very social, especially middle-high school students. When we were that age it was relatively easy to interact face-to-face with kick ball in the street every night after dinner and hanging out at the local drive-in. We walked or rode our bikes everywhere. Urban sprawl and safety concerns have limited the amount of face-to-face contact among kids today. Also kids are “digital natives”. They have never known a world without it. It is only natural they would use social networking sites to interact with their friends.