Barrettboys.com uses the following software:
WordPress
WordPress themes
A fun place to look also is WordPress Templates Browser
- Beast Blog. Click WordPress Themes above to find your inner decorator.
- The initial wordpress install will install Askimet and Hello Dolly plugins. You can read more about plugins online.
- Calendar by Keiran O’Shea *note, not working with latest version of WP and author not updating.
- Contact Form by Chip Cuccio
- Countdown by Owen Winkler
- Exec-Php by Sören Weber
- Global Translator by David Pozza
- Google XML SiteMaps by Arne Brachhold
- tiny mice editor plugin – longname
- podpress by Dan Kuykendall (Seek3r)
- Simple Flash Video by By Josh Chesarek & Daniel G. Taylor
- Snapshots for WordPress by By Snap Technologies, Inc. Altho, this plugin can get annoying, it helps the kids remember where they saw something without actually going to the sites to remember.
- WordPress Database Backup by By Austin Matzko
- WP Polls by Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan
- WP-Print by By Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan
- WP SIMILE Timeline by By Tim Isenheim
These are the plugins I’ve installed for the home site of barrettboys.com. Note: the students websites are seperate wordpress installations on barrettboys.com, complete with their own set of plugins.
The Software We Use On Our Local Computers
(to talk with barrettboys.com):
This is a neat little blogging tool my husband wrote. I use this to upload lesson posts. Any page on our site that gets updated daily, is a category page that has it’s own seperate php file in the theme. For example: When you see the url “http://www.barrettboys.com/category/math/” in your browser’s tooldbar, that is a clue that the PAGE in WordPress is a blank page. It has a corresponding PHP file that gets ‘filled in’ or ‘populated’ when you go there. It will only display the POSTS for a given category I defined in WordPress. This way, I don’t have to login and use WordPress to update PAGES daily. I can use WordPress’s dashboard and enter a lesson, or better yet, I can use Stuffr from any computer, anywhere, and easily send up a lesson for the day to that category page, i.e. Music or Math.
The benefits of POSTS as opposed to PAGES in WP are:
- No manual editing of page content. When pages are manually edited, the old info is removed and the new info put up, I automatically get archiving with POST pages.
- Folks can comment on a post, ie a particular lesson, they cannot comment on a PAGE.
- We get to see what we worked on two weeks ago or even two years ago.
- I can run scripts like similetimeline on seperate POSTs and have them show up on one page!
Of course, posts still need a page to display on. Hence, the blank pages setup in WordPress.
This is a link to our Downloads page for software viewers that allow you and others to see our content.
The Students Tools:
Hardware:
Laptops – They use various older (10 years +-) laptops with the additions of added memory, wireless USB internet, and stand-alone external hard drives (mainly for picture and video storage)
Memory sticks – You’ve seen them – those little USB sticks they sell cheap now? Students can give me files using these, without access to our networked computers. This is a good thing if you don’t want others sharing your drive and deleting your stuff on your computer!
Digital cameras – They’ve used everything from the cheapie $20 cameras at Walmart to the $600 cameras from Best Buy.
iPod Nano 8 gig
*in 2008 we purchased Zen’s for them, but switched when I saw the Ipod’s ability to show flash cards. Of course, these are not a necessity, but I wanted the kids to be able to review laying in bed, in the car, at the dentist’s office, etc. We don’t use the iPod touch because it has internet access and I want to keep internet access use in areas of our home where I can see what they are doing, not out on somebody else’s WIFI.
Software:
MS Office suite – Homeschoolers can get discounts on purchases from the Homeschool Buyers Co-op.
Thunderbird Email
Firefox web browser *
Please note: The newer versions of Firefox allows users to select the option of browsing without history capture. We use it because Internet Explorer is too clunky. Just Remember – Don’t Rely on Browser History in any app to know what your kids are doing.
Jing is A neat little app for capturing and recording multimedia from your computer.
Online Software:
Yahooligans search engine Addon for Firefox*
Note that the strict filtering option on Google DOES NOT work! Additionally, kids often get around security by searching and sending text in foreign languages or funky characters. Don’t rely solely on a search engine to manage what your kids are seeing. Yahooligans at least tries to prevent accidental viewing by having moderators check links. Still it’s no guarantee.
We LOVE BrainPop!
Pro Web Surfer
This nifty add-on for Firefox allows you to block script ads with your favorite pictures. You’ll need to turn it off to view any scripts like time-lines. But it’s easy to do with a button click on your toolbar.
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