Kids, Comments, ClustrMaps and Clocks

On Monday the third graders were exuberant in their delight at finding comments on their blogs. At the start of class I reviewed how to find their post using the category list, and then how to open their comments.

I warned them that the teachers who visited their blogs over the weekend might never visit again, so any replies we left for them might never reach their intended audience. To my surprise, that did not daunt the children. They still wanted to reply before working on their new posts. As is typical with this great group of kids, most put quite a bit of thought into their replies. They have the makings of fine bloggers.

Unfortunately, I am not doing as well. I did finally get the Clustr map working on our site — I’d love it if a few people would now visit the blog so it would start registering visitors. However, now I can’t even get the Widgetbox widgets to work on the site.

I had a clock working before, but took it out because it was so ugly. However, since my attempts to make other widgets work failed, I wanted to put the ugly clock back on so our blog pals could compare their time with our time. No such luck.

I have watched the videos in Learnerblogs that shows how to insert widgets. The problem is caused by many widgets using javascript, which isn’t allowed in Learnerblogs; it will break them. So, the video shows you how to paste the code from the Widgetbox widget into a text editor and extract the panel ID. That is what I did last week that worked so well. Now, the widget code doesn’t have a panel ID when I paste it. It has a different ID and that one isn’t working when pasted into the widgetbox widget holder on the blog. I am NOT amused.

Non-Widgetbox widgets need to be inserted in text widgets in Learnerblogs. However, if they contain javascript, Learnerblogs automatically strips it out. Google Gadgets all seem to use javascript. Does anyone know where I can find a well behaved javascript-free clock?