The basic HTML code looks like this:

<iframe src="http://docs.google.com/gview?url=YourDocumentURLGoesHere&embedded=true" style="width:680px; height:500px;" frameborder="0"></iframe>

All you need to do is copy the code above and replace YourDocumentURLGoesHere with the actual URL of your file (for example: http://clevelandhistory.org/files/2012/01/csu-web-palette.pdf).  Adjust the height and width as needed.

Here’s an example using this PDF file:

Here’s another example using this PPT file:

The Docs Viewer does not support every file type, though it does support the most common ones, including PDF, PPT, DOC, and even TIFF (you can also embed Excel (XLS) files using this method, though they will be converted to PDF format).

What is digress.it and why use it? from University of Lincoln on Vimeo.

Among the new tools available to course instructors this Fall, Digress.it adds some interesting new features to the standard course blog, namely the ability to use the built-in commenting system as a platform for detailed document annotation or group discussion.

Digress.it is a WordPress plugin that offers paragraph-level commenting in the margins of a text. Digress.it is geared toward in-depth discussions of longer documents: article, essay or even book-length.

Several professors will be experimenting with this feature in 2011 as part of our university-funded grant project, but all site admins on clevelandhistory.org now have access to this, and other select plugins. Imagine posting a dense primary source document (without violating copyright, of course) and tasking your students with commenting on, annotating, or translating the document, paragraph by paragraph. Or opening up student (or other) writing to detailed critique and peer review. Or running an online discussion based on a series of targeted prompts. If that sounds like something you would like to do on your course blog (or any site at clevelandhistory.org), Digress.it might be worth checking out.

NOTE: Activating Digress.it adds both a set of new features and a unique theme, designed specifically for annotation, so you might need to rethink the way you organize your site. Be sure to check out the Digress.it options page in your dashboard (Appearance >> Digress.it) to make changes to the default settings.

Visit the “Plugins” area in your site dashboard to activate Digress.it.

Have questions? Drop me a line on my profile page.

You can learn more about the roots of the project at digress.it.

The first way to subscribe is via RSS. All blogs at clevelandhistory.org have RSS feeds for both posts and comments. Some themes include an orange RSS button, while others do not. But you can easily find and post your RSS links using the following rules: for the posts feed, add /feed/ to the end of your site address (e.g. http://sola227.clevelandhistory.org/feed/); for the comments feed, add /comments/feed/ to your site address (e.g.
http://sola227.clevelandhistory.org/comments/feed/). If you would like to learn more about RSS, check out whyrss.com for a basic description and a list of some popular tools. While RSS is one of the great tools of the Internet, it can admittedly be frustrating to teach students to use, since it involves them changing some habits. For many students and instructors, email may be an easier alternative.

You can add email subscriptions to your blog in just a few easy steps. The first thing you need is a FeedBurner account (if you already use other Google products like GMail and Google Docs, then you are already set). Now, sign into FeedBurner. Next, enter the address for your site and submit.

Choose which feed (posts or comments) you want to syndicate.

After choosing your feed, you will be asked if you want to activate any additional features; you can choose these if you like or just keep pressing next until you get to the end. When you are done, you will see a message reading “Your feed is ready for the word. Now what?”  From there click on the Publicize tab and choose “Email Subscriptions.”

Activate email subscriptions. You will be given some code, which you can copy-paste into any area of your site (the sidebar is recommended since it is on every page). The form will resize to fit anywhere you choose.

Here’s what it looks like (live form):

Repeat for each course blog. Once you get it down, the whole process can take as little as 30 seconds for each site.