Fronter Ideas and Updates

Just a couple of updates from my Fronter dabbling that I feel maybe of value.

Ideas - or things to stick in Fronter

In a bit of a break from the norm, why not try these sites for custom web 2.0 buttons and headers, rather than the now cliche and very annoying sparklee text that lingers on many a bad Fronter page.


http://www.web20badges.com/ - allows you to create buttons rather like those seen on blogs.


http://www.freshgenerator.com/ This Web 2.0 graphic generator enables the user to create neat text boxes for headers or buttons, these can easily be re sized to fit a page or blog header.


Here is an example where the web 2.0 badges have been used as buttons and the graphic generator has been used for the header. I must add this has all been done using the insert image container for each image, rather than the more cumbersome mode mentioned in training, which involves the creation of a text container followed by the creation of a table and then the insertion of images. The use of picture/image containers leads to a lot more aligned look and feel and it means things can be moved around a lot more easily.

The Ceop -Report Abuse Button - I got this idea from @ebd35 via a phone/twitter Fronter sharing session today. In her Fronter rooms she has the CEOP button displayed clearly. I think I'd like to promote this for pages that involve un moderated forums and as a way or reminding children about its existence and function for when they are on other site such as MSN, Beebo or Facebook.






Flickr slideshows - for showcasing images - other tools do exist of course but this is my personal favourite a si have so many pictures on Flickr. It is also worth looking at Photopeach and ... ( let me know of any others that work nicely in Fronter.




Teachmeet 08 on PhotoPeach



Monitor Resoloution

Many of us work on 1024 x 768 resoloution and build our rooms in this size, yet many schools set their resoloution at the old 600 x 800 size. I can see why this is done, but it does make for a very squashed up Fronter Room and means users have to scroll along and up/ down to see the full extent of the content.


Fronter Rules

Anca Pauwells from Highlands Primary has been one of our stars of Fronter this year and earlier last year she created some Fronter rules to help teachers and children use the site safely.

These are quite simple and obvious to some, but others may want to use and adapt these.

Fronter Forums

Other Fronter Rules

Verison 92 Updates

I am looking forward to the updates that we'll see in Fronter 92. It will be particulalry interesting to see just how customisable the new Webfronter template will be,as currently there are just a few significant niggles with RSS and arranging things into a layout that suits you. Also looking good in v92 is the room copy tool, this should make things a whole lot easier.


Here is the document that you can also find on LGFL and the Fronter support site that outlines the changes coming.

London MLE F92 (2)