A New Way to Read Blogger Blogs! #edtech

Sometimes a new feature of a hugely popular utility can become a tool in and of itself. A new way of looking at things.  One of the things I am very interested in is how information is perceived.  There are now a number of sites out there who will create heatmaps for your websites showing how your page is being read.  Of course these are paid services (e.g., CrazyEgg) - so I have never had my blog or other web ventures analyzed.  There are also ways to visualize information as we have seen in a number of applications highlighted during this 365 project.  And I am all about visual learning!  Now there is a new way to read any Blog on Blogger (provided the author has not disabled them) When I logged on tonight to write my blog post, Google flashed a message about a new feature called "Dynamic Views".  And while I hadn't planned on it being tonight's utility, somehow it just worked out that way.  In order to read a blog with a "Dynamic View", simply type in the url and append the following text to see the different views:

Flipcard: available at [blogURL]/view/flipcard

Mosaic: available at [blogURL]/view/mosaic

Sidebar: available at [blogURL]/view/sidebar

Snapshot: available at [blogURL]/view/snapshot

Timeslide: available at [blogURL]/view/timeslide

This is fantastic for students who get easily distracted by all the bells and whistles of your typical blog on Blogger.