Streamified For: Educators

In case you haven’t noticed, we at Streamified are big fans of Web 2.0 technologies like blogs and social networks and we hope you are too! We wanted to share a few ways that certain users may be able to use Streamified to more easily keep up with the information that’s important to you. Today, I (Justine) will be talking about how Streamified can help educators get the most out of Web 2.0.

If you work in education, you may have heard of a “professional learning network (PLN)” once or twice, and you likely have had some kind of experience with “professional development” before. A PLN consists of colleagues, many in your same teaching area, who can be counted on as resources to you. As a friend from my own PLN, Julie Manfredi, describes it,

I have heard the acronym PLN used as both a Professional Learning Network and a Personal Learning Network – I like to think that it’s a combination of both. My PLN is full of wonderful people that are willing to answer questions, give advice and share resources, as well as offer a kind word or listen to one of my rants.

So, what does this have to do with Web 2.0 and, even, Streamified?

Glad you asked! Blogs and social networks (especially when the posts on said social network make use of hashtags, like #edchat), are a great way to share ideas. In fact, much of the discourse that makes an online PLN really great – lesson ideas, questions and answers, commiserating about a rough day at school, etc. – takes place on social media.

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The State of Streamified: Where we are & where we’re going

It’s been over a year since Zane released the Start Google Plus extension, back when Google+ was in its infancy. That original extension was originally intended to be a quick weekend project, but it instantly became much more. Start Google Plus became Streamified last fall, when Zane decided that it was time to deliver a more focused effort to developing for a combined social experience.

Now that we’ve released the latest update to our extension, we thought it’d be a good time to take a look at where we are. As you probably know, we spent most of the early summer working on a new API. This is the technology behind the new Streamified username, which lets you access all your streams and synced data by just entering and validating your username. Everything’s just as you last left it, even if you’re going back and forth from a mobile iOS device, your computer, or even a friend’s computer.

(Think about it — what if you’re with a friend and wanted to show them a post you recently bookmarked on Streamified? Just go to Streamified.me, log-in with your username, and go to your Bookmarks. The post is waiting for you.)

Wait, a minute — what’s Streamified.me, you’re asking? 

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Streamified browser extension updated: Usernames, better sharing, and more

Here at Streamified, we’ve been hard at work rolling out new changes. Today we’re excited to let you know that our browser extension has been updated for both Chrome and Firefox! If you were a previous user of the browser extension, you might want to try re-installing from those links above just to make sure everything’s all up to date.

While it was important to us that this update squash as many bugs as possible, what’s really exciting is that the extension now runs on our new API! By setting up and adding all of your streams to your Streamified username, your information now can go wherever you go.

By the way: you may already have a Streamified username if you’re an iOS user or if you’ve been testing out our Streamified.me web app. To log in with your username, double click on the Streamified icon in your toolbar; this will open up Streamified.me in your browser. Enter your username and validate it (so the server knows it’s you) by logging in to one of your social networks. Your streams should now be ready to go, so feel free to skip ahead to learning more about what’s new in the extension!

Here’s a quick guide to setting up your username:

  1. Click on the Streamified icon in your browser’s toolbar.
  2. You should be taken to Streamified.me, our web app. This works hand-in-hand with the extension to give it some additional power. Click to log in.
  3. Pick a username, then click to continue.
  4. Start the process of beefing up your username by adding your first stream. We don’t store any of your private log-in information, by the way.
  5. Repeat the process of adding until you’re all set.
  6. Go to Google+; after the extension loads in, you should see the Streamified icon instead of the Home icon in the leftside navigation menu. Mouseover it to make sure all your streams are where they’re supposed to be.
  7. If you want to use the Streamified browser extension on a different computer or browser, after installing it, just input your username and validate it by logging in to any of the streams you added to it.

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Streamified iOS version 1.6 now live in the App Store!

A few weeks ago, we let you know about some new technological advancements that our lead programmer, Zane Claes, has been working on. We’ve been really excited about our new API (click that above link to learn more) and think you’ll really enjoy the speed and performance boosts that it has let us include in the app.

Here’s another run-through of everything that’s new in the new app, too, below the cut — and in the meantime, you can download the app directly from iTunes here!

(And in case you were wondering, you can use version 1.6 to enter our photo contest for the change to win a $50 iTunes card!)

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Get The Most Out Of: Mobile Image Editing

In this week’s edition of “Get The Most Out Of…,” we’re taking a look at the mobile app’s image editor. This post is in honor of our upcoming photo contest; we’d love to see your pictures!

Image Editing with Streamified
In version 1.5 of the mobile app, we released a brand new image editor! Though we covered the basics of how to access the image editor in that post, today we’ll go a little more in depth on all of the editors’ features.

Keep in mind that Streamified, by default, saves any images that you shared to networks. You can change this behavior by going to the Streamified settings and turning “Save Photos” off.

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