"Cover It Live" is a new tool for broadcasting a live blog into your own blog. It is most often used to blog from live events. The host's commentary appears in real time in a single blog post rather than in dozens of sequential blog posts. Blog readers are not forced to use a different application to get your live commentary. They can read your comments -- and add their own -- right at your blog.
I'm testing Cover It Live today here on the LIVEbrary Blog. I created a live blog in this post, above. I'm going to use that live blog to create a tutorial on how to get started with Cover It Live. The tutorial is a series of screen captures made while configuring Cover It Live today. Since Cover It Live keeps a transcript of your live blog, the transcript should be a quick tutorial in using Cover It Live.
Here are some of the main features of Cover It Live you should know about when considering this interface for your classroom or school:
- You don't have to install any software -- yay!
- It shouldn't have any problems with school or library firewalls -- yay!
- The host controls whether reader contributions appear or not -- yay!
- You can embed images into the live blog -- have them ready in advance.
- You cannot embed video into the live blog -- but you can add video in a separate pop up.
- You can put hotlinks to related resources into the live blog.
Let us know if you would like to try an online classroom visit using Cover It Live. We're always interested in test driving new technology with school teachers and librarians. If you've used Cover It Live, please share your comments here. Thanks!
STEVE O'KEEFE
Producer, The Annick LIVEbrary
Coming Fall 2008: LIVEbrary Science!
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