Speaker: Laura Gibbs

If you can type, you can create a javascript with RotateContent.com! This is a free browser-based tool created by a University of Oklahoma student at the dawn of time, i.e. the year 2003 — and it’s still going strong (thank you, Randy Hoyt!).

How it works: you type content into an HTML table with as many rows as you want (as few as two, or hundreds of rows). The content of each row can be any kind of HTML code: text, images, iframe-embedded content (like video, or whole webpages), or even other javascripts. You then upload the HTML table to RotateContent.com which converts the content into a javascript that “rotates the content” either at random or based on dates you have supplied (“video of the day” or “image of the week,” etc.). The date-based content can be for a specific year, or it can be for a perpetual calendar that repeats year after year. You download the javascript, upload it to your own webspace (thank you, Reclaim Hosting!), and you can then use that script anywhere javascript is accepted: blog posts, blog sidebars, webpages, or even in an LMS like Canvas. If/when you update the script, the updated content appears everywhere.

Even better: others can use your script too! Just share the script address with them and they can use the script to display your content in their own webpages, blogs, etc.

And if you prepare an iframe version of the script which you host in your webspace, then people can use your script even in environments that do not accept javascript. That’s how people can use your javascript-delivered content in Canvas LMS for example, or in other webspaces where iframe is allowed but javascripts are not.

My goals for the presentation:

• Show examples of RotateContent.com random and date-based scripts delivering text, images, video, and also other javascripts in blogs, webpages, and in Canvas LMS.

• Guide people through the process of creating a RotateContent.com javascript: you can make a Magic-8-Ball script in just a few minutes, or whatever randomized content tool you are inspired to create.

• Tour my Canvas Widget Warehouse where I’m hosting scripts for people to use in Canvas LMS or any situation where iframe is allowed, but javascript is not.

• Explore the power of random content for sharing massive quantities of digital stuff and also for promoting student engagement in online course spaces.

• Brainstorm about how an enterprising genius person who knows how to code (that is not me!) could build an even more streamlined version of this tool for the modern era, perhaps even hosting the javascript content and iframe version for those teachers out there who do not have their own webspace.