It is a great idea to display a range of cloud apps on your sidebar. This helps to keep students and teachers using the same apps as each other and will therefore create a better support network for the apps.

Adding the apps

1. Firstly, it is a good idea to go into LINKS > LINK CATEGORIES and make sure you have a CLOUD APPS category (or something similar). If you don’t, just create one.

2. Go to APPEARANCE > WIDGETS and make sure there is a LINKS widget in your SIDEBAR FOR LOGGED-IN USERS. If not, you need to drag a new links widget under this section and select your Cloud apps category from the dropdown menu. Don’t worry if there isn’t the option to select your Cloud apps category, this will be because your category is empty. Once you have added a link to the category it should then appear in the dropdown menu.

3. Now open the cloud app of your choice in another browser tab. For this guide I’m going to use SoundCloud. Here you need to copy the web address of the cloud app.

4. Now go into LINKS > ADD NEW. Input the name of the app, the web address you copied, and a very brief description of the service (this will show when users rollover the link). Remember to tick the CLOUD APPS link category (or whatever yours is called). It is also a good idea to check the TARGET > _BLANK, this means when users click the link it will open the app in a new window.

5. Your almost done, but before we confirm our new link it is always nice to add an image to the link. This bit is slightly more complex. Go to the app and using your browser (each browser may have a slightly different toolbar layout), select VIEW SOURCE.

6. This shows you the HTML code of the cloud apps website. Don’t be intimidated! It’s not as bad as it looks. Here you need to find the link for the tiny image that the cloud app uses. This will be called ‘favicon’. The easiest way to do this is to use your browsers’ FIND tool and type ‘favicon’. Once you have found this link, copy it.

7. Back in your sites link editor, scroll down to ADVANCED > IMAGE ADDRESS. Paste the favicon link into this box. Finally, click on UPDATE LINK

Now all that’s left to do is to go to your cloud website and take a look over at the sidebar to view your new link!