Everyone thought “What becomes of students blogs?” was a good question but most struggled for answers! Instead let me help by sharing my thoughts.
We’re dealing with two main scenario:
Dealing with Discontinuing Student blogs
While these two scenario require different approach they both have to deal with student blogs that are no longer required (e.g. students that don’t wish to continue blogging, students leaving the school, blogs not used in their class next year).
You will have a strong urge to delete these no longer required student blogs. Unless the parent, student or school absolutely demands these blogs be deleted I definitely wouldn’t delete them.
These blogs are part of their journey, one day they may change their mind, want to check them out or another teacher might like to use them.
Delete is DELETE; it’s impossible for us to undelete them.
Here is what I would do for student blogs no longer required:
- Set up an archive page on your class blog with all the student blogs listed under their year group
- Change the student role on the blog to subscriber as limits their blog access and means they won’t be able to write or publish posts. Also means they can’t access comments or approve them.
- Disable any comments from being posted on the blog using comment moderation. You may also want to disable the comment notification email.
Supporting Students that continue to blog
For students that want to keep their blog you will need to consider who is responsible for them in the long term. Some teachers will get parents to accept responsibility. Or perhaps you happy to monitor them?
My approach is to monitor all student posts and comments using Google Reader. With separate folders for posts and comments. During holidays number of posts and comments will decrease.
Monitoring means if you need to take quick action, such as editing/deleting a post, you can.
In terms of questions relating to Edublogs supporters and next year’s students:
- You can create as many student blogs are you want (there are no restrictions)
- But can only disable ads on up to 30 blogs (can change which 30 blogs at any time)
Disabling student blogs for the holidays
For those educators who need to disable student blogs for the duration of the end of year holidays you have a few option:
- For student blogs on Edublogs – same as for blogs no longer required i.e. change the student’s user role and disable comments then change the setting back in the new school year
- For Student Blogs on an Edublogs Campus site – your site admin may be willing to archive the blog and reactivate it at the start of the school year
Mementos of Their Student blog
Obviously if you don’t delete their blogs they will remain online and be a keepsake. However if you do want the student blogs in alternative formats you could also create a PDF version using BlogBooker.
FINAL THOUGHTS
What haven’t I considered? Missed? Or questions I haven’t thought to answer?
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10 Comments So Far»
Perhaps, let them copy what they want from their school blogs. Encourage them to start their own blog and delete the blog they were using for school.
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Sue Waters Reply:
June 6th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Yes that is another good option which I hadn’t even considered. Thanks for pointing that out. I know it is an issue for me but I still have a problem with deleting any blog.
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Hi Ms.Waters,
I posted the challenge on my blog and the winner was brianne.
She would like the 12 month free blogging subscription on her blog.
Here is her blog url – http://brianneh16.edublogs.org/
Thank you.
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Sue Waters Reply:
June 6th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Excellent news Nicholas, I’ve upgraded her blog for 12 months. Can you tell me how you managed to decide?
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What about adult courses or teacher blogs? I used a blog for an adult class I taught last fall. I used the name Intermediate Spanish Fall 2008. I was great for the semester. However, class ended. Now this summer I’m teaching a similar course and I’m not sure if I should start a new blog or change the name of my old one ( clearly not a good idea to name you blog with a date) and just start adding new posts. My students could (and may) look at my prior posts to gain more information. There will definitely be some duplicate information which may be weird. I’m just not sure what’s the best way of doing this when you teach a class for a few months and then have new students come in. Thanks!
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Sue Waters Reply:
June 8th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Hi Leslie, great questions. I suppose the answer depends on the type of material you post on the blog and who is posting on the blog. Some educators use the same blog each year while others have separate blogs for each of their classes.
I know some that use the same blog but delete the posts and comments (don’t make me cry here though – I can’t cope with that option).
There are pros and cons to both approaches of new blogs versus using the same blog. Perhaps you could give a link to one of your blogs and we could have a check to share our thoughts?
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Thanks for all of this, Sue. It has helped my come up with a plan for my class & their work. I would like to provide the students with a hard copy of their posts and I like the idea of BlogBooker. I don’t understand what they are asking for, though, in the cell “WordPress XML Export”. It asks for me to browse to find it. Any ideas what it means?
Thanks for your help, as always!
[Reply]
Sue Waters Reply:
June 8th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Hi Jan, responded by twitter but forgot here
So just adding my response to let others know. You need to go to Manage > Export to download all the posts, pages and comments. This is the file that you need to upload to BlogBooker.
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I have encouraged my students to use their blogs as eportfolios. Just like journals and diaries, I want my students to be able to look back on the work they completed several or many years ago. Students are proud of their blogs and as such the blogs should be allowed to stay.
I like your idea of changing the administration and comment facility etc. Sometimes we lose students with no prior warning as their parents are itinerant workers. These are the ones that I am concerned about as they are perhaps the most challenging of students.
Many of my students who blogged last year, do not study ICT with me this year. However, some of the work was really good and I like to keep them on my blog roll, so I have added an x on either side of their name, so I hope visitors to my class blog understand that these are no longer formally taught by me.
I loved teaching primary school students to blog but I no longer teach them in 2009. They are now listed in a table with hyperlinks on a separate page on my blog. This year I am encouraging my year 11 and 12 students to use their blogs where possible. In Australia, we still have 6 months to come to a decision on what to do with the blogs of students who graduate.
Some of our primary school classes, decided to start a new class blog, some decided to continue with theirs.
[Reply]
Sue Waters Reply:
June 8th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Hi Anne, thanks for sharing how you are using your blogs with your students. Will be interested to see what decisions are made with the students that graduate.
The digital footsteps we leave behind are such a lovely reflections of where we started and where we are going. So often we thrown out the paper based material but at least online the information can remain.
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It is very wonderful and valuable student blog. Work on Student blog is useful.
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Sue,
I have to ask, where do I go to disable or enable ads on the blog – mine or a students. and idd I read that my subscription will automatically renew? that’s cool.:)
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Sue Waters Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Once you have signed up as a supporter go to your Supporter Tab and click on Disable ads. Insert the name of the blog you want to disable ads on – you need to write it as theedublogger.edublogs.org and not http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/ then click Search. When it has found the blog tick to select and then click on Disable ads.
You can add and remove the blogs you disable ads on. Ads are automatically disabled on the Supporter blog.
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Mr Moshé Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
can i re enable them on the Supporter blog?
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Sue Waters Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Sorry I don’t quite understand the question? Ads are automatically disable on Supporter blogs when you become a supporter. The only reason why ads would reappear is if your supporter subscription expired.
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Mr Moshé Reply:
July 17th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
gotcha thanks. you got me.
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Дисбазия – (дис + греч. underpinning – ходьба, шаг). Нарушения ходьбы, походки.
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Hi Sue!
I started a classroom blog last fall and really enjoyed the process. When it came time to think about what I should do this year, I really struggled with the idea of leaving it and beginning a new blog.
My classroom blog is a blogger account and I have lots of space left in it, so I decided to just keep posting with my new students. I am so glad I did.
First of all, the students seem to enjoy reading the stories in the archive on their home computers.
But, what I really love, is that I am able to use the old comments to teach my new students *how* to comment. Already, many of my third graders are commenting on our blog and what they are writing is very good!
I am so glad I kept the blog. The old comments have been a real resource. Funny when you stumble on to something that really works for you!
Thanks,
Linda Yollis
[Reply]
Sue Waters Reply:
September 6th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
@Mrs. Yollis, I’ve found it really interesting the different approaches educators take with their class blogs. Thanks for sharing the excellent point about the comments which you can use to teach new student how to comment — another great tip I can give to others for reasons why not to start with a new blog.
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I really want to actually delete some of these blogs. I can’t find a simple solution anywhere the website. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place. How do I just delete a blog so that I don’t have to deal with it anymore?
[Reply]
Jan Smith Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
@mrsbeckerrocks,
Luckily it’s deliciously easy–and I, too, have a hard time remembering where things are hidden. Go to the dashboard of the blog you wish to delete, go to Settings, go to Delete Blog. There will be a button to push, which will send you an email that you must click on to finish the process–done!
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