Step 7 – Setting Up Student blogs

We’ve designed a series of nine steps, with how-to info, to help you with your class blogging.

This step is to set up student blogs.

Why have student blogs?

Class blogs are an excellent starting point.   But the most incredible outcomes are observed when students are progressed onto their own individual blogs.

Why?  Human nature!

As individuals we’re all driven by personal ownership; class blogs have less sense of ownership than an individual blog.

Here are my tips for creating your student blogs.

#1 Choosing Usernames and Blog URLs

Educators normally use the same name for both the student’s username and blog URL.  Keep them simple and easy for the student to remember.

Most use a combination of their student’s first name followed by numbers that might represent the year or class number.  For example, username misty09 and blog URL misty09.edublogs.org.

If you want the students to use the blog for their entire school then use a combination of letters and numbers that achieve this goal.

#2 Adding yourself to  your student blogs

Always add yourself as an administrator to your student blog.

This means if you need to edit/delete a post, page or comment you can quickly access their blog from your blog dashboard.

#3 Moderating Comments

Educators either prefer to let their students moderate their own comments or they moderate all the comments for their students.  There are pros and cons to each approach.

If you want to moderate all comments, so comments are only posted once you have approved them, you need to create the blogs using the gmail+ method

You must use a real gmail account– educators either use their own gmail account or set up a gmail account for their class e.g. [email protected]

For those comfortable with students moderating comments I recommend you subscribe to the comment feeds from your student blogs — here is how to subscribe to their comments using Google Reader.

#4 Assigning Student Role

You need to think about how much responsibility your students are given.  Do you want them to be able to write own posts/pages, change themes, add widget and approve comments or do you want (or need) to limit their level of responsibility?

Choose  your student’s user role on their blog based on your comfort level and the school or district guidelines.

For those comfortable with students having a higher level of responsibility I recommend you subscribe to the post feeds from your student blogs — here is how to subscribe to their posts using Google Reader.

# 5 Creating the blogs

How you create the blogs depends on the type of Edublogs blog you have.

Here are instructions for creating student blogs using:

1. The Signup page – free Edublogs blogs
2. The Blog & User creator – Edublogs Supporters & Edublogs Campus only

Remember spam filters, especially strict ones for institutional email addresses, often block activation and password reset emails from Edublogs.org. If unsure use free webmail accounts such as gmail, hotmail that don’t block these invitation emails.

There are no limitations on the number of student blogs you can create!

And here’s where you find the other steps for setting up your class blog:

• Step 1 – Set up your class blog
• Step 2 –  Set Up Your Blogging Rules and Guidelines
• Step 3 – Teaching Commenting Skills and Etiquette – Guest post by Kathleen McGeady
• Step 4 – Help Parents Connect With Your Class Blog
• Step 5 – Add Students To Your Class Blog So They Can Write Posts
• Step 6 – Add A Visitor Tracking Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
• Step 7 – Setting Up Student blogs
• Step 8 – Add your student blogs to your blogroll
• Step 9 – Add Your Student Blogs To A Folder In Google Reader

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