The Edublogger just had its first birthday which makes:
- 94 posts with 2,754 comments
- 110,216 site visits from 150 countries according to ClustrMaps (57.5 % USA, 12 % Australia, 5.4 % UK, 4.5 % Canada and 1.8 % NZ)
- With 2031 bookmarks on Delicious and 459 bookmarks on Diigo
PS Sorry but celebrations ran a bit due to waiting new birthday clothes — come and check them out! What do you think of The Edublogger’s new blog theme?
Story Behind The Blog
Was The Edublogger my idea? Nope! It was all James Farmer originating from this email on January 4, 2008:
I’d like to float something with you, and see what you think of it.
As you know I’m a big fan of your work… I love the way you illustrate ideas, communicate with your readers, pick topics and… well, just about everything really.
What I’d like to float with you is the possibility of you doing the kind of stuff you already do so well, but doing it at a central place within Edublogs, and having it promoted throughout the site. It would entirely focused around you… you’d be entirely independent to criticize, rave or write about whatever at will…
From this The Edublogger was set up, by Edublogs, to share tips, tricks, ideas that help the educational blogging community. With it my role working for Edublogs increased; from writing posts on The Edublogger to being employed 3 days a week in 2009.
Lets Celebrate!
To celebrate The Edublogger’s first birthday we’re giving away twelve Edublogs supporter 12 month subscriptions which you can use on your own blog or give away to a reader. Just write a post based on any of the topics themes listed below:
- Advice for doing blog makeovers i.e. improving your blog
- Tips for using blogs with students
- Using tools like VoiceThread, Voki, mystudiyo, Animoto, SlideShows, Google Documents with students and embedding in blogs posts
- Advice for writing better blog posts
- What makes good comments or commenting tips
- Images in blog posts
- Tips for building blog audience
- Ideas for getting educators involved with using web technology
- Favorite blog widgets
- Images generators (e.g. sign generators, newspaper generators), avatars, online graph tools etc that you can use with students
- Advice on setting up or using class blogs
- Tips for connecting with other classrooms
Anyone can enter, including students, but you must include in your post which topic you are writing about and link back to this post so that we receive a pingback advising us that you have written the post (read this to understand What’s A Pingback? And How To Write Links). For example you might copy the following into the bottom of your post and just change the topic enclosed in the qutoation marks:
This post has been written on “tips for using blogs with students” as part of The Edublogger’s Birthday Celebration Competition!
The best post for each topic wins and you can submit posts for as many topics you like. You have until March 5 to enter.
If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider 
Subscribing For Free!
Hello Ms.Waters
last week for my classes asighned post we had to write one of the tips posts you were talking about in your Birthday Celebration Post, and I chose to do commenting posts and I have just published it. If you wanted to come and see it just click on my avatar and it will take you to my blog, I have just posted it and it is called Commenting tips so it won’t be hard for you to find, you are sure to get a pingback from me anyway.
Well happy birthday to your blog, and I will deffinitely comment soon!
Thanks Catie for entering the Competition. Those are really excellent tips for commenting and excellent work with your blogging.
Sue – you rock!
Three cheers for The Edublogger…. Happy 1st
This may be a good little stimulus for a couple of budding bloggers at our school, thanks.
Tomaz
Thanks Tomaz, and you living so close must owe me a birthday cake 🙂 Hope it does work as a stimulus at your school.
Hi Ms.Waters,
It’s Nicholas, my post is ready if you would like to have a look. Here is the link- http://nicholash16.edublogs.org/2009/02/12/tips-for-building-a-blog-audience/
Happy Birthday by the way…… I forgot to wish you a happy birthday in my first comment. What sort of presents did you get?
Bye
Thanks Nicholas – it was a great post with excellent tips. Presents – well the main was the new blog theme which I really love. James is the bestest for organising a new theme for me.
Hey,
Congrats one the Edublogger’s first birthday!!!
I wrote a post on “Advice for doing blog makeovers i.e. improving your blog” and “Advice for writing better blog posts” and a little bit of “Tips for building blog audience”. I hope you enjoy reading it and maybe even get a few ideas (: Once again congratulations!
~Ashley
Thanks Ashley – you wrote an excellent post with very good advice to people about blogging. Very important advice to remember.
Hi Ms.Waters,
I decided to write a post on my blog about “Tips For Building a Blogging Audience.” I would probably write about how leaving questions at the end of your post is a great idea to attract commentors and that the more comments you leave on others blogs the more comments you will recieve!
My post is not published yet so don’t bother checking but I will try to get it finished A.S.A.P.
Bye!
Thanks for letting me know Nicholoas.
That is a really good topic so I will be interested to read what you write. People often ask me how to build an audience and I struggle to provide a good answer. Can you drop past when you write it to check it has pingbacked the post because not all the posts are pinging the blog for some reason.
Happy birthday to your blog Sue. I have learned so much from you and I always send interested teachers your way when they begin a class blog. You are great at explaining how to use them!
Thanks Grace, hopefully it is helping them get started on their own journey. Tell them if they need any help or have any questions to leave a comment.
Sue,
I echo what others have said–the direction you have given through this blog, your accessibility through Twitter, and your support via Skype have been absolutely invaluable to me. You are a key member of my pln.
More than this, though, is your active and personal support of student blogging. My kids treasure your comments on their blogs. It’s a gift you give them across oceans, and also across generations. Would we as kids ever have had such a dialogue with adults? I don’t think so.
So congrats on a remarkable year. With enormous gratitude,
Jan
Hi Jan, please to hear your students enjoy my visits. I enjoy it also when they pop past to say hi. Had a nice visit from Michael the other day.
Happy Birthday, Sue!
Thanks for all the work you’ve done.
I’ve written a post about embedding Jing into Edublogs but see that it hasn’t made it on to your “pingback” list. Maybe I’ve done something wrong at my end.
Nevertheless you can see the post here:
http://portablepd.edublogs.org/2009/02/06/how-to-embed-a-jing-screencast-into-your-edublogs-blog/
Thanks Nathan! Not sure why the pingback isn’t working – defies logic as it normally works. Paul had the same problem and I also checked his link and couldn’t get it to ping. Meanwhile I did a pingback using my test blog and it worked fine = weird. Thanks for letting me know and have added your entry.
Hi Sue oh wow that was a marvelous fest in there thanks for that student friends link! This is an awesome service! Ive been so tail up inside my dashboard…its soo deep in here!
Thanks Sue thats really clear.
I’ve been thinking in response to Jen that its very cheap to subscribe to edublogs compared to other similar services. But the critical part (convincing administrators) is that I perceive blogging as an ideal platform for digital and visual literacy skills and critical thinking (critiquing,building upon linking to others ideas as reference etc).
Seriously this service enables these skills for teachers to pass on like no other that Ive seen.
Is there a possibility of a similar service extension or existing that is primarily for students. I mean a community of Bloggers aimed at students as the learners rather than teachers specifically?
Edublogs is aimed at both students and teachers Ruth. And there are communities of students working together on Edublogs to help each other – e.g. Bringing us Together