The next Student Blogging Challenge starts in March September, 2010 and this time we’ve decided there are tasks that need to be done BEFORE your class actually takes part in the challenge.
So we’ve designed a series of nine steps, with how-to info, to help you with your class blogging.
Our first step is to create a class blog.
Why Have A Class Blog
A class blog is always a good starting point if you want to blog with your students.
It gives you to time to increase your skills while gradually introducing your students to blogging and educating them on appropriate online behaviour.
Start initially with you being responsible for writing posts, and the students responding in comments. As students demonstrate both keenness and responsibility give them their ‘blogging license’ where they earn the right to write posts on the class blog and/or get their own student blog.
Ultimately even if each student has their own blog it is always a good idea to have a class blog.
Blogging isn’t just about writing posts; it’s about sharing your learning and reflecting on what you have learnt.
Important parts of the blogging process include encouraging students to:
- Read each others posts
- Interact and comment on each others posts by challenging each others thoughts and views
- Write posts in response to each others posts
The class blog is the central hub that connects your student blogs together; making it easier to share their learning, interact with each other and a global audience.
Aspects To Consider Before Creating Your Class Blog
Username and Display Name
Your username is what you use to sign into your blog dashboard and is displayed on posts and comments you write. While you can’t change your username, most blog platforms do allow you to change how your name is displayed.
In most cases it’s better to choose a username that makes it easier for others to relate to you as a real person. For example, compare spwat3 with suewaters — which is easier to relate to?
On a class blog you need to consider what is an appropriate username for you to use. Most don’t allow students to use first and last name online so some prefer to model this by using names like Miss W or Mrs Waters.
Blog URL
Think carefully about your blog URL.
Once your blog has an established audience you’re less likely to want to change your blog URL and educators often use the same blog for the next year’s class.
Ideally you want to keep your blog URL short, easy to remember and suitable to be reused for several years.
A simple option is to use your name in the blog URL as these educators did:
- Ms Cahusac (http://mscahusac.edublogs.org/)
- Mrs Burton (http://msvrburton.edublogs.org)
Alternatively use something unique that has meaning like Jan Smith (http://huzzah.edublogs.org).
Blog Title
Think about the name of your blog.
Choose a name that reflects the purpose of your class blog and your students can relate to.
For example, Mrs Burton‘s blog title Blog, blog blog blog, blog some more is very clever.
Check out our class blog list for titles that other educators have used!
Check Out Class Blogs
Coming up with ideas on how you might use your blog with students can be hard to visualize.
Make time to check out how other educators use their class blogs to get ideas on “what works”/”doesn’t work”.
Here are some blogs for you to look at:
- Network Nine (Year 4)
- MrToft.ca (Grade 5)
- Grade 5e (Grade 5)
- Huzzah (Grade 6/7)
- Blog, blog blog blog, blog some more (English I)
- Endless Questions (Grade 6-8 languages)
- Or check out our class blog list (over 200 class blogs separated into grade and subject area)
Creating Your Class Blog
Now you’ve done all the research it’s time to set up your class blog.
Here are the instructions to follow if you would like to set up your class blog on Edublogs:
- Signing up for your blog
- Logging into your blog dashboard
- Using your blog dashboard
- Changing Your Blog’s Look
- Writing your First Post
You will find all Getting Started With Edublogs information here!
FINAL THOUGHTS
You can read more about the Student blogging challenge here:
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
If you have any problems or questions while setting up your class blog just leave a comment on this post — I’m always happy to help!
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Very informative, thank you :-).
Birgitte
@teacherjane Hopefully I have the question right, All you need to do is change all the links in your blogroll to one category e.g. blogroll or if you want to add to different sidebars and separate then add more than one links widget and select the category you want displayed.
Hi sue,
For next term, how can I reduce the semester 1 class list (in side column) to just a heading please?
thanks,
Jane
@KyleJackowitz just a quick note to say that I’ve answered this question by email.
so how do I set my URL? already created using my first name, but i don’t want that in there for students. how to change? Thanks!
Sue,
Thanks for sharing all this wonderful info on how to create and use blogs effectively.
I have a bunch of teachers who are excited about setting up blogs for their classrooms.
I don’t want to slow them down, so I am encouraging them to go ahead and set up blogs to experiment with (after they read your 6 Weeks tips pages, of course 🙂
Here is my question: If they set up blogs individually, and we later decide to buy the campus version for our school, will we be able to “migrate” their blogs into our campus group, or will they have to start over with new blogs? Thanks for any advice.
@tsimpsontest, Glad to hear they are excited with setting up their blogs and my information is helping them.
All Edublogs Campus sites are located on their own domain which is totally separate from Edublogs.org and each blog on the site will include that domain URL in their blog URL For example here are some Campus sites – http://literacy44.ca/ , http://blogs.joeys.org/ , http://mybcd.org/ . If you look at http://literacy44.ca/blogs/ you will see that the blog URLs include their domain name.
So yes they would need to start over with a new blog (and URL) but it is really easy to move the blog from Edublogs (via Tools > Export and Tools > Import) and set it up on the Campus site. However, if you know that you would want to go onto Campus sooner than later — then you are probably better to start them directly on your own Campus site. That way you can build all the support into your Campus site like some of the examples I’ve given you have done,
Best of luck with your blogging and don’t hesitate to contact me if you need any assistance with your class blogging!
Ok, I have created my blog, but I can not get other pages I have made to show up. I crated an account as a user and even when I log in using that name I cannot see the other pages I have posted. I am trying to get this up as soon as possible for my students to use it. Also, do all my students have to have an e-mail account in order to have access to the site?
Hi Sue,
Sorry to leave a message here…
I started my blog at the end of February, so I’m very new to blogging. I tried to view my blog today and it wouldn’t connect. I believe there were some server issues because I couldn’t view other edublog accounts in our district, either. I am now able to view my blog, however several widgets are missing from my sidebars. This includes my Shelfari, 3 Wowzio widgets, Flag Counter, a text widget, and Site Counters which were around 4300 hits.
I am very disappointed as I am expecting that I will just have to try them again. Do you have any solutions or at least ideas for why this would’ve happened so I can avoid making the same mistake in the future?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
@Techie Kids, I’m sorry about that and wouldn’t have expected them to be missing. What I often do is paste the embed code into a .txt file so that if I need to reuse the code again I have it handy. For example, if I have added the code to a post I will often to do in case I accidentally edit the post using the Visual Tab and break the embed code.
If you are using a PC you just need to open up NotePad and add the code. You can also save the embed code for all of them in the same .txt file.
@Sue Waters, Thanks for the advice on saving the code. My Shelfari was an account, so that was easy to replace. I will be sure to keep a .txt of my codes in the future.
You mentioned pasting in Notepad. I know that I’ve read other posts that stress the importance of not copying and pasting in posts without using Notepad. I believe I directly copied the code and pasted it into my widgets. Would that have caused a problem? I just don’t know why the widgets would have disappeared. If I was the one that did something wrong, I just want to try and avoid this user error in the future. Do you think I did something or do we chalk it up to a glitch?
Thanks for your help!
@Techie Kids, oops sorry for the delayed response 🙁 Been a bit busy. Absolutely no problem copy/pasting embed code directly into NotePad,
This latest vesion of WordPress MU that we use now seems to automatically delete the bad code that is carried across when you copy/paste directly from MS Word. So it is less than issue.
I’m really not sure what happened with the widgets – sorry 🙁 I’ve not had that happen on any of my blogs.
Sue
I have been working so hard at setting up my blog and have enjoyed your teaching section on blogging but I am VERY frustrated when I see SPAM and advertisements being posted on my blog. How can I stop this from happening?
Jeanne
@jdaw, HI Jeanne, do you mean the content links ads and the Edublogs Campus ad? If so, you need to become an Edublogs Supporter or get an Edublogs supporter to disable the ads on your blog.
You can read more about it here:
1. http://help.edublogs.org/2009/09/01/difference-between-free-supporter-and-campus-blogs/
2. http://help.edublogs.org/2009/09/10/upgrading-your-blog-to-edublogs-supporter/
@jdaw, Even we are facing th esame problem with our Corporate blogs where we educate people with modern software technologies
Hi Sue,
I have changed the address of our blog this year from Ourspace to Ourspace2010. http://blogs.tps.vic.edu.au/ourspace2010/
Looking forward to introducing another group of students to blogging.
Jennyann
@Jennyann, thanks I’ve added the new details onto the list and please don’t hesitate to let me know if you need any help with your campus blog. You have some cool (different) tools inside that blog. Read more here — http://thecampus.edublogs.org/2009/12/03/check-out-the-cool-new-features-under-the-bonnet-of-edublogs-campus/
Sorry to submit this way, but I am having issues with accessing my blog dashboard and I need assistance. I am unable to post on the forum and could not find any contact information to submit my problem elsewhere. If you could help me with connecting to someone who could assist me with my problem that would be great. Thank you.
@Tech4urcontent, No problem at all. It is fine to leave a comment here for assistance.
Can you tell me what is your problem with accessing your dashboard?