I have been looking for a blogging site that is affordable, preferably free and that would work with elementary students and keeping them safe. The criteria I have desired is having control over approving, editing, or deleting comments; if they were inappropriate. Creating usernames for my students so they do not have to use e-mail addresses and making the blog private for persons directly connected with my class/school.
After checking several blog sites the one I have chosen to sample is edublogs. Thanks to my classmate, Eric, for pointing me in this direction. I set-up an account and added the following pages: Welcome, Blog, and About Me. The Welcome page introduces the site as a fun way to get to know classmates. About Me page gives a brief biography of myself, as the teacher. Blog page is where I have posted my first blog.
There are many other features available on this site. I like that a variety of themes are available to choose from with the choice of free blogs. I can create usernames for my students and control the site to how I see fit. If I want comments on a page, I can select or deselect that option. I can also choose whether it is a private or public site.
I chose to use the free applications, but there is an opportunity to sign up for Edublog Pro for $3.33 a month and it includes the following:
- Get and enormous 5GB of upload space for your audio, video and other files
- Absolutely no advertising on teacher or students blogs
- Integrated statistics to let you know who’s reading your posts
- Brilliant plugins make discussion and interaction a breeze
- Creating a beautiful, powerful blog has never been easier
- Easily back up and save all your posts, pages and comments
- Lightening fast and incredibley reliable
- Powerful privacy and security functionality
- Easily create and manage dozens of students blogs
http://edublogs.org/
I've heard of EduBlogs but haven't had a chance to research it. I like your synopsis of the site, it's features and benefits. I definitely plan to check it out. The cost for the pro version is very reasonable. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know how this turns out. Currently, our district generically blocks blogs, but I can request to have a site unblocked. Three dollars a month is reasonable. However, as teachers we know those little costs continue to add up.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious do you find reluctance on the part of your student's parent's to give their 5th graders access to the Web? I remember Laurie mentioning that some of her parent's wouldn't give permission.
Like Karmiko, I'd heard of Edublog but hadn't done any research. Thank you for the concise summary.
I checked out this very site when I was searching for another Web 2.0 tool but decided against it because I have enough blog sites going on right now in my life.
ReplyDeleteI didn't want to add another one to have to manage but I did think it was a great site for those professional bloggers who love it. I will let others know about this site at my school since you like it a lot. The fact that no e-mails need to be created by students to use it is a plus.
I have also looked into Edublogs and was hoping at some point to be able to get the school district involved as well. My administration would be happy to see that it can be monitored for any comments that might not be appropriate for the discussion. I was hoping to use it with not just students but parents as well. it does look like a tool that the school district might be willing to pay for its use as It does seem reasonably priced
ReplyDelete