While I was assessing the plethora of blogging platforms that exist out there and that can be used for education, I came across a bunch of really cool and really helpful information at Edublogger. Here, there are a number of great tools and resources for using Edublogs as a blogging platform for teachers and students.

As part of their Student Blogging Challenge, Edublogger has set up a number of weekly challenges. Each challenge highlights a specific aspect of Blogging and its use by educators.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of Edublogs as it randomly inserts advertising into the copy of the post (see image below). This is one aspect to be aware of if choosing to use Edublogs as your blogging platform.

One benefit of Edublogs (over some) is that you can create a class blog and then invite student users to it. This is a little more cumbersome with platforms such as Blogger and WordPress as you have to follow each individual blog separately (this can be avoided with the hosted version of WordPress). Edublogs, in fact, is a WordPress platform itself so if you are currently a WordPress user, you will find the inner workings of Edublogs very familiar.

Ning (which I will write about shortly) also allows for users to be added as members – thus creating a self-contained learning network. More on this soon.

Check out these great links to the Edublogger Student Blogging Challenge.

The first post, especially, gives some great rationale for blogging and provided some example links to check out. *Remember that these instructions are for Edublogs only.

  1. Week 1 – Create A Class Blog
  2. Week 2: Set Up Your Blogging Rules and Guidelines
  3. Week 3 – Add A Visitor Tracking Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
  4. Week 4 – Add your student blogs to your blogroll
  5. Week 5 – Add Students To Your Class Blog So They Can Write Posts

Advertising in Edublogs