I went into Global2 today and cleared out my data before it closes down at the end of this month. I exported the various sites and deleted them. I can understand the decision to move on from Edublogs, however I think that this is (still) a very under-utilised platform. A Google Site is not a blog and it has many limitations.

As we talk about Social Networking 2.0, I wonder what safe spaces we are providing students to experiment and explore?

Bookmarked School Library Websites: Essential Features And Examples (The Edublogger)

In this article, we’ll explain why your website is a key part of your school library experience. Then we’ll discuss 5 essential features you should include when creating or updating your school library site. We’ve also got 8 examples of great school library websites and blogs to share with you.

Kathleen Morris provides some suggestions about what makes a good library website.

The trick making your library’s website or blog as engaging and useful as possible is to include these 5 essentials:

  1. Clear site navigation
  2. Regularly updated content
  3. Consistent design
  4. Visible contact details
  5. Accessible design

She also provides a useful collection of examples.

Liked 10 Classroom Blogging Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them) (The Edublogger)

Classroom blogging can be a powerful and effective way to enhance the learning experience for your students. However, if you’re new to starting a blog, there are some important things to consider before jumping in.

Let’s recap the ten mistakes to avoid with your classroom blog:

  1. Forgetting to obtain permission
  2. Making participation optional
  3. Failing to share with an audience
  4. Publishing inconsistently
  5. Not respecting copyright
  6. Forgetting to use or update pages
  7. Not having clear grading guidelines
  8. Ignoring categories and tags
  9. Overlooking accessibility
  10. Choosing the wrong platform
Replied to 7 Ideas To Find Inspiration For New Blog Posts by Kathleen Morris (The Edublogger)

There are two types of bloggers.

One has a never-ending list of blog post ideas but just can’t find the time to write them all. The other wants to write more blog posts but is stuck for ideas.

Which type of blogger are you?

If you’re the latter, you’re in luck. This post offers you 7 ideas to help you find inspiration for your future blog posts.

These ideas apply to both student and teacher bloggers.

This is a good collection of ideas Kathleen. One thing that I do not see discussed a lot is post formats and the possibilities that this can provide in regards to collecting and curating ideas? Personally, I use post kinds, which is a different flavour, but achieves a similar outcome.
Replied to https://quickthoughts.jgregorymcverry.com/2019/03/25/if-you-have-public-examples-and-allowed by Greg McVerryGreg McVerry (quickthoughts.jgregorymcverry.com)

Been trying to convince @edublogs folks to add SemPress theme and IndieWeb plugins.

Sorry Greg, I don’t know of any indie class blogs, but interested how you go with all this. I think that this would be a real positive and extend on the use of pingbacks etc …
Bookmarked Resources To Introduce Edublogs To Others — Google Slides Presentation And PDFs,Resources To Introduce Edublogs To Others (The Edublogger)

To help educators share Edublogs with colleagues or parents, we’ve introduced some new resources. Check out the Google Slides presentation and PDFs that explain what Edublogs is all about.,To help educators share Edublogs with colleagues or parents, we’ve introduced some new resources. Check out the Google Slides presentation and PDFs that explain what Edublogs is all about.

This resource is a good reference for anyone starting out with Edublogs.
Replied to

Not deliberately, but I often reference older material. I think the challenge is to have a structured process/activity to support such reflections.
Replied to 5 Ways To Share And Market Your Teacher Blog (The Edublogger)

Are you an educator with a blog? Would you like a bigger audience and a stronger professional network? This practical post goes through five things you can do to share and market your blog.

This is an interesting post Kathleen. I really like your point about ‘being an audience’ and incorporating social media. Personally, that is what I enjoy about what webmentions allow. I love commenting from my own site and extending the comments to social media. It takes ‘pingbacks’ to a whole new level.
Replied to Could You Volunteer as a Student Blogging Challenge Commenter? by Kathleen Morris (The Edublogger)

Right now, we’re looking for a team of adult volunteer commenters. Can you help?

I would love to help, but can not guarantee the time. I wonder if there is a means of finding a random post, such as the ‘?s=random’ function with WordPress?
Liked Free Blogs and Free PD: Our Holiday Gift To You! (theedublogger.com)

To you, from Edublogs gift tag The festive season is upon us and hopefully you have a break to look forward to. The holidays can be a great time to not only put your feet up and recharge, but learn something new as well!
As a gift to all teachers, we’d like to offer a free Edublogs Pro subscriptio…

Bookmarked When A Student Blogger Enters The World (The Edublogger)

This is the inspiring story of college student, Myles Zhang. Myles was introduced to blogging as a high school student and since then his online portfolio has grown and flourished.

Myles Zhang shares his experience of maintaining a digital portfolio:

There’s something equally powerful (and I feel democratic) about a simple web-link that opens up a world of information to anyone in the world. I feel that the world is becoming increasingly digital. Building and managing my website (several, in fact) has hopefully helped prepare me to more actively contribute to this digital world.

Although he touches on the what associated with an authentic audience and the how linked to blogging, the most powerful message in this post is the why. What Zhang highlights is the personal nature of such a project. Although we may want to dictate to everyone to do a particular thing, the individual interests much not be forgotten.

Replied to A Beginner’s Guide To Google Photos by Sue Waters (The Edublogger)

Google Photos is an excellent free solution for storing, organizing, and sharing photos and videos. Let’s get you started with this step-by-step beginner’s guide!

Thorough as always Sue. I have touched on Photos in the past, my only concern relates to where it sits within Google. It is not a part of the core suite of apps, therefore if you are to use it with students you should really get signed consent first?
Bookmarked Blog Case Study: Student Run Newspaper by Kathleen Morris (The Edublogger)

A student run newspaper is one type of blog that can offer many advantages for students. This post showcases an impressive newspaper run by the students at Zurich International School in Switzerland (ZIS).

The Lion’s Journal is another example of a collaborative production to add to the many faces of blogging.
Replied to https://jgregorymcverry.com/3106-2/ (jgregorymcverry.com)

@dogtrax been poking around for a bit and can’t figure out any way to add the #IndieWeb plumbing to @edublogs. You could (and should) manually put an h-card on your home page, but since @edublogs do not provide users with the freedom of adding plugins to WordPress you won’t be able to add any of the cool webmentions or have post marked up with h-entry to allow you to play.

I have been wondering about this for a while. My thoughts were whether you could bake the code into the HTML of the post. Obviously though without the appropriate piping associated with rel=me and Bridgy it isn’t going to work.

I wonder what would be involved in making it work? They have added plugins before, what would an IndieBlogs plugin look like? My concern is that this might mean for primary aged blogs?

I see real prospect for something like Micro.Blogs in schood, but again there is the issue around Rel=Me.

I imagine that until it is built into the core then it will be a hard ask.

Bookmarked Different Approaches To Using Student Blogs And Digital Portfolios by Kathleen Morris (The Edublogger)

I have observed differences in how student blogs work in a variety of areas. There appears to be a spectrum in at least six key areas

Kathleen Morris provides a series of steps to follow when setting up blogs in the classroom. She also created a graphic to capture this:

Having said this, she is also mindful that every school has its own context and exists at a different point on the continuum of six aspects: duration, privacy, content, reflection, quality and control.