Edublogs Teacher Challenges

Welcome to our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

This series consists of a range of activities that take you through the process of class and student blogging. While many of the class blog examples we’ve included are from primary grades, the same principles apply for class blogs regardless of student age (including adult learners).

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

The aim on this activity is to explain how comments are used on class blogs and to provide tips for teaching students quality commenting skills.

Click on a link below to go to the section you want to work on:

1. Why comments are important on class blogs
2. How comments work
3. Examples of comments on class blogs
4. How to add a comment
5. Teaching quality commenting
   1. Reasons why you should teach quality commenting
   2. How to teach quality commenting
   3. Activities for developing student commenting skills
6. Commonly asked questions about comments
   1. How do you disable comments on pages
   2. Why won’t comments display on my pages?
   3. How do I make comments display on my homepage?
7. What now?

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Why comments are important on class blogs

Comments are an important part of your class blog.  Comments allow students, and other readers, to engage in discussions, share their thoughts and connect with your class blog.  Transforming your blog from a static space to an interactive community.

Important parts of the blogging process include encouraging students to:

1. Read other students’ posts.
2. Comment on other students’ posts.
3. Write posts in response to other students’ posts.

It’s amazing how even just a few comments can make student realise they are writing for a global audience — for many it is incredibly motivating.

Discussions in comments are important for reflective learning .  Comments that challenge or suggest alternative options encourage you to reflect, revise, evaluate and review your thoughts.

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How comments work

By default, comments are enabled on all newly created blogs, and a comment form will appear at the bottom of posts and pages where readers can respond to what you’ve written.

Here’s what a comment form looks like:

Approved comments are displayed under the individual post or page. You just click on the post title or the comment link to read the comments.

Threaded comments allow readers to reply to other comments inline/nested which encourages better discussion and responses.

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Examples of comments on class blogs

Here’s examples of comments on class blogs to check out how educators use comments:

1. Welcome to Grade 5 & 6 Guest post – AFL by Visha
2. 4KM and 4KJ @ Leopold Primary School CAFE Strategy: Making Predictions
3. 4KM and 4KJ @ Leopold Primary School Maldon Camp
4. Room 5 Superstars Using technology to become reading superheros
5. Room 24, 2012 Guest Post by Ashleigh – Friday Enrichment Programmes
6. ELFADA Course Blog Using Images to make instructions more helpful

Here’s examples of comments on student blogs:

1. BB’s Awesome blog Blue Light bike ed camp
2. Skye’s Super Blog What is your favourite sport in the Olympics?

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How to add a comment

1. Click on the heading of the post you wish to comment on or the “comment” link at the top or at the bottom of the post.
2. Scroll down until you can see the “Leave a Comment” section
3. You will be asked for your name (you can use a nickname) and email address (this is not published)
4. You will also need to write the “spam word”
5. Click “submit comment”

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Teaching quality commenting skills

This following section on teaching quality commenting skills is adapted, with permission, from Kathleen Morris’s post.  

Kathleen teaches at Leopold Primary School in Australia. This is her fifth year blogging with students. Kathleen writes a blog for educators about technology integration, educational blogging and global collaboration ( @kathleen_morris ).   She was inspired to refine her teaching of commenting by the wonderful Linda Yollis and her third grade students.

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Reasons why you should teach quality commenting

If commenting skills are not taught and constantly reinforced, students will limit their comments to things like “I like your blog!” or “2KM is cool!”. While enthusiasm is high with these sorts of comments, students are not developing their literacy skills or having meaningful interactions with other members of the blogging community. Conversations in the comment section of a blog are such rich and meaningful learning experiences for students. Conversations begin with high quality comments.

Blogging is an authentic avenue for developing student literacy skills.   When you invest the time in teaching, modelling, revising and promoting high quality writing of comments, students can make great gains in their overall literacy development.

Check out improvements in student literacy skills through commenting here.

Set your standards high from the start and reap the rewards!

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How to teach quality commenting

Kathleen teaches commenting skills through:

1. Modelling and composing comments together with students on the interactive whiteboard.
2. Teaching students about the “letter” format and editing process during writing lessons.
3. Giving examples of a poor/high quality comments and having students vote whether the comment should be accepted or rejected. Example of a Sorting blog comments activity devised for our students here.
4. Having students read and comment on a post on our blog as part of a literacy rotation on the computer each week.
5. Taking students to the ICT room once a week to work on composing a quality comment with a partner.
6. Emailing parents and encouraging them to write comments on the blog with their child.

Kathleen and her team teacher partner, Kelly Jordan,  invests a lot of time focusing on teaching her students how to write ‘quality comments’ and helping students to understand what quality comments means.

Teaching quality commenting, with constant reinforcement, and setting high standards increases your students literacy skills which provide a good foundation for when you move them onto writing posts on the class blog or their own student blogs.

The strong emphasis on developing quality commenting skills is an important reason why teachers like Kathleen Morris, Kelly Jordan and Linda Yollis achieve great results blogging with their students.

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Activities for developing student commenting skills

Here’s a list of ideas you can use to develop your student commenting skils:

1. Create a commenting guideline poster (see poster example below) – develop your own or facilitate a collaborative discussion with students to create together (you could include this video as part of the process).
2. Develop a quality comment evaluation guide.  Refer to Linda Yollis’s Learning how to comment.
3. Write a blog post about commenting and what you define as a quality comment. Have your students practise leaving a “quality” comment on the post.
4. Create a commenting guideline for your blog.  Here’s an example.

Here’s the quality comment guidelines Kathleen’s team teacher partner, Kelly Jordan, published as a poster that is displayed in their room.

You’ll find all their comment information for students and parents here!

• Please remember if you use their poster or adapt someone else’s poster to use with permission and acknowledgement. 

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Common questions we’re asked about comments

Here’s answers to commonly asked questions we receive into Edublogs Support:

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1.  How do you disable comments on pages?

Most Edublogs themes support comments on pages and by default comments are enabled on pages.

You can disable comments on pages using Quick Edit as follows:

1. Go to to Pages > All Pages

2. Locate the post or page you want to disable comments on

3. Hover over it’s title to bring up it’s action menu.

4. Click on Quick Edit, deselect ‘Allow Comments’ and then click on Update.

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2.  Why won’t comments display on pages?

Most Edublogs themes now support comments on pages however there are a few themes that don’t.

If the theme you are using doesn’t support comments on pages, and you would like this feature, then you will need to use an alternative theme.

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3.  How do I make comments display on my homepage?

Traditionally comments are designed to be displayed under a post and you view the comments by clicking on the post title or the comments link. It is done this way because posts can have 100′s of comments and displaying them directly under a post on the post page can make it hard to read the content.

However, there are a few themes like P2 and ReTweet that display comments directly under posts on the blog post page. These types of themes work well where the posts are short; they work well for Discussion type blogs.

The alternative is to add the Recent Comments widget to the sidebar.

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What now?

How did you go?  We hope this has helped get your commenting started and the information has helped!

Leave a comment below with a link to your blog and let us all take a look!

Also feel free to leave any questions you are having (or tips/advice) as well.

Or go to Activity 5: Working with Widgets – What you need to know!

Welcome to our third post in our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

This series consists of a range of activities that take you through the process of class and student blogging.  While many of the class blog examples we’ve included are from primary grades the same principles apply for class blogs regardless of student age (including adult learners).

The activities can be completed at your own place and in any order!

The aim of this activity is to help you understand how posts are used on class blog and to teach you how to publish your first posts.

Click on a link below to go to the section of this activity you want to work on:

1. Intro to posts and why are they used on class blogs
2. Who writes posts on the class blog
3. Examples of posts on class blogs
4. How to write a post
   1. Introduction to visual editor
5. Tips for writing better blog posts
   1. Use short paragraphs
   2. Use Headings
   3. Remember to link
   4. Using colored text
   5. Enhancing posts with images and other types of media
6. Common questions we’re asked about posts
   1. My homepage has a message saying “Not found”   How do I get rid it and replace it with information?
   2. Is it possible to publish posts to different pages on my blog?
   3. How do you delete the Hello World post?
7. What else did you want to know?

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Introduction to posts

Your posts are where you’ll publish your main content such as what’s been happening in class. assignment information, documents, and more.  They are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order with the most recent post at the top of the page.

By default, your home page is your blog post page and this is where you’ll see your new posts published.

If you look closely at a post you will see it is normally made up of:

1. Post Title – tells the reader what the post is about.  A great post title grabs readers attention and is more likely to encourage them to read your post.
2. Date published – all post display the date a post was published.  You’ll normally see this displayed at the top of the post.
3. Written by – most themes display the name of the post author.  Your username is automatically displayed unless you’ve changed your display name.
4. Your post content – this is the main information that you want to share or reflect on with your readers
5. Comments – all themes have a link to comments.  This is where your readers can click to write a comment in response to your post.  Comments allow students, and other readers, to engage in discussions, share their thoughts and connect with your class blog.
6. Tags - are used to help readers locate posts on your blog.  Tags are more like the index at the back of the book and explode the topic into a million bits.
7. Categories - are used to help readers locate posts on your blog.  Categories are often used like chapters of a book; they provide a general overview of the topics you blog about.

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Who writes posts on the class blog

If you look closely at class blogs you’ll see on some blogs only the teacher publishes posts while on others both the teacher and students publish posts or the students publish posts on their own student blogs.

It’s really up to you which approach you use.

If you do decide you want your students to publish posts we recommend the best approach, regardless of student age, is to introduce blogging slowly in the following order:

1. You write posts on the class blog.
2. Students write comments in response to your posts (you focus on teaching them quality commenting skills).
3. Students write posts on class blog or their own student blog.

We’ll show you how to teach quality commenting skills and how to add students to blogs so they can publish posts later in this professional development series on class blogging.

For now we’ll focus on teaching you how to write your first posts.

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Examples of posts on Class blogs

So what do you publish as posts on your class blog?  Pretty much anything you want to share with students, families and other educators you’ll publish as a post.  What’s been happening in class. student work, assignments. homework information, documents — there’s so much you can share!

Here’s some examples of first posts, or posts for the new school year, to check out for ideas:

• Kindergarten Duckling Ready to take off!
• WPPS Grade 1 2012 Welcome to 2012! (and Commenting Guidelines)
• Mrs K Class Welcome to our blog!
• Mr McCleary’s Class Blog September Greetings
• Mr Lister’s Class blog Welcome Check in
• Mrs Martinez’s Class blog Digital Citizenship & Internet Safety
• Year 6 at Penbank Welcome to our Blog!
• 5A3 Dragon’s Lair We’re up and running!
• Mrs Yollis Classroom blog  Welcome back 2011
• 110GS Grde 7/8 Virtual Classroom Happy New (School) Year
• Mr Miller’s Classroom blog Weigh Anchor, off we go! oX)
• Miss Hutchinson’s class – Room 3.14 Miss H’s Class questions about blogging – 2011
• Mrs Goucher’s Class blog  Blog first steps
• Mrs Hamman’s Class blog Welcome to our class blog 
• Mrs Schmidt’s Classroom Blog
• Year2rc Hello World

Check out the class blogs from the Student Blogging Challenge for ideas of what they post about!

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To write a post all you need to do is:

1.  Go to Posts > Add New.

2.  Give your post a Title,  add your content, your tags and categories and when finished writing click Publish.

3.  Presto! Your post will now display on your blog so others can read!

 

Previewing your Draft

Before you publish your post it is a good idea to use the Preview option to see what it looks like to your readers.

You preview a post by clicking on Save Draft and then click Preview. This opens up a draft version of your post in a new tab.

Then just go back to your draft and make any changes you want!

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Introduction to your Visual Editor

The area where you write your post is by default in Visual Editing mode which uses WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) option for formating.

It works similar to any Word processing software.

Simply write your post, highlight any text you want to format and then click the appropriate button in the toolbar to add formating such as bold, italics, number list.

The Show/Hide Kitchen Sink button is used to view the advanced formating options including heading styles, underlining, font color, custom characters, undo, redo.

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Tips for writing better blog posts

Reading online is different from reading in a text book.

The easier and more engaging your posts are the more likely they’ll be read and the better your message will be conveyed.

Here’s some tips to help you write better posts on class blogs:

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1.  Use short paragraphs

Posts with really long paragraphs are harder to read online.

Best options are:

• Break your posts up with paragraphs.
• The more paragraphs the better.
• Short paragraphs are better than long.
• If you need to make some paragraphs one or two sentences long so they are visually easier to read online then do it if needed!
• Make the first sentence of each paragraph make your readers want to read the rest of the paragraph.

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2.  Use Headings

Use headings, and where appropriate bullet points and number lists, to break up the post into manageable bit size chunks.

Creating a heading is as simple as:

1. Highlight the text you want to change into a heading
2. Select the Heading Style you want to apply from the advanced formatting toolbar (you access the advanced formatting toolbar by clicking on the Show/Hide Kitchen sink icon) – for most themes your best option is Heading 3
3. Preview your post to make sure that headings you’ve used has broken your post into manageable chunks

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3.  Remember to Link

When you write about a website you should link to it as your readers often want to check it out in more detail.

Creating a link is as simple as:

1. Highlight the text you want to link to a website, blog or post
2. Click on the Insert/Edit Link icon in the standard formatting toolbar
3. Paste the link URL
4. Then click Add Link

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4.  Using colored text

While you’re less likely to use colored text in posts on a personal / professional blog it can engage students and draw attention to specific information on posts on a class blog.

You’ll see examples of it used in posts on 4KM and 4KJ @ Leopold Primary School and the Student Challenge blog.

Changing the color of text is as simple as:

1. Highlight the text you want to change
2. Select the text color you want to apply from the advanced formatting toolbar (you access the advanced formatting toolbar by clicking on the Show/Hide Kitchen sink icon)
3. Preview your post to make sure the text is readable and you like the color

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5.  Enhancing posts with images and other types of media

When you look at class blog you’ll notice they enhance their posts with images and other types of media including videos and by embedding web tools.  We’ll show you how this is done later in this professional development series on class blogging.

However,  if you can’t wait and want to start now here is some information to get you going:

1. The Educator’s Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons
2. Inserting images into your posts
3. Embedding videos from video sharing websites into posts
4. Enhancing your posts by embedding media including slides, quizzes, comic strips, polls

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Common questions we’re asked about posts

Here’s answers to commonly asked questions we receive into Edublogs Support:

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1.  My homepage has a message saying “Not found”   How do I get rid of it and replace with information?

The Not Found message is because the home page is your blog post page and this message it means you’ve deleted all posts or changed them to draft mode so there is no content that it can display.

All you need to do is go to Posts > Add New and publish a new post.

Once the new post is published you’ll see it displayed on your homepage.

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2.  Is it possible to publish posts to different pages on my blog?

We’re often asked if it is possible to add posts to other pages, rather than just the front page of the blog.    This is commonly asked by educators who want to use one blog for multiple classes or subjects.

And yes you can!  But it does involve slightly advanced blogging skills.

You do it by sending posts to different pages on your blog by assigning different categories to posts, based on the class or subject, and using a custom menu to create link to the categories from your top navigation.  When students and parents click on their category they’re taken to all the posts for that class or subject.

You can see it in action on CES Music Blog.   If you hover your mouse over Music Classes it displays links to the different Grades and all you need to do is click on a Grade to view all posts published for that grade.  For example, here are all the posts for Grade 5.

You’ll find step by step instructions on using categories to organize multiple classes or subjects on your blog here.

It does involve slightly advanced blogging skills — so leave a comment or email us at Edublogs Support if you need our assistance.

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3.  How do you delete the Hello World post?

Every newly created blog is the same default lay out with posts displayed on its home page with a ‘Hello World’ post and an ‘Sample’ page.

You can delete this post at any time by going to Posts > All Posts.  

Hovering your mouse over the title of  the Hello post brings up four action links.

Now just click on Trash.  This sends it to your Trash folder where it is permanently deleted within 30 days of when you trashed it.

Remember if you delete all posts, and your homepage is your blog post page, you will see a “Not Found” message.   To remove that message you just need to publish a  new post by going to Posts > Add New.

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What now?

How did you go?  We hope this has helped get your posts started and the information has helped!

Leave a comment below with a link to your blog and let us all take a look!

Also feel free to leave any questions you are having (or tips/advice) as well.

Or go to Activity 4: Writing comments – What you need to know!

Welcome to the second post in our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

This series consists of a range of activities that take you through the process of class and student blogging.  While many of the class blog examples we’ve included are from primary grades, the same principles apply for class blogs regardless of student age (including adult learners).

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

The aim of this activity is to help you understand how pages are used on class blog and you will learn how to create some pages on your class blog.

Click on a link below to go to the section of this activity you want to work on:

1. Why you need an About page
2. Examples of Class blog ‘About’ pages
3. Create your About page
   1. Introduction to the Visual Editor
4. Why have blogging rules and guidelines
5. Examples of Class blog ‘Blogging Guidelines’
6. Create your Blogging Guidelines page
7. Making contact easy using a Contact page
8. Examples of Class blog ‘Contact’ pages
   • Creating a contact page using the Contact Form plugin
   • Creating a contact page using the Formidable Pro plugin
9. Other types of pages used on Class blogs
10. Setting up the links to your pages
    • Creating a custom menu for your top navigation
    • Other cool tips for working with custom menus
11. Commonly asked questions about pages
    1. How do you disable comments on pages
    2. Why won’t comments display on my pages?
    3. Is it possible to publish posts to different pages on my blog?
12. What now?

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Why you need an About page

You never know how someone might find your blog – google search, twitter, facebook, or a link from somewhere else.

One of the first things a new visitor looks for is your ‘About’ page.

The reasons for having an About page on a Class blog include:

1. To provide information for your students,  parents and families about the purpose of your class blog and how to use it.
2. To help your class connect with other classes in other locations and countries.

Below’s the type of information you might include on your About page:

For students and parents	To connect with other classes
What is a blog Reasons why you use a class blog About the teacher(s) How to connect with the blog such as subscribe to blog, comment on posts, guidelines for writing appropriate comments Teacher(s) contact details	Country, state and town your class is located Grade level, subject and age of students The types of connections your class is interested in such as becoming blogging buddies, engaging in global projects Type and size of school Class or teacher contact details

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Check out the About pages on the following class blogs for ideas:

1. Classroom 2 Kids (Grade 2)
2. Mr Salsich’s Class (Grade 3)
3. 4KM And 4KJ @ Leopold Primary School (Grade 4)
4. Mr Toft.ca (Grade 5)
5. Huzzah ( Grade 6/7)

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Create your About page

All newly created blogs come with a ‘Sample page‘ created.  All you need to do is edit the ‘Sample page’ to change it into your About page

Here’s how you create your About page:

1.  Go to Pages > All Pages.

2.  Hover your mouse over the Sample Page title to bring up the action menus.

3.  Now click on Edit.

4.  Change the title of your page from Sample Page to About page.

5.  Edit the permalink to change it to about.

6.  Now just add your about information and when finished click Update.

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Overview of your Visual Editor

The area where you write your pages and posts is by default in Visual Editing mode which uses WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) option for formating.

It works similar to any Word processing software.

Simply write your post, highlight any text you want to format, and then click the appropriate button in the toolbar to add formating such as bold, italics, or a numbered list.

The Show/Hide Kitchen Sink button is used to view the advanced formating options including heading styles, underlining, font color, custom characters, undo, redo.

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Why have blogging rules and guidelines

An important part of using an online tool with students is educating them on appropriate online behavior.  Just because your students grew up with technology doesn’t mean they appreciate or understand what is/isn’t appropriate to post online.

Your class blog provides an excellent opportunity to educate students, parents and other readers on proper online behavior such as:

1. Types of identifying information that is appropriate in posts and/or comments such as ‘What are your rules about use of last names, IM, images and personal information?’
2. What should/shouldn’t you write in posts and/or comments?

Some guidelines may be specific to your school and your school policies.  So be sure to check your school’s policies and make sure they are included – especially when it comes to using student names and photos on a public blog.

Creating your blogging rules and guidelines is something you can do yourself or or as a whole of class activity.  Getting students to be part of a collaborative discussion on guidelines gives students more ownership of the guidelines and a better understanding of what is required.

If you want to include Online Safety activities as part of the process then, Larry Ferlazzo’s The Best Sites For Learning Online Safety post is a good starting place to identify suitable resources.

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Check out the Blogging Guidelines on the following class blogs for ideas:

1. Mr. Salsich’s Class Blog Guidelines (Grade 3)
2. 4KM And 4KJ @ Leopold Primary School’s Blogging Guidelines (Grade 4)
3. Grade 5 at Napoleons Primary School blog’s Guidelines (Grade 5)
4. Huzzah’s Commenting Guidelines (Grade 5/6)
5. 6G and 5/6Cs Blog’s Guidelines (Grade 5/6)
6. Blogging Around the World’s Guidelines (Grade 6)
7. Mr. M’s History Blog Posting Comments (Grade 8 )
8. Brilliant Muskie Blog’s Blogging Guidelines (Grade 8 )
9. Scattergood Biology How To Post and Comment
10. Biology in Action Blogging Guidelines (High School and College)

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Create your Blogging Guidelines page

Once you’ve decided what you want to include in your rules and guidelines it is now just a case of publishing them on your blog as follows:

1.  Go to Pages > Add New.

2.  Now just give your page a title, add your content and click Publish.

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Making Contact Easy

Those that visit your blog might also have a need to contact you.  This makes it easier for parents to contact you and for other classes to connect with you.

Many teachers choose to create an entirely separate “Contact” page to go with the “About” page.

Here are some tips to consider:

• It’s best not to put your email address on your blog. A contact form (using a contact or form plugin) is better as it protects you email address from spammers.
• If you do want to provide your email, use text and something like support (at) edublogs (dot) org or an image of your email address to make it hard for spammers to pull your email address.  Here’s an email icon generator you can use.
• Home phone numbers are probably not something you want to share as well – but perhaps a classroom phone number is.

Other things to share might include facebook, twitter, or other social media profile information.  Some of these are also shared by adding widgets to your class blog.  We’ll show you how this is done with widgets in Activity 5 of this professional development series on class blogging.

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Here’s class blog Contact pages for ideas:

1. Using Contact Form plugin – Huzzah’s Contact page, Mr Salsich’s Contact page
2. Using Formidable Pro plugin – Online Safety’s Contact page, Biologist’s Contact page
3. Page – The Skinny’s Contact Page

Create your Contact page

Once you’ve decided what you want to include on your contact page, and if you want to use a contact form, it is just a case creating a contact page.

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Here’s how to create a contact page using the Contact form plugin:

1.  Go to Plugins.

2.  Activate the Contact Form plugin.

3.  Go To Settings > Contact Form.

4.  Add your email address and click Update Options.

5.  Go to Pages > Add New.

6.  Now just give your page a title, add your content, the contact form code and click Publish.

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Here’s how to create a contact page using the Formidable Pro plugin:

1.  Go to Plugins.

2.  Activate the Formidable Pro plugin.

3.  Go to Formidable > Forms.

4.  Click on Add New, select Contact Us and then Create.

5.  Hover your mouse over the Captcha field, now click  Trash to delete it.

6.  Now just edit the contact form to customise it to your needs.

• The * next to a field means this is required information to submit the form.
• Clicking on the * changes it to not required
• Clicking on the Title allows you to edit the name.

7.  You can update the email address by clicking on Settings > Emails.

8.  Once you’ve made all changes click Update.

9.  Now go back to Formidable > Forms and grab your Contact Us shortcode.

10.  Go to Pages > Add New.

11.  Add a page title, your content, the Contact Us shortcode and click Publish.

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Other types of pages used on Class blogs

There’s lot of different types of pages you can add to class blogs.

The main things to remember are:

1. Pages are best suited for information you rarely update such as your About, Contact and Blogging Guidelines pages.
2. Situations where you want students to discuss a question or topic are better suited to publish as a post and not a page.
3. Assignment and homework information is normally best published as posts and not on a page.
4. Too many pages can make information harder to manage and find.

We’ll show you how to use posts in our next post in this professional development series on class blogging.

Other types of pages used on class blogs include:

1. How to comment - Grade 5 at Napoleons Primary School How to Comment,  Mr. Salsich’s How to comment, Mrs Yollis’s How to comment video, Scattergood Biology How to Post &  Comment
2. Resource links - Mr. Salsich’s Learning Links
3. Events Calendar - Butler Bulldogs@ Bell Homework and Events Calendar

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Setting up the links to your pages

Some themes automatically add a link to pages in their top navigation while on other themes you need to add a pages widget or set up a custom menu to add the page links.

Personally I prefer to set up my top navigation using a custom menu as links in the top navigation are easier for readers and it allows you to customise the links considerably more.

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Here’s how to set up your top navigation using a custom menu:

1.  Go to Appearance > Menus

2.  Give your menu a name – ‘Main’ will work great!

3. Click on the ‘Create Menu‘

4.  Now just select the pages you want to add to your menu then click Add To Menu.

5.  Now create a custom link for home by adding your blog URL, the name Home and click Add To Menu.

• When readers click on the Home link they will be taken to your front page.
• For example the blog URL of this blog is http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/
• You can use custom links to link to any website — which is really handy!

Here’s what my menu now looks like:

6.  Now drag/drop the menu items to change their order in your menu.

Here’s what my new order looks like:

7.  Once you’ve finished changing the order click Save Menu.

8.  Now to display your new top navigation on your blog you just need to select Main from under the Primary Navigation drop down menu and then click Save.

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Here’s some other cool tricks when setting up custom menus:

1.  You can create nested pages by indenting items in the menu.

If you hover your mouse over About in the top navigation of this blog you’ll see two nested pages underneath the about link.

2.  You can create static level tabs using a custom link if you just want a link name that doesn’t go to a page that exists.

For example, if you click on About in the top menu of this blog you’ll see it is a static level tab used just as a placeholder for page  links we’ve added underneath it.

Well show you other cool stuff you can do with custom menus in our next post in this professional development series on class blogging.

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Common questions we’re asked about pages

Here’s answers to commonly asked questions we receive into Edublogs Support:

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1.  How do you disable comments on pages?

Most Edublogs themes support comments on pages and by default comments are enabled on pages.

You can disable comments on pages using Quick Edit as follows:

1. Go to to Pages > All Pages

2. Locate the post or page you want to disable comments on

3. Hover over it’s title to bring up it’s action menu.

4. Click on Quick Edit, deselect ‘Allow Comments’ and then click on Update.

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2.  Why won’t comments display on pages?

Most Edublogs themes now support comments on pages however there are a few themes that don’t.

If the theme you are using doesn’t support comments on pages, and you would like this feature, then you will need to use an alternative theme.

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3.  Is it possible to publish posts to different pages on my blog?

We’re often asked if it is possible to add posts to other pages, rather than just the front page of the blog.    This is commonly asked by educators who want to use one blog for multiple classes or subjects.

And yes you can!  But it does involve slightly advanced blogging skills.

You do it by sending posts to different pages on your blog by assigning different categories to posts, based on the class or subject, and using a custom menu to create link to the categories from your top navigation.  When students and parents click on their category they’re taken to all the posts for that class or subject.

You can see it in action on CES Music Blog.   If you hover your mouse over Music Classes it displays links to the different Grades and all you need to do is click on a Grade to view all posts published for that grade.  For example, here are all the posts for Grade 5.

You’ll find step by step instructions on using categories to organize multiple classes or subjects on your blog here.

It does involve slightly advanced blogging skills — so leave a comment or email us at Edublogs Support if you need our assistance.

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What now?

Now it is time for you to write your About page.   However, if you don’t feel comfortable about writing personal stuff about yourself yet — then we recommend you focus on writing another type of page.

One idea would be to create a new Page with a list of helpful resources you would like to share with others.

Once you have written your About page or Contact page come back to this post and leave a link to the page you have created so that others can check it out!

Or go to Activity 3: Writing your first posts – What you need to know!

Welcome to our free professional development series on class and student blogging!

This series consists of a range of activities that take you through the process of class and student blogging.  While many of the class blog examples we’ve included are from primary grades, the same principles apply for class blogs regardless of student age (including adult learners).

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

Wherever you’re at – we’ll step you through the tasks designed to increase your skills while providing mentors who’ll support your learning.  Don’t stress, have fun, and remember to ask for help by leaving a comment any time you need assistance!

The aim of this first activity is to help you set up your class blog.

Click on a link below to go to the section you want to work on:

1. Why educators use blogs
2. Examples of class blogs
3. Sign up for your class blog
   • Choosing your username and display name
   • Choosing your blog URL
   • Choosing your blog title
4. Create your class blog (if you don’t already have one!)
5. Customize your blog theme
   • Changing your site title and tagline
   • Changing your header text and background color
   • Uploading your own custom image header or using a default header
   • Uploading your own background
   • Using a Static Front page
6. Other theme tips
7. What else did you want to know?

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Why educators use blogs

The main reasons why educators use blogs include:

• Share information and class news with parents, family and caregivers.
• Provide students with a way to access assignments, homework, resources and information about their class online.
• For global collaboration and authentic audience.
• To inspire and motivate students.

The benefits of class blogging include:

• Blogging opens up the possibilities of audience in new ways. When students are writing or publishing for an audience other the teacher, it impacts how they view what they doing and the intrinsic motivation they have.
• Students love seeing their work on the Internet and adore getting comments from people. It motivates them to write as it gives them an audience that is real.  The blog opens up a whole new world of people who can offer encouragement and feedback.
• The blogging experience forces the students to do more reflection on their learning and allows them to showcase products they have produced with online tools.
•  Blogging provides an authentic educational experience, where what they write is not only seen and commented on by their teacher, but by their peers and the “public.” For most students, it’s a bit of extra motivation knowing their peers will see their work.
• There is an authentic audience – a global audience – one that is willing to connect, share, challenge, discuss and communicate with classes. This audience can provide further information, opinions, suggest resources, seek answers to questions and so on which pushes blogging further.
• Blogging develops a learning network. Exercise books etc need not be pushed and crumpled in school lockers only to be placed in the rubbish bins at the end of the school year, but student work is out there for their school lives.

Benefits from class blogging summarized from The State of Educational blogging in 2012.

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Examples of Class blogs

Your class blog is what extends your class beyond the four walls of your classroom.  As you get going, you’ll soon decide the  kinds of content, information and connections you want to make.

Here are examples of real class blogs to check out for ideas:

1. Kindergarten Duckling – Kindergarten
2. Mrs K’s Class - Grade 1
3. WPPS Grade 1 2012 - Grade 1
4. Look What’s Happening in Room 102! - Grade 1/2
5. 2KM and 2KJ @ Leopold Primary School - Grade 2
6. Mr Salsich’s Class - Grade 3
7. Mrs Yoliis’ Classroom blog – Grade 3
8. Mr Baldock’s Class blog – Grade 3/4
9. Grade 3/4 at Napoleons Primary School - Grade 3/4
10. Jade J Year 3/4 Multiage - Grade 3/4
11. 4KM and 4KJ @ Leopold Primary School - Grade 4
12. The Hobloggers Network – Grade 4
13. Room 2.1 – Grade 4/5
14. The Skinny – Grade 5
15. Grade 5 at Napoleons Primary School - Grade 5
16. Welcome to MRJ’s Mount Olympus - Grade 5
17. Learing2gether - Grade 5
18. 6G and 5/6Cs Blog – Grade 5/6
19. Year 6 at Penbank – Grade 6
20. Mr. Miller’s Classroom Blog - Grade 6
21. Huzzah – Grade 6/7
22. Krebs’ Class Blogs - Grade 7/8
23. The Edublogger class blog list - includes Maths, Science, English, History, LOTE, EFL /ESL, Library, School news blogs and more!

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Sign up for your class blog

Your first step if you don’t currently have your own blog, or you would like to use a new blog for this challenge, is to sign up for a blog.

You can use any blogging platform you would like including Edublogs, WordPress and Blogger, however when we write detailed instructions they will refer to Edublogs.  You will be able to adapt this information to the blogging platform you are using.

Here is some important things to consider before creating your blog:

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1.  Your Username

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 on posts and comments.

Most teachers don’t allow students to use first and last name online, so most educators model this by using display names like Miss W or  Mrs. Waters.

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2. Blog URL 

During the creation of your blog you’ll have to select a URL for it.  When you want others to visit your blog you give them the URL link of your blog.   For example, the URL for the Teacher Challenge blog is http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/

Think carefully about your blog URL.

Once your blog has an established audience you’re less likely to want to change your blog URL.   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:

1. Mr. Baldock’s Class blog (http://mrbaldock.edublogs.org)
2. Mr. Salsich’s Class blog (http://jmsalsich.edublogs.org/)

Alternatively, use something unique that has meaning like:

1. Huzzah (http://huzzah.edublogs.org)
2. The Skinny ( http://edublogs.misd.net/theskinny/)

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3.  Blog Title

Your blog title is one of the first things a reader sees when visiting your blog.  Choose a name that reflects the purpose of your class blog and your students can relate to.

But don’t stress too much!  You can always change your blog title any time via Settings > General in your dashboard.

Check out the following blog lists for ideas of blog titles other educators have used:

1. The Edublogger class blog list
2. Best Class Edublog 2011

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Create your blog

Now you’ve done all the research it’s time to create your blog!  All you need to do is follow these instructions if you would like to set up your blog on Edublogs.

Alternately,  check out The State of Educational Blogging 2012 to learn about the different blog platforms used by educators.

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Customize your blog theme

Your theme is what controls the look and appearance of your blog; this is what people see when they visit your blog.

This is how you give your class blog its personal touch.

Like most things in life, first impressions count.

Great blog themes make good impressions on readers so that visitors are more likely to check out your blog.   Overwhelming themes detract from your blog content, and make visitors less likely to read your content.

Every newly created blog normally has the same default theme.  The last thing you want is to look like all the other blogs.

Customizing your blog theme is normally one of the first thing most people want to do when they first log into their blog.   So lets finish off getting your class blog started by showing you how to customize your theme!

But first lets talk theme choices!

There’s a lot of themes to choose from so here’s a list of popular themes used on class blogs with a link to blogs using the theme to help you:

• Blak Magik – brown theme ( Room 2.1 )
• Edublogs Default 2011 – highly customisable ( Grade 3/4 at Napoleons Primary School , The Edublogger)
• Mystique – highly customisable ( Mr Baldock’s Class blog, 6G and 5/6Cs Blog )
• Nature – ideal for younger students (Mrs K’s Class)
• NotePad Chaos – unique looking theme ( Blog around the World )
• OceanWide – white 3 column theme (Mr Salsich’s Class)
• Pixel – dark theme ( Grade 5 at Napoleons Primary School  )
• PressRow – white 2 column theme ( The Hobloggers Network )
• PrimePress – white 2 column theme ( Mr. Miller’s Classroom Blog, The Skinny )
• WPMU-Dixi – highly customisable theme ( 4KM and 4KJ @ Leopold Primary School )
• WPMU-Triden - highly customisable theme ( Teacher Challenge )
• Yoko – clean looking theme (WPPS Grade 1 2012, Year 6 at Penbank )

Ready to change your theme?

Great!  It’s really easy.   Using the theme customizer you can customize your theme and see the results in real time before activating the theme.

Here’s how change your theme using the theme customizer:

1.  Log into your blog dashboard.

2.  Go to Appearance > Themes.

3.  Click on ‘Live Preview‘ below the theme you want to use.

Or if you want to customize your current theme, click on ‘Customize‘ under the current theme.

4.  This loads the theme customizer.  Now all you do is work through the control panels on the left to customize the theme to preview the theme changes in real time before activating it on your blog.

5.  Once you’re happy with the changes you just click ‘Save and Activate’.

The following control panels are available:

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Site Title & Tagline

Used to change the site title and tagline on your blog.   Not all themes display taglines.

Themes like Edublogs Default 2011, Anubis, Benevolence. Blix, Connections and Contempt include an option to hide Header text.  All you need to do is deselect the Display Header text option to hide the Site title and Tagline on these themes.  This option is used when you want to use a custom image header instead of text for the Site title.

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Colors

‘Colors’ controls the color of the header text and background color.   Which options are included depends on the theme.  Not all themes allow you to change the header text color.  Changes to header text color do take time and you will need to wait for the page to refresh to view the change.

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Header Image

Almost all Edublogs themes include an option to upload your own custom image header.

A custom image header means you can obtain a much more customized look and feel adding your “own personal touch” to your blog.

Header Image is used to:

1. Upload a new custom image header — if your theme supports this option.
2. Or to select one of the default header images that comes with the theme you are customizing — if your theme includes a range of default header images.

Here’s how you use the header options:

1.  Click on drop down link on Header image.

2.  Click on ‘Select a file‘ (or drop file in upload area), select the custom image header that you’ve saved on your computer and then click Open to upload.

Please note:

• The custom image header is used as is and you can’t crop the header image using the customizer.
• Only the top part of the uploaded image is used if it is too large.
• For best results resize your custom image header to the recommended dimensions specified on Appearance > Header before uploading or upload the image using Appearance > Header (as this allows you to crop the image).
• Be patient when uploading the image header using the customizer.  There is a delay before you’ll see indications that your image header is being uploaded.

3.  Or click on the ‘Default’ tab to select one of the default headers.

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Background Image

On many themes, much like custom header images, you can add images to your blog’s background.   A background image  is another great way of adding that personal touch to your class blog.
You upload a background image as follows:

1.  Click on drop down link on Header image.

2.  Click on ‘Select a file‘ (or drop file in upload area), select the background image you’ve saved on your computer and then click Open to upload.

Please note:

• The background image is used as is.
• For best results resize your background to make it smaller if using an image from a digital camera (otherwise only the top part of the image will display).
• Be patient when uploading the background using the customizer.  There is a delay before you’ll see indications that your image is being uploaded — this varies depending on the image size.
• Most themes include a range of default backgrounds you can use.  These aren’t supported by the theme customizer and you need enable a default background by going to Appearance > Preset Background once the theme has been activated.

3.  After the image has uploaded the background image display options will become visible.

Changing these settings is entirely optional and the best option is to try each to see what you like.

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Static Front page

The static front page lets you select what appears on your blog’s home page.  By default, your home page is your blog post page however you can change this so your homepage is  a static front page and your posts are sent to a different page on your blog.

Most class blogs use a blog post page for their homepage.

The most common situation when you’ll see educators use static home pages is when they use a custom menu to use one class blog for multiple subjects or classes.   You’ll find step-by-step instructions on how to do this here!  This does require slightly more advanced blogging skills, so please let us know if you need our assistance to set up!

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Other theme tips

Some themes have extensive theme customization options which aren’t supported by the theme customizer.  Examples of these types of themes include WPMU-Triden,  WPMU-Dixi, Mystique, Yoko,  Mandigo and Edublogs Default 2011.

These types of themes add a theme option menu item under Appearance once the theme is activated.  To do more extensive customization you just need to go to Appearance > Theme Options.

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Common questions we’re asked about themes

Here’s answers to commonly asked theme questions we receive into Edublogs Support:

1.  Can I upload my own theme?

Because of  the way blog platforms like Edublogs, WordPress.com and Blogger work you can only use the themes provided and can’t upload your own custom themes.  Most themes are designed to work on single installs and many don’t work or can have compatibility issues on blog platforms.

Remember that custom image headers and backgrounds  are an very effective way of customising your theme to meet your needs.

What now?

How did you go?  Hopefully you’ve now created your own blog and information has helped!

Leave a comment below with a link to your blog and let us all take a look!

Also feel free to leave any questions you are having (or tips/advice) as well.

Or go to  Activity 2: Setting up pages – About, Blogging Guidelines and Contact!

Welcome to the fifth post in the Class Blog series of free and open professional development for educators.

Once you have your students writing quality comments you may then want to add them as users to the class blog so they can write posts.

You’ll find students learn more, are more motivated and their writing improves faster when they’re allowed to write posts.  And the best way to get them started is by writing posts on the class blog.

In this challenge, you will:

1. Get some tips for creating student accounts
2. Add students as users to a class blog
3. Set up categories to manage student posts

Tips for creating student accounts

#1 Choosing Usernames

Your students will each need their own username which they’ll use to sign into the class blog dashboard.  Their username is also displayed on posts and comments they write.

Most teachers use a combination of their student’s first name followed by numbers that might represent the year, class number and/or school initials.  They do this to protect the identity of the student and to ensure their username is unique (you can’t use a username that is already being used by another user).

For example, username misty16 or mistybcc16.

#2 Email address 

An email address is required when you create student accounts — it’s important for password resets, comment notification emails etc

If your students don’t have email addresses the simplest solution is to set up their accounts using one Gmail account and then add a + sign and a different number and/or letter(s) to the end of your email name for each student.

For example, mathiscool@gmail.com or room16@gmail.com.

Then you use your one class gmail account with the gmail+ method to create each student account.

Gmail ignores any letters and numbers you add after a + sign and sends all emails to the one account while our system thinks each is a unique email.

So for example, you might use room16+emmasblp16@gmail.com,  room16+liamwblp16@gmail.com and so on for creating their usernames and gmail will send all emails to the class gmail account room16@gmail.com

#3 Assigning Student Role

When you add users to a blog you have the ability to assign and control what other users can do on the blog depending on the tasks you want each user to be responsible for.

The five roles a user can be assigned on a blog in decreasing level of responsibility are:  Administrator; Editor; Author; Contributor; and Subscriber.

On a class blog you would assign students the role of contributor or author:

1. Contributor – used if you want to approve all posts before they are published.  As a contributor they’ll submit their post as pending and the post won’t be published on the class blog until you’ve approved it.
2. Author – used if you are happy for them to publish their own posts.  As a author they can’t edit or delete anyone else’s posts.

When the students log into the dashboard you’ll notice they have less menu items.  This is because as a contributor or author they don’t have the same level of access as an administrator.

You can read more about what role to assign students on blogs here.

Adding students as users to the class blog

There are two main ways to add users to a class blog on Edublogs:

1. Using Blogs and Users Creator  – use on Edublogs Pro and Campus blog.
2. Using Add New – use on a free Edublogs blog.

Please note:

• There are no limitations on the number of users you can add to a blog!
• The Blogs and Users Creator is the fastest and best way to add students quickly to your class blog

Bulk adding students using the Blog and user creator

The Blog & User Creator is designed to bulk add users to blogs and is the fastest way of adding new users to your blog.  Click on Add more button at the bottom of the page if you want to add more than 5 users in a batch.

1.  Go to Users > Blog & User Creator 

2.  Click on the Add New Users tab

3.  Add suitable usernames.

4.  Add their email address.

5.  Add their password

• It’s best to use a preset password (and unique password for each student) and record all student login details in a spreadsheet — in case they lose, delete or don’t receive their login email.

6.  Select their role.

7.   Click Submit at the bottom of the page to create and add them to your blog.

8.  The students will be immediately added as users to the blog and you’ll see them listed on your Users > All Users page.

Adding students using Users > Add New

Refer to these instructions on adding users using Add New if you are using a free Edublogs blog.

Organsing student posts on Class Blogs

Educators new to blogging often struggle with when should you write posts as opposed to pages.

The best way to manage your student work is they write posts and you get them to assign their name as a category to the post before they publish their post.

This makes it easy to find their posts.

All you need to do is add the categories widget to your blog sidebar (here is how to add widgets).  Then when you click on the name of a student in your sidebar it’ll loads a page with all posts with that category assigned to it — check this out in action on Mr.Toft.ca!

Before you get them writing posts just create a category for each student as follows:

1.  Go to Posts > Categories in your blog dashboard

2.  Add the first name of your student (if necessary include initial of last name)

3.  Click Add Category

Tip:

• Set up Category Parents before you create a category for each student if you want to sort your categories into groups.
• For example, you might have Student as a parent category and then all Student names underneath.  Then you might have another parent category for subjects and have all the subject names underneath.

Below’s what your categories might look like in your blog sidebar.

• Please note that categories won’t display in your category widget until the category has been assigned to a post.

Video

Watch this video to learn about managing categories

Adding a category to a Post

Now when your students write their post it’s as simple as:

1. Write their post
2. Select their name as a category
3. Click Publish post or Submit for Review

Sound Off!

Leave a comment below with links to your Class blog, if you’d like, so we can see how you are going!

Or let us know if you have any questions about the above, or have additional tips to share!

Welcome to the fourth post in the Class Blog series of free and open professional development for educators.

Perhaps the hardest part in setting up a class blog is getting the posts started!

In this challenge, you will:

• Be introduced to blog posts
• Consider who writes the class blog posts?
• Publish your first blog posts
• Learn how to teach students to write quality comment

Introduction to posts

Your posts are where you’ll publish your main content such as what’s been happening in class. assignment information, documents, and more.  They are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order with the most recent post at the top of the page.

If you look closely at a post you will see it is normally made up of:

1. Post Title – tells the reader what the post is about.  A great post title grabs readers attention and is more likely to encourage them to read your post.
2. Date published – all post display the date a post was published.  You’ll normally see this displayed at the top of the post.
3. Categories and tags - are used to help readers locate information in different ways.
4. Your post content – this is the main information that you want to share or reflect on with your readers
5. A link to comments - This is where your readers can click to write a comment in response to your post.  Comments allow students, and other readers, to engage in discussions, share their thoughts and connect with your class blog.

Who writes the posts?

You’ll also need to consider how you want to involve the students.  Do you want them just responding to comments on your posts. publishing their own posts on the class blog or publishing posts on their own blogs?

The best approach, regardless of their age, is to introduce blogging slowly in the following three steps:

Write comments in response to your posts on class blogs

Students write posts on the class blog

Students write posts on their own student blog

Publishing your first posts

So it’s time to get you started!

When you first create a new blog, a ‘Hello World’ post is already created.

To edit it you go to Posts > All Post and then click on the Edit link that appears when you put your mouse over the ‘Hello World’ post.

Video

 Watch the video below to learn about Editing Posts

Here are some example of first posts, or posts for the new school year. you should check out for some ideas:

1. Welcome to our Blog on 34′L Online Learning Space
2. We’re up and running! on 5A3 Dragon’s Lair
3. Welcome to the 2KM and 2KJ blog! on 2KM and 2KJ @ Leopold Primary School
4. Welcome back 2011 on  Mrs Yollis Classroom blog 
5. Happy New (School) Year on 110GS Grde 7/8 Virtual Classroom
6. Weigh Anchor, off we go! oX) on Mr Miller’s Classroom blog
7. Miss H’s Class questions about blogging – 2011 on Miss Hutchinson’s class – Room 3.14
8. Digital citizenship ad Internet Safety on Mrs Martinez’s Class blog
9. Blog first steps on Mrs Goucher’s Class blog 
10. Welcome to our class blog on Mrs Hamman’s Class blog

To write your next post you just go to Posts > Add New.

Check out the class blogs in the Student Blogging Challenge for ideas of what they post about!

Video

 Watch the video below to learn about Writing New Posts

Here’s where you’ll find more information on:

• The differences between pages and posts
• Writing your first post
• Adding categories and tags to your posts
• Editing posts

Teaching students how to write quality comments

Comments are an important part of your class blog.  Comments allow students, and other readers, to engage in discussions, share their thoughts and connect with your class blog.

Students really do need explicit instructions and guidelines, with constant reinforcement, to get the most out of writing comments.   Without it you’ll find their comments very limited.

So how do you get them started?

1. First read Teaching quality commenting.
2. Next read “Learning  how to comment“

Now create your own post or activity aimed at getting your students to develop their commenting skills.

Video

 Watch the video below to learn about Managing comments

Here’s where you’ll find more information on:

• Introduction to comments and writing comments
• Controlling who can comment on posts
• Managing, editing and approving comments
• Writing links in Comments

 Next steps…

Leave a comment with a link to your blog or with any questions you may have!

And we’d love to hear your tips about writing your first posts on class blogs and teaching students how to write quality comments!

Welcome to the third post in the Class Blog series of free and open professional development for educators.

In this challenge, you will:

• Take a look at excellent class blogs
• Setup your About page
• Set up your Rules and Guidelines
• Make it easy for people to find your contact info
• Create a blogroll or links in your sidebar

Example Class Blogs

Your class blog (or class website) is the online hub that extends your class beyond the four walls of your classroom.

As you get going, you will decide the kinds of content and information you wish to have on your blog such as assignment information, student discussions, calendars, documents, and more.

Here are some example (and real live) class blogs you should check out for some ideas:

• 2kmand2kj.global2.vic.edu.au
• teacher102.edublogs.org
• jmsalsich.edublogs.org
• edublogs.misd.net/theskinny
• thepluggedinportable.edublogs.org

You should be looking at the types of information available. There is a wide variety, huh?

Setting Up Your “About” Page

You never know how someone might make it to your blog – google search, twitter, facebook, or link from somewhere else.

One of the first things a new visitor will probably look for is an “About” page.

When you first create a new blog, an “About” page or “Sample Page” is already created.

To edit it you go to Pages > All Pages and then click on the Edit link that appears when you put your mouse over the About page or Sample page title.

Video

 Watch the video below to learn about Editing Pages

The content is really up to you, but for a class blog it would probably be a good idea to share:

• City or school name
• Grade level and subjects
• Any bio info about you as the teacher you would like to share with parents and others
•  And just change the title to About if it’s title says Sample Page.

Setting Up Your “Blogging Rules” Page

An important part of using an online tool with your students is educating them on appropriate online behavior.  Just because your students grew up with technology doesn’t mean they appreciate or understand what is/isn’t appropriate to post online.

Your class blog provides an excellent opportunity to educate students, parents and other readers on proper online behavior such as:

1. Types of identifying information that is appropriate in posts and/or comments e.g., What are your rules about use of last names, IM, images and personal information?
2. What should/shouldn’t you write in posts and/or comments?

Here are examples of different ways they are used on class blogs to help you with the task:

• 2KM and 2 KJ @ Leopold Primary School! Our Blog Guidelines and General blogging information (Grade 2)
• Math Error Class Blogging Guidelines
• Mr. Salsich’s Class Blog Guidelines (Grade 3)
• Mr Mundorf’s Class Online Safety (Grade 5)
• Huzzah’s Commenting Guidelines (Grade 5/6)
• Endless Questions Responsible Blogging (Grade 6-8 )
• Mr. Pfluger’s Discussion Corner Blog Guidelines (Grade 6)
• Our Space Student blogging Guidelines (Year 6)
• Mr. M’s History Blog Posting Comments (Grade 8 )
• Mr Jorgensen’s Blogging Guidelines (Grade 8 )
• Scattergood Biology How To Post and Comment
• Biology in Action Blogging Guidelines (High School and College)

The Two Page Blog Guide For Parents by Kathleen McGeady is an excellent idea for a parent resource.

Why not facilitate a collaborative discussion with students to create the rules together?  This’ll give them more ownership and a better understanding of what is required.

If you want to include Online Safety activities as part of the process then, Larry Ferlazzo’s The Best Sites For Learning Online Safety post is a good starting place to identify suitable resources.

Once you’ve decided what you want to include in your rules and guidelines it is now just a case of publishing them on your blog.

All you need to do is go to Pages > Add New and create a new page for your blogging rules.   These are normally published as pages because pages are ideal for important information like this that you don’t expect to update frequently.

Video

 Watch the video below to learn about Writing New Pages

Creating Sidebar Links (Or a blogroll)

One of the things you may have noticed on just about all of the class blogs featured above is that in the right sidebar, they have links to different blogs.

Some link to student blogs of students in the class, some link to their favorite class blogs, and some have links to their school websites or other relevant info.

The idea is that you want to make it easy for visitors to find information they may be interested in. Proving links to your favorite blogs is also a great way of building an online network of like classes.

You have two ways of creating these links:

1. The old (but still good) method of using the built in “links” and “blogrolls”
2. The new (and also good) method of using custom menus and widgets

You can really go wrong with either way. Click on the links above to find more information about whichever sounds better to you.

Making Contact Easy

Those that visit your blog might also have a need to contact you.

Many teachers choose to create an entirely separate “Contact” page to go with the “About” page.

You might also choose to have a text widget with your contact information placed in your sidebar.

Either way, here are some tips to consider:

• It is most likely best not to put your email address on your blog. A contact form (using a contact or form plugin) is better as it protects you email address from spammers.
• If you do want to provide your email, use text and something like support (at) edublogs (dot) org to make it hard for spammers to pull your email address.
• Home phone numbers are probably not something you want to share as well – but perhaps a classroom phone number is.

Other things to share would be facebook, twitter, or other social media profile information.

Sound Off!

Leave a comment below with links to your about page if you’d like!

Or let us know here if you have any questions about the above, or have additional tips to share!

This is the second post in the Creating a Class Blog challenge – an open and free professional development series for educators.

In this challenge, you will:

• Learn how to change your blog’s theme
• See how you can add widgets to sidebars
• Customize your blog’s header
• Create a custom menu
• Change your blog’s background

Changing your blog’s look and feel is the ultimate way to personalize your blog. 

You may have already completed some of the steps below – and you won’t really need to do everything outlined. Your theme and look is something you can constantly change and improve over time.

Here is a complete overview of the main things you can do to customize your blog:

Changing your theme

Every newly created blog has the same default theme (as shown below). This is what visitors to your blog see.

We already have several good resources on choosing and changing theme.

1. What to consider when choosing your blog’s theme
2. Here is a complete overview of all themes available which makes it easier to find one that meets your needs
3. Here is step-by-step directions on how to change themes

Adding widgets to sidebars

When you first create a blog, several of the most common widgets are already on your blog.

Widgets are tools that you can use to add, arrange and display content in your blog sidebars. Common content displayed in blog sidebars include blogroll, tag clouds, categories and monthly archives.

But there are a bunch of additional widgets available – and many plugins also add specific widgets as well.

Check out this help document on how to change widgets.
Video

Watch the video below to learn how to change widgets

Changing header image

In many themes, you will see a “Header” link which lets you add an image at the top of your blog.

You can add your own image header in 4 quick steps:

1. Create you image using your favorite image editor. You can find the image size (length and width in pixels) at the “Header” link on your current theme, or on the theme overview post here.

2. Go to Appearance > Header 

3.Click on Choose file, browse for the image on your computer and then click on Open.

• Only .jpeg, .gif, and .png files can be used for image headers.
• For best results we recommend you resize the image to the exact dimensions recommended for that theme before uploading by using an image editing program.

4.  Your image will upload and if it isn’t the exact dimensions you’ll need to select the area you want to crop and then click Crop and Publish.

5.  Your new image header should appear immediately on your blog. However if it doesn’t try clearing your web browser cache by holding the Ctrl key and pressing F5.

NEW! Creating a custom menu

Custom menus are a new feature of Edublogs – they allow you to really take control of the top navigation bar of your blog.

You may not need to make a custom menu, as in most themes, pages are automatically added to your menu – but they are great if you want to add categories to your menu, or outside links to places away from your blog.

Video

Watch the video below to learn how to create a custom navigation menu

Here are some important links for custom menus:

1. How to use custom menus
2. Use custom menus to organize multiple classes or subjects on your blog

NEW! Changing the background

Custom background images are also new to Edublogs.

On many themes, much like custom header images, you can add images to your blog’s dashboard.

We even have some great pre-loaded images you can choose from under Appearance > Preset Background

Or you can upload your own by going to Appearance > Background

Next steps…

From here you should start really using your blog before making many major additional changes to your theme.

As you get more familiar with your blog, you will discover things you want to change over time.

Leave a comment with a link to your blog or with any questions you may have!

Welcome to the Edublogs open and free professional development series on Class Blogging.

Over the next few weeks, we will be publishing posts that will walk you through the ins-and-outs of starting and maintaining a class blog.

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

In Activity 1, you will:

• Discuss the benefits of having a class blog
• Sign-up for your own blog if you don’t already have one
• Be introduced to the main features of a blog
• Write a comment on this post with a link to your class blog

Step 1: Why Blog?