Welcome to the second step in our free professional learning series on class and student blogging!

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

The aim of this step is to:

  1. Help you understand how pages are used on class blogs
  2. Set up an About page, Guidelines page, and Contact page on your class blog.

Introduction to pages

Pages on blogs are normally used for information that you want to share with your readers but don’t expect to update frequently.

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.

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

  1. Page title – This tells the reader what the page is about. A page title will often be fairly short as they won’t display properly on your blog otherwise.
  2. Your page content – This is information you want to share on the page. Like with posts, the content could be a mixture of text, links, images, videos etc.
  3. Comments – Most themes support comments at the bottom of the page.  This allows your readers to add a comment to your page.  Comments are disabled on pages by default and can be enabled.

Anatomy of a page

Watch the following video to learn more about the difference between pages and posts.

Here’s a quick visual summary of the differences. We also have a post on The Edublogger that explains the differences between posts and pages further.

Posts vs Pages

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.

Here are some ideas on 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 the blog, comment on posts, guidelines for writing appropriate comments
  • Teacher(s) contact details
  • Country, state, and/or 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

Examples of About pages on Class blogs

Check out the following examples to see how About pages are used on Class blogs:

  1. Mr. Baldock’s Class (Grade 3)
  2. Present with Ms. B’s Bloggers (Grade 4) – About us, About our blog, What is a blog? and About Ms. B
  3. Mrs. McKelvey’s Bloggin’ Frogs (Grade 4)
  4. Huzzah (Grade 6/7)
  5. Ms. Eichner’s 7th Grade Social Studies

Create your About page

Sample PageAll 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.

All pages

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

3.  Now click on Edit.

Click Edit

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

5.  Edit the permalink to change it to about.

It should now look like this!

Edit title

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

Add your information

Visual editor overview

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 formatting.

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 on the toolbar to add formatting such as bold, italics, or a numbered list.

The Toolbar Toggle icon is used to view the advanced formatting options in the second row including heading styles, underlining, font color, custom characters, undo, redo.

You switch between Visual Editing mode and HTML editing mode by clicking on the Visual or Text tab.  Text or HTML editing mode is not something beginner bloggers need to worry about.

Visual Editor

Below is a quick video tutorial on the visual editor:

Why have blogging guidelines?

There are two key reasons why guidelines are an essential part of your blog:

  1. Internet safety
  2. Ensuring high standards of writing

These apply to students, parents, and all of your blog visitors.

Blogging is an ideal way to teach about internet safety in an authentic and ongoing way.  But just because students are blogging and using online tools, doesn’t mean they are automatically learning about appropriate online behaviors.  This needs to be modeled, taught, and reinforced.

Read more about using blogging to teach about digital citizenship.

When coming up with your blog guidelines, you will need to consider

  • The types of identifying information that is appropriate in posts and/or comments. Consider what your rules will be about the use of last names, images, and personal information.
  • What you should and shouldn’t write in posts and comments.

Some guidelines may be specific to your school and your school policies. 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 as a whole class activity. Getting students to be part of a collaborative discussion on guidelines gives students more ownership and a deeper understanding.

Examples of blogging guidelines

Check out the blogging and comments guidelines on the following class blogs for ideas.

Remember: copying and pasting someone else’s work is not okay.  If you adapt your blogging guidelines from someone else’s you should mention that and link to their site.

  1. Huzzah is a grade 6/7 class from Canada
  2. Kathleen Morris’ created these guidelines for her primary Arts classes 
  3. Dominic Salvucci has set up blogging guidelines for his high school seniors
  4. SCHS Open Studio is a year 9-12 Ceramics Class in Florida
  5. Miss Sporn’s Class is a group of year 2 students from South Australia
  6. The Avery Bunch is a technology class in Massachusetts
  7. Kim Cofino created these guidelines for classes when teaching in Bangkok
  8. Mrs. McNally’s Mumblings is a high school English class

Create your blogging guideline 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.

Add New

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

Add new page

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 your 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.
  • Personal phone numbers are probably not something you want to share either — but sharing a school phone number might be appropriate for some people.

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 later in this series.

Create your contact page with a contact form

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 of creating a contact page and activating the Formidable Pro plugin.

  • Note: To add a contact form you would need a pro subscription. as the Formidable Pro plugin is available for pro blogs only. 
  • Here’s an example of what the Formidable Pro plugin contact form looks like on Unlocking the Universe.

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

Note: The Formidable Pro plugin is available for pro blogs only. 

1.  Go to Plugins > All

All Plugins

2.  Activate the Formidable Pro plugin.

3.  Go to Formidable > Forms.

Forms

4.  Click on Add New

Click on Add New

5.  Select Contact Us and then Create.

Select Contact US

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

Delete captcha

7.  Now just edit the contact form to customize 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.

Form

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

Change email

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

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

Copy shortcode

10.  Go to Pages > Add New.

Add New

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

Add the shortcode

Back to Top

Other types of pages

There are lots 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 Step 3 of our class and student blogging series.

Examples of other types of pages

Setting up page links

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 customize the links considerably more.

Custom menu example

You’ll find step by step instructions for setting up custom menus here.

Frequently Asked Pages Questions

These are some of questions around pages that we’re commonly asked.

1.  How do you enable comments on pages?

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

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

1. Go to Pages > All Pages

All pages

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

3. Hover over its title to bring up its action menu and then click on Quick Edit.

Click on Quick Edit

4. Select ‘Allow Comments’ and then click on Update.

Allow Comments

2.  Why won’t comments display on pages?

Most of our themes 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.

3.  What does the Nothing Found message on my front page mean?

By default, the front page of your blog is set to display your latest posts.

If you delete the default “Hello World’ post before you publish a new post then your front page will display ‘Nothing Found’, ’404 – Not Found Error’ or something similar depending on the theme you are using.

This message is displayed because there is nothing to display on your front page.

Not found message

You’ll find step by step instructions on how to fix a Not Found message here.

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 – check out Mr. Cartlidge’s Science Blog to see how it works.

And yes you can!  But it does involve slightly advanced blogging skills.  You’ll find step by step instructions for sending posts to different pages here.

Your task

Blogging is about sharing, collaborating, and learning from each other. Here’s your chance to ask a question, comment, and get involved!

Complete the following tasks:

  1. Create an About Page, How to Comment page, Blogging Guidelines page, or Contact page and then leave a link to your new page so we can have a look at how you went.  Remember to refer to the examples we’ve provided for ideas!
  2. Read through the most recent comments in reply to this post and leave a response to another person’s comment.

Remember to leave a link to your blog in your comment so we can have a look at your new blog!

650 thoughts on “Step 2: Set Up Pages

  1. I have created an About Us page, tdominguez.edublogs.org/about/. I plan on creating more pages and adding more to this page when school starts. I would like my students to be a part of creating our pages and our blogging guidelines. For now I am learning the ends and outs so that I can navigate quickly during our discussions.

    1. Hi Mrs. Dominguez

      If you would like your students to contribute to the content of your blog, we recommend they get added as Contributors to your blog, and that they contribute to Posts and not Pages. You will then be able to moderate the content they add.

      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support
      @Edublogs_Eugene

  2. I have created several pages. I know there are a few things I want to revamp as time goes on, but for now, I think they cover most of what I need.
    This is our’ About Our Blog’ page. It is my least favorite. https://wilsonparkview.edublogs.org/about-our-blog/

    This is our ‘About Our Class’ page. It will be filled out in more detail when classes begin next month. https://wilsonparkview.edublogs.org/our-class/

    This is our ‘Contact’ page. I will probably upgrade to Pro, then I will be able to use the Contact Plug in. https://wilsonparkview.edublogs.org/contact-information/

    This is our ‘How To Comment” page. https://wilsonparkview.edublogs.org/how-to-comment/

    I would LOVE any suggestions and/or comments.

    1. ​Hi Mrs. Wilson.

      Thank you for your Pages.

      We suggest you use a contact form on your Contact Page – http://help.edublogs.org/working-with-formidable-pro-forms/
      ​This will ensure you have less spam going to your email address.

      ​Moving your Subscribe Widget to near the top of your sidebar will make it more visible, and get more people subscribing.
      Your Search Widget should also be near the top of your Sidebar.

      Eugene Brown
      Account Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress
      @Edublogs_Eugene

      1. Thanks so much for the comments and suggestions! I have added a contact form. I also changed back to my original theme so I have sidebars on both sides. I like this better and my more important info is at the top. Thanks again! I am really enjoying the process and am excited to get my students involved!

    2. Hi, Mrs. Wilson!

      I love your Safe Blogging page ideas–working with younger students, I am sure that safety is a big concern! The links to videos on your How to Comment and About Our Blog pages are a really good idea too. Is there a way you could embed those videos directly into the page, instead of being a link? That might be a good cue for 3rd graders (and 3rd grade parents) to watch the videos, instead of skimming over text.

      Good luck as your school year starts next week!

      ~Christina

    3. I think all the pages you included are really well written and will be helpful for your students. Did you have to get a pro account to include the contact form?
      I think the header image you chose is really cool but right now it looks really pixelled. I had the same problem when I chose a big image to cut and finally I cut it before uploading on to the blog.
      Thaks for sharing your work, it IS really helpful!

    4. Things are looking great on your blog. I think it’s awesome you are looking for an authentic voice for your third graders! Good luck with your blogging adventure~

    5. Hi Mrs. Wilson,
      Thank you for sharing your blog! I LOVE the flag counter. I could see my students getting so excited over seeing where people are visiting the blog from. Will you have students post on the blog on their own? This will be my first full year teaching and I am excited to incorporate blogging into our activities. I am weary about having my students’ blogs public if parents do not feel comfortable with it, but I am really hoping to be able to connect my students with others around the world.

  3. My favourite sites were Mr Cassidy’s and Mrs Mullers. Loved their links to vidoes of students work and other sites for reference for parents.
    http//stdom12.edublogs.org

    1. Hi Dearne

      You have made good use of your Pages, providing extensive information for your students.

      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

    1. HI “mrsunthank”

      I hope you do not mind, but I set up a menu in the sidebar of your theme, so our site visitors can navigate to your About and Contact pages.

      It is not recommended placing your email address on your page as you could open yourself up to spammers. Maybe change the format of the email address to hunthank at interact.ccsd.net so it won’t be picked up as an email address by spam bots.

      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

  4. I would love some feedback on my pages. I am always tempted to put an insanely large amount of information on them. The last thing I want is my audience to get bogged down and leave my blog.

    mrjames.edublogs.org

    1. Hi James and welcome to the Teacher Challenge!

      You have made great progress with your blog!

      With regards to your pages, I would remove the comments from all the pages.
      A profile pic would personalise your About Page.
      It’s always risky make your email address visible, as this will open you up to spammers. A contact form on the Schedule page is recommended.
      The 24/7 Awesomeness page might be better suited as posts. Create a category, and assign dated posts to this category to create a progression of awesomeness.

      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

  5. I am wondering about whether it would be more effective for students to have the ‘guidelines’ appear through modeling rather than prescriptive thoughts on my blog. So, for now, I have engaged with them in conversation about the digital footprint and a productive/constructive free exchange of ideas, and only used as a model my own blog for how to best set up posts, pages, and what-have-you.

    Check out my ‘why I do this’ page: http://nayrbgo.edublogs.org/why-i-do-this/

    Thanks,
    Bryan

    1. Having face to face conversations is a must. I agree that discussing expectations is a very important piece. I, also, like having the guidelines posted so that parents can participate (and model proper etiquette) with the same guidelines.

    2. I was thinking of coming up with guidelines together as a class, so we can make sure expectations are clear from the very beginning. I also like this idea because it gives the students ownership of the blog and makes it a more positive learning environment.

      1. Mrsunthank,
        I think you are VERY right! I want my students to feel they have a vested interest in the blog right from the start. I have posted guidelines right now, so that I have a good idea of what should be included, but I plan to have my class work together to come up with our commenting guidelines in class. We will make an anchor chart for the classroom and then I will edit our page to reflect their suggestions and ideas, before I share the page with them.

    3. Hi Bryan,

      This was my exact thought as well. I would like my students to be a part of that conversation when it comes to guidelines. I see that this post is from March and I was wondering how that conversation went in your classroom and if you in turn created a guidelines page with your students?

    1. Hi Kirsten

      The beauty of blogging is that you can take your blog in any direction you choose. The most successful blogs have been where the blogger has followed their passion, and used the blog as an outlet for this passion. The rest generally falls into place from there.

      Your first post on why you became a teacher is a great start!

      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

  6. I’ve added a couple pages to my blog : mcoultas@edublogs.org
    I did struggle with the email generators, finally just uploaded an image and added a mailto: tag.
    My students are also adding their About Page and contact info to their page, so we are learning together! 🙂

    1. Hi “mcoultas”

      Have you thought of adding a Contact form to your blog and making it available via a Custom Menu?

      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

  7. I created a welcome page to our class blog and I integrated content guidelines for student blogs. I teach at a private, Catholic high school and students need to understand that the content of their writing cannot oppose the conduct guidelines set by the school. http://rrodgers.edublogs.org/

    1. Hi Mrs Ryan

      Great to hear the example pages have helped!

      To use a plugin like Formidable Forms or Contact Forms you need to upgrade to Edublogs Pro however you can set up the page by adding a link to your email address. Check out how Mrs C A Smith did it with her contact page – http://bowleepark.edublogs.org/contact-us/

      I’ve also made a quick adjustment to all pages (except the contact page) to remove the comment field at the bottom. Pages generally look cleaner if you don’t allow comments. Hope you didn’t mind me making the changes?

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

      1. Please note that this guide page tells users not to put their email address on the contact page but instead use a form. There in the conundrum exists: One cannot follow the guidelines set forth by this page and complete their task. I do understand that for a fee, users can purchase and upgrade their accounts to pro.

        Please find my blog so far at: https://mrpthescienceg.edublogs.org/

        1. Hi Mr P

          Very valid point about the email address! Years ago the recommendation was don’t add your email address to a web site because spammers are easily able to collect the addresses and send spam emails. Most email software has strategies for dealing with spammers. Your linking to your school page which does display your email address. I’m assuming that your IT Department no longer worries about these types of issues (but you could check with them).

          I’ve made a couple of quick changes to your pages. I’ve disabled comments on the About page and Blogging Guideline page as it makes them look cleaner. I’ve formatted your blogging guidelines using bullet points as it looks better.

          PS I might be slightly scared of snakes (re your header image). Must be something to do with the fact that in Australia we have some of the most dangerous snakes. We also have some deadly spiders but they don’t worry me. And on a funnier note. Showed my work colleague from South Africa and he is worried about the snake (did it survive?).

          Sue Waters
          Support Manager
          Edublogs | CampusPress

          1. Thanks for the reply. That was a small 5.5ft (1.67 meters) speckled king snake. They are nonpoisonous and very beneficial to the environment, however when cornered they will strike and can draw blood. He was sunning on a stump in my backyard, so i decided to pose for a picture.
            We too, in south Louisiana, USA has many venomous snakes including the Eastern Diamond Back Rattle Snake, as well as venomous spiders such as the brown recluse and the black widow however Australia has us beat on toxicity levels of your snakes.

            And please tell your colleague that yes he was unharmed and released back from whence he came.

          2. Hi Mr P

            Thanks for letting us know the snake was okay! We worried about the snake because, even though we both live in countries which have some of the most deadliest snakes, we protect our snakes. And now after comparing your spiders with our spiders I’m feeling more stressed! Our Redback Spider appears very high on the World’s dangerous spiders lists. We get a lot of Redbacks around our house.

            Your students might be interested to research about our sharks that tweet. Due to shark fatalities in Western Australia we have extensive monitoring program that includes tagging sharks and helicopters that fly along our coastline watching for sharks. If any tagged sharks come close to buoys it triggers an automated tweet.

            Sue Waters
            Support Manager
            Edublogs | CampusPress

      2. I purchased a pro account and I still couldn’t use the formidable forms for the contact page. I clicked on activate but a message said that I needed a pro account to use the form. Please advise.

          1. Hi Michelle

            I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of setting up a contact form for you with Formidable and added it to a Contact Page.
            If you are happy with the Contact Page, please publish the Contact Page and add the Contact Page to your menu by going to Appearance > Menu

            Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

  8. I am enjoying the Edublog challenge. I do wish I had more time to play and practise. I have set up my pages
    http://epsompsgrade45.global2.vic.edu.au/sample-page/
    http://epsompsgrade45.global2.vic.edu.au/blogging-guidelines/
    http://epsompsgrade45.global2.vic.edu.au/btn/
    http://epsompsgrade45.global2.vic.edu.au/game-centre/
    They are not very pretty but I’m hoping to add something ‘whiz bang’ in the sidebars!

    Thanks very much to Larry Ferlazzo’s The Best Sites For Learning Online Safety. I included a link to one of his recommended safety guides – Cyber Cafe. I wasn’t sure if I needed to mention his name as I took the website link from his page?
    Regards Michelle

    1. Hi Michelle

      Great to hear you’re enjoying the Teacher Challenge series!

      I’ve change the URL of http://epsompsgrade45.global2.vic.edu.au/sample-page/ to http://epsompsgrade45.global2.vic.edu.au/student-blogs/ Hope that was okay? It looks better having a URL that is descriptive of what is on the page.

      The other pages look good! In this situation you didn’t need to link to Larry’s blog however I would link to it as it is packed full of resources that others will find helpful.

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

    1. Hi Mrs C A Smith

      Your new pages look really good! I’ve made a couple of quick changes. Hope that was okay?

      I’ve changed http://bowleepark.edublogs.org/sample-page/ URL to http://bowleepark.edublogs.org/contact-us/ as it looks better having a URL that is descriptive of what is on the page.

      I’ve disabled comments on http://bowleepark.edublogs.org/blogging-guidelines/ and http://bowleepark.edublogs.org/computing-at-bowleepark/ Pages generally look cleaner if you disable the comments on the page. I’ve left comments enabled on your contact page so they can add a comment to that
      page.

      Great work adding images and links to your page!

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

  9. I am enjoying the course and have made attempts at a few pages. I am sure I will improve these as I progress through the course. My blog is at stuartcollings.edublogs.org
    I am looking forward to learning how to put maps and other visual information onto pages.

    1. Hi Mr Collings

      Great to hear you’re enjoying the course!

      Your blog is looking really good! Love your theme choice. I’ve disabled comments on your pages as pages generally look cleaner if you don’t have the comment field at the bottom. Hope that was okay.

      What type of map did you want to add? A simple map that shows your location in relation to a map of Australia?

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

      1. Hi Sue,

        Yes I have noticed people inserting simple maps which show location. They look a bit like a page from the Melways. But I suppose any image would look good.

        Stuart

    1. It looks great! What are you going to do with the videos from the grade three’s. Are you going to upload them to the blog?
      cheers Michelle

    2. I like your graphic design of the page. Your guidelines somewhat resemble mine. I am learning a great deal about blogging from this teacher challenge.

  10. I changed the pages I had set up for each assignment as the tutorial explained why those should be done on posts and not static pages. I’ll update the ground rules for commenting soon – next I need to add my students! Hope that’s Tutorial #3 🙂

    1. Hi Stephanie

      Adding students as users isn’t covered until later in the series because often students don’t need to be added as users until you’re ready for them to publish posts using Posts > Add New.

      If you’re starting off students by leaving comments on posts you publish they can normally do this as a logged out user. This is easier for most teachers as they just need to add their name, email address and comment. However, occasionally there are some situations where you may want to add students as a user to leave comments. Let us know if you do need to add them as users so we can provide instructions.

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

    1. Hi Gill

      You about page is very informative; it put the mountain in your header image in perspective.
      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

  11. I have created the following pages:
    About Us
    Comment Guidelines
    Nifty Resources
    Our Events (calendar)
    Protocols
    Having such an authentic context for the students to communicate, write, share and discuss presents boundless opportunities. Every blog I visit is evidence!

    http://tinam.global2.vic.edu.au/

  12. I have been reinventing my blog over the past few weeks as I prepare for my first student bloggers to meet their blogs online starting tomorrow!

    Here are the links to my new and renovated pages:
    – contact page (depersonalized and simplified): msboychuk.me/contact-3/
    – about us (new page): msboychuk.me/about/
    – about ms b (adjusted): msboychuk.me/aboutmsb/
    – about our blog (reinvented): msboychuk.me/aboutourblog/
    – quality posts (new page): msboychuk.me/quality-posts/

    I will be putting a “comment guidelines” page together shortly. I’m working with our teacher-librarian who has worked with student bloggers before and am following her lead by starting the students’ blogs and posts before their commenting.

    I really appreciate all the support and wealth of knowledge within the edublog community!

    1. Hi Mr B., and good luck your first student bloggers! I like that you have brought a bit of yourself to your blog. You’ve presented a human side.
      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

    2. I love your About Mrs. B page, especially that it includes your educational philosophy as well as information to help your students get to know you better. On your About page, I really liked the acronym “Yappy” to remind students not to give away identifying information. I am bookmarking your page for inspiration. Great work!

      http://ayersb110.edublogs.org/

      1. Hi Mrs. Ayers,

        Thank you so much for your comment. I introduced YAPPY to the students yesterday and it is proving very useful. I’m hearing “don’t be YAPPY” around the room in a good way.

        I like your “sweet” pun and coordination of images on your blog.

        Best wishes as you get started,
        Ms B.

    3. I agree. The opportunities as an educator to learn from people in the blogging community is a real support and benefit. I enjoy your blog; the fun of it, the life in it. Lots of interesting things. I also like the graphic/symbols that most of the students have. There is something unifying about these abstract identities and how they look on the sidebar. I wonder if they can identify each other without names!

      1. Hi Ms. McDonnell, and thank you for sharing your about page. I also liked your ‘Commenting Guidelines’ page; very informative.
        I noticed you had a Meta widget in the header. This might be better placed in your sidebar.
        Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

  13. Step 2 done. I have added an about page that includes the rules of posting. I also added a Contact page. Choosing a theme that suits my class and adding appropriate thematic images (getting the dimensions right) is my challenge at the moment. No doubt some playing will help.

    1. Hi Mr Read

      Well done setting up your About page and contact page! Playing with the image sizes helps.

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

    1. Hi Jennifer. Well done on changing your theme header and adding the Cluster map widget!
      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

    1. Your pages look very clean and inviting. I like that you included the tip for parents and grandparents in the How to Comment page.

    1. Hi Mrs H

      Good question! Part of the decision on what to put on your About page is influenced by how you use your class blog and it also needs to take into account any school or District policies or guidelines.

      Those classes that use blogs to connect with classes in other countries tend to have more identifying information to help with the connections. However, they may not include their school name or location. They might say something like small primary school located in a small town in X State.

      The Department of Education and Training (DET) Victoria uses a simple guideline for their teachers – no more than three pieces of identifying pieces of personal information.

      The aspects that are most likely to cause concern are use of full student’s first and last name; and use of student photos. We cover both later in this series.

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

    2. I had wondered this, too, as I want to respect my students’ privacy. I think I’ll just post names of people in the class. I really like the way you set up your guidelines – did that “notebook paper” page appear because it’s part of your overall theme? It’s clean and eye-catching!

    1. Hi April

      Great work on your About page. I also love how you’ve set up pages to link to your different groups of student blogs.

      I’m not sure if you are using the Reader to read posts from your student blogs but if you aren’t you might find it helpful. Here is a video that explains how you can use tag searches in the Reader for student blogs – https://youtu.be/TZ6bl0OJKmM You can also create lists in the Reader to pull posts from blogs – http://www.theedublogger.com/2015/04/21/new-features-private-comments-and-group-lists/

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

    1. Hi Maria

      Your About page and blogging guidelines pages look really good. Well done!

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

  14. I created an About page for my blog. Here is the address: http://hvanlooy.edublogs.org/about-the-den/

    I also created a Contact page. I tried to use the Formidable Forms plug in, but when I activated it, the “Formidable” menu option didn’t appear like the directions said it should. Does anyone know how to make it work properly?

    This blog is definitely a work in progress. I’m interested in looking into the custom menu option next.

    1. Hi Helen, your blog is looking great! I took the liberty of creating a Formidable contact form for you. You can add it to your contact page, or stick with your existing one.
      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

    1. Hi msmillac

      You don’t have to use a contact form. Another option for a contact page is to add your email address as an image to the page or add it to your About page. I’ve done a quick edit of your About page to disable comments on the page and to change the URL from sample page to about – http://whict.edublogs.org/about/ Hope that was okay?

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

    1. Hi Mrs Sheffel

      Your pages look really good! I’ve done a quick edit of your contact page to remove comment field at the bottom as that sometimes confuses readers. Hope that was okay.

      The fastest way to add links to the student blogs attached to My Class to a page is to use the Live Shortcode plugin. You can read how to do that here – http://help.edublogs.org/live-shortcodes-plugin/

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

  15. My classroom blog is harrisclassroom.edublogs.org . I will be adding a contact page once I upgrade to Pro later this week.

    1. I like the look of your blog. Although I started the blog with last year’s class, I have a lot to learn. This challenge has been so helpful.

    2. I’m a beginner too. I’ve seen some pretty fancy blogs out there. There is definitely a learning curve with blogging. I consider myself pretty tech savvy, but it’s a pretty slow process for me at this point to get up and running. There is so much to learn. Hang in there. You aren’t alone! 🙂

  16. Well I have to say that I’m very excited about what I’m learning through this course. I’ve really fixed up my blog. I have used a lot from Super Six Sevens and Huzzah! They seem to be very similar to me. I have even given them credit. I haven’t necessarily created separate pages but have incorporated a contact form in my ABOUT OUR CLASS PAGE http://mrsgorley.edublogs.org/forum/. I guess I have a question about the link: It used to be a FORUM page and I’ve renamed it ABOUT OUR CLASS but the link is still FORUM. Will that change or do I have to change it or is it even possible to change? Should I just create a whole new page?

    I also updated my posting guidelines page: http://mrsgorley.edublogs.org/posting-guidelines/

    An added page called BLOGGING can be found here: http://mrsgorley.edublogs.org/blogging/. I really liked what the Super Six Sevens had on their site and used it on my own ensuring I gave credit to them by creating a link.

    A quick question about my pages: I am not able to see all of the pages that I have created on the sidebar. They seem to be cut off. Should I be changing my theme? Am I not supposed to have as many pages? Thanks in advance and I’m really looking to the next step!

    I’m going to be challenging myself to ensure that the font on all of the pages is the same but that is for next time.

    http://mrsgorley.edublogs.org

  17. Some good ideas for the pages about blogging guidelines and commenting from sites I looked at had students commenting that they understood the guidelines, etc. That could be used instead of signing a paper at the beginning of the year, and also could be used as part of the teaching process to teach students on how to make comments. Here are my pages:

    http://mrfrittsscience.edublogs.org/about/
    http://mrfrittsscience.edublogs.org/contact/
    http://mrfrittsscience.edublogs.org/blogging-guidelines/
    http://mrfrittsscience.edublogs.org/comment-guidelines/

    1. I really like your comment guidelines page. I will have to use something similar and teach it through a lesson with the children.

      1. I like your ideas to make my blogging guidines primary friendly. Thinking ab rewriting with my students. Wanted to get something up to complete the challenge and push myself forward. Initially i to got hung up on having everything “just so” but I’ve quickly realized revision is continual & ongoing.. This might just get kids thinking more ab revision.

        1. Hi Kerri

          Thank you for the kind words. Yes, as you say, revising your blog and keeping your blog fresh, is an integral part of the blogging process.
          Good luck with your blogging journey!

          Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

    1. Hello Mrs.Creek!

      Love what you’ve done with your layout and the pages. Your blog is very easy to read/browse!

      Can’t wait to start adding more information on my own once I start volunteering.

      Regards,
      Miss Ay.

  18. Thank you so much for this awesome guide, it’s awesome! I was wondering about the page order. When I go into the menu, it shows that the items are in alphabetical order which I want but on my blog, it doesn’t show it in that order. Could you help me out? Thanks!
    http://mrsjlang.edublogs.org

    1. Hi Karyn, thank you for your kind words. I took the liberty of adding widgets to your post and pages sidebars help your blog visitors better navigate your blog.
      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

    2. Hi there Karyn! I just visited your page and didn’t get very far as I was fascinated with your “header image”. It really catches the visitor’s attention! The colouring, the curvy look! Can I ask what you did? Is it something special? What theme are you using? I’m now going to go back and have a look at the rest of your blog. I just wanted to say WOW you definitely hooked me!

      Here is a link to my class blog: http://mrsgorley.edublogs.org/

  19. Hi Zerlina

    Thanks for sharing a link to your pages for task 2. Great work! I’ve just made a quick change to your Blogging Guidelines and Contact page to remove ability to add comments at the bottom of the page. Hope that was okay?

    I also recommend you submit an email using your contact form to confirm you receive the emails.

    Sue Waters
    Support Manager
    Edublogs | CampusPress

    1. Thanks for your response to my Flag Counter questions and I appreciate you checking my blog to see if I had successfully figured it out. I also checked out your Global Read Aloud Blog suggestion. I’m very impressed with Edublogs! So excited I won Edublogs Pro subscription at the SAMRI conference this summer.

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