First Steps

To begin with, decide on the purpose for your blog. Are you planning to use it to showcase student work, to increase parent interactions, or as a tool to communicate with your students? Are you helping a student to set up their blog? Will they be sharing book reviews, or adding content from all curriculum areas? Asking yourself these questions will save you time and help you set up the template for your blog later.

Next, if you don't already have one, you'll need to set up a google account. (IT'S FREE!)

You don't have to have a gmail address to do so, but you will have to have an email address (yahoo or others will work).

Since the google account password is used to access all google services, including gmail, if students are trustworthy, I find it easier to link all their blogs to one account with an email address and password that everyone uses. When they access the dashboard, they only have to search for their names. It will look like this:

If you need to have individual accounts but don't want your students accessing email, set up blind email addresses from another provider for each child to log in. Why? Well, if you set up separate google accounts with gmail addresses for each child, they will have access to email as well as their blogs. For the blind accounts, I used students' first names, but gave fake personal information. This way, I don't have to monitor emails, only blog use.

Designing Your Blog

Next, Blogger will direct you to choose a template. For now, just pick one that you like- you'll have the chance to perfect it later based on what you plan to use your blog for. It may be helpful to visit some of the blogs on the link list to help you decide what you want. Edublogger has tons of excellent classroom blogs that are a good source for ideas.

Then, play around within the Blogger Template Designer. There's lots more than what appears on the screen. There are a wide range of backgrounds to choose from.
For example, if you're creating a science blog, or if a student particularly enjoys science, s/he may want to change to a science background:
Don't worry, you can always go back and change it later. Google is great about constantly improving and introducing new designs and features.

Now Start Blogging!!

Now that you've got the blog set up, go ahead and add your first post, just to see what it looks like. You can always go back later to edit or delete the post if you need to.

First, click on the "Posting" tab. Then, select the subtab "New Post". When you're done typing, select the orange button "Publish Post". You can then select "View Blog" to see what it looks like.

Adding Images, Videos and Hyperlinks to Posts

The posting toolbar allows you to make many changes to the format, but the most popular ones we've used are photos and hyperlinks.

To add a photo, just click on the image that looks like a picture. Blogger will open a window that lets you search your computer or the web for the image(s) you want to add.

Note: If your students are selecting images from the internet, they should place a note at the bottom of the text that says something like "image credit: joe schmoe".

To add a link within the post, you either have to type the word(s) that contain the link (ie., click here), or type the actual link (ie., http://www.bloggingrocks.com). Once you've typed the words, you need to highlight them, then press the hyperlink button and past the actual URL into the window that appears.

Web 2.0 Gadgets We Love

Here are a few of the gadgets we use regularly on our blogs. See also the Web 2.0 Links list for other awesome, embed-able tools.

Clustrmaps & Voki
Clustrmaps tell us where are visitors are from and Voki helps us to talk to them. Sometimes we use a Voki to do a "book talk" or make book characters talk to each other.











Shelfari
Readers love to share books!
When we recommend a book to a friend, it's because we really loved it!

Countdown Clocks
We are always thinking and planning for the future. Countdown clocks help us to remember important dates. It's fun to countdown days, hours, minutes, and seconds to the events we look forward to the most!

Slideshare

We are great at creating Keynotes to share what we've learned. Slideshare helps us embed those presentations on our blogs so we can teach our classmates:

                                

It's easy to upload a picture and write a sentence about it, but it's lots more fun to use Superlame to add vocabulary labels or to have the people or items in an image speak for themselves:

What would you say to Ratty Tatty if she kept stealing your snacks? With I Fake Text students can create fake conversations with book characters, historical figures and more!

In Kindergarten, we use Wordle or Taxedo to practice typing the words we're learning to read. When finished typing, we create a "word cloud". We can put that single image on our blogs, or, like this second grader's example, we can upload several word clouds into Animoto to "produce" our own videos:

                                  


We are work in groups to take photos of our alphabet pictures. After that, we work together to record ourselves in a Voicethread.

Adding Comments

All students, but especially reluctant writers, need authentic reasons to write. They also need motivation. Having a blog is a way to see their work in print and have an authentic purpose. While all students appreciate feedback and praise from their teachers, for older students, knowing that people OTHER than their teacher, such as friends or family members, can be a significant motivation tool.To add a comment, click on the "comment" link at the bottom of the post.


Type your comment then press "post comment". You'll be directed to type in a code first just to be sure it's not a spam comment. See the post on Monitoring Comments to find out how to keep comments from turning into problems.

Comment Moderation

You can keep track of your student posts by "Following" their blogs. This way you receive (on the bottom of your dashboard) a "Reading List" of recent posts. It's an easy way to see what all students are talking about without having to visit each blog. You can also easily find out who's NOT blogging and find out if they need assistance.


Click here to find out how to "follow" student blogs.

Blogger is constantly improving comment management. Click here for instructions on moderating comments.

In 4 years of classroom blogging, I've only recently begun to see spam comments. Google does a great job of identifying what's spam and separating it for your review before it's published.

The road goes ever on and on...

The road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring 

Now that your blog(s) are established, it's time to jump off/jump in to all that integrating Web 2.0 has to offer. I won't lie, there are many challenges and it can be very time-consuming. Before describing many of the gadgets I like to use, I want to give you a few words of encouragement:

• Don't be afraid to let go of some of your control of the classroom. Let students show you what they know about technology. Not only will you be amazed at their knowledge and creativity - they will be empowered in their own learning.

• Management: It's great to find a few students who are interested in learning how to log in, create a post, add photos, and embed videos & widgets. Those "tech support" students become your extra hands, scaffolding their peers to become self-sufficient. Allow even beginner-level students to join that group and they will rise to the challenge of becoming tech-savvy, I promise.

• Using technology for the sake of using technology only leads to burn-out and ineffective use. Pick something where technology enhances learning. Sometimes I have to stop and ask myself: Is this a tangible effort? How does this fit in to what's on the list?  If it can be done better with paper and pencil - do it with paper and pencil.

• Be transparent with your kids. Try it out yourself, then admit the roadblocks you've encountered.

• A great administrator of mine, Dr. Fran Vandiver, used to tell us to "Eat the elephant one bite at a time." Take really small, purposeful steps. Introduce new things to small groups.

• Finally, don't be intimidated by what you don't know. Ask for help. If we are going to empower our students to participate in the global societies of the 21st century, we must begin by allowing them to be a part of the conversation now. The sooner they begin collaborating on a global level, the more opportunities exist.

Other Safe Blogging Platforms (some free, some not)

Obviously I've used Blogger exclusively and have found Google's security features, comment moderation controls, easy to read stats, customizable domain names and even access to stats well worth the time I put into setting them up. I love that you can set up as many of the best-looking blogs you want with one account! Here are a few platforms you may want to play around with. 

ePals Global Community: Connect with nearly a million other classrooms in over 200 countries. In addition to email buddies, literature circles, collaboration projects and explorer expeditions, epals offers CCSS supporting resources for multiple grade levels.

 With Kidblog, teachers can log in with their google accounts and be ready to blog in minutes. Here's one I set up as an example. Very simple format and a few cute designs to choose from. It's a not a bad idea to start to see if you like it better than Blogger.

Edublogs' basic blogs are also free and more user-friendly for younger children than blogger because they're designed especially for teachers and students. Unfortunately, a paid membership is required if you want to post videos and html, make accounts private or have a custom domain name. 

WordPress, a popular open source platform, gives you the option of setting up an attractive blog or website on your own server (for free) or creating a WordPress-hosted one at WordPress.com.

Typepad is not free but, according to PC Magazine, they produce the best-looking blogs around. You can choose a 14-day free trial to see if it works for you. While I haven't personally tried, they've apparently earned a reputation for great support and ease of use. Like Blogger, they also have a reliable anti-spam comment feature, which makes it a safe option for students.

21 Classes used to be free but is still affordable so worth checking out for it's ease of collaboration. Teachers can create accounts for their students with stories to read and/or comment on those stories.

Please let us know if any of these platforms have worked for you or if you find others worthy of mentioning!

Parent Letter

Keep parents informed about blogging with an introductory letter like this one. Updates and reminders can help generate greater home participation and enthusiasm!