Set up a new site to act as a sort of 'nerve center' for all of the work I've been doing in education as well as the arts. Even started posting some of my photography.
I tell you this not so much to bore you with the ins-and-outs of the Chesapeake freak life, but rather to urge you to check out a site put together using the options in Blogger-in-Draft -- featuring some nice template alternatives and customization options in addition to experiments like the 'pages' feature which allows you to run separate blog pages off your main Blogger page.
I use Blogger as our primary platform in class both due to its ease of use as well as the super-simple integration with Google widgets, Feedburner, and 3rd party stuff. Of course WordPress offers these things to varying degrees, but when working with large groups of students (like setting all of our 12th graders up with blogs for documenting their senior projects) I've found it's easiest to keep with one system; for me that's the set of tools offered by Google.
Would love to hear what blogging platforms you prefer -- especially with students.
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ReplyDeleteI use Blog for all of my blogging (except my keyboardingresearch.org on WordPress). I agree with you that there are many Google Widgets that you can use. It is also the easiest to use with students. All they need to have is a google account and they have a blog.
I must admit that I have heard a great deal about the options with WordPress or EduBlogs. Wondered at times about converting Dr. Z Reflects over to them.
I look forward to seeing what you find in this query.
Z
http://drzreflects.com
Myself and my chemistry colleagues have been using WordPress as our platform for providing a portal to all of our resources. We find it to be pretty user-friendly for our purposes. I also use it for my own personal blogs after switching them over from Blogger.
ReplyDeleteBlogging is all about communities, Wordpress has the strongest community of all the blogging platforms. It's not square, which is a bonus..
ReplyDeleteI have always used Blogger and love it. I tried WordPress and Edublogs. Blogger does it for me and has even before Goggle bought it.
ReplyDeleteWe were using Google Blogger for my 6th grade students until they began enforcing the rule that users had to be at least 13 years old. We are now using Edublogs. It works, but not with the ease of Blogger. A few teachers are campaigning to become a Google Apps district - for a California district, we are peddling backwards.
ReplyDeleteI have used Blogger for quite a while and been quite satisfied with its improvements over the years. The only problem I ran into was finding a template that was wide enough for me to put a Voice Thread in the sidebar and have all of it show up. However, someone on the Voice Thread for Educatores Ning suggested the http://draft.blogger.com and I was able to find a template that fit my needs.
ReplyDeletehttp://eduwebtools.blogspot.com
For blogging is about content, I want to focus on content not fiddling with plug-ins, upgrades, and technical maintenance. That's why I've stuck with Blogger even though it can't do some of the cool things that WordPress can do. Now that Google has announced that Google Apps for Education users will be able to integrate Blogger into their domains, Blogger makes sense to use. That said, if I was going to have students blogging on another platform I'd take a serious look at Edublogs.
ReplyDeleteThis year, I've been using Posterous with the students. Setting the Posterous.com blog as private ensures compliance with district policy and the ease of use facilitates student participation. The only drawback is the absence of a threaded discussion feature.
ReplyDelete