Blogs in the Classroom

http://edublogs.org/ is another PDSB approved site but more functionality is built into kidblog.org for free. Kidblog also has dedicated Android and Apple apps so that students can easily add content to their class blog via a personal device.

Hit the "Create a Class" button

You can use a free hotmail email address if you do not wish to use your Peel account.

Your account must be verfied before you can move to the next step.

Hit the "New Post" button on the top left hand corner of the screen.
Think of a great question that will motivate your students to make comments.

When you are done hit "publish"

Your students can have students quickly sign up via an access code. Hit the settings button at the top and click on the "Users can join class using code" choice below and then "Regenerate".

When kids first go to the www.kidblog.org page they can use the "Secret Code" button to automatically login and join your class

Enter the "Settings" page once more. To make it easier for students to have discussions, change the "Enable threaded *nested" comments to a higher number. Also click on "Enable rich-text comments", so that students can include links and multimedia objects in their comments.

You can now easily create teacher entries for the students to view and comment on. Student sub-blogs are automatically created as well (accessible from the right hand side of the page). Students sub-blogs provide a great place for students to reflect on their learning, and post evidence of their changing understanding of subject matter. Here are some example blogs:

http://vceenviroscience.edublogs.org/

http://tskinnersbec.edublogs.org/

In the 'Settings' tab there is a tab labelled "Themes". Find one that suits your class.