Edublogs

Edublogs is a blogging tool which is allows students and teachers to create online journals/diaries to share their thoughts and ideas with others. They can include text, audio, images and videos. Blogging allows students to engage in 21^st century learning within their classroom and beyond.  There are many blogging sites available to use. This page focuses on Edublogs and how it can be used by teachers and students to enhance learning.

• What is Edublogs?
• What are the features and benefits of Edublogs?
• How can you use Edublogs in the classroom?
• The potential challenges and barriers
• Professional Reviews

      Web 2.0 Tool Star Rating:

Link to Edubogs Website:
http://edublogs.org/

Edublogs is one of many interactive web 2.0 tools which encourages students to participate in reflective work as well as enabling teachers and students to share work with others. An Edublog is a blog written by someone with a stake in education. Examples might include blogs written by or for teachers, blogs maintained for the purpose of classroom instruction, or blogs written by students. Edublogs is a web 2.0 tool which is rapidly emerging, as techno-savvy teachers embrace the instructional potential of this online tool.

Edublogs can be used:

• To communicate
• As an instructional resource
• As a collaborative tool
• As a showcase for student projects

Edublogs encourages collaborative learning and develops higher order thinking skills. It gives students the opportunity to review other people's postings and responses to subject matter, to compare their knowledge and comprehension level, and to benefit from the strategy uses they and their peers employ.

Edublogs website hosts over hundreds of thousands of blogs for teachers, students, researchers, professors, librarians, administrators and anyone and everyone else involved in education. The Edublogs tool is completely free to all users and gives the user 20 MB of free uploading space which can be easily extended to 5 GB by becoming a supporter.

                                       Creating an Edublog Account: (Short Video)                                        

Print Screen Shot of Edublogs

Back to top

What are the features and benefits of Edublogs?

While there are many different blogging sites available to use, Edublogs has many benefits which make it simple and easy to use in schools.

These include:

• It is free to use and comes with 20MB of free upload space
• Has the option to upgrade your membership and become an Edublogs supporter for additional upload space and features. For more information click here.
• It is often not blocked and can be accessed on school networks
• Teachers can create be administrators and create, manage and moderate all of their student's blogs.

Edublogs has many easy to use and exciting features including:

• Customisable themes
• Auto spell check and auto save
• Image and file upload
• Video embedding from YouTube, Google Video and more
• Technical support and FAQ's

Back to top

How can you use Edublogs in the classroom?

There are many different ways in which teachers can use Edublogs with their students. This tool is suitable to be used with all year levels and subjects. Teachers can create whole class blogs for younger students, while older students are able to create and write their own blogs.

When starting out, teachers may like to write their own posts and have students comment on them. As teachers and students become more comfortable with the tool, students can start to write their own and comment on each others posts.

Class blogs can be used in a variety of ways. They are a good starting point for teachers who are learning how to use the tool. They can be used to:

• Post materials and resources for students to access at school and at home
• Host online discussions about a particular topic
• Create class newsletters to keep parents informed about what is happening in the classroom
• Give students the opportunity to write and reflect on particular topics and comment on their peer's blog posts
• As a homepage that links to individual student blogs
• Collaborate and share ideas with other classes and students from around the world

For more tips and tricks see

• 10 Ways to use your Edublog to teach
• Quick Start Tips for Student Blogging Part 1: Setting Up Your Class Blog
• Quick Start Tips for Student Blogging Part 2: Setting Up Your Student Blogs

Here are examples of some good classroom blogs that teachers have set up to use with their students:

Junior Primary

• 2Gems
• Look What's Happening in Room 102 
  
• 2KM @ Leopold Primary School

Primary

• 09 Allstars 
• Our Space

Secondary

• Eight is Great 2008-2009

• A Common Recreation

Back to top

The potential challenges and barriers

While blogging has many benefits, there are some potential challenges and barriers that come with  using this tool with students. It is important that teachers fully understand these before beginning to blog with their students.

Some of the challenges that you could face when using blogs are:

• Cyber Safety - It is important to gain permission from parents allowing their child to post information on their blogging site. It is also an idea to refrain from posting student's full names and images of students on blogs to protect confidentiality. The privacy settings on Edublogs allow you to make blogs private and unable to be found by search engines.
  
• Comment moderation - It is important that the teacher moderates all comments that are posted on their student's blogs. The internet doesn't have a filtering system so anybody on the internet can post a comment on the students blog page. For information about moderating comments click here. 
  
• Cyberbullying - If the teacher doesn't monitor each blog and the comments of each student then there could be a chance of some students bullying other students not only in the classroom but over the internet as well. Cyberbullying is one of the biggest problems in schools at the moment and it is becoming harder to stop as students now have mobile phones and access to the internet.
• Staff Training and Development - Staff will need T & D on blogging so that they can become experts on how to use the tool and to deal with any potential challenges that occur. Don't try blogging unless you fully understand the potential challenges that may occur. 
• Access to computers - Does your school have computer and internet access for all students? If not, an option could be setting up a class blog rather than individual student blogs.
  
• Filtering programs - Some blogging sites may be blocked by filters in schools. Edublogs is one that is often not blocked and can be accessed on school computers.
  
• Social justice issues - Students from wealthy families will be more likely to have computer  and internet access at home compared to those students from low socio-economic backgrounds.
  

More information about Cyber Safety

• DECS Policy on Cyber Safety
• Net Alert
• Wise Up To It
  

Back to top

Professional Reviews

• David Truss, a Canadian educator living in China speaks about his experiences with blogging and how he uses it with students in his video Blogs as Learning Spaces

Interviews with educators and students on the benefits of blogging and how it can be used in the classroom

Thank you to
Julie Lindsay - http://123elearning.blogspot.com/
Kim Cofino - http://mscofino.edublogs.org/
Anne Mirtschin - http://murcha.wordpress.com/
Paul Blogush and his students - http://blogush.edublogs.org/

A special thank you to Sue Waters from Edublogs for organising these videos for us.

Blogging Links

• For more information about Blogging for Professional Learning click here

                                  Other Blogging sites include

Page designed by David Maglieri, Amy Battista and Jay Reimann as part of EDET 3302
Learning with Computers