Written by I love WordPress, but apparently it’s not secure enough to use with my students. Edublogs, the WordPress site for schools, now charges $99.00 per blog to keep it private. The only security feature you can now have on the free blog is discouraging search engines from showing the site. The funny thing is, you can still have privacy for free on WordPress’s main site.
I then discovered kidblog, which seems both secure and easy to use, though of course it lacks many of WordPress’ features. Has anyone else tried kidblog? What did you think of it?
Hi Patti,
What’s great is that you’re getting your students to blog!! I haven’t used KidBlog – we use Blogger with my students, but as @adamcaplan mentioned on Twitter – ” Sharing and publishing in classrooms will be, to the next 10 years, what reflection was to the previous 10. #youhearditherefirst #cohort21″
So I would say that you’re on the right track! Check out own blogging suggestions from our first face to face to get some ideas about how to set it up and what to include.
Here is a comprehensive resource to help you get your students started, http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/blogging-with-students/.
Good luck Patti and check out @bnichols to see how she’s using blogging in her classroom.
Also, @alupo is using KidBlog and has been for two years. Amanda can you give Patti some tips?
Hi Patti,
I’m a Cohort21 Alum and I have been using KidBlog for a number of years! I find that it does many of the things that I want to be able to do in the free version and the upgraded version is only around $25 per year for the kids to be able to personalize their blog and upload larger files. It has a good mobile app for using on iPads and allows me to moderate the posts and comments. There are various privacy levels and you can add a password as well.
Let me know if you have any questions,
– Marcie
Hi Patti,
I love KidBlog for my Grade 6 students. It is very easy to navigate and you can secure the site so only parents and students have access to it. I find that the students really enjoy using Kidblog because they are able to navigate the site on their own. I recently upgraded my membership to see what else KidBlog had to offer. For $25, students are now able to customize the theme of their page to make it more personalized. This was a very exciting feature for them, as they felt that they could truly make the blog their own.
Hope this helps!
Glogster is also a really great site for this. It is slightly more visual, but can be used for the same purpose. It is still a paid site, but I think it is slightly cheaper than $99.
Hey Patti,
You might also want to touch base with @bnichols to see what she uses as a platform for her student blogging!
CK
Wow ! Talk about support! Great sharing going on in this post. I think kid blog is worth the $$. The privacy tools are perfect for the age and stage.