I recently sat down with Terry Heick from TeachThought.com to chat about a whole host of topics, including global warming, data privacy, ePortfolios, and blogging with students.
Edublogs is happy to help spread the word each year about the DOGObooks Summer Reading Program!
The 'gamification' and badges movement in education has been growing for years. But we don't plan on adding a badging feature anytime soon.
Earlier this month, we opened up a fourth hosting location – this time in Australia!
Super Admin users now have several new and improved tools to help make managing networks easier.
Student blogging empowers students to take charge of their learning, gives their learning purpose while helping with reading, writing, digital citizenship, artistic, critical thinking, and social skills.
Don't miss out! The Student Blogging Challenge is starting soon and is a great way to connect your students with a global audience while helping develop their blogging skills.
While we may not have flying cars, hover boards that really hover (and don’t catch fire), or teleporters just yet, the past year has seen the launch of at least one future-age technology we’ve awaited for decades: virtual reality.
If you’re at TCEA in Austin this week, swing by Booth 1550 to say hi! Or, catch our Ronnie Burt’s session, If You Give a Student a Website, at 11am on Wednesday in the Connected Lounge.
We’re excited to kick-start the next round of Edublogs Teacher Challenges!
Each year we conduct a survey on how educators are using blogs. Read about this year's trends in 1-to-1, mobile devices, and more.
Thousands of votes have been cast, and we’ve tallied them all up. Many thanks to all that nominated, voted, and participated in this year’s awards!
We scoured the web for what professional bloggers have to say that might be applicable to educators and blogging with students. Here are our five favorite pro tips for writing better posts, getting more comments, and helping your students get the most educational value out of their blogs.
Personalizing your blog is, for most of us, a fun and rewarding endeavor.
And we just made that experience even better by adding dozens of new themes to Edublogs and CampusPress.
That brings the total number of new themes so far this year to nearly 100!
You can see the most recently added themes by visiting the Appearance > Themes menu item in your dashboard. There’s a filter there to sort by just the newest themes.
All of our themes are now mobile friendly and responsive, meaning they will look great no matter the size of the device visitors are using.
This does take a bit of getting used to, as menus and sidebars might get hidden or moved around on smaller screen sizes. This is by design and worth it, for sure!
If you’d like to learn more about using mobile friendly themes, check out our post on TheEdublogger here.
Give your blog a makeover and leave a link in the comments below.
We can’t wait to see all of the new looks and designs you all will come up with.
Happy blogging!
Personalizing your blog is, for most of us, a fun and rewarding endeavor.
And we just made that experience even better by adding dozens of new themes to Edublogs and CampusPress.
That brings the total number of new themes so far this year to nearly 100!
You can see the most recently added themes by visiting the Appearance > Themes menu item in your dashboard. There’s a filter there to sort by just the newest themes.
All of our themes are now mobile friendly and responsive, meaning they will look great no matter the size of the device visitors are using.
This does take a bit of getting used to, as menus and sidebars might get hidden or moved around on smaller screen sizes. This is by design and worth it, for sure!
If you’d like to learn more about using mobile friendly themes, check out our post on TheEdublogger here.
Give your blog a makeover and leave a link in the comments below.
We can’t wait to see all of the new looks and designs you all will come up with.
Happy blogging!
The new ‘Live Shortcodes‘ plugin makes it easy to add buttons, tabs, sidebars, accordions, and much more to your blog.
You can now take control over the content you publish like never before.
This plugin gives you the ability to easily add many new elements to your pages and posts.
Here is a quick overview of the available elements:
1. Accordions
Break content into sections that visitors can open and close.
2. Toggles
Just like accordions, but more than one section can be open at a time.
3. Tabs
Like an accordion too, but with the sections across the top.
4. Dividers
Break up paragraphs with one of several different divider styles.
5. Buttons
Customize the color, shape, and style of buttons that can be links to anywhere on the web.
6. Latest Posts
Show a list of latest posts from your blog. Customize the details that are shown.
7. RSS
Display content from any RSS feed on any page or post.
8. Reader Content
Show latest posts from your reader – blogs you follow or all posts you’ve written on the network.
9. My Class Blogs
Add a list of all student blogs in a class using the ‘My Class’ tool. Determine if the list is alphabetical, random, or most recently updated.
10. My Class Recent Posts
Place a list of all posts from student blogs that belong to a class.
And we plan on adding more to this list soon!
The Live Shortcodes plugin is available to all Edublogs Pro and CampusPress customers.
Just go to your Plugins menu and click Activate to enable.
Then, whenever you add a new page or post, you’ll see a new “Add Shortcodes” button above your editor.
It is super easy to use and to customize each element, but if you’d like any additional help, please see the full plugin help guide here.
Let us know in the comments below if you have any ideas or requests for items we can add to the shortcodes plugin. We’ll do our best to build them in!
In the meantime, we have more new exciting features and news coming later this week.
And don’t forget, time is running out on winning a FREE EDUBLOGS PRO in celebration of our 10th birthday!
Happy blogging!
The new ‘Live Shortcodes‘ plugin makes it easy to add buttons, tabs, sidebars, accordions, and much more to your blog.
You can now take control over the content you publish like never before.
This plugin gives you the ability to easily add many new elements to your pages and posts.
Here is a quick overview of the available elements:
1. Accordions
Break content into sections that visitors can open and close.
2. Toggles
Just like accordions, but more than one section can be open at a time.
3. Tabs
Like an accordion too, but with the sections across the top.
4. Dividers
Break up paragraphs with one of several different divider styles.
5. Buttons
Customize the color, shape, and style of buttons that can be links to anywhere on the web.
6. Latest Posts
Show a list of latest posts from your blog. Customize the details that are shown.
7. RSS
Display content from any RSS feed on any page or post.
8. Reader Content
Show latest posts from your reader – blogs you follow or all posts you’ve written on the network.
9. My Class Blogs
Add a list of all student blogs in a class using the ‘My Class’ tool. Determine if the list is alphabetical, random, or most recently updated.
10. My Class Recent Posts
Place a list of all posts from student blogs that belong to a class.
And we plan on adding more to this list soon!
The Live Shortcodes plugin is available to all Edublogs Pro and CampusPress customers.
Just go to your Plugins menu and click Activate to enable.
Then, whenever you add a new page or post, you’ll see a new “Add Shortcodes” button above your editor.
It is super easy to use and to customize each element, but if you’d like any additional help, please see the full plugin help guide here.
Let us know in the comments below if you have any ideas or requests for items we can add to the shortcodes plugin. We’ll do our best to build them in!
In the meantime, we have more new exciting features and news coming later this week.
And don’t forget, time is running out on winning a FREE EDUBLOGS PRO in celebration of our 10th birthday!
Happy blogging!
We’ve solved a huge missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to managing class blogs and sites with many users. We think you are going to love it!
As of today, Edublogs Pro users can invite users to join their blogs by simply sending them a join code. This means there is no more creating student or user accounts manually! This should really simplify the “getting started” process when managing large groups of users.
This feature integrates perfectly with our My Class tool, and it allows you to keep total control over who is added to your blog and what permissions they have once they join.
Here’s a small preview:
It’s easy!
Get started by visiting Users > Invite Users in your dashboard.
There is a new step in our signup process for adding in a join code. And existing users will find a join code field in their profile pages too.
If you’d like more detailed information on how it all works, visit our help site here.
This is just the beginning of the new features we’ll be adding through out the month of August.
And don’t forget, to celebrate 10 years, we’re giving away $10,000 in services too!
Learn more and enter to win here.
Happy blogging!
We’ve solved a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to managing class blogs and sites with many users. We think you are going to love it!
As of today, Edublogs Pro users can invite users to join their blogs by simply sending them a join code. This means there is no more creating student or user accounts manually! This should really simplify the “getting started” process when managing large groups of users.
This feature integrates perfectly with our My Class tool, and it allows you to keep total control over who is added to your blog and what permissions they have once they join.
Here’s a small preview:
It’s easy!
Get started by visiting Users > Invite Users in your dashboard.
There is a new step in our signup process for adding in a join code. And existing users will find a join code field in their profile pages too.
If you’d like more detailed information on how it all works, visit our help site here.
This is just the beginning of the new features we’ll be adding through out the month of August.
And don’t forget, to celebrate 10 years, we’re giving away $10,000 in services too!
Learn more and enter to win here.
Happy blogging!
As part of our month long celebration of 10 years of Edublogs, we’re excited to roll out a new look and feel to our home page!
This is only the beginning and in the coming weeks and months, we’ll add to this site and give a similar coat of paint to some of our other sites too, like TheEdublogger.com and our Help & Support site.
Beyond just an overall update, there are a few new gems and additions to the site worth noting, including:
New Sign-Up Form
The account creation process has been streamlined to make it easier for students and it now works better on mobile devices too. It is now possible for new users to create a username only (so no blog) if you’d like.
The Trending Section
Scroll down the home page a little, and there’s a new ‘Community’ section that showcases some of the latest posts from across Edublogs. Perhaps your blog’s posts will be featured on our home page soon!
The Features Page
We’ve created a new and improved features comparison chart that will make it easier to see the differences between our free, Pro, and CampusPress services. Check it out here.
Don’t Forget!During the month of August, we’re giving away over $10,000 of our services in celebration of our 10 year blogiversary. Learn more and enter to win here.
This re-design lays the groundwork for a huge new feature we’re excited to release in the very near future. So stay tuned!
As part of our month long celebration of 10 years of Edublogs, we’re excited to roll out a new look and feel to our home page!
This is only the beginning and in the coming weeks and months, we’ll add to this site and give a similar coat of paint to some of our other sites too, like TheEdublogger.com and our Help & Support site.
Beyond just an overall update, there are a few new gems and additions to the site worth noting, including:
New Sign-Up Form
The account creation process has been streamlined to make it easier for students and it now works better on mobile devices too. It is now possible for new users to create a username only (so no blog) if you’d like.
The Trending Section
Scroll down the home page a little, and there’s a new ‘Community’ section that showcases some of the latest posts from across Edublogs. Perhaps your blog’s posts will be featured on our home page soon!
The Features Page
We’ve created a new and improved features comparison chart that will make it easier to see the differences between our free, Pro, and CampusPress services. Check it out here.
Don’t Forget!During the month of August, we’re giving away over $10,000 of our services in celebration of our 10 year blogiversary. Learn more and enter to win here.
This re-design lays the groundwork for a huge new feature we’re excited to release in the very near future. So stay tuned!
It’s hard to believe, but today we are celebrating the TENTH birthday of Edublogs!
Our entire team is humbled and honored to have provided blogs and websites for millions of teachers and students over the past decade.
We certainly would not have reached this milestone without the support of people like you, and to say thanks, we’d like to give back.
Every single day in August, we’ll be giving away FREE Edublogs Pro subscriptions to lucky winners.
And then, on August 31st, we’ll choose a grand prize winner that will receive a free CampusPress network for his or her entire school, district, or university.
We plan to give away well over $10,000 worth of our services!
Entering is easy, just fill out this quick form here!
In addition to these giveaways, this will be our biggest month EVER in terms of announcing new features and tools that we know you will love.
Thanks again for helping Edublogs continue to grow as celebrate this milestone together.
And don’t forget to enter for your chance to win here!
Happy blogiversary to you all!
We’re happy to roll out two new tools that we think are huge for student and course blogging.
These features are available now on both free and Pro Edublogs and will be added to all CampusPress networks next week.
Let’s jump into it!
Teachers can now leave private comments for students – perfect for detailed feedback.
When reading a post in our ‘Reader’ tool in your dashboard, you’ll see a new check-box in the comments section.
Private comments can only be created and read by those that can edit the post. This means blog admins, teachers, editors, and the author of the post. Private comments will show up in the feed of other comments in the ‘Reader’.
Unread private comments will appear under the “Pending” link in the reader too. There will be a notification number alerting you that a private comment needs to be read.
This is ideal for those of you that teach more than one class and are looking for ways to organize all of your students’ blogs. You will be able to see a live feed of all posts from blogs in a list as they are published. Here is how the lists I made look:
Making your own lists is easy. Here’s how:
1. Click on the “Create new list” button in the bottom right corner of your dashboard.
2. Give your list a name. You can edit this name later.
3. Then add in the sites you want added. You can paste the full URL of the site, like theedublogger.edublogs.org.
4. Click ‘Create‘.
Make as many lists as you want.
Lists can be used for much more than just to organize student blogs. For example, groups, projects, or just keeping track of your favorite edubloggers all in one place!
There is a lot that the ‘reader’ tool can do that you may not be aware of. Here are just a few examples:
Easy Moderation
Do you approve student posts and comments? If so, make sure to use the “Pending” link to help you do so in a quick and easy way, without needing to click through to all of your students’ blogs.
Mobile Friendly
Login to your blog’s dashboard on a phone or tablet, right in any web browser, and you’ll be able to use the same features as on your desktop. This means you can keep track of student activity, reply to comments, moderate posts, and more from anywhere.
Search By Author, Title, Category, or Tag
Ask your students to add a common tag to their posts. Much like they would use a twitter hashtag.
Then, use the search in the reader to pull all posts using that tag. This is great for projects between classes, or when global events or activities take place like Poetry Month, sporting events, and more.
It is important to note that only posts from public blogs will show up in search results :)
RSS Feeds
Want to follow your students’ blogs in an RSS feed reader? Or perhaps create a flipboard magazine of posts in a list you have made?
Click the orange ‘RSS’ icon at the top of the reader and a private feed, just for you, will be created for whatever you are looking at. There’s lots of cool stuff that can be done with this, and be on the lookout for a more detailed follow up post!
As always, we’ll continue to work hard to bring you new tools and features.
Let us know in the comments below if there is anything you’d like to see!
Today we’re excited to announce we’ve rolled out many more new beautiful themes.
All these themes are mobile friendly; designed to display nicely on all devices. Bring a fresh, sophisticated look to your blog with one of these new themes while making your posts easier to read on tablets and phones.
What’s more, we’ve sorted all themes into categories to make it easier to find your next theme.
Visit Appearance > Themes and click on a Category link at the top of the theme screen to display themes from that category.
We’ve sorted themes into:
Here is a quick review of a few of the new themes:
Fifteen by Rohit Tripathi is a beautifully designed WordPress theme with a grid layout which makes it prefect for showcasing your work. It’s ideal for photography and portfolio based websites for showcasing your photos or creative work.
Other popular themes by the same designer are Preus, Sixteen, Coller, Inkness, Market, Temptation, NewP, Aldehyde. You need to set a featured image in your posts to display images on the blog post page when using these themes.
Hueman by Alexander Agnarson is a minimalist, flat theme that is ideal for magazine websites. This theme provides extensive styling options and flexible layout.
Check it out in action on The Edublogger.
Swiss by Tommek is a simple minimalist theme chosen for those educators who are looking for something a bit different for their class blog.
Popular class blog themes include Magazino, Noteworthy. Pachyderm, Patchwork, Radiate, Scrappy, Something Fishy, Stitch, Surfarama and Writr.
There is something for everyone in these new themes and hope you enjoy them.
Give these new themes a try by going to Appearance > Themes.
Happy blogging!
so cool
Good idea! I might have a go at that and recomend it too my mates!