Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Best blog platform for elementary students

I can't believe the school year is winding down already! It was just September and most of the class didn't even know what a blog was, now each student has their own individual blog and some have started independent blogs. As a 4th grade teacher, I was worried about exposing students to the comments of the general public, so I decided to use the kidblog platform for student blogs and use blogspot for my teacher/classroom blog posts. Good thing! Kidblog is definitely the winner in my book for which blog to introduce students to. With kidblog, I monitor all of the comments and posts- it sounds like a pain, but it really isn't. I have a master "administrative" account in which I create student sub-accounts. Everything can be found on one page and no sneaky comments can slide through unless I don't monitor carefully enough. I have found that the blogspot platform is geared more for older students. I do love the widgets and gadgets that you can add on blogspot, but the security of it is lacking for young students. I have to delete a lot of "iffy" comments from people that include links to strange sites, so that is my main reason for promoting the kidblog site over the blogspot. Check out the link on the right to all of the kidblogs and you will see that the writing/commenting works just fine. No fancy gadgets or widgets, but maybe that will come with time. Let me know your thoughts!
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2 comments:

  1. Mrs ParkinsonJune 20, 2013 at 2:28 AM

    Hi Kellie
    I agree blogspot is a great blogging platform however it is frustrating when you get comments that include odd websites. My techsperx check the class emails daily and initially asked me what to do with these emails. We deleted them together and from there they have learned which to report as spam or publish. Apart from that we have found it very successful.
    Your class is very savvy on their blogs and my class have thorough enjoyed our epals exchange.
    Asri

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousAugust 6, 2013 at 10:41 PM

      Many thanks Asri! You have been a tremendous e-pal! Please keep in touch! Kellie

      Delete

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