Edublogs is a WordPress-based web publishing tool for students, teachers, and school administrators. Edublogs facilitates blog creation, publishing, and maintenance with added educational features. The tool can serve as a place for students to submit their work, demonstrate knowledge and skills, and document progress.
Edublogs can be used to communicate with students and their families. Schools and school districts that do not have access to a fully functional learning management system (LMS) can benefit from using Edublogs for sharing assignments, class information, and school events with students and their families.
Edublogs can be accessed in a web browser or through a smartphone or tablet application.
Edublogs is a web publishing tool that facilitates blog and website creation, publishing, and maintenance for students, teachers, and school administrators. The tool works with the majority of commonly used media file types (audio, video, etc.), which provides for nearly unlimited user creativity. A blog will expand the in-class learning into the online settings with potential benefits for students and teachers.
Edublogs allows a teacher to create accounts for students, give blogging assignments, and organize blogging-related activities. The tool provides for cross-classroom and global communications. The tool gives an opportunity for a teacher to develop additional skills in their students. For example, during a blogging assignment, students will learn how to reflect on their work. During peer-review sessions, students will learn to understand the perspectives of others and obtain healthy habits of online communication outside the classroom. The tool’s commenting feature provides for immediate and targeted teacher feedback for individual students, teams, and groups. A teacher can use the tool as an additional form of assessment for formative evaluations. A teacher can also share student-created content with parents/guardians for advanced transparency and communication.
Using Edublogs, students will develop digital content creation and online communication skills in a safe environment as opposed to popular social media platforms. For example, students can create personal portfolios, discuss homework assignments, or prepare group projects and lab reports.
The Pro version of the tool has extended features, such as additional storage, search engine capability for public sharing, complete visitor statistics, and email subscriptions. The version’s features are not necessary for everyday individual teacher blogging, but can be helpful for a teacher, who wants to advance their blogging skills, bring sharing to the next level, and go public (to the out-of-school web community).
The CampusPress version of the tool is designed for schools and school districts. In addition to the Pro version’s features, the tool has unlimited storage and the network management tools, such as single sign on, custom domains, and a choice of a local data center. The tool can serve as a school- and/or school district-wide solution to substitute the missing or supplement the existing learning management system. For example, a school administrator can create a full-scale school website with learning management system-like features.
Edublogs tool has three versions, which provide a variety of features to meet specific user needs. The Free version is fully functional with no advertisements. The two paid versions are Pro with some extended features, such as additional data storage, and CampusPress for schools and school districts. The tool’s free no-advertisement version provides a safe and expansive online learning environment for a diversity of students, who would otherwise be either left behind or would have to view the advertisers-paid content to get access to the tool’s features.
Edublogs’s content filters, moderation options, and multiple privacy features make the tool safe for all types of users, including K-12 students. For example, teachers can select specific privacy features, such as feedback visibility, for students. Students under the age of 13 can only join by an invite code received from a teacher or school-sponsored account. Alternatively, the students under the age of 13 must provide a written permission from a parent or guardian. Edublogs Privacy Policy document can be used for additional reference.