Meet Liquorice – A fun new mobile friendly theme

 
A couple of weeks ago, we introduced you to Yokoour most mobile and iPad friendly theme yet.

As of today, we’re adding Liquorice to the mix, which is also “responsive” to whatever screen size your blog’s visitors are using.

We think many of you will like the more whimsical fonts and easy to read layout of this new theme.

Make sure to go to Appearance > Premium Themes and check it out!

For those of you that don’t want to change themes and still offer your mobile readers something good to look at, not to worry, we’ve got even bigger news coming soon on that front!

Fun NEW Facts About Your Edublogs URL

Whenever you first create a blog here on edublogs.org you are given a brand new URL, or link, for your site.

For example, studentchallenge.edublogs.org is the URL for the Student Blogging Challenge blog.

As of today, you can also access the same site using studentchallenge.edublogs.com – see what we did there?

Even though the .org ending is the real URL (and the one you should use and give out to people), the .com ending will now work!

This will especially come in handy when giving out class blog links to students and parents that can forget or get the URL mixed-up.

Other Fun URL Facts

  • We see lots of users that out of habit, put a www. at the beginning of their URL. And while that will work too, it makes your link longer than it needs to be. Leave the www off! :)
  • You can use domain mapping to change your URL to any available domain on the web. For example, theedublogger.edublogs.org is domain mapped to theedublogger.com – which is much shorter and easier to remember!
  • You can have an unlimited number of blogs, all with different URLs, with your one username. Just go to the “My Blogs” page in your dashboard to create new ones or manage the ones you already have.

Happy blogging!

A New Theme! Our Most Mobile and iPad Friendly Yet

We are thrilled to unveil a brand new theme today!

Yoko – as it is called – is our first “responsive” and HTML5 theme.

This means that it will look great on all types of devices – including tablets and phones.

Exciting, huh?

This works because the theme is designed to move the sidebars and change image and text sizes automatically  – all depending on the screen size.

You can see the theme in action on Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day blog.

Features

  • Responsive and mobile friendly design
  • Custom header image with several pre-set images to choose from
  • Select the link and background colors to personalize the look
  • A social widget that makes it easy to share links to your facebook, twitter, google+, and linkedn profiles
  • Modern feel using the latest in web design

Yoko is already available as a ‘premium’ theme on edublogs.org blogs – for Pro and upgraded student blogs. It will soon be available on all Edublogs Campus sites as well.

Quick help with themes:

  1. Changing your blog’s theme
  2. Uploading your own custom header image
  3. Creating your own custom navigation menu

We’ve got more themes like this in the works to release over the coming months. If you haven’t updated your blog’s look in a while – now might be a great time to do so!

Happy blogging!

Simply Amazing – A Story of Global Connections Through Blogging

One of the best parts about working at Edublogs is seeing daily all of the amazing learning experiences of students through blogging.

We regularly try to share these examples on our Facebook and Twitter pages, but this one in particular seemed worthy of a bit more.

Six teachers, from six different corners of the world, have collaborated together and co-created the Our World, Our Stories project blog.

The seven week long project has a different class, each from a different country, leading the students through learning experiences each week. For example, this week the students are discussing about the similarities and differences between their typical school days in each country.

You can learn more about all of the details on the about page here.

We absolutely love this idea and encourage everyone to check-in on the blog over the coming weeks to see how it plays out.

Or if you are interested in doing something similar with your students, feel free to leave your name, location, age group, and a link to your blog or contact info in the comments below. 

Perhaps you can find willing classes to start a global blogging project on your own.

What amazing work by these teachers, and what an exciting experience for these students!

Edublogs Update: Manage multiple blogs with a more powerful ‘My Blogs’ page

When Edublogs was first started years ago, most users just had one blog that they kept up with.

Now, with the exciting increase of student blogging, many users are managing hundreds of blogs all from their one account!

The newly revamped ‘My Blogs‘ page, found in the top left under ‘Dashboard‘, now makes it all so much easier.

From this page, you can:

The links above will take you to our user guide pages with loads of more information and detailed directions.

Be sure to visit Dashboard > My Blogs to see more.

Used along with the recently improved Blog & User Creator, the My Blogs page will help you setup and mange as many student blogs as you may need.

Improving parent communication in 3 short steps

Earlier today, this blog post was published on Edutopia.org that shares results of a recent survey by the National School Public Relations Association in the US.

The survey asked parents and non-parents (over 43,000 of them!) how they want to be kept informed about what’s going on at school.

The results were surprising in that social media networks such as Facebook or Twitter did not make the top of the list at all. In fact, they ranked below television and attending school board meetings!

Luckily for those with blogs, 4 out of the top 5 methods most requested can be taken care of in a flash. In short, parents like information to be on a website (which is really what a blog is) and they like email notification.

So be sure to setup email subscription notifications of new posts on your blog, and you should be all set!

You can see email subscription in action in the top right of the sidebar of this post – subscribe if you would like!

There are two methods to enable subscription described below – one for Edublogs.org and one for blogs on one of our Edublogs Campus sites.

Here’s how to do it on Edublogs.org blogs:

Step 1: Activate the “Widget Pack” plugin

Found in the Plugins menu of your dashboard – this will give you access to many cool widgets!

Step 2: Drag over the “Email Subscription” widget

Go to Appearance > Widgets.

Place the Email Subscription widget, which will appear when you activate the “Widget Pack” plugin, into one of the sidebars of your blog.

Step 3: Ask parents to subscribe!

That is really it!

Once parents put in their email address, they will get a quick email with every blog post you make. This way, you can keep all of your announcements, newsletter information, and the like on your blog and they can be notified when anything new is posted.

For Edublogs Campus Users

It is even a bit easier for our Campus users.

Just go to Appearance > Widgets and add the “Subscribe by Email” widget to a sidebar.

Then let parents know to subscribe. You can keep track of who has subscribed using the “Subscriptions” menu item in your dashboard.

Any other advice you would like to share on keeping parents in the loop? Share in the comments below!

Provide some details for your blog
No stress, you can always change this later on.
Use only lowercase letters (a-z) and numbers.
.edublogs.org

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