Edublogs are now more student friendly than ever!

If you have logged into your blog lately, you might have seen a screen that looks like this when you first signed in:

easyblogging

This is a new feature that is designed for younger and beginning bloggers to simplify the blog dashboard area by rearranging and hiding some of the less used features.

If you don’t see this screen or would like to switch back and forth between the two Admin Areas, look for buttons like these on the top right of your blog’s dashboard:

The new ‘Easy Admin Area’ simplifies all of the most common functions of setting up and editing a blog, including creating posts and pages, and changing themes and appearances.

This is the ideal setting for student bloggers and those just starting out, and user management and plugin settings are still just a click away in the familiar Advanced Admin Area.

Even more helpful features:

Help Example
Example of New Help Tip

In addition to the Easy Admin Area, you will also find new “tips” and help information right inside of both Admin Areas.

Try clicking on one of the many blue question marks to get a quick tip or checking out the boxes scattered throughout the dashboard with extra information and reminders.

We’re working to improve existing tips and add new ones all of the time, so we would love your input should you see something we should add.

Now, more than ever, Edublogs truly is the most student friendly blogging solution available.

With these new features, you should feel confident that new users of all levels can navigate around blogging dashboards with ease.

What exactly is Edublogs Campus?

If you have a blog on Edublogs.org, you probably have seen information about Edublogs Campus. We get many questions each day asking us to give a bit more information on Campus, and I’d like to take this opportunity to point out a few of the main reasons why you should consider it for your school.
edublogs_newsletter_header_new
Edublogs Campus is designed to be a complete blogging solution for a school, university, or school district.  We take care of all of the hosting, upkeep, and support so that educators can focus on the impact that blogging can have on learning and student achievement.

Every Edublogs Campus package comes with unlimited uploads and bandwidth, powerful and student friendly functionality, and 100+ professional designs – all at your own domain.

Bringing Edublogs to an entire school or organization has proven to show an increase in overall communication, collaboration, and student engagement. We provide all that you need for a smooth implementation so that teachers and students can begin blogging in as little as a few days.

Here are the top five reasons why you should consider Edublogs Campus today!

5. User Management

Though we do have a blog and user creator available to Pro users, you might find that with 30 or more blogs, it isn’t always easy to manage, monitor, and set up student blogs this way.  Campus solves all of these problems by giving complete blog and user control to site administrators who are able to set up and maintain as many teacher and student blogs as you can imagine.

In addition, we can integrate Campus login information with existing LDAP and other authentication systems.  One less password to remember is definitely an important feature these days!

4. Customization

Campus sites allow for personalization and customization of the look and feel of sites.  For starters, Campus sites have a unique domain such as blogs.cornell.edu or literacy44.ca.  We help you upload your school’s logo and colors to the site, and with many Campus packages, we can have a new customized theme developed as well!

3. Privacy

We have schools using Campus in a wide variety of ways, and you can be assured that whatever privacy restrictions you would like to implement, we can make happen.  This includes password protection, content filtering, and a wide variety of settings for user privileges.

2. Expertise

Edublogs is run by the same team that is behind many of the largest blogging sites on the web. We guarantee the highest levels of server reliability and security. Should it be needed, we even make complete back-ups twice weekly, just in case.

1. Help & Support

We are famous for our help and support, and we will be there to answer any questions and provide guidance whenever you may need.  As a team of experienced educators, we pride ourselves in providing a student friendly service.

We would love to show you around Campus or answer any questions you may have.  Please use our contact form to let us know if you might be interested in learning more about Campus.

Take your tag cloud to the third dimension!

Tags are an excellent way to organize blog posts and helps blog visitors browse posts based on a specific topic.

Tag clouds are a useful way of showing which tags are more popular than others on a blog.  The larger the size of the word in the tag cloud the more posts that have been tagged using that term.

We’ve just installed a new plugin for Edublogs Pro and Campus users which brings your tag cloud into the new decade.

Plus, I think that you will find that it is a lot of fun to play with!

Here is the 3D tag cloud in action for our Edublogs News blog:

[wp-cumulus]

Activating the plugin is as simple as:

  1. Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins
  2. Click activate underneath 3D Flash Rotating Tag Cloud (WP Cumulus)

After activating this plugin, you will have access to a new ‘WP Cumulus’ menu under the ‘Settings’ tab of your dashboard.  From here you can control the speed, color, and several other functions of the tag cloud.

You can even choose to use categories alongside or instead of tags.

The plugin allows you to put your 3D cloud on any page or post or in a new widget on your sidebars.

For one more example, check out the 3D tag cloud in the right sidebar of TheEdublogger.com!

Adding a 3D Tag cloud

Using forums for learning

forumsMessage boards, or forums, are commonplace on many websites around the web. Many people turn them when planning a vacation, for advice, or to get help (like on our Edublogs support forums).

Forums are increasingly popular in the classroom as well as a way to organize and foster collaboration among students.

Edublogs Pro and Campus users can create forums right inside of their blogs.  For information on how to set them up, visit our help document here.

Using Forums For Learning

Here is a quick list of ideas on how forums can be used in the classroom:

  • Class discussion – Try asking an open ended question on a regular basis.  Have students make an initial reply and then follow up replies to two or more of their classmates
  • A virtual parking lot – Student can ask questions whenever they may need and get help from teachers and students alike
  • Group management – During a project, groups can use forums to organize thoughts and share updates periodically
  • Turning in assignments – Students can write responses to essay and short answer questions as a thread in a forum giving all students in the class the opportunity to review and learn from each other

How else have you used or do you envision using forums to improve student learning?  We would love to hear your comments below.

Feel free to also leave a link to your blog if you’ve tried out forums before so we can all benefit from your experiences!

“Like” us on Facebook and win!

While we have more than 5,000 followers on Twitter, we really haven’t wandered into the pages of Facebook before – that is until now!

Our new Facebook page is an excellent way to keep up with the latest news and educational uses of Edublogs.

We are keeping track of all new “likes” between now and Tuesday the 1st of June, and will be giving away five free Pro accounts to five of our new fans!  You can extend an existing Pro account for an additional 12 months or get a brand new one.

Just click the “like” button below or visit our page at facebook.com/edublogs.

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