Category: blog

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!

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!

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:

• Select your primary blog
• Close or archive multiple blogs at the same time
• Bulk add a user to multiple blogs
• Remove yourself from multiple blogs at once
• Go between multiple blog dashboards with ease

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.

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!

We did it!

Well, actually YOU did it!

We have officially surpassed the ONE MILLION blog mark here on Edublogs.org!

Truthfully, we have several hundred thousand additional blogs on our Edublogs Campus sites which put us over the top over  a year ago.

But we couldn’t be more excited, as this also means we will remain 100% advertisement free, even on free blogs! :)

Here are some things we would appreciate you do to help us celebrate:

 

1. Become a facebook fan and follow us on twitter to keep up to date with our latest news – we also like to randomly give away free Edublogs Pro accounts to our fans and followers :) Share our great news with your followers too if you like!

2. Check out the Teacher Challenges to brush up on your blogging skills or share it with others who may just be wanting to start out. This self-paced free and open professional development will take your blogging to the next level.

3. Let your school administrator or tech coordinator know about Edublogs, our million blog milestone, and what we offer – including the ability to make it easy to create and manage as many blogs as you want through an Edublogs Campus site.

4. Write a post on your blog about our millionth blog and/or what you like about blogging – leave a comment below with a link to the post.

And for anyone that leaves a comment below with a link to your blogging post we’ll put you in for a drawing for a free Edublogs Pro annual subscription (or extension if you are already a Pro user)!

We’ll also give you a SECOND Pro account to give to a colleague of your choice! 

Make sure to get your post and comment in by Wednesday, August 24th.

Happy blogging!