Administrating Your Learners’ Blogs
New Year: Learners’ blogs at the start of each year
Link blog post to profile to widget
Add links to a widget (Tuhi Mai, Tuhi Atu or student blog links)
Remove and add an existing user to a blog
Creating Photo Galleries for edublog posts
Schedule Posts from your learners’ blogs on your Class Blog
Embed images from Google Drive
Cybersmart Blogging
Blogging is integral to cybersmart learning and personifies the pedagogy and goals of our education programme.
Blogging enables our learners to connect with an authentic audience for their learning outcomes. Providing increased opportunities to engage in interactions and decision making with peers, whānau and a wider audience.
To be effective in our blogging process we have systems for: Administering Blogs, Establishing blogs, Blog Layout and Settings, Transitioning blogs
edublogs - resources and recommendations
New Year: Learners’ blogs at the start of each year
I am a Year XX student at XX School in XX, New Zealand. I am in Room XXX and my teacher is XXX
Are you Administrator for all your learners’ blogs?
To check if you are admin of a learner’s blog.
Login to your edublogs account, open the learner’s blog and paste the following after the blog URL and press enter /wp-admin/users.php
All learners’ blogs should have at least three users
Are you receiving an email notification when a comment is left on a learner’s blog?
Login to your edublogs account, open the learner’s blog and paste the following after the blog’s URL and press enter
/wp-admin/options-discussion.php
If the CP Comment notification has been disabled go to plugins - search - CP Comment notification and enable.
Insert your email here
Cybersmart: Smart Footprint - Blog Profile
New Blogs
Create and share a blog profile
For new bloggers we recommend their profile is their first post. Teachers as admin can then update the profile gadget and/or include a link to the profile post.
Existing Blogs
Updating your blog profile each year
Reviewing and updating your online profiles demonstrates you are taking responsibility for keeping your digital footprint up-to-date.
Update the blog profile widget
Locate:
> Visit Site
> Customise
> General
> Site Identity
> Tag line
PUBLISH
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Teacher will paste prepared text into the Tagline
1
New Blog:
Link blog post to profile widget
Once the learner has posted their profile the teacher, as admin of the learner's blog, will link this post and profile picture in the About Me | Ko Wai Ahau widget in the top right sidebar - see screencast right.
Tip: Add media first then paste link to the blog post
Add links to a widget (Tuhi Mai, Tuhi Atu or student blog links)
Components of a blog post (click to enlarge)
Site Title - Class Name & School
Smart Footprint
Tagline - Learners, School, Teacher
Smart Footprint
Blog profile is current
Smart Footprint
Recent Comments Smart Relationships
Blog Categories and Tags
Smart Learner
Link class site
Smart Learner
Subscribe by Email
Smart Footprint
Search this Blog
Smart Learner
Learner Blogs
Smart Relationships
The blog template, including the header and widgets, is specifically designed to support our Cybersmart Learning.
More tips for harnessing your class blog
Blog Template Design
Recent Posts
Smart Learner
Blog Feed
Share
Tags - Using Them Effectively
Tags are useful for both bloggers and their readers as they enable posts to be viewed and searched within the blog. When tags are created they appear in the tags widget in the sidebar of the blog. Click on a tag and this creates a unique URL that displays all the blog posts with that tag.
Each blog comes with curriculum tags already established. We recommend including tags from key competencies, special character labels specific to your school, kura and learners.
Tags enable both you and your readers to locate relevant blog posts quickly and share or use them to:
Tags are like hashtags but inside a blog
When your learners are actively sharing on their own blogs, use their posts to keep your class blog refreshed ... even if it is only one post a week!
Copy and paste posts from your learners’ blogs to your class blog. This is a quick way to keep your class blog updated regularly whilst highlighting your learners' blogs and their posts.
Decide on how much time you have each week to do this e.g. 15 minutes. In this time you may begin by scheduling one or two posts for example. However as you become more confident this number will increase.
Schedule Posts from your learners’ blogs on your Class Blog
Before the end of each school term schedule posts to your class blog for every other day or at least a couple each week. Scheduled posts will publish automatically to your class blog. Consider including the link to the learner's blog in the post too.
Embed a Slide Deck
minus the black bars on the side
Empower your learners to edit html when they share on their blogs or
customise when publishing to the web
Size to embed slide deck in edublog width="610" height="380"
Screencast
Edit an existing post
Click the title of the post to view the Edit Post icon
Set up BlogRoll
A quick alternative - Copy the hyperlinked names from the edublogs admin sheet. Insert text box widget and paste hyperlinked names. Your facilitator can help with this.
Remove and add an existing user to a blog
Embed photos from Google Drive
Reminder to set permissions for photo folders to anyone with the link.
Creating Photo Galleries for edublog posts
Google Photo Albums
Using Google Photos to create collages and animations for the class site.
This is a timesaver as it enables teachers to create and share a selection of photos quickly.
Upload images to Google Photos
Create a collage or animation.
Collages can be uploaded as an image.
Animations can be embedded.
Collage view on edublogs
Animation - view on edublogs
See slide notes for more
iPads - Learners insert video