Blogging without student email?

I've searched long and hard. I am trying to find a blogging tool that does NOT require students to have an email to sign up. Is there one out there? Blogger requires a Google Account. Edublogs requires a student email address just to get a username. 21classes requires email, Wordpress requires email.... are there ANY that don't require email??

I'd like to get more teachers at my school blogging with their kids, and they're definitely interested. BUT the initial setup time is frustrating to those without a lot of tech skills and then they don't want to try anymore. They're throwing in the towel before they even begin.

Anyone have suggestions on efficient blog setup?

Tags: blogging

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Glenn Moses on February 6, 2008 at 8:19am

I host with aplus.net (which has an automated WordPress set up in the control panel). You might want to check out siteground.com. I hear very good things about them.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phil on February 11, 2008 at 3:30pm

Funny. I left aplus.net after several years. I switched over to bluehost.com. Although aplus was not bad, they did not have the auto install at the time. I was on my own for installing Moodle. Bluehost.com does this automatically. Also, for tech support I talk with American college students in Utah, not people in India.

I have heard good things about siteground as well.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ellen on September 24, 2008 at 9:40am

Welcome 'back.' =)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Cory Plough on February 5, 2008 at 6:53pm

The way around this I found for my kids is just to pick a nickname through blogger instead of signing into an account. I have them put first name last initial as there nickname and its worked so far.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by WmChamberlain on February 5, 2008 at 7:02pm

I had the same problem. I really like Blogger and I wanted my students to have the flexibility it gives (as well as the familiarity I have with it). I finally decided to bite the bullet and create email addresses with Gmail. Little did I know that creating more than a few email addresses from one IP address sets off spam bells.

Gmail suggested I use Google Apps to create a group. It wasn't the easiest thing to set up, but it was definitely worth it. They now have email addresses, can work together with Google docs, and they can chat with each other using Gchat. Basically what I did was create a social networking site with just my class. The best thing for me as a teacher is that I can at any time drop any part of the apps (gmail, chat, whatever).

I had to do some strange work arounds to make it work for me, but I now have my students set up with their own blogs. I have their blogs email me when they post so that I can add all their individual posts to one blog.

Good luck on whatever you choose.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 5, 2008 at 7:47pm

My co-teacher decided to use Google Docs for a Writers Workshop so she got some of our kids g-mail accounts. We had a tiny bit of "iffy" spam on one of the accounts--luckily it was in Spanish. All in all she is really pleased with gmail and one nice thing is she can easily check on the student accounts. I'm thinking we'll end up using g-mail for all our kids. Of course, we get parent permission before we do anything.

Aside, we've been using Oracle's http://www.think.com for 5 years---very "closed" environment for kids with email, rinky dink webpages, etc. They are doing away with their student email but it wasn't really working for us because most of the Web 2.0 applications send activation codes and think.com had "closed" address books. That's why we're going to gmail.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by kolson on February 5, 2008 at 7:03pm

There's a great work-around for edublogs - all you have to do is have a gmail account, and then you can set up an account for each student using a spoof on your gmail address. Example:

your email address is mrscapelle@gmail.com
sam's address would be mrscapelle+sam@gmail.com
ed's address would be mrscapelle+ed@gmail.com

or any variation on that. email can actually be sent that way, but is filtered through you. I have created a fairly easy way to use learnerblogs (student edublogs) and edublogs in this way - just contact me through my page here on CR2.0 if you're interested in learning more.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on February 6, 2008 at 3:42am

Kim Cofino just blogged about this issue and provided a great outline of the process she used for Edublogs:

http://mscofino.edublogs.org/2008/02/05/students-as-contributors-on...

Kevin

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by kolson on February 5, 2008 at 7:04pm

Amy - if you're just having kids COMMENT on posts, you can set in your edublogs dashboard settings that an email address isn't required to comment. For kids to POST, they do have to have an actual account. Again, just let me know if you want to hear more on this and I can help :-)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David Truss on February 5, 2008 at 9:42pm

Kim Cofino just posted this: Students as Contributors on Edublogs: the Quick and Easy Way

All you need is a gmail account!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mathew Needleman on February 5, 2008 at 10:09pm

Larry Ferlazzo had posted about temporary e-mail accounts where you could sign kids up long enough to activate accounts and then the accounts are soon closed. I'm sorry I don't know exactly where I found it on his site but it was there... http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/