Blogging without student email?

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 5, 2008 at 5:53pm

I know you are looking for blogs without emails but can your students have email? If so you can get free student emails and student blogs at epals.com or student email with ads at gaggle.net I haven't used either one but am getting ready to check them out. We've used think.com for 5 years but they are getting rid of student email and going to "messaging".

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Permalink Reply by Phil on February 6, 2008 at 7:07am

I use Firefox with AdBlock Plus (a free extension of Firefox). Not only do we get less pop ups this way, but the ads that are normally flashing all over the web page are suddenly gone. It turns into beautiful white space.

I use FireFox for several reasons, but it battles ads on gaggle.net and wins every time. This is the #1 reason I use it.

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Permalink Reply by Marielle Palombo on November 11, 2008 at 4:18pm

What did you think about ePals, Nancy? I'm looking at it now, but I can't quite tell how it will work yet. It looks like it offers safe, monitored mail and class blogs, and also includes threaded discussion forums. Ideally, I am looking for an environment that includes integrated teacher and student blogs and threaded discussion forums. Edublogs still does not offer threading of comments or discussion forums, which is important to me. 21Classes has its advantages as a blog portal where a teacher can easily register and monitor students and their individual blogs, though it also does not offer threading. I'd appreciate any thoughts you might have...

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on November 11, 2008 at 5:52pm

ePals has filled the bill for us, we use it so far for email only. We need email primarily to get activation codes for other tools like Tikatok, Animoto, Mnemeograph, etc. We have our own blog designed with Drupal and served privately. It is one of the best and most organized student blogs I've seen. I blog on the frontpage and students each have their own blog, we also have other adults and parents blog with us. A good place to start is Recent Posts. Each evening I go to Recent Posts and see what everybody has written and respond to most.

We've used Moodle for threaded discussions (book discussions) and online course work. Drupal also allows for threaded discussions--- With Blogger, for instance, you cannot comment on a comment---all the comments are in a list. I definately think Drupal is worth the steeper learning curve.

You can see all we've done here. Good Luck, N.

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Permalink Reply by Marielle Palombo on November 22, 2008 at 1:51pm

Thanks so much, Nancy, for sharing your experiences, suggestions, and examples. They are very helpful!

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Permalink Reply by Glenn Moses on February 5, 2008 at 6:28pm

Hi, (yes, Nancy I'm back for a minute be nice to me k? :) )

I think that wordpress will do what you're asking for. On your wordpress admin page just go to the "users" tab and then put in a fake email address.



Your students will just use the username and password you created for them. They never have to use the email address.

With-this-said, I'm running wordpress on my own host and not at wordpress.com. It may be a little different there. If it is, and you'd like some help setting up your own wordpress blog, let me know and I'll give you a hand.

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Parisi on February 5, 2008 at 6:40pm

Classblogmeister does not require emails. The teacher requests a passcode and sets up the account. Each child has a page off the teacher's page. All work, blogs and comments, can be monitored. And there is a great community of other student bloggers to connect with. Here's mine to check out: http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=88116

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Permalink Reply by Ann on February 5, 2008 at 7:00pm

There is also a very nice listserv that you can sign up for. People are very supportive in answering all kinds of questions related to classblogmeister. I have one for math class and one for computer class. We've been using the math blog since September. The computer blog is only a month old. No email required and can be open or moderated based on how you set it up.

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Permalink Reply by Christine Southard on February 6, 2008 at 3:21am

I also like class blogmeister. I co-teach with Lisa and our site is: http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=88116

You can request a passcode here: http://classblogmeister.com/?blog=rethink

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Permalink Reply by Karen Fasimpaur on September 23, 2008 at 10:40am

Have you found Class blogmeister to be reliably available?

Also, can students post their own posts or just comments?

Thanks for your insights.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 5, 2008 at 7:49pm

Glenn, What do you mean? "back for a minute"? You've been watching and waiting for me to say something brilliant and profound so you could jump back into the conversation---I forget why you left in the first place (oh yeah, twittergate)!! haha!! My student blog is done in Drupal, which I'm sure has all the bells and options that you mention in Wordpress. I didn't design it or serve it, but I'm thankful to the former student dad that does it. Glad you're back, N

PS It just dawned on my that I've been lurking around your blog for months---- Mr. Moses, hmmmm.

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Permalink Reply by Phil on February 6, 2008 at 7:08am

Glen,

If you don't mind, may I ask who your host is?

Thanks,

plarsen111

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