Blogs for Kids - no email accounts

Hi Everyone - This is my first post! I'm looking for a simple classroom blog application that does not require that students have email accounts. We use PB Wiki as a pseudo blog but it does not allow for threaded discussions.. Does anyone know of one that is easy to set up and not confusing for elementary students! Thanks!

Tags: blog, elementary, email

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Permalink Reply by Marge Arnold on February 26, 2009 at 8:15am

Donna,
Go to classchatter.com and set up an account. You, as the teacher, assign students to the class and they sign in with their name and an assigned password. No one outside the class can see their blogs. We're using it in Louisiana, and it works very well.
Marge

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Permalink Reply by Donna Criswell on February 26, 2009 at 8:18am

Thanks so much Marge! This is just what I was looking for ! On a personal note, I live in Massachusetts but I met my husband in an AOL chatroom for widows and widowers way back in 1995.. he had been living in Louisiana with his (now late) wife.. I've visited Louisiana a couple of times !

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on February 26, 2009 at 9:02am

I really have to praise the creator of this site. This truly seems a labor of love with no ulterior profit motive.

If you needs something more full featured, I'd recommend an inexpensive web hosting account and install WordPress. It is simple to do and is arguably the best blogging platform. You can enter children accounts using fake email address, then set the password from the admin interface.

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Permalink Reply by Donna Criswell on February 26, 2009 at 9:05am

Thanks Steve! I agree with you about this site.. I will compare WordPress and Classchatter ... We also have blogging capabilities within our own server software (Mac) but it's pretty crude.. I'll keep you posted!

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on February 26, 2009 at 2:57pm

You can run WordPress on a Mac server! Better yet, you could run WordPressMu which gives you a multiple blog system. You might be able to run a pretty amazing set up!

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 26, 2009 at 2:27pm

One of the guys here at CR 2.0 just set up a class account with no ads for $30.00 a year with classchatterlive.com (the new class chatter) and said he liked it so far, you could check into that. N

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Permalink Reply by Donna Criswell on February 26, 2009 at 2:40pm

Thanks Nancy - I did see that they have a newer version available.. will definitely have to check it out.. it's certainly reasonably priced..
Donna

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on February 26, 2009 at 5:17pm

The guy that's using it says it's 'plain vanilla' but the support was excellent.

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Permalink Reply by Donna Criswell on February 26, 2009 at 4:13pm

I already use PBWiki for wiki-type conversations but it doesn't allow threaded discussions.. Do you know if WikiSpaces does? Thanks for taking the time to share...
Donna