Looking for a free blog portal

I've been using 21publish as a blog for my preservice elementary education class. It had several benefits: the blog served as a portal for all the individual student blogs accessible from a drop-down menu; it was free and public. Now, the free version can no longer be made public, limiting the purpose for having a blog.

I like to use tools my students can later use with their future students. So, I'm looking for another free tool, which can be made public, is free, has an easy way to access individual blogs without creating a separate blog roll, and is not limited to K-12.

I'd appreciate any and all suggestions. Thanks!

Tags: blog, tools

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Permalink Reply by Laura on April 23, 2010 at 4:51pm

Edublogs.org comes to mind immediately beacuse it is not blocked at our school and you can set up student accounts. I like using www.blogger.com (http://wandoreads.blogspot.com) because it is so easy! I can add html widgets.

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Permalink Reply by Rena Shifflet on April 24, 2010 at 4:50pm

Thanks, Laura.

I'll take a look at Edublogs. I've used Blogger before. I'm looking for something teachers can use to moderate comments, yet provide some personalization options for students. 21 Publish was nice because students could create their own accounts and all were automatically place in the blog roll. Less responsibilities for the teacher. She also had access to student accounts.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Wylie on April 23, 2010 at 5:47pm

Have you tried Weebly for Education?

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Permalink Reply by Rena Shifflet on April 24, 2010 at 4:46pm

Thanks, Johathan.

I hadn't heard of this one. Have you created a blog with this? Just curious about the student options for customizing their page.

Do you have an example I can take a look at?

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Permalink Reply by E Cohen on April 23, 2010 at 5:58pm

One suggestion I have is to look at a learning portal such as edu20.org. It does much more than blogging, although you could just use the blogging feature. But it does expose them to all the rest of the technology learning portals offer. The great thing about using Edu20.org for blogging is that it is a self-contained walled community, but you can use the blog for outward-facing (public) communications....

I am looking forward to hearing what other ideas folks have about your question.

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Permalink Reply by E Cohen on April 24, 2010 at 7:21am

At the Discovery Education Network conference today, the presenter recommended Kidblog.org, it looks very good.

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Permalink Reply by Rena Shifflet on April 24, 2010 at 4:50pm

Thanks! I will definitely take a look.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Weller on April 24, 2010 at 7:26am

I've been using wordpress for blogging in my classroom. I actually have it set up so that when I send out an email blast to parents, it gets automatically posted to the blog (including file attachments). Email posting has made me a much more frequent blogger.

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Permalink Reply by Rena Shifflet on April 24, 2010 at 4:53pm

Thanks, Paul. Are your students able to have personal blogs linked to yours? Are there any teacher controls over the individual student accounts?

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Permalink Reply by Darcie Priester on April 26, 2010 at 9:47am

This sounds like a great tool! Thanks for sharing!

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Permalink Reply by Aimee on April 24, 2010 at 9:38am

I would check out kidblogs.org. Individual student blogs are connected with a home page (with links to other members of the class). It is free and easy to use. It doesn't have the customization (themes, colors etc.) you probably have with 21publish, but posts can can include images, embedded items, videos and other media. I use 21classes (paid) and I'm switching to kidblogs.org next year. It's simple to use, but has some powerful features for blogging.