21 classes, or classblogmiester????

Ok. Here's the deal. I am interning in a grade four classroom right at the moment as a "digital intern", which means I have to incorperate a blog into my classroom. I know how to blog, and use blogger for my personal one. For my students however, it is between classblogmiester and 21 classes. The thing that is keeping me from joining 21 classes is I can not see my students names on the side like classblogmeister. Also, I do not like the fact it is so difficult to add pictures to classblogmiester!
Lastly, what about blogger??? that is easy to use, and I am familar with it! Does anyone suggest that? agghh....

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Permalink Reply by Brad Davis on October 13, 2007 at 9:29am

Hi Nicole-
I have been pushing 21 classes to my teachers- I am an administrator in a 6-8 middle school- the thing I like about 21 classes over other blog sites is that you don't need e-mail addresses to set up the environment. It is hard to gather student e-mail address and then there is the whole privacy thing. 21 classes is simple to use and has the potential to be a very powerful tool, if you unleash all of the functionality. Glad to here that you are starting kids off as bloggers so early. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Colette Cassinelli on October 13, 2007 at 4:31pm

I use 21 classes with 3 different classes. You can add a blog roll by going from the portal dashboard to Student Accounts / More options / Directory of Blogs and check the box: "show blog list on portal". I also check "show blog list on weblogs" so students can easily jump from one person's blog to another.

If a student add a photo to their about me profile, the photo will show up on the portal when a student makes a new post.

Hope that helps! I haven't used classblogmeister - but I am very happy with 21 classes. My high school students have really enjoyed being able to change the fonts. colors, backgrounds, etc..

See my previous post at: http://classroom20.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=649749%3ATopic%3A42090

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 13, 2007 at 6:26pm

I use Blogger for my personal blogs, it is very easy to use--a little concern for using in the classroom is a "next blog" button at the top that can lead a student to inappropriate content. It can be removed narfariously, although it's against Blogger's user agreement. With blogger you'd need an account for each kiddo. You could try edublogs---a lot of teachers use them, I haven't and I find the site slow to load , but the blogs look good. Good luck in your search and be sure to explain to parents what you are doing and get signed permission slips. N.

You can see our student blog at http://areallydifferentplace.org

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 13, 2007 at 7:45pm

The beauty of the blog is the ability to respond to individual posts, actually ning works better than many blog set ups because you can response to individual posts, rather than only responding to the main post--more like a threaded discussion. (a silly lightbulb moment---most blogs are set up where you reply to the person who wrote the post, some times you want to reply to one of the commenters. Even when the original poster wants to jump back into the conversation he has to post a comment just like the rest of us smoes---his response being at the bottom of a long list---one reason why ning beats blogging for some purposes) I think a wiki could get our of control quickly with kids posting willy nilly throughout the pages, documents, etc. Actually a ning might work well--except for the lack of closed environment,

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Craig on October 15, 2007 at 6:47pm

Though Nicole has made her choice, I'll still chime in :)

1. I think that a wiki would still work and possibly better. There is a discussion forum on each page. This is a discussion format that makes it a lot easier to follow a discussion than you can in most blog comments sections (as you suggest in your lightbulb moment).

As for for getting out of control, the organizer can easily follow the pages created. So, depending on the activities students will be doing, a wiki might be the way to go.

2. You can start a Ning group that is closed to the public. There are 3 levels (I think) of privacy: (1) Closed completely to non-members, (2) All but homepage closed to non-members, and (3) completely open. I'd appreciated correction in this point, if I'm wrong.

I think that it would be a great idea if you wanted to do a larger implementation within a school. Set up a Ning network for the school and then set up groups for classes. This uses Ning as a kind of cheap portal.

Dan

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 15, 2007 at 7:04pm

I thought even if the ning was closed, a "free" ning still had option to click from 'ning' to 'ning'. BTW, why is ning called ning? Message Steve to see about the levels.

Also the "free" ning has ads...these are the ads for my book discussion ning (Grades 5-6) --I'm not using it, just tried it out---secret crushes, pimp my page, love signs and secrets!! Not going to be using ning with my K-6 class just yet!

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Craig on October 15, 2007 at 7:58pm

Hi Nancy,

I said cheap, not free portal :)

The ads certainly do make it more difficult to advocate for the use of Ning. I wish that they gave at least an option of kid-safe or G-rated advertising (does Adsense offer that?).

You'd have to convince the school to pony up for a subscription. It's a bargain no matter how you look at it (about $240/year). You couldn't host Moodle on your own server for less (equipment, support, and so forth) and a Ning space could be leveraged to accomplish so much, from administrative to educational. It's even possible (or it's being worked on) to tie the school's network accounts into Ning (to add/remove network users). Of course that would require administrative and technical support. Still a cheap option, though.

For the lone teacher (without financial support), a kid-safe an online social networking app that I've seen discussed in this forum is Schoopy (http://www.schoopy.com). It looks like a good alternative.

Dan

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on October 15, 2007 at 8:09pm

ah...a fee. I've had this discussion before on Classroom 2.0 but I'm not sure ning is a value add in my classroom. We have a classroom blog (reflection, analysis) have completed 5 student wikis (research and collaboration) doing online book discussion using Moodle (writing, analysis, synthesis), a class webpage and personal webpage (communication, display), 3 major project websites--oral histories of WWII veterans, CSI:Cemetery Scene Investifation, NE KC Walking Tour (research, web design)

I can't think of what ning could do for me in the elementary classroom that we aren't already doing---of course being a professional "brainstormer" I can think of things we could do with ning but don't have the energy!!! Let me know if you want to see any of our stuff and I'll point the way. N.

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Permalink Reply by Nicole on October 13, 2007 at 9:27pm

Thank you so much for those of you who offered your advice. I decided to go with classroom21! Thanks to Colette I was able to add my students to the sidebar, which is what I wanted. Once I establish this site a little more, I will post it for those of you who are interesting in viewing it. Thanks again!