Does setting up your own teacher blog appeal to you? We can help!

We have just updated our 10 step self-paced course on personal blogging!

About The Course

Here’s what you need to know about the Personal Blogging Teacher Challenge course:

• This is a free course that’s open to anyone.
• You can work at your own pace in a time frame that suits you.
• If you complete all 10 steps you can access a certificate and badge.
• Each step includes reading material, examples, and a choice of tasks to demonstrate and develop your skills.
• You can pick and choose, and just complete certain steps if you wish.

Enjoy The Benefits Of Blogging

By the end of the course, you’ll have a blog with strong foundations that will set you up to enjoy the many advantages of educational blogging.

So what are those benefits of blogging? Let’s break down some of them!

• Blogging helps teachers to reflect and develop their thinking.
• Teacher-bloggers can be role models for students as digital citizens and writers.
• The act of researching and writing authentically for an audience is a fantastic way to learn.
• A blog can act as your home base for all your work and can serve as a digital portfolio which can be an advantage for furthering your career.
• Trying out blogging before introducing it to your students can be a comfortable progression for many educators.

Optional Workbook

This PDF workbook will help to keep you on track and focused as you work through the 10 steps. The workbook also explains more of what the course is about.

Scroll down and click on the ‘download’ button under the document to save it to your computer or print a copy.

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As Zig Ziglar said, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

Now is a great time to jump right in!

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the growing expectations placed on today’s educators? Feel like there’s never enough time to build a strong rapport with your community while delivering a rich, modern curriculum? Blogging might help you in more ways than you’d expect!

Blogs have become a well-established part of the online landscape over the past decade. The educational blogging community continues to grow at a rapid pace — evidenced by the over four million blogs on Edublogs, and countless more across other platforms.

You may have no blogging experience at all, or you may have tried it before. Whatever your background, now is a great time to consider starting a new blog.

Here are ten reasons to integrate blogging into your classroom or professional practice — and make sure you read to the very end for a summary infographic you can share!

1. Home-School Connections:

Many teachers establish a class blog as a ‘virtual window into the classroom’. This was my primary purpose for beginning a blog back in 2008 before other advantages and uses became apparent.

Through reading and commenting on posts, families can be a part of what is happening in the classroom and have unmatched access to their child’s education.

Research shows that parent engagement is associated with improvements across a number of areas such as educational outcomes, behaviour and school attendance. Participating virtually now tends to suit many parents who are juggling careers and other demands. This is something that can be actively capitalized on through a classroom blogging program.

It is important to remember that most parents are busy people who need education and ongoing invitations to participate. As a teacher, I certainly found that actively encouraging parent participation in blogging was something that paid off. You may consider offering your parents: handouts, video tutorials, family blogging events, parent information evenings, commenting challenges or email newsletters.

2. Authentic Audiences:

In the traditional classroom, the only audience for student work was the teacher and sometimes classmates and parents. Blogs provide a much larger audience for student work and an avenue for feedback and self-improvement through commenting.

I found that students took particular pride when publishing work for our blog and often wanted to do their best for their impending audience. When we establish an authentic audience for our students we help them connect their classwork to the real world. After all, isn’t that what education is supposed to be about?

3. Literacy Skills:

With a class or individual blog, students are reading and writing for a purpose and genuine audience. Unlike other approaches to teaching literacy, where you may study a genre or style for a few weeks, blogging can be an ongoing occurrence in the classroom.

When high standards are set, and explicit teaching is embedded, a blogging program can be a powerful catalyst to improved literacy skills.

If we want our students to be motivated to use their emerging writing skills, we have to make writing purposeful, challenging, and real-to-life. Blogging offers this.

Traditional literacy skills are also no longer enough for our students. As innovative educator Silvia Tolisano points out, there are now many types of 21st literacies including: digital, media, visual and global literacies. A classroom blogging program can help integrate these literacies into your classroom seamlessly.

4. Classroom Community:

Creating a class blog requires teamwork and collaboration. Students and teachers can learn and share together. The Edublogs’ student and teacher challenges can be a great place to start this learning process.

A real sense of classroom community can be developed through blogging and establishing a class identity. Even if teachers are initially writing posts, students can take on roles and responsibilities such as capturing images, creating multimedia or replying to comments. A class blog mascot can also be a fun way to represent your classroom community.

5. Internet Safety:

Teaching students to be safe and responsible online is an increasingly important issue. Effective internet safety education does not involve one off lessons. This is a notion supported by the experts at Connect Safely who say internet safety concepts should be woven into the curriculum. They point out that students don’t distinguish between their digital lives and their personal lives, and there is a lot of power in using ‘teachable moments’ just as you would with any subject matter.

A classroom blogging program offers ongoing opportunities to discuss internet safety and appropriate online behaviours in an authentic setting. Blogging is an excellent way to learn about being a responsible member of an online community, digital footprints, netiquette, making safe choices and more. As Connect Safely identify, the key messages educators need to teach are: ‘think before you post’ and ‘be kind and respectful’. There is amazing potential to use blogging to promote these exact messages.

Using a platform like Edublogs offers you a lot of freedom to select the privacy settings that you and your community are comfortable with.

6. ICT Skills:

It can be easy to assume that students are ‘digital natives’ and come to school already equipped with a broad range of ICT skills. A review paper published in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education found that “information-savvy digital natives do not exist”.

Becoming an effective and fluent user of information technology requires explicit teaching and practice. Through blogging, many skills are able to be discussed and practised, often incidentally. These can range from keyboard shortcuts, coding, Creative Commons, research skills, using multimedia, troubleshooting and a lot more. Again, these learnings are all for an authentic purpose rather than through skill and drill exercises.

7.Global Connections:

I have found this to be one of the most exciting benefits of blogging for both teachers and students. Blogging can help flatten classroom walls like no other tool.

Over my years of blogging, my students and I got to know many classes across the world who we called our ‘blogging buddies’.

The benefits of global connections are priceless. A sense of understanding and tolerance develops and students can learn a lot about the world in which they live. Blogging partnerships allowed my students to learn from and with their global classmates about topics such as geography, cultures, time zones, seasons, language, internet safety and more.

When blogging is established in your classroom, there is also the possibility to organise or join in structured global projects. The opportunities and potential outcomes are endless.

And from a teacher’s perspective, once you become involved in blogging, your professional learning network can rapidly expand to be a lot larger than your school staffroom. You never know who you will meet and what wonderful relationships you can form!

8. Personal Development:

The process of blogging allows a lot of scope for personal development, for both students and teachers. Blogging offers reinforcement and feedback through comments beyond the immediate classroom community. This can drive self-esteem, personal reflection and growth, as well as confidence. Students and/or teachers may realize they have something important to say, and blogging may encourage individuals to speak their mind, reflect deeply and share their understandings.

Blogging is also a fantastic creative outlet. Whether it’s writing, designing your blog layout, or using photography, video, podcasts or other multimedia tools, blogs offer so much scope for creativity and fun. Blogs can also be used to showcase creative pursuits in art, music, sport, science or any other field.

A blogging program can also help to foster individual talents and passions while driving creativity and personal growth.

9. Lifelong Learning:

Blogging can be an excellent meta-cognitive process and avenue for reflection. The process of creating blog posts, allows you to ‘think about what you think’ and put those thoughts into words. Through delving into my thoughts on topics, and writing about what was happening in my classroom, I often came up with new ideas and strategies to use in my teaching. Additionally, when others offer thoughts and opinions on blog posts, you can be introduced to new perspectives that drive further reflection.

Effective teaching and learning does not occur in a vacuum, and establishing a broad network of global educators is priceless. It’s hard to believe that the majority of teachers are still relying on the insights of their immediate team or school when there are billions of people out there who can broaden their horizons!

Whatever position we are in, we must take advantage of the tools we now have for connecting beyond our immediate surrounds.

10. Blogging is versatile … and free!

What is a blog? It’s anything you want it to be really. It’s like asking ‘what is a classroom?’ We all know a classroom can be indoors, outdoors, in rows, in circles, big, small or even flipped. A blog is merely a website that can be customized to meet your individual requirements.

Blogs offer you the versatility to create a unique online space to represent yourself and/or your students and community. Unlike some online tools, blogging is completely free yet the potential uses and advantages are incomparable.

What Now?

You may be convinced, but what about your school leadership team or community? This post may help you to persuade them that it would be doing your students a disservice to not expose them to all the advantages that blogging offers.

Be sure to check out the infographic summary of this post too!

If you’re ready to start setting up a blog, click here. If the Edublogs team can help with any other questions about blogging, simply leave a comment or contact us on our help and support page.

Cybercriminals have firmly set their sights on higher education.

According to the 2025 UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey, about 91% of higher education institutions identified a cybersecurity breach or attack in the past year, much higher than the ~43% of UK businesses that reported the same.

This is no surprise: personal data (of everyone from alumni to staff to faculty), academic research, and cross-institutional records make attractive targets for hackers.

Several cybersecurity incidents have been publicly announced by higher-education institutions, such as:

• A University of Maryland database breach targeting the university’s network revealed the records of 287,570 affiliated personnel, students, faculty, and staff
• A hack of UCLA’s health system may have exposed records of more than 4 million patients
• A 2023 ransomware attack on the University of Manchester resulted in the theft and public leak of sensitive staff and student data after the university refused to pay the ransom

The information at risk is often that of young individuals laying the foundation for their education and professional lives. Imagine a hacker with access to your Social Security number while you’re still 18. How could that disrupt your ability to get a loan, buy a car or get a job? A decade later, what would happen when you apply for a housing mortgage?

Colleges and universities find themselves locked in a costly arms race as they try to install new tools and modify their tactics to mitigate the latest cyber attacks. However, the attackers continue to switch schemes, find ways around the tools, and hit different victims.

In other words, technological defenses can only go so far. No matter how versatile an institution’s cybersecurity software may be, its end users lead the line of defense during an attack.

That’s where security awareness comes in.

Awareness often takes a backseat due to the busy lives of faculty, and hectic schedule of students. However, it’s important to educate faculty, students, and staff about security awareness if higher education wants to stand a chance against digital crime.

What Can Higher Education Institutions Do to Raise Awareness?

Security is a success-driver when done right, and a considerable risk with potentially devastating consequences when it fails.

Here are five ways higher education institutions can raise awareness on security.

1) Simulated Phishing Exercises

Students, faculty, and staff can be educated on security via simulated phishing.

Universities can build phishing campaigns in-house, where IT can send out fake phishing emails with embedded links. Anyone who clicks on any of the links is redirected to a web page that informs them of the simulation exercise and provides further security-related information.

Alternatively, institutions can partner with organizations who offer phishing simulations in the form of videos, modules, and games. Most vendors will be able to customize awareness training to fit the needs of several types of institutions.

2) Data-Sharing Lectures

Students and faculty members share a variety of personal data through apps and other online services. Specific apps ask to access or use far more data than they need in exchange for free services, and some of them are designed by adversaries who are looking for gateways into institutions.

Personal data can be used to guess passwords and gain access to a device that may contain sensitive data about a college or university. Therefore, lectures should be arranged about data sharing via mobile apps and social networking sites, where the focus should be on reading user agreements to check the amount of data requested before someone downloads a new game or tries a new service.

3) Incentives

Incentives can help boost behavior changes, and industries have turned to using awards to make security-awareness education more interesting.

For instance, schools may award prizes to students, faculty, and staffers who flag a vulnerability, while the IT department may compete for a monetary reward based on who can identify the most security threats.

On the flip side, those who engage in unsecured browsing and device usage behavior will hear about it too. In fact, incentives may encourage staffers to take their institution’s security seriously and become part of the first line of defense against attackers.

4) Institution-Wide Security Hygiene

Everyone from students to external stakeholders should be educated on the significance of security hygiene.

Colleges need to start enforcing an acceptable-use policy, where all devices and workstations are locked down by stakeholders and signed out when they’re inactive. Training programs should be set up to educate end users about the importance of strong passwords and timely updates of devices’ operating systems.

Research what individuals require and create baseline rules for essential security controls that should be followed at all times. Students can also be asked to access university applications through a secure portal that keeps data secure and doesn’t place restrictions on student-owned devices.

5) Executive On-Campus Sponsorship

Get buy-in from campus leaders to ensure that a culture of security spreads through an institution. Top individuals, like the president of the student union, can be tasked with the executive responsibility to drive awareness and keep things on track, and they should report to the upper management directly.

This will give institutions the best opportunity to ensure that their security goals are balanced with other risks, like lack of student interest. To keep interest high, campus leaders can arrange events like a “security awareness day” with activities.

Conclusion

Security awareness offers several key benefits to higher-education institutions. It helps them facilitate behavioral change to mitigate potential risks, comply with laws, and reduce unnecessary cost.

However, instead of relying entirely on information-security professionals to prevent infiltration and minimize vulnerabilities, institutions should bank on the persons within to learn and digest new information about security.

By taking the measures mentioned above, schools will be in a better position to create a culture of continuous learning and security awareness.

Take a moment to think about this quote…

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, was lucky enough to rediscover his love of literature in his later years. Is this true for all students?

What role do teachers play in instilling a passion for learning and a love of reading? What impact do reading logs, chapter studies, exams, worksheets, teacher-generated questions and so on have on a student’s love of reading?

As avid readers, we’d love to share an author we’ve recently come to appreciate with some lessons that may be useful to everyone in the education community.

About Sir Arthur Conan Doyle And Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes wasn’t the first fictional detective but he is the most portrayed literary human being in film and TV in history. The Sherlock Holmes stories have had a profound and lasting effect on mystery writing and popular culture.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, has been credited as an influence to forensic science as a result of Holmes’ use of methods such as fingerprints, trace evidence, serology, ciphers, and footprints long before they were commonly used by the police.

Lesson — we’re not bound by what’s already possible. Anyone is capable of invention and creativity. 

From Humble Beginnings

The first Sherlock Holmes story, “A Study in Scarlet”, first appeared in print in 1887 after it was rejected by about five publishers. It was finally accepted by Ward, Lock & Co, who specialized in cheap and often sensational literature, for £25 for the copyright.

The book was published in Benton’s Xmas Annual of 1887 and Arthur Conan Doyle never received any further money from the sale of the book. His follow up Holmes novel, “The Sign of Four”, published in 1890 fared slightly better but it wasn’t until Conan Doyle published Holmes as a series of short stories in The Strand magazine did he go onto to become a popular author — and the highest paid of his time.

Lesson — resilience and determination often lead to success. 

Watch Treasures of the Sherlock Holmes Collections to see an original copy of “A Study in Scarlet” and to learn more about The Strand Magazine.

Practice and Persistence

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story is no different from others that go on to achieve greatness in any field — science, engineering, sports, or the arts; it’s more about practice and persistence than innate talent.

Conan Doyle’s literary journey didn’t start with his Sherlock Holmes stories and he didn’t give up when his stories or novels weren’t received as well as he would have liked.

This is why he continues to inspire new generations 88 years after his death and 131 years after the first Sherlock Holmes novel was published.

Lesson — we all have our own stories to tell or legacy to share. Sometimes the impact will be astounding.

Impact of Sherlock Holmes’ Death

On a side note, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle says in his memoirs that,

If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher works, my position in the literature would … be a more commanding one.

Conan Doyle even killed off Holmes in the “Final Problem” published in The Strand Magazine in December 1893.

Tired of writing about Holmes, he wanted to focus on writing what he considered more serious literature. On a practical level, writing out twelve short stories, each with unique plots, in a year would have been hard work.

His fans weren’t happy — more than 20,000 Strand readers canceled their subscription, outraged by Holmes demise.

Eight years later, in 1901, he published “The Hound of the Baskervilles” as a serial in The Strand Magazine set before Holmes dies in the “Final Problem” and in 1903 he resurrected Holmes in “The Adventure of the Empty House”.

Serialization of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” in 1901-1902 was estimated to have increased the magazine’s circulation by 30,000 — with Conan Doyle being paid £480 – £620 per episode.

Lesson — learn when to follow your heart and when it’s important to listen to others.

For More Inspiration

It’s impossible to do justice to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and all his literary, and other work, in this short post.

Read his Sherlock Holmes stories! They are suitable for young adults upwards.

Being reluctant to read his stories after watching the different movie and TV adaptations, we now appreciate how amazing his stories are and how they’ve withstood the test of time.

The hardest part was working on where to start so here’s our recommendation of order to read:

1. A Study in Scarlet (1887) – introduces Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
2. The Sign of Four (1890) – introduces Dr. Watson’s future wife Mary.
3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 12 short stories published in The Strand in 1891-1892 with the most famous being “A Scandal in Bohemia” which introduces Irene Adler.
4. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes – 11 short stories published in The Strand in 1892-1893 with the most famous being “The Final Problem” which kills off Sherlock Holmes.
5. The Return of Sherlock Holmes – 13 short stories published in The Strand in 1903-1904 with the most famous being “The Adventure of the Empty House” where Sherlock Holmes is resurrected.
6. The Hound of the Baskervilles – serialized in the Strand in 1901-1902. Considered by many as the best Sherlock Holmes novel.
7. The Valley of Fear – serialized in The Strand from 1914–1915.
8. His Last Bow: Some Later Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes – stories published 1908–1917.
9. The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes – stories published 1921–1927.

You can read as individual novels or you’ll find them all in The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

To learn more about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle refer to:

1. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle “Memories and Adventures”  – provides good insight but isn’t the easiest biography I’ve read.
2. Arthur Conan Doyle Interviewed on Sherlock Holmes and Spirituality – 10 minute interview on YouTube from 1930.
3. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Stamp of Greatness – Documentary 1985 – 26 minute video on YouTube.
4. The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – BBC Radio – 43 minute audio from BBC radio documentary in 1980.

Final Reflection

Reading opens up a whole world of new insights and perspectives. The joy of reading is too important to not instill or encourage in every student.

After reading this post, we’d love you to share one of your favorite authors with your students. Or perhaps tell them about Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes.

It’s back to school season in the Northern Hemisphere and for many teachers, this means considering a virtual space for your classroom.

Perhaps you’ve always wanted to have a class blog or get your students publishing online but you don’t know where to start?

There’s no better time to begin than right now! Up until the end of October, we’re offering a free Edublogs Pro subscription to all educators who complete our Blogging With Students course.

Blogging With Students is part of our Teacher Challenge series of free self-paced courses. It’s a great way to learn about getting started with blogging whether you’re interested in having a class blog and/or student blogs.

Here’s the deal…

• When you start the Blogging With Students course, you’ll get a one month subscription to Edublogs Pro.
• If you complete the course (and leave a meaningful comment on each post), you’ll get a 12 month Edublogs Pro subscription.

Simple as that!

This offer is for first-time users who don’t already use Edublogs Pro and is available until October 31, 2019.

How do I get my Pro upgrade?

Organizing your upgrade is simple. All you need to do is start the Blogging With Students course and have your free Edublogs site set up. You can get your free blog by signing up on the Edublogs homepage. 

Once you’ve done these two things, simply email the Edublogs Support team with your blog URL. An example of a URL would be, http://morrisclass2019.edublogs.org

Our email address is listed below or click here to fill out a contact form.

Someone will upgrade your blog within 24 hours.

Email again when you have finished the course and we’ll extend your Pro subscription for 12 months. Make sure you’ve left a meaningful comment on each post in the course.

Everyone who completes a Teacher Challenge course also has access to a certificate and badge.

What Does Edublogs Pro Offer?

A free blog is great for getting started but there are a few advantages of using Edublogs Pro.

• You can embed video and HTML code in your posts, pages, and widgets. This allows you to integrate all sorts of third-party tools into your blog like Padlet, visitor tracking widgets, Google Slides and Docs, and more.
• You can allow your blog to be indexed by search engines like Google if you wish.
• You will have 50GB of storage rather than 1GB. This allows you to add more photos, videos, files, and audio to your blog.
• You can access visitor statistics in your dashboard and set up an email subscription for your readers.
• You can use your own custom domain if this interests you.

Check out the features of our blogs at a glance in this comparison table. 

As you probably know, Edublogs is powered by WordPress which is the tool of choice for the majority of people who publish to the web in 2019 (both in and out of education). Curious to find out more about why WordPress is the best choice for student publishing? This post will help.

While Edublogs remains committed to offering free blogs for everyone, a Pro subscription is usually worth $39.95/year. This new offer is a win-win — free PD and a free virtual space for your year ahead.

About The Blogging With Students Teacher Challenge

This free, self-paced course guides you step-by-step through the process of setting up a class blog and blogging with students.

Maybe you want to just have a class blog, or perhaps you want to mainly focus on setting up blogs for your students.

This course covers both options from the start and you don’t need any prior knowledge. We start from scratch, so as long as you can navigate the internet, you’re good to go.

Each step in the course includes links to class blogs being used by educators to give you ideas and inspiration.

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

Visit the Blogging With Students home page or use the menu below to check out individual steps:

• Step 1: Set Up Your Class Blog
• Step 2: Set Up Pages
• Step 3: Write Your First Posts
• Step 4: Teach Quality Commenting Skills
• Step 5: Add Widgets
• Step 6: Help Parents And Students Connect
• Step 7: Images, Copyright, And Creative Commons
• Step 8: Embed Content In Posts
• Step 9: All About Video
• Step 10: Connect With Other Classes
• Step 11: Set Up Your Student Blogs

Workbook

We know some teachers like to have a concrete guide to help them work through our online courses. We’ve put together an optional PDF workbook that will help to keep you on track and focused as you work through the 11 steps.

Read through the workbook below to find out more about the challenge.

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Up For A 30 Day Challenge?

Want some support and reminders as you work through the Blogging With Students Challenge?

Sign up for email reminders!

We’ll pop into your inbox every few days for 30 days and present you one step at a time. We’ll show you exactly what you need to do and offer reminders as well.

To sign up, simply enter your details in the embedded form below, or click here to open the sign-up form in your browser.

You can start at any time.

Tip: Please add support @ edublogs. org to your email contact list to make sure our emails don’t end up in your junk/spam folder! This is how to add a contact in Outlook and in Gmail.

More Free Courses For Teachers And Students

Currently, we have three professional development opportunities on our Teacher Challenge site with more to be added in future.

For students, the Student Blogging Challenge website is home to the supported bi-annual Student Blogging Challenge and the self-paced Blogging Bootcamp.

Here’s an overview of our key professional learning opportunities for teachers and students.

All our professional learning opportunities are free and open to anyone and everyone!

Any Questions?

Leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you!

This is a companion post to a talk I gave yesterday at WordCamp Europe 2019 – the largest conference of its kind for the web and WordPress community. What follows is somewhere between a transcript of the presentation and a blog post. 

You can see the video of this talk here.

Or see a copy of the slides here.

Let’s get started by taking a look at a few photographs…

What do we all immediately notice? Besides the interesting clothes and the first two photos being in black and white, all three are very similar. In schools around the world, for as long as we can remember, kids sit at desks in rows and all face a teacher at the front of the room.

A little confession. I ripped off this idea to start this talk with photographs of classrooms over the years from a few different talks that I have seen before. But in those talks, the speakers used these photos as evidence that our education system is stagnant and therefore broken. We have similar views shared by the likes of Sal Kahn, Sir Ken Robinson, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and many more thought leaders in recent years. They suggest that we need a technology revolution to solve all of our problems. Most believe in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a viable vehicle for instruction. And scariest of all, some are claiming that we don’t even need teachers anymore.

Here’s the deal. Traditionally, education has been about how we best take a bunch of facts and download them into someone’s head. Then, we try and prove that those facts actually made it in ok – through assessments, exams, a certification, or a diploma. I call this the ‘Inputs + Outputs’ definition of education. Inputs are the curriculum, concepts, and learning objectives. Outputs are how we assess and show that the inputs were in fact ‘learned’. 

As discussed above, many great minds champion the promise of the web and technology to significantly improve education and learning. But in most cases, folks saying these things do so for the wrong reasons, and to be fair, most have never actually taught in a real classroom before. Sure, some of what they say is true. The web does make it easier and cheaper to make knowledge and information more widely available, and that can make it a great equalizer. 

The problem is, I don’t believe that education is about facts and knowledge. The ‘Inputs’ aren’t as important today because we can just pick up our phones and ask Google or ask Siri anything and everything we ever wanted to know. 

If you take just one thing away from me today, it should be that education is really about the personal and individual experiences, about project-based and service learning, and about the struggles, and the failures – which are all so much more important than any learning outcomes (or ‘outputs’).

In the post-information age, experiences are more important than knowledge.  

A big problem with my ‘experiences’ philosophy (and this may have gotten me in trouble a bit when I was a teacher) is that it is hard to quantify. And our society likes verifiable results. We can’t easily asses experiences on an exam or on a quiz. It can be challenging to assign meaningful grades or marks.

We have investors and billionaires focusing all of this money on new and more efficient ways to make textbooks more interesting and videos more engaging. We have this idea that if we just collect enough data points on students, then Artificial Intelligence can deliver personalized learning wherever and whenever. Again, in this new world, do we really need teachers anymore?

What would happen if we were to focus more on technologies that empower students to do, to build, to collaborate, and to create? This would be more in line with an ‘experiences’ approach to education than one defined by ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’. 

This is a photo of me on a tour of schools and the education system in Israel a few years ago. We met with these Bedouin students – all girls – that were studying physics at the time. If you aren’t familiar, the Bedouin are Muslim majority communities in the Middle East known historically for being nomadic and though it is slowly changing, the majority live in poverty.

One of the more interesting stories that the students told was about how important the web, mostly accessible only on their phones, was to them in connecting them to the entire world. It wasn’t about better open content, learning games, or ‘flipped’ lectures on videos. These students were actually following famous scientists and chatting with and learning alongside other girls studying the sciences from many different countries. This was powerful stuff.

It wasn´t about how they were using tech for curriculum. Or how video games improved their learning. It was about authentic connections that they were making.

If only there was a web publishing platform that would help facilitate the syntheses of learning by students sharing their work and thoughts. Maybe it was foster collaborations like these students experienced but on properties that the students own and control.

Well, of course, there is! 

WordPress allows for doing – content creation and curation of thoughts, experiences, videos, images, and all sorts of media. This is why WordPress can and should play a central role in education at many levels. It is the glue that holds everything else together. I get even more excited thinking about this with what we know is coming in the next phases of Gutenberg and block editing.

When you compare WordPress to social media platforms or proprietary portfolio solutions, there’s no question that the authentic audience when publishing on the web, coupled with a digital space that they can design and make their own, increases engagement and the quality of work.

And we know that WordPress works because we see it used every single day.

The Edublogs.org platform launched nearly 15 years ago, actually just shortly before WordPress.com itself. Here, there are literally millions of WordPress sites and blogs from students the world over.

WordPress is used for blogging, for ePortfolios, for communication, and collaboration in schools and universities – from kids as young as 4 or 5 years old, through those in Ph.D. programs. All the while, the big money Silicon Valley keeps pushing their solutions, which are slightly flashier, with better marketing, and in line with the large textbook companies schools are used to working with.

WordPress is big, but it can be better and it can do more. To do this, there are three key areas that WordPress developers and those that work on WordPress really need to think about.

The first is data exportability – there are Learning Management (or LMS) plugins that don’t use custom post types and can’t be easily exported. Same with forms plugins, or honestly, page builders are the worst – build content in those, and it is often impossible to get that content out.

One of the reasons that I hear from schools about why they choose WordPress over a proprietary system is that students can take their work with them. And this includes 20-30 years from now, that it will be in a format that is still usable by whatever comes after WordPress if WordPress happens to not still be around. However, this doesn’t work if every plugin or theme being used isn’t following best practices or is not using the default Tools > Export/Import XML format. 

We’ve noticed a trend in recent years of page builders and plugins building their own stand-alone import/export tool. But that really isn’t good enough.

If you think laws like the GDPR for data privacy are confusing and daunting for the general public, it gets even more intense when it comes to laws around data and privacy in education and with kids.

Thanks to the hard work of the WordPress Privacy core team, there are now tools that allow plugin developers to list and make clear any needed data privacy concerns about their plugin. You can also easily make use of the new core functionality so that individual users can request a log of their data or for all of their data to be deleted. It is seriously cool, and also incredibly important for compliance with a growing number of laws and regulations. Sadly, many plugins that we all use every day don’t yet make use of these features.

Let’s change that, please. 

See the privacy section of the core handbook for more information.

And I save the most important for last. Accessibility. We can’t have a quick chat about education without talking about accessibility.

My very first paid job on the web was working for this man here, Dr. John Slatin, at The University of Texas. Dr. Slatin was blind, and he was also one of the leaders in the world around raising awareness of web accessibility. He was instrumental in developing the very web accessibility standards and guidelines that we still follow today. And he’s often credited with the phrase “good design is accessible design” which he signed at the bottom of all of his emails. It is still as true as ever, nearly 20 years later. And though Dr. Slatin has since passed away, this is a fight we are still fighting.  

I’m hopeful that we are all learning together through the Gutenberg development experience that you can’t tack on accessibility to the end of a project, or even start working on it in the middle. It should be considered and addressed from the first wireframe and the very first line of code.

It also keeps me up at night that if we aren’t careful, WordPress may develop a reputation for “not” being accessible – even though evidence suggests that it is among the most accessible platforms around. If this happens, we will quickly see a sharp decline in the use of WordPress in education, enterprise, governments, and more – who may choose something else, even though that platform may be worse for accessibility, just because of the reputation. We walk a difficult fine line as a community of advocating passionately for the much-needed improvements while still making sure we are evangelizing WordPress in a positive way to those that need it.

Here is my guide to WordPress accessibility.

If you are interested in education and WordPress, here are a few resources that I wanted to share:

WPCampus – with a fantastic and active Slack community, an in-person conference in Portland Oregon next month, and an online conference around the New Year.

PressEdConf – a full day twitter conference that has happened the past few years, organized by universities in the UK, I believe, and the #PressEdConf hashtag can be useful to connect with others.

Student Blogging Challenge – free and held twice a year for 10 weeks, connects students from around the world to work on the same projects and tasks. Open to anyone on any web publishing platform, but organized by us at Edublogs.

So, to wrap up. Please don’t get caught up in the hype about online courses and new fancy ways to replace textbooks or even to replace teachers. Instead, with WordPress, invest in what could and should be the future of education – which is learning experiences that puts the learner in charge of creating content and contributing to the body of knowledge we all share.

Thanks for reading (or watching the video). I look forward to continuing this conversation about how we can truly democratize education with WordPress in the comments below. 

It’s almost that time of year again when thousands of educators and ed tech folks gather at the The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference.

ISTE is a non-profit organization that serves educators interested in technology in education and the annual ISTE Conference and Expo is the biggest educational technology conference in the World.

ISTE 2019 is being held on June 23-26 in Philadelphia.

If you’re like us, and not able to attend ISTE 2019, you are still able to learn from the conference by participating remotely as we’ve done for last six years.

This post explains how you can attend ISTE virtually (for free!) wherever you are in the world.

Don’t have time to read the post? Check out our summary poster below.

Print it off and scan the QR codes with the camera of your phone or tablet to go directly to some of the resources.

Contents

Click on the links below to go to the section that interests you.

1) NotAtISTE Community

2) Watch Live Via Periscope

3) #NotAtISTE Voxer Community

4) Hashtags And Social Media

5) LiveBinder

6) Flipboard Magazine

7) Shared Google Doc

8) Information Overload?

1) NotAtISTE Community

The NotAtISTE Community is the first place you should visit if you’re interested attending ISTE remotely. It’s an amazing community set up and facilitated by Jen Wagner, Peggy George, and Vicky Sedgwick.

Social networking is an important part of attending conferences. The NotAtISTE Community is a fun way for those #NotAtISTE to connect with each other while sharing learning and tips.

Each year, the #NotAtISTE community organizes a wide range of activities. You can add yourself to the participants list here!

This year’s activities include:

• Create your own  #NotAtISTE badge and introduce yourself in the Collaborative Google slideshow (can add your own slide after June 22). You can create your own badge using these templates. Click on tutorials to find video explanations of how to make these. Check out last year’s slide show for ideas.
• Daily Challenge which you can participate in and includes randomly drawn door prizes!
• Add yourself to the #NotAtISTE Map.
• Join the #NotAtISTE Voxer Community.
• #NotAtISTE Ignite sessions where you can share an idea in under 5 minutes.
• Flipgrid Chats.

Check out Sean Fahey and Karly Moura‘s The Educator’s Guide to Flipgrid to learn how to participate in Flipgrid chats.

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2) Watch Live Via Periscope

Periscope is a live streaming app that allows whoever is watching live on their mobile device to comment and ask questions.

Best of all, you can watch it after it is recorded if you miss the live broadcast. Periscope is a great way to watch presentations, visit the exhibit hall, and attend poster sessions remotely.

The Team from #PassTheScopeEDU will be periscoping from ISTE and you can follow their hashtag on Twitter.

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3) #NotAtISTE Voxer Community

Voxer is an app that allows users to send audio, text messages, and photos to each other.

Voxer allows you to interact either synchronous and asynchronous. This is ideal for the #NotAtISTE community as participants are spread across all time zones.

You can join the #NotAtISTE Voxer community by clicking on this link.

Watch this video to learn how to use Voxer.

You’ll find more information on using Voxer in education here.

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4) Hashtags And Social Media

Twitter is one of the best ways to monitor what’s happening at ISTE thanks to the large number of educators tweeting from the conference.

Hashtags and handles

The Twitter hashtags to follow are:

1. #ISTE19
2. #NotAtISTE
3. #NotAtISTE19
4. #PresentersOfISTE

The same hashtags are also being used on Instagram.

The official Twitter handle is @ISTE.

Monitoring social media

There is a range of different approaches you can use to monitor Twitter during the conference. Two popular approaches include:

• Flipboard — Used to monitor content shared when you’re offline (asynchronous). You’ll find a complete step by step guide to setting up Flipboard here.
• TweetDeck — Used to monitor content shared when online (synchronous). You’ll find a complete step by step guide to using Twitter and following hashtags using Tweetdeck here.

Tony Vincent has shared a helpful tip on using multiple search terms in Tweetdeck:

Catch more of the tweets from #ISTE18 in Chicago by saving a search that contains multiple hashtags.

For example, enter this search:#ISTE18 OR #ISTE2018 OR #NOTatISTE OR #NOTatISTE18 OR #PresentersOfISTE

[Works in TweetDeck too!] pic.twitter.com/Q4BgnvLtPt

— Tony Vincent (@tonyvincent) June 24, 2018

Twitter lists

Another option is to create your own Twitter list of the presenters you’re interested in following or people who are sharing helpful information from ISTE.

Here is my Twitter list of NotAtISTE participants from 2017.

You’ll find information on using Twitter lists here.

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5) LiveBinder

Peggie George, Barbara Tallent, and Susie Highley are curating resources into a #NotAtISTE19 LiveBinder.

Check out the 2018 LiveBinder to view the resources they curated last year!

Bookmark it, pin it, and keep checking back as the #NotAtISTE19 LiveBinder gets curated all throughout the ISTE lead up and conference.

Start with the “Getting Started” tab.

You’re welcome to share resources with the ISTE hashtags and the team will add them to the LiveBinder.

Click here to open this binder in a new window.

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6) Flipboard Magazine

Since 2014, Sue Waters and others have been curating the best information and content shared during the conference into the ISTE Insights Flipboard magazine.

View the Flipboard Magazine.

This video explains how Sue uses Flipboard to find, curate and share content.

You’ll find a complete step by step guide to setting up Flipboard here.

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7) Shared Google Doc

Since 2014, I’ve created a shared Google Doc for sessions I wanted to attend. I prepared my own notes by:

• Reviewing the handouts and links provided by the presenters
• Reviewing blog posts or articles on the sessions attended by people who are at ISTE
• Adding any photos shared from the sessions

Here are links to my Shared Google Docs:

1. Blogging Sessions at ISTE 2014
2. Blogging Sessions at ISTE 2015
3. Blogging Sessions ISTE 2016
4. Blogging Sessions ISTE 2017
5. Blogging Sessions ISTE 2018 (Kathleen Morris).

You can check out the progress of my Google Doc here!

Sessions I’ve chosen are based around blogging, online tools, digital writing etc.

Make Your Own Google Doc

Here is how I do it:

1. Work out which sessions I would have attended if I was at ISTE by searching the conference program by adding the search term (1) and then clicking on the Search Icon (2).

• If you log into the ISTE website you can mark your favorite sessions.
• When you’re logged in, you’ll also have access to a ‘digital tote’ where you can store all your conference materials like session handouts and resource lists.

This generates a list of sessions based on the search term.

2.  Check each session page for links to the presentation website, handouts etc. and use these to write notes about the session.

Here is an example of a session page!

Resources for the session are often listed in the Digital Tote Resources.  Michael Hernandez digital tote resources link (1) is a great example of how helpful these resources can be.  Click on “Add to digital tote” (2) to store all session handouts, resource lists, exhibitor information, and more for easy access.

Here is what the Digital Tote resource looks like on Michael Hernandez’s session page.

3.  Check each of the presenter’s profiles by clicking on their name to see if they include their Twitter username or links to their website.

Michael included his links in his bio which meant I didn’t need to check his presenter profile to find his information.

4.  Transfer information about each session I would have liked to attend into a Google Doc including links to the ISTE session page, presenter’s Twitter usernames (or websites), and a summary of the session.

Below is an example of what it looks like from my Google Doc.

5.  Before the session, add any additional notes by checking the presenters’ resources, websites, and Twitter accounts.

6.  After the session, check if anyone is tweeting information about the presentation by checking the presenter’s Twitter accounts. Work through any relevant information shared.

For example, the Tweet embedded below takes you to the presenters’ resources which I worked through as I wrote my notes for ISTE 2017.

Here is a link to our resources from our Poster session from today on Global Collaboration! #notatISTE17 #ISTE17 #dpcdsb #onted pic.twitter.com/hfjH9Bpp4G

— Vickie Morgado M.Ed (she/her) (@vickiemorgado1) June 26, 2017

Information Overload?

There is so much content shared during ISTE, and so many activities you can join as a #NotAtISTE participant. It can feel overwhelming and lead to information overload!

Here’s my advice based on my 6 years of participating in #NotAtISTE:

My most important tip is don’t place a time limit on your learning!

People often feel that they have a set time to achieve what they are trying to learn based on the duration of a conference.

I take the opposite approach attending conferences virtually. I break what I want to learn into manageable chunks and focus on what I want to learn before the conference starts, during the conference and after the conference finishes.

I also break up activities based on what needs to be done synchronously vs what I can do asynchronously. I accept that with a conference like ISTE, even as a NOTAtISTE participant, it’s impossible to participate in everything so I prioritize what I do based on achieving the maximum outcome for the time I have available.

Here’s a summary of my approach:

1. Before the conference — Organize your Google Doc by working through the ISTE program and the resources shared by presenters while also researching different options for participating as a NOTAtISTE participant.
2. During the conference — Participate in the different NotAtISTE communities, curate resources into Flipboard, and focus on any synchronous activities I want to learn or participate in. My goal is to try one or two new things I haven’t tried previously. For example, in the NotAtISTE community in 2014 I learned how to use Voxer and in 2015 I was introduced to Periscope. Add notes to my Google Docs.
3. After the conference — Work through the resources that have been shared and continue to research topics that interest me. Participants at ISTE and NotAtISTE will curate the best links which makes it easy to follow them up after the conference.

Time wise, I look for ways I can multitask to work smarter and not harder. For example, with Voxer and Periscope I can listen on my daily walks or when I’m doing work around the house.

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Anything else?

Have any more ideas? Please leave them in the comments below!

Many teachers would agree that becoming a “connected educator” and developing a PLN (Personal/Professional/Personalized Learning Network) is the most powerful thing you can do to improve your teaching and provide better outcomes for your students.

We have been busy working on a new course to help you become a connected educator.

Our free self-paced course guides you through the process of building your PLN in seven steps. 

About The Building Your PLN Teacher Challenge

This free, self-paced course guides you step-by-step through the process of building your own personal/professional learning network (PLN).

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

Visit the PLN Teacher Challenge home page or use the menu below to check out individual steps:

• Step 1: What Is A PLN?
• Step 2: Making Connections
• Step 3: Using Twitter To Build Your PLN
• Step 4: All About Hashtags And Twitter Chats
• Step 5: Using Blogs As Part Of Your PLN
• Step 6: Using Curation Tools As Part Of Your PLN
• Step 7: Making Time To Build Your PLN

How Does This Course Work?

• The Building Your PLN Teacher Challenge is completely free of charge (as are all of our professional learning opportunities).
• The challenge is open to anyone — whether you’re a classroom teacher, pre-service teacher, or work in any area of education.
• The course is presented on a blog. For each of the 7 steps, you’re required to read through the information in the post and then complete your choice of task and leave a comment.
• When you finish the PLN Teacher Challenge, you an access a badge to proudly display on your blog and a certificate of completion which you can use towards your professional development hours.
• You can start the challenge at any time.

Workbook

We know some teachers like to have a concrete guide to help them work through our online courses. We’ve put together an optional PDF workbook that will help to keep you on track and focused as you work through the 7 steps.

Read through the workbook below to find out more about the PLN challenge.

Scroll down and click on the ‘download’ button under the document to save it to your computer.

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Want More Free PD?

Currently, we have three professional development opportunities on our Teacher Challenge site with more to be added in future.

You can complete all/some of these courses at any time:

• Blogging With Students
• Personal Blogging
• Building Your PLN

There are learning opportunities for students too:

• We run a supported bi-annual Student Blogging Challenge (begins October 7, 2018)
• There is a self-paced Blogging Bootcamp for students (start any time)

Any Questions?

Head over to the free Building Your PLN course now to have a look.

If you have any questions, you can leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you!

We define connected educators simply as ones who are actively and constantly seeking new opportunities and resources to grow as professionals.

~ Todd Whitaker, What Connected Educators Do Differently

We’re excited to kick-start a brand new 30 Day Challenge for educators who want to learn how to set up a class blog and blog with students.

Whether you’re new to blogging or want a refresher on all of the features that blogging can offer, come join us for our four week crash-course.

Over 11 steps, we’ll cover topics such as:

• Setting up class and student blogs
• Using posts, pages, and widgets
• Teaching quality comments
• Images, copyright, and Creative Commons
• Connecting with other classes
• Embedding content and videos

The series is an excellent way of preparing for the Student Blogging Challenge which starts October 7!

How Does It Work?

• The Blogging With Students Teacher Challenge is completely free of charge (as are all of our professional learning opportunities).
• The challenge is open to anyone — whether you’re a classroom teacher, pre-service teacher, or work with students in another capacity.
• We’ll pop into your inbox every 3 days for 30 days and present you one step at a time. We’ll show you exactly what you need to do and offer reminders as well. We’ll send the first challenge to you when you sign up.
• When you finish the Teacher Challenge, we’ll give you a badge to proudly display on your blog and a certificate of completion which you can use towards your professional development hours.
• You can use any blogging platform you prefer, but our detailed instructions will be written with Edublogs and CampusPress users in mind, so you’ll need to slightly adapt them depending on your platform.
• We know some teachers like to have a concrete guide to help them work through our online courses. We’ve put together an optional PDF workbook that will help to keep you on track and focused as you work through the 11 steps.

You can start the challenge at any time.

Register For The 30 Day Challenge

Up for the challenge?

To sign up, simply enter your details in the embedded form below, or click here to open the sign-up form in your browser.

Remember, you can start at any time. So, if you’re still in holiday mode or the time is not right for you, just sign up when you’re ready.

Tip: Please add support@edublogs.org to your email contact list to make sure our emails don’t end up in your junk/spam folder! This is how to add a contact in Outlook and in Gmail.

Want to work at your own pace? That’s fine too. You don’t have to sign up for the 30 Day Challenge to complete some/all of course. Just head to the Blogging With Students homepage to complete the steps that interest you.

Want More Free PD?

Currently, we have three professional development opportunities on our Teacher Challenge site with more to be added in future.

You can complete all/some of these courses at any time.

• Blogging With Students
• Personal Blogging
• Building Your PLN

There are learning opportunities for students too

• We run a supported bi-annual Student Blogging Challenge (begins October 7, 2018)
• There is a self-paced Blogging Bootcamp for students (start any time)

Any Questions?

Leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you!

For many years, our Teacher Challenge series of self-paced courses have been a valuable way for educators and students to learn about blogging and edtech.

While our friends in the Northern Hemisphere have been enjoying summer over the past few months, we’ve been busy updating a number of resources to help our community learn and grow.

All our professional learning opportunities are free and open to anyone and everyone!

There have been some exciting updates and makeovers which we’ll break down for you in the coming weeks.

Here’s an overview of our key professional learning opportunities for teachers and students.

Currently, we have three professional development opportunities on our Teacher Challenge site with more to be added in future.

For students, there has been an exciting change, with the supported bi-annual Student Blogging Challenge and the self-paced Blogging Bootcamp coming together on the Student Blogging Challenge website.

About The Blogging With Students Teacher Challenge

This free, self-paced course guides you step-by-step through the process of setting up a class blog and blogging with students.

Each step includes links to class blogs being used by educators to give you ideas and inspiration.

The activities can be completed at your own pace and in any order!

Visit the Blogging With Students home page or use the menu below to check out individual steps:

• Step 1: Set Up Your Class Blog
• Step 2: Set Up Pages
• Step 3: Write Your First Posts
• Step 4: Teach Quality Commenting Skills
• Step 5: Add Widgets
• Step 6: Help Parents And Students Connect
• Step 7: Images, Copyright, And Creative Commons
• Step 8: Embed Content In Posts
• Step 9: All About Video
• Step 10: Connect With Other Classes
• Step 11: Set Up Your Student Blogs

Workbook

We know some teachers like to have a concrete guide to help them work through our online courses. We’ve put together an optional PDF workbook that will help to keep you on track and focused as you work through the 11 steps.

Read through the workbook below to find out more about the challenge.

Scroll down and click on the ‘download’ button under the document to save it to your computer.

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

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Download

Up For A 30 Day Challenge?

Want some support and reminders as you work through the Blogging With Students Challenge?

Sign up for email reminders!

We’ll pop into your inbox every few days for 30 days and present you one step at a time. We’ll show you exactly what you need to do and offer reminders as well.

To sign up, simply enter your details in the embedded form below, or click here to open the sign-up form in your browser.

You can start at any time.

Tip: Please add support@edublogs.org to your email contact list to make sure our emails don’t end up in your junk/spam folder! This is how to add a contact in Outlook and in Gmail.

More To Come!

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more information on The Edublogger about our other courses for teachers and students.

Don’t miss those updates! We send out an email newsletter with our latest posts from The Edublogger. It also includes weekly blogging prompts for teachers and students. If you’re not receiving our newsletter, sign up here!

Any Questions?

Leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you!