Edublogs & Blogging – Elanco Elementary Instructional Technology

All K-12 staff and students will be utilizing Edublogs for blogging purposes this year. Please complete this Google form to request new site creation.

Please reference the Edublogs User Guide for all the how-tos you need to get started with your new site and watch the tutorial below to get started.

Important Student Blogging Info:

The students in the Elanco directory were added as users in the Elanco Edublogs system last summer. Please consider how you would like to organize your students’ blogging experiences.

Students are currently assigned to the blog class they used in 2014-15 until this year’s teacher alerts me that they will begin blogging in a 15-16 class.

How we set up and manage your students’ blogs will depend on a few things:

Do you want your students assigned to your “My Class” by homeroom and only you, as the homeroom teacher, will manage their posts?
OR by language arts roster, and only you, as the language arts teacher, will manage their posts?
OR does your team want to have all students involved with blogging across content areas and therefore all team members need access to every students’ blog in the grade level for moderating purposes?
OR do you want students to be added to a teacher/team blog so they can post and add comments, but not have their own individual sites?
OR a unique scenario, such as assign certain rosters of students to certain teachers for blog moderation?

Please discuss student blogging plans with your teammates and the options above. If not all members of the team are interested in having their students blog, you can certainly move ahead with plans for your homeroom or your language arts class.

When you are ready to begin blogging with your students, please complete this Google form so I can begin the process of building your student blog sites.

(Only one team member need complete this form if you’d like team blogging organized.)

Plan for at least 1 week for the set up of student blogs. I’ll email you confirmation and further instructions for student access when they’re ready.

I highly recommend you schedule me to push into your classroom or to computer lab special to introduce Edublogs to students for the first time. Students will have the ability to customize their spaces in the same way that adult users do. Click here to schedule time with me!

View this Student Edublogs Quick Setup Guide to see what students will encounter when they log into their new blogs for the first time.

How to moderate student posts using Edublogs Reader:

Elanco Student Blogging Guidelines 2015:

Student Blogging Guidelines2015

Blogging Resources For You:

What is a blog?
View this introductory video: Blogs in Plain English

Why blog?

Develop communication skills
Great platform for reflection
Communication tool – two-way communication encouraged
Writing shared with an authentic audience- students want to put their best work out there, and it’s a meaningful experience to publicly share work during the writing process
Digital citizenship and digital footprint building -they are in control
Collaborative opportunities and global connections

Who should blog?
Students! Teachers! Administrators! Parents!

Learning to Blog FOR your Students from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

Setting the stage/getting started

Determine the purpose for your blog – what are some various ways of using blogs in the classroom/school? Check out the results from Sue Waters’s survey on educational blogging (2012)
Silvia Tolisano’s resources– Scroll down to RH side menu stepping it up: Learning about Blogs for your students **THESE ARE EXCELLENT!!** All of the sections listed here
Silvia’s blogging unit plan is also on the RH side menu – an excellent resource!
Three tips for classroom blogging projects from Bill Ferriter

Student introduction to blogging

Feel free to invite Lyn into your classroom to kick off blogging with students!
Purpose, methods, tie to the learning – Great commenting tips with student video from Mrs. Yollis’s class