Kathleen Morris – The Edublogger

3 Ways You Can Use Video In Your Blog Posts

Kathleen Morris — Fri, 24 May 2024 10:30:49 +0000

Traditionally, blog posts were all about text and images. However, videos can really bring your blog alive and make the visitor experience more engaging and interactive.

Blogs are the perfect place to house videos that are made by you, your students, or someone else. If you’ve never tried adding a video to your blog, or you’re looking for some additional tips or ideas, you’re in the right place.

It’s clear that when defining the meaning of literacy in the 21st century, being a fluent reader and writer of only print materials is no longer enough. Silvia Tolisano has suggested that our notion of being literate or illiterate needs an update. Being a skilled communicator, creator, and consumer of multimedia is so important. This includes video.

No doubt your students are avid consumers of videos so why not tap into this interest in the classroom?

This post demonstrates 3 ways that you can use videos in your blog posts.

Click on the links below to navigate this resource.

1. Embedding Videos That Others Have Made

2. Online Video Tools

Screencasting

Make your post into a video

Animation

3. Offline Video Creation

1) Embedding Videos That Others Have Made

Many teachers and students like to embed videos they find online on their own blog. That means you can play it within the post without having to open new tabs etc.

An embedded video looks like this.

Tip: When embedding a video, it’s a good idea to also put a link to the video, like this:

Check out the video, What Is A Blog?

Educators or students might embed videos from sites like:

Methods For Embedding Videos

Videos from video sharing websites can be embedded into posts or pages by either using:

The video URL: Paste the URL on a line by itself in your post/page editor where you want the video to appear. This method only works with certain services.
The embed code: Find the embed code on the site you’re using (e.g. YouTube) and copy it. Then in your post put your cursor where you want the video. Click on Add Media and then Insert Embed Code. Paste the code and press Insert into post. Note: this option isn’t available on free blogs

You can find the full instructions with visuals on how to embed videos in this Help Guide.

A Note On Copyright And Videos

You may be wondering about copyright, because we know we can’t just take an image from another site and use it on our blog.

It’s fine to use videos from sites like YouTube that give you the embed option. That being said, you can’t necessarily download and make changes to the video (for example, cutting it up, remixing, adding audio etc).

A Note On Safety

Access to sites like YouTube is a contentious topic in schools. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any experiences with that issue.

If you use sites like YouTube, it can be a good idea to set up a class or teacher account if you plan to upload videos or create playlists. This helps separate your work videos from your personal videos.

Most video sharing websites are not designed for children. In fact, you’ll find most Terms and Conditions state that children under 13 are not allowed to use the service.

Therefore, there are a few things you can do if you’re working with younger students.

Embed Options

When you’re embedding a YouTube video, you’ll notice there are embed options. You’ll find these when you click on Share and then Embed.

You might want to uncheck suggested videos and player controls, and consider enabling privacy-enhanced mode.

2) Online Video Tools

Making your own videos is easier than ever! There are online options that are:

free/paid
simple/complex
for editing/creating
for all ages/restricted to over 13 or 18
designed for video footage/images/animation

Here are three options for creating different sorts of videos using online tools. Feel free to share your own ideas too!

Screencasting (Loom)

Screencasting is where you narrate a video recording of your computer screen. Sometimes it’s just audio and sometimes you can see your face in the video as well.

One free tool that I’ve found particularly useful is Loom. There are many advantages to this tool including the fact that there are no age restrictions.

I’ve written a blog post about Loom if you want to learn more.

Screencasting is such a versatile way to use video in the classroom. Not only can teachers and students make tutorials, but students can share their learning as a screencast by narrating their digital creations.

For a very simple example, students could narrate a Google Slide presentation as I’ve done below. This is a video I made for our Better Blogging With Students course which we ran in early 2018.

Make Your Post Into A Video (Lumen5)

Back in December, I made a promo video for our Better Blogging With Students course.

I created that with a free online tool called Lumen5.

It’s a simple way to make a slideshow type video.

It can even “automagically” make your blog post into a video (for best results you’ll need to edit it slightly).

Lumen5 contains a library of Creative Commons Zero images and music so you don’t need to search for content either (although you can use your own pictures and video).

The only downside (apart from it being a 13+ tool) is you can’t embed your video directly onto your blog as far as I can tell. So you have to put it on social media or YouTube first and then get the embed code from there. Or you could download the video and upload it directly into your post/page.

Animation (PowToon or Biteable)

There are a number of ways you can create simple animations online. Two free tools you might be interested in exploring with your students include PowToon and Biteable.

Both of these tools have free plans and can be used by students under 13, however, they do require students to sign up via email. I contacted both companies to confirm the age restrictions. PowToon recommended supervision or using a paid classroom account (obviously, supervision is always a good idea!)

One benefit of PowToon over Biteable is that you can download your finished product as a PowerPoint or PDF file. You can only download your Biteable creation with a paid plan.

You can embed both tools into your blog posts or pages.

Biteable Example

Another student taking part in the challenge created this Biteable about YAPPY.

What is YAPPY? on Biteable.

3) Offline Video Creation

You and your students can make videos in the traditional way too. You don’t need any fancy equipment either — a phone, tablet, or webcam can work just fine!

Here are three ideas that might work for your blog posts.

Piece To Camera

I know, I know… who likes getting in front of a camera? Most teachers would avoid it at all costs! But it is really a great way to connect with students and families.

You could even create the occasional piece to camera for special occasions like:

Welcoming students and families at the start of the school year (publishing the video before school returns is a good idea!)
Thanking your class and families at the end of the school year/term and wishing them happy holidays etc.

Depending on your privacy settings, you might encourage students to create these sorts of videos too.

Here is an example Linda Yollis made to welcome her new students to the classroom last year.

10 Filming Tips

There are a few things you can do to enhance the quality of your piece to camera.

Lighting: This is really important! Sit near a window if you can or add lamps etc. Aim for even natural light. Don’t have a window behind you.
Audio: Your phone or computer will record video just fine (in good lighting) but the audio quality won’t be great. Add an external microphone if possible.
Tripod: If you’re using a phone, it needs to be steady. Many discount stores now sell basic phone tripods. You can elevate these on furniture as needed.
Location: Keep your background simple and film in a quiet location (easier said than done at school?).
Clean your lens: Especially if you’re filming on your phone, wipe that dirty lens.
Horizontal: If you’re using a phone, turn it on its side. If you want to know why your video should be horizontal, you might enjoy this very funny video.
Raise your device: If you’re using a laptop to film, you might want to raise it so you’re at eye level. Same with a phone or tablet.
Front facing camera: If you’re alone, switch the camera so you can see where you are in the frame (consider positioning yourself slightly off centre in the frame).
Look at the lens: Find the tiny hole and try to make eye contact with it. Smile!
Record: Whether or not you want to actually script what you want to say is up to you. A more natural approach may be to create a few notes or an outline, rather than scripting or reading. Pace yourself and enjoy!

Want to share these tips with your students or colleagues? Download the PDF.

Film Your Lesson

Have you ever thought about recording your lessons and publishing them, not just for your own class, but for anyone who wants to watch and learn?

Eddie Woo is a Sydney maths teacher who has done just that.

Eddie’s award winning work has earned him a huge following with students from across the world.

Eddie has a YouTube channel and houses his videos on his blog too.

Here is an example…

As you can see, it’s nothing fancy but it works!

Of course, students can “be the teacher” too and record tutorials for other students.

Interviews

Depending on the permissions and privacy settings you have in place, it might be an option to have your students act out interviews.

Shawn Avery has done some great interviews with his class. Here is one example when students interviewed a famous person from history. A green screen was used to create the background.

The possibilities are endless! Students could make real interviews or mock ones. And it could work well for so many different subject areas and any age group.

Note on green screens

Want to learn more about green screens?

Tony Vincent has compiled some different green screen set ups.
LitFilmFest has shared 7 tips for using a green screen in the classroom.
Jonathan Wylie has compiled green screen tips from teachers on Twitter.

A Note On Editing Software

Most people know how to record a video. It can be as simple as opening the camera function on your phone and hitting record.

But then what do you do with your raw video?

It’s not always essential, but you’ll generally want to do some basic editing. This can include things like:

Adding text titles or captions
Adding music
Chopping out certain parts of the video
Mixing together video and images

If you use a Mac computer, the go-to program is generally iMovie. You can also use the iMovie app on your iPhone or iPad if you have one.

It’s a little more complicated on a Windows computer. Windows Movie Maker used to be a popular choice for simple editing but it has been discontinued now.

Personally, I currently use a paid program called Adobe Premiere Elements and occasionally use a free program called Shotcut. There’s a learning curve for both of these editors.

For quick video editing on my phone, I love two free apps from GoPro called QuikStories and Splice. QuikStories puts everything together for you with music, transitions, and other cool effects. Splice is handy if you want to make more manual edits and don’t necessarily want too many effects.

(Note: We have no affiliations with any of the above brands).

Let us know your choice of video editor in a comment!

Conclusion

Want more video tips? Be sure to take a look at our interview with Rob Kelly for more video tips and examples.

We encourage you to have a go at creating or embedding a video. Leave the link to your blog post in a comment so we can check it out.

We’d also love to hear your own suggestions for finding or creating videos.

Lights, camera, action … and over to you!

International Dot Day: Get Involved!

Kathleen Morris — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 10:40:00 +0000

International Dot Day is coming up on, around, or during the week of September 15-ish.

Every year, millions of students and educators connect on International Dot Day to celebrate creativity, courage, and collaboration.

Getting involved in International Dot Day is easy. It is free, flexible, and open to any classes from all around the world.

This ultimate guide to International Dot Day explains exactly what it is and how to participate.

We’ve put together lots of examples from the educational blogging community and invite you to leave your own ideas in a comment.

About International Dot Day

International Dot Day began when Terry Shay introduced his class to Peter H Reynold’s book The Dot on September 15, 2009.

Since then, this date has been celebrated each year as International Dot Day — a day for classes to explore the story’s powerful themes: bravery, creativity, and self-expression.

About the Book – The Dot

The Dot tells the story of a caring art teacher who reaches a reluctant student in a remarkably creative way.

In Peter’s book, the teacher encourages the student to begin a journey of self-discovery and creativity, starting with a simple dot on a piece of paper. Transformed by this journey, the student goes on to inspire others.

How to Get Involved

Participating in International Dot Day is simple.

Visit https://www.internationaldotday.org/welcome Here you can read up on the day, find ideas and check out the resources.
Sign up to participate. This is just a simple survey the organizers use to help plan events around International Dot Day.
Read the book to your class. If you or your library don’t have the book, you might opt to view a YouTube video or purchase the interactive online version.
Express yourself in any way. This is where you can get creative. Your dot theme can be incorporated into story writing, artwork, songwriting, photography, dance, cooking, performances, or more.
Publish! If you have a blog, this is the perfect platform to show the world how you have celebrated the day.
Connect. International Dot Day is as much about celebrating creativity as it is about connecting and collaborating. There is a page on the International Dot Day website which has been set up to help you connect with others. There are links to a Google Doc and social media channels. There are many teachers looking to connect their class through their blog or Skype etc. Such wonderful possibilities for your students!
Connect. International Dot Day is as much about celebrating creativity as it is about connecting and collaborating. You can connect with the Dot Day community on Twitter or Facebook. There are many teachers looking to connect their class through their blog or tools like Flipgrid or Skype. Such wonderful possibilities for your students!

International Dot Day Ideas

International Dot Day is something you can celebrate throughout your entire school, with your class, or by connecting with other classes around the world.

Here are a few ideas from previous International Dot Days.

1) Shannon Miller’s Resources

K-12 Teacher Librarian, Shannon Miller is a leader in the International Dot Day Community. A post on Shannon’s blog explains how you can connect and celebrate.

She shares a link to a Google Doc where people can add their details, schedules, and make connections. Shannon has also put together some Padlets with resources and picture books, plus a Pinterest board.

Check out Shannon’s post for all the details and links.

Padlet books with dots

2) Group Blog: Connect The Dot Stories

When I was teaching grade 1/2/3 students last year, we connected with 3 other classes in different countries for Dot Day and set up a group blog.

We worked on a range of collaborative activities. One of the most popular was “Connect The Dot Stories“.

Here’s how this activity worked:

Students got together in small groups and came up with a team name.
The group came up with one keyword from The Dot story that was written or inferred.
They then came up with a set of 4 other words (not necessarily from the story).
The children wrote each of their 5 words on a circular ‘dot’ and had a photo taken of the words.
These photo story prompts were posted on the blog.
Individuals/pairs/groups from the other class then came up with a short story that includes each of the words.

This was a fun challenge!
Here’s an example that was posted to the blog by one team. Other students used those word prompts to make up a short story.

Team Polar Bear: Art, opened, draw, empty, polar bear, strong

Other activities we came up with that you might want to explore include:

3) Google Meets

Amy Kincaid‘s elementary students met with a bilingual class via Google Meet. They shared writing assignments about encouragement.

4) Dot Day Circle Stories

Kevin Hodgson‘s sixth graders celebrated being creative with writing and with art.

They wrote short Circle Stories with either a circular object or a circular theme. They used the words to “paint” the stories into circles (or dots) using a free tool called Visual Poetry.

They collated their Circle Stories in a Padlet.

Find out more on Kevin’s class blog, The Electronic Pencil, and on his professional blog, Kevin’s Meandering Mind.

5) Kindness Rocks

Inspired by the Kindness Rocks movement, Mrs. Shemansky and her colleague did a rock painting activity with their middle school art classes.

The students ‘made their mark’ by painting two rocks each. One rock became part of the school rock garden and the second rock was hidden and shared with others.

Read more on Mrs. Shemansky’s Class Blog.

6) Dotty Videos

Senior School students at Togher School in County Cork, Ireland put together this great video about Dot Day 2018! Here is their video from Dot Day 2019!

During a collaboration with Linda Yollis‘ class in California in 2017, her third graders made a video to show my students around her school.

Read more about this project on Mrs. Yollis’ Classroom Blog.

7) School-Wide Thinglink

Dot Day was a school-wide affair for Karen Arrington’s students in 2017. The activities involved design thinking, art, augmented reality, Flipgrid, and more.

Karen compiled all of the great activities the students completed in a Thinglink.

Read more details on these activities on Karen’s Tech Tips blog.

8) Skyping In-Person

Jen Bearden, Rachael Turken, and their first-grade students tried all sorts of things on International Dot Day. There was singing, dancing, artwork, and math.

See what these young students got up to on Jen Bearden’s blog, 20 Something Kids And 1 Kooky Teacher, and Rachel Turken’s blog, im 4 students.

To share their creations, Mrs. Bearden’s class was going to Skype with Ms. Turken’s class next door as practice for future calls. Technical problems led to them doing ‘in-person’ Skype calls in a fun and creative way.

Check out all the action from their in-person Skype session on this blog post.

9) A Dotty Day

Becky Versteeg and her Team 2 Eagles students had a busy Dot Day in 2017. After reading the story, they got creative with some artwork and writing.

This video with The Dot author, Peter H. Reynolds, provided inspiration for their dotty creations.

They then tried some dot day math with dominoes and finished the day with some music.

These lyrics are for a song that Peter H. Reynolds and Emily Arrow wrote for International Dot Day. Find the video and actions here.

10) Going on a dot hunt

Karen Arlington’s school has been participating in International Dot Day since 2011 and you can check out some of the creative ways her students have celebrated here.

In 2017, Karen’s first-grade students went on a “dot hunt” and took photos of dot-shaped objects. Her video is embedded below.

How will you celebrate?

How will you make your mark on International Dot Day this year? Leave a comment and tell us.

If you blog about International Dot Day, be sure to leave the link in a comment!

The Educator’s Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons

Kathleen Morris — Sat, 21 Aug 2021 22:48:00 +0000

It has never been easier to publish online or consume digital content. This comes with many advantages and can make teaching and learning so much more targeted and impactful. Living in a digital world also brings up many questions — one issue that is very important to understand is copyright.

Whether you’re an educator, student, or blogger, copyright is a topic that is often overlooked as it can be confusing or just not considered important.

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of myths about copyright circulating amongst the education community. Maybe you’ve heard that you can use any images or texts you find online if you’re using them for education? Or perhaps you’ve heard that you can use any songs in your videos as long as you use less than 30 seconds? Yep, both not true.

Copyright is important for all teachers, students, and bloggers to know about. And it doesn’t have to be as complicated as you think. We’re here to break down the basics of copyright and other related topics like fair use, public domain, and Creative Commons.

There’s a lot to learn in this post so remember to bookmark it and use the menu below to navigate.

What Is Copyright?

What Is Fair Use

What Is Public Domain?

What Is Creative Commons

Finding Creative Commons Images

Using Quotes In Blog Posts

Adding Your Own Creative License

Conclusion And Summary Slideshow

Let’s get started with the basics.

Copyright Rules To Remember

Let’s begin with the 5 main rules you need to remember about copyright.

1) Just because you found it online, doesn’t mean it’s free to use (even if you’re a teacher or student).

2) There are a lot of resources you can use freely including work that has a Creative Commons license or is in the public domain.

3) You have a right as a creator to have your work protected from copying and you can also give your own content a Creative Commons license.

4) If in doubt about using content, ask the creator for permission, find a free alternative, make your own material, or purchase an alternative that has the usage rights you’re after.

5) Instead of looking for loopholes, consider whether you’re being the most responsible and ethical digital citizen you can be.

Want a poster for your classroom or staffroom? Download a letter-sized poster of the 5 rules to remember here.

What Is Copyright?

Copyright is a form of legal protection offered to creators by default. That means, in many countries (like the USA and Australia), you don’t have to register your work to have it protected by copyright.

Some creators do register their work with the U.S. Copyright Office (or the equivalent in their own country). Usually, this is to provide strong evidence to a court that the creator is the copyright holder if there is ever an infringement case. You don’t need to have registered your work with the Copyright Office in order to pursue a copyright infringement case.

It’s a myth that you have to display a copyright symbol © to protect your work.

Can Others Use Your Copyrighted Work?

If you’re a copyright owner, someone else can’t copy your work without your permission. They also can’t perform the work, distribute copies of the work, display the work publicly, or create derivatives.

If someone does use work that’s protected by copyright without permission, that’s called copyright infringement. We’ll cover this later.

Who Owns The Copyright?

Usually, the creator of a work is the copyright owner but the copyright can also be sold, traded, or inherited.

What Does Copyright Cover?

Copyright covers both published and unpublished works that are tangible in format. So, all tangible original work is protected by copyright whether it’s a blog post, music, artwork, photo, play, poem, novel, dance choreography, movie, software, architecture, or more.

Copyright does not protect works that are not tangible, like facts or ideas. Copyright only protects the tangible expression of your ideas. So you might have a great idea for a blog post about teaching 5th grade math but unless you actually write the post, you can’t protect the idea that’s floating around in your head. And you can’t stop others from writing about the same idea.

You can read more about the basics of copyright on the U.S. Copyright Office website (or on your own country’s official site). There are some variations between countries.

What Is Fair Use?

So now you understand that most of the work you’re accessing online or in books is going to be protected by copyright (images, text, videos, music, and more). This means you can’t necessarily use these materials freely on your class blog, website, or with your students in your classroom.

“But fair use applies here doesn’t it”, I hear you ask? Because you’re using images, text, videos, or music for educational purposes, that’s okay, right? Teachers and students don’t have to worry?

Not necessarily.

The more you dig in to the topic of fair use, the more you come to realize it is a gray area.

As the U.S. Copyright Office explains, The Classroom Use Exemption 17 U.S.C. §110(1) allows you to use copyrighted material when you meet certain criteria.

For “fair use” to apply, the copyrighted material must be used:

for performances or displays (e.g. acting a play, reading poetry, watching a movie, listening to music)
as part of face-to-face teaching activities
in a nonprofit educational institution
in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction
using a lawful copy of the works (e.g. a movie you purchased legitimately)

If you’re teaching online or wanting to hand out copies of work, then you may not be covered by this exemption. Furthermore, these fair use laws are specific to the U.S. so if you’re in another country, you may not be covered. Some countries don’t have a fair use law or they may be more specific or broad than the U.S.

For example, in Australia, there is “Fair Dealing” which is an exception to copyright infringement that’s a little more specific than in the U.S. You may be able to use portions of copyright material without permission for the purpose of:

research or study
criticism or review
parody or satire
reporting news, or
enabling a person with a disability to access the material

Overall, fair use isn’t as simple as it seems, right? Instead of trying to find loopholes with fair use, a better approach is to look for materials that you can use freely.

The best place to start is with public domain or Creative Commons materials. So let’s dig into that.

What Is The Public Domain?

In general, in the U.S., copyright lasts for the life of the author plus seventy years after the author’s death.

What happens to work after the copyright expires? Well, it becomes part of the public domain. Works can also enter the public domain if they are factual (e.g. charts or calendars), they are published before a certain date, or a creator has assigned their work to the public domain.

When something is in the public domain it means the work is owned by the public and you don’t have to get permission to use it. This is great for educators looking for materials they can freely use with their students.

Example Public Domain Resources

There are many places online where you can find books, images, audio, and videos that are in the public domain.

Some popular choices for public domain materials include:

Project Gutenberg: 60,000+ eBooks that can be downloaded (most are older works with expired copyright).
Faded Page: 5,000+ eBooks that are in the public domain in Canada.
Metropolitan Museum of Art: includes more than 400,000 images from The Met collection.
Smithsonian Institution Public Domain Images: a collection of 3,000+ images housed on Flickr.
Librivox: public domain audiobooks that are read by volunteers from around the world.
Prelinger Archives: thousands of public domain films (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur).

What Is Creative Commons?

Sometimes creators (copyright holders) are happy for others to use their work, as long as they meet certain conditions.

A creator can place a Creative Commons license on their work which describes the terms of using, modifying, and sharing the works. A simple license removes the hassle of others having to ask the creator for permission.

Creative Commons is an international organization that made this system possible. The mission of the Creative Commons organization is clear,

By helping people and organizations share knowledge and creativity, we aim to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world.

If a creator decides to attach a Creative Commons license to their work, there are six Creative Commons licenses to choose from.

I have written a post on my own blog about copyright and Creative Commons that includes a poster to simplify the licenses.

The poster includes a Creative Commons license so you’re welcome to use the poster in your classroom or share it with your colleagues (a poster about Creative Commons licenses that includes a Creative Commons license — meta, right?). There is a PDF version of the poster on my blog.

If you’d like to learn more about Creative Commons licenses, the video below by McLaughlin Library is a good place to start. You can learn more about Creative Commons Licenses on the official website of the organization as well.

Finding Creative Commons Images

If you need images for your blog, website, videos, or other projects, Creative Commons images are a good choice. As long as you’re using the image according to the license with attribution, you won’t be infringing copyright.

If you’re looking for images that have a Creative Commons license, there are an increasing number of options out there. We’ll show you some of the more popular options, but first, it’s important to understand attribution.

All Creative Commons resources require attribution unless they’re licensed with the least restrictive Creative Commons Zero license. That means no attribution is required and you can use the resource however you like.

Let’s take a look at how to attribute Creative Commons images. The same instructions apply to other works (text, videos, etc.).

How To Attribute Creative Commons Images

When you use a resource with a Creative Commons license, you have to attribute it in a particular way. Attributing means sharing the details of the work and giving credit.

The acronym TASL can help us remember what to include.

Title of the image or material (don’t worry if there is no title)
Author or creator of the image/material
Source of the image/material. Where is it from? Include a link if possible so others can find it
License — include which of the six Creative Commons licenses applies to the work

Here’s a photo I found on Wikimedia Commons of a bridge in Western Australia. You can see I included the attribution below the image.

By Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84138882

If you use images from Wikimedia Commons, getting the attribution information is easy. As you go to download the image, you’re prompted to copy the attribution information.

You can copy the attribution information either in plain text format (as in caption above), or as HTML as shown below.

By Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

If you insert HTML into your blog post, it’ll become hyperlinked. Learn more about inserting custom HTML in Edublogs/CampusPress/WordPress block editor here.

If you’d like to learn more about attribution and explore some examples of ideal, acceptable, and unacceptable attributions, check out this page on the Creative Commons wiki. There’s also a handy PDF about attribution on the Australian Creative Commons website.

Now you know the basics of attribution. Let’s take a look at where you can find images and music that have a Creative Commons license. We’ll begin with images that don’t require attribution.

Creative Commons Zero Images

(No Attribution Required)

There are a number of websites where you can find images that are free to use without attribution (Creative Commons Zero).

I’ve written a post on my blog about the best websites to find Creative Commons images that either don’t require attribution or the attribution is included within the image like the example below from Photos For Class:

The sites reviewed in my post and the summary diagram below are:

* Photos For Class currently has fewer options than it used to. The team has told us they aim to improve this in mid-2020.

Here’s a summary poster that you’re free to use in your own teaching.

The one issue that a lot of educators overlook is that a lot of these free image sites are age-restricted. So if you teach younger students, many sites are not going to be suitable.

Another thing to consider is that even though the images from these sites don’t need to be attributed (or they include the attribution information within the image) it’s still a good idea to teach students about copyright, Creative Commons, and attribution. As producers and consumers on the web, these are really vital understandings for students and all internet users. Just remember, even if attribution isn’t required, it’s always appreciated by the creator.

Creative Commons Images That Require Attribution

Apart from the sites listed above with images that don’t require attribution, there are other places to find images with one of the six Creative Commons licenses that do require attribution.

Creative Commons Search Engine

The first place you might want to look is the search engine on the official Creative Commons website. This is an excellent tool that was updated in 2019. It allows you to search through millions of CC images from more than 20 different sites.

When using the search engine, you can easily filter the search results — for example, you can filter by file type, use, or license.

There’s also a Creative Commons search browser extension that allows you to look for Creative Commons images on the go.

Wikimedia Commons

We already mentioned Wikimedia Commons above in the section about attribution. Wikimedia Commons has a large collection of images, audio, and videos that are free to use. Most require attribution.

Wikimedia Commons collections are included in the Creative Commons search engine so that tool really is a one-stop shop.

Search For Creative Commons Images On Google

Sadly, it is common practice for many teachers, students, and bloggers to take images straight from Google. Most images on Google are protected by copyright and using these images is illegal and unethical.

You may know that you can do an advanced search on Google to find Creative Commons images, although it does require a few steps. First, you need to filter your search results to find images that can be reused.

This video from Jurupa School District explains how to do that.

Then the next step, that is not shown in the video, is you have to click through to the site the image is from, look for the Creative Commons license, and attribute your image correctly.

As we saw above, using the Creative Commons search engine or Wikimedia Commons makes it really simple to attribute your chosen image. All you really have to do is copy/paste. Using Google search doesn’t make it easy to attribute Creative Commons images. So this is not the way we’d recommend finding Creative Commons images online.

Copyright And Music

No doubt there have been many times when you want to use music on your blog, in your content, or in class. When you’re creating a video it can be extremely tempting to use popular music that reflects the mood and emotion of the footage. Or maybe you want students to play popular music at a performance or public event.

As you probably know, most music is protected by copyright. It doesn’t matter if you paid for a song or not, it’s still protected by copyright. It doesn’t matter if you’re only using 30 seconds or less of a song, it’s still protected by copyright.

Let’s take a look at some specific examples of music and copyright.

Using Music In Projects Like Videos

Normally, you can’t just use any music you like in your projects or videos.

However, in many countries, there are exceptions. For example, in the U.S. and Australia, you are allowed to copy music to add to a video if:

a) it’s for educational purposes and
b) you’re not sharing your video publicly (or selling it!)

So, if you make a video with music that’s protected by copyright, it’s not okay to publish this on a public blog, social media, YouTube, and so on. And you couldn’t show your video at a public event. However, it’s okay if the video is just being shown privately to teachers, students, and families at home/school.

It’s also important to note that background music is not considered “educational use”.

Paying For Music And Streaming

There are popular sites and apps where you can pay to download or stream music legally — for example, Apple Music, Google Play Music, and Spotify.

You can listen to your downloaded music yourself, but can’t upload the music to your blog or to a video or other project you’re working on.

It’s fine to stream music videos on sites like YouTube too but it’s not usually legal to download the audio from a YouTube video as explained in this article.

Also, streaming music is meant for personal use — not for a public broadcast.

As Spotify says,

…it’s not possible to use Spotify in public places (such as bars, restaurants, stores, schools, etc.). You may only make personal, non-commercial, entertainment use of the content.

Most streaming services are similar.

Embedding Music Videos

Embedding a music video from a site like YouTube or Vimeo into your blog is usually allowed.

As Richard Byrne says,

If the host provides an embed and you embed it using their code according to their rules (usually that means not trying to hide branding), you can embed it without violating copyright.

You can also link to music files or videos that are publicly available on the web.

Using Purchased CDs

Some people still listen to music by buying a CD or borrowing one from the library, although, of course, digital music is becoming a lot more popular than CDs in many parts of the world.

Again, you can’t copy the music from a CD and use it for another public project (e.g. upload it to your blog or add it to a public video). It doesn’t matter if you have purchased the CD legitimately.

If you’d like to learn more about using music in education for other purposes including school concerts and online learning, check out this fact sheet from the National Association of Music Education.

Creative Commons Or Copyright Free Music

Even though most music out there is protected by copyright, there are many places online to find Creative Commons or other copyright free music options.

You might first like to check if your district has any subscriptions you can make the most of. For example, Soundzabound.

If this isn’t an option, there are lots of other sources of free music online.

Three options for free music and audio are:

Let’s take a look at how these three sites work.

Dig CC Mixter

Dig CC Mixter offers thousands of hours of free music.

The music on this site has different Creative Commons licenses so you need to check whether you need to attribute the music or not.

Educational Blogger Richard Byrne explains in a video how to use Dig CC Mixter and filter by license.

YouTube Audio Library

YouTube has a great library of music you can use. Visit the Audio Library on YouTube to browse the selections.

If you click on Attribution, you can filter your results to find music that does or doesn’t require attribution.

You can preview the music to see what it sounds like and download the music you want to use.

Here’s an example called Sunshine in my Heart by Jingle Punks.

BBC Sound Effects

During 2018, the BBC made over 16,000 sound effects available to use. These sound effects are not actually Creative Commons — they’re protected by copyright but the BBC gives permission for the sound effects be used for personal, educational, or research purposes.

You can browse by category to find the sort of sound effect you’re after for your project.

You should put a link in your project or blog post to say that your sound effects are from the BBC and link to their site.

Here is an example of a sound clip. This is the sound of the surf at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia.

Copyright And Videos

Where would we be without all the awesome video content we now have at our fingertips on the web? In the education world, extensive video libraries like YouTube are becoming priceless.

Video copyright can be complicated as video can draw together multiple elements — video footage, images, music, sound effects, and so on. When using, sharing, or creating video, you need to make sure all of these elements are not protected by copyright.

Can You Link Or Embed Videos?

You are free to embed any video from sites like YouTube, Vimeo,TeacherTube, TedED etc. on your blog or website as long as it gives you the embed option. It’s a good idea to add a link to the video as well.

Linking or embedding from YouTube or other sites on the web is not considered copying. Just make sure the videos aren’t violating copyright. If they are, they’ll probably be taken down by the site eventually but some content gets through.

Can You Download Videos From Sites Like YouTube?

While linking and embedding videos is okay, you shouldn’t download videos from YouTube. Sometimes this is tempting for teachers especially if they have unreliable internet connectivity, they’re worried about a video being removed in future, or they want to add a video to a learning management system. However, downloading videos raises many legal questions and generally violates copyright.

Additionally, you can’t necessarily use parts of videos from YouTube (or other sources) to make mashups or remixes. If you want to cut or remix videos, it is better to use Creative Commons content, public domain content, or request permission from the copyright holder.

Uploading Your Own Videos To YouTube

If you want to upload your videos to a site like YouTube remember to respect copyright. You should only upload videos that you made or that you have permission to upload. Make sure there aren’t copyrighted elements (e.g. music or images) in your videos. Of course, get permission from your school or district if these videos are being used professionally.

Educators should be especially careful about permission if using footage of students. Some teachers use the blurring tools available in YouTube to blur student faces and identifying objects. Richard Byrne shares a demonstration of how to do this on his website.

If you’re a creator and would like to learn more about videos and copyright, YouTube has a useful playlist of eight videos on their YouTube Creators channel.

Showing Videos To Students

Teachers can show videos in class for educational reasons, such as videos legally uploaded to YouTube (however, some districts don’t allow YouTube to be used in schools).

If you have a legitimate copy of an offline video (e.g. DVD), you’re allowed to use this in class for face-to-face teaching as long as it’s for educational purposes (not for entertainment or a reward).

Remember, this would be in line with the U.S. fair use policies we described above, so check your own country’s guidelines if in doubt. If you’re in Australia, a useful website for all things copyright is https://www.smartcopying.edu.au

Copyright And Text Or Curriculum Materials

Say you’ve purchased a textbook or other teaching materials. You can obviously use these materials in class and you might be able to make photocopies, however, in most cases you can’t upload purchased curriculum or books to a public site. That means don’t put scans, photos, or PDFs of textbooks, worksheets, posters, picture books, novels, or other learning materials on your public blog or website.

If in doubt, seek guidance from the company you purchased the curriculum materials from about reuse.

Marketplaces Like Teachers Pay Teachers

Not so long ago, we were all purchasing our curriculum materials from professional organizations. Now anyone can be a creator and with the rise of sites like Teachers Pay Teachers, new copyright questions have arisen. As Education Week has pointed out, copyright infringement is rife on this popular marketplace.

What does this mean for you? Well, if you’re uploading to a site like Teachers Pay Teachers you need to make sure you have permission to use all your elements including fonts and images.

If you’re downloading resources from Teachers Pay Teachers, you need to seek clarification about how these can be used. And also keep an eye out for resources that look like they could be violating copyright before you use them (e.g. copies of a published textbook). There is limited vetting of copyright materials on Teachers Pay Teachers. As a savvy internet user, we all need to have an awareness of the larger copyright traps that are out there.

Link To Curriculum Resources

Linking may be a useful alternative to copying curriculum materials. If third-party text, articles, or other content is available on the web, teachers or students could include a link to the content on their blog or website.

Like embedding, linking is not a copyright activity because you’re not “copying” the content. You’re just providing a path to the original location that the readers can access themselves.

Creative Commons Textbooks And Curriculum

Another option to avoid copyright violations is to use curriculum materials that have Creative Commons licenses. One example is OpenStax. You can browse to find textbooks for a range of topics and the materials are free to use however you see fit.

You’ll find some more open textbooks and course materials listed on this Open Washington page.

Copyright Infringement

We know that most images, text, music, and other content are protected by copyright by default. Using work protected by copyright without permission is called copyright infringement. This is unethical and illegal. “Using” the work might involve reproducing, displaying, distributing, performing, or making your own derivatives.

But I Won’t Be Caught…

If only that were true.

Google makes it incredibly easy for companies and content creators to seek out those posting their work on the web. In fact, most large companies now aggressively patrol the internet looking for copyright infringement.

Sadly, we are also noticing more and more “law firms” and organizations out there looking for copyrighted content as a way of generating business. They then contact the copyright holder offering their services to get the content removed (for a fee of course). It is a ruthless (and apparently profitable) practice.

Another issue that is important to be aware of involves Creative Commons Zero sites. There have been cases where people have used images from free image sites like Unsplash and then were hit with a copyright infringement case. Sometimes people put images up on these sites in order to sue. They leave the images up on the site until they are downloaded multiple times and then remove them. This is a dark side of Creative Commons Zero that’s important to be aware of.

What If I Am Caught?

In many countries, copyright infringement brings hefty penalties including fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars and imprisonment, depending on the situation.

Of course, a good offense is your best defense. Check your blogs and class websites for any potentially offending material. Has anyone uploaded images straight from other websites or Google? Are there are educational materials (e.g. copies of textbooks) that shouldn’t be there? Has copyrighted music been used publicly? If you find anything, just remove it.

The law requires copyright holders to give you (and the host of your site, such as Edublogs, WordPress, etc.) an official notification. Take these seriously and act quickly to remove what they want if you are in the wrong. That should be the end of it.

Here at Edublogs and CampusPress, we’re contacted about copyrighted materials regularly. These are mostly images from Google, curriculum documents, or PDFs (e.g. textbooks or sheet music), or music files.

We were once notified about a teacher with a blog on Edublogs that had a harmless world map image on his blog that he had presumably found using Google image search. When we contacted him telling him why we had removed the image, he asked if he and his students could write an apology letter to the copyright holder.

It was excellent – turning what could be a bit of an embarrassing mistake into a teachable moment for his students. Now this teacher had a good reason to discuss copyright and Creative Commons with his students.

Even if you haven’t done anything wrong, having a space to publish online like a blog or website is one of the best ways students can learn about copyright and Creative Commons.

Copyright Considerations When Publishing Online

Whether you’re a teacher, a student, or a regular blogger, when you’re publishing online you must do your best to be a responsible digital citizen. This means respecting others’ work and respecting copyright.

Here are three key things to remember when publishing online to be a legal and ethical digital citizen:

1) Steer Clear Of Google Images

Don’t copy images off Google or other websites. Even if you include an attribution it is still illegal and unethical.

If you like an image and don’t know where it originally came from, a reverse search might help.

If an image is created by someone that you can contact, you could always ask their permission to use it.

Remember the best bet is to find Creative Commons or public domain images. Otherwise, take/make your own images or purchase some from a stock photography website.

2) Embed Or Link To Audio Or Video Clips

If you’re going to include a video or an audio clip, embed the file from the source and include a link as well. Don’t download audio or video files as this brings up many questions about copyright.

If you’re embedding from a site like YouTube, make sure the content doesn’t violate copyright law. YouTube is usually pretty good at cracking down on this but there is some content on there that does violate copyright — e.g. copies of television shows.

3) Never Copy Someone Else’s Blog Post

You might find this a little hard to believe but unfortunately people copy posts from other blogs and publish them on their own site all the time. Or they publish the blog post in another format such as a PDF document or slideshow.

And in case you’re wondering, copying someone’s blog post and then including an attribution does not make this okay.

If you do want to share someone else’s blog post on your own blog, consider writing a short description of the post on your blog and then inviting readers to click on a link to read the post themselves. In your own post, you could include some key points about what you agreed or disagreed with. Or maybe you can expand on the topic in a different direction. All this would be perfectly acceptable and no doubt the author would appreciate the interaction.

Using Quotes In Blog Posts

Hopefully you now know that you definitely can’t copy and paste someone else’s whole blog post or image, but you can include a quote of some text.

Here are a few points to be aware of that we included in our post on The Edublogger about quotes:

Make it obvious which words are your own, and which words belong to someone else by using quotation marks or block quotes.
Make your quotes brief. There are no universal rules here. Some larger organizations have guidelines around how much you can quote (e.g. Hubspot’s rules are 75 words). If you’re unsure or think you might be using too much of someone’s article, contact them to ask permission. Never copy the whole post.
Always include the person’s name, and link to their site, article, or book if you can.
If you’re using blockquotes, the attribution could be before the quote, inside it, or below it.
If you shorten a quote, use an ellipsis (…) in place of the missing words.
If you’re adding any words or corrections to the quote, use brackets.

Adding Your Own Creative Commons License To Your Work

Earlier, we looked at the six types of Creative Commons licenses available to creators. If you’re publishing online, you’re a creator too! And you don’t have to be a professional. Maybe you share memes or lesson resources on social media? Perhaps you write blog posts? Maybe you take your own photographs that you share online?

Have you ever considered adding a Creative Commons license to your own original work?

As the Creative Commons organization explains,

When you apply a CC license, you give permission to anyone to use your material for the full duration of applicable copyright and similar rights.

This is therefore a serious decision but an important one. You can contribute to building a collection of art and knowledge that’s accessible to anyone in the world. How cool is that! You remain in control by choosing your own license, and people who like your work can use or share it without having to contact you for permission.

Before you choose a Creative Commons license, you need to make sure you are the copyright owner and the work is copyrightable (e.g. in a tangible format).

If you’re unsure which license to choose for your own work, there is an interactive tool on the Creative Commons website. This tool suggests a license after you answer a few questions. It also gives you a CC button that you can attach to your work to display your license.

If you would like to display your creative commons license on your blog, the easiest way is to use a text widget in your sidebar.

From your dashboard, go to Appearance > Widgets and select a Text widget to add to your sidebar. Paste the code provided by your Creative Commons license provider in the widget’s text box, and click “Save”.

Adults aren’t the only ones who can add Creative Commons licenses to their work. In many countries, children can too. What an authentic way for students to learn about copyright and sharing online.

Perhaps a whole class or school could make a library of Creative Commons content (e.g. images or music) that can be used freely by the education community? Talk about authentic learning!

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far into the guide you will have realized that copyright is a vast and complex topic, however, you don’t need to be an expert to understand the basics.

We’ve made a collection of slides which you’re welcome to use in your own classroom or perhaps you’d like to use them as part of your professional development program. Want to make a copy? Scroll down for instructions (don’t request access).

Want a copy of the Google Slides presentation? Don’t request access, just follow the steps below.

1) Click on this link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jK-_bTIBa9CZAC-bqKd0PQc7ohG9L47KSdcvfHgIxqw/copy?usp=sharing

2) You will be prompted to make a copy (screenshot below).

3) The Slides will be saved in your Google Drive.

4) You can edit the Google Slides to suit.

Before we conclude, take a moment to reflect back on the rules to remember about copyright.

Just because you found it online, doesn’t mean it’s free to use (even if you’re a teacher or student).
There are a lot of resources you can use freely including work that has a Creative Commons license or is in the public domain.
You have a right as a creator to have your work protected from copying and you can also give your own content a Creative Commons license.
If in doubt about using content, ask the creator for permission, find a free alternative, purchase an alternative, or make your own material.
Instead of looking for loopholes, consider whether you’re being the most responsible and ethical digital citizen you can be.

Do you have any other tips to add about copyright for educators, students, or bloggers? Be sure to leave a comment and let us know. We’d love to hear your suggestions.

For any specific questions regarding your own copyright dilemmas, please consult professional legal advice.

About Us

Edublogs is the oldest and most trusted web publishing platform for students and teachers around the globe. We have helped create and publish more than five million blogs, websites and portfolios since 2005 while providing teacher-friendly, student-safe WordPress solutions at scale.

We offer both cost-efficient and free options, along with site development, hosting, security, plugin and theme support to ensure your digital presence is meeting your goals in a fast-changing digital world.Want to learn more? Contact us to receive more information.

How To Use Quotes In Your Blog Posts

Kathleen Morris — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 03:03:00 +0000

If you’re active on social media or enjoy reading blogs, you’ll no doubt be aware of the popularity of quotes.

There’s something about quotes that many people find inspiring, motivating, and shareworthy.

Perhaps they’re a good pick-me-up when times get tough, or maybe they remind us of the deeper meaning behind our everyday routine. Sometimes quotes might offer a burst of insightful learning for the time poor.

Whatever the case, quotes can be powerful.

In this post we go through the advantages of adding quotes to your blog posts, how to add quotes using the block editor or classic editor, where to find quotes, and the etiquette of borrowing words from others. We’ll also show you simple ways to create images to display your quotes.

Why Weave Quotes Into Blog Posts?

Here are six reasons why quotes might become a regular feature in your blog posts:

You can back up your thoughts and make your writing more credible.
Student voice can be incorporated into a blog post written by a teacher.
You can provide alternative viewpoints or encourage readers to reflect.
Quotes can help you begin or end your blog post with impact.
The research involved in finding quality quotes is a solid learning experience.
Quotes can make your posts easier to read as they break up the text.

How To Put A Quote In Your Post

You can just type your quote into a post and put it in quotation marks, but to really make it stand out and break up your text, try a quote block. Your words will display like this:

Learning is not done to you. Learning is something you choose to do.
― Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams

Adding a quote is easy. If you’re using the block editor (Gutenberg) in WordPress, Edublogs, or CampusPress, you use the Add Block button to add a quote block to your page. If you can’t see the quote block, just type in quote in the search field.

The quote block comes with the standard editing options: alignment, bold, italicize, hyperlinks, and strikethrough.

If you press the button on the far left of the toolbar, you’ll be able to choose between two block styles. Depending on your theme, you may have additional styles to choose from. Your theme determines how quotes are displayed.

If you’re still using the classic WordPress editor, you can add a blockquote by following these instructions:

Type the quote
Highlight the words in your quote
Click on the quotation mark icon in your toolbar

Where Can You Find Quotes?

You might already have some favorite quotes stored away that have never left you. You might do a Google search for articles on your topic and find quotes from others.

Otherwise, you may enjoy browsing an online collection of quotes, such as the following:

Quote Legalities And Etiquette

We know we can’t just take images that we find online, and we certainly can’t copy others’ writing and publish it as our own. So, many people might wonder about using quotes.

It’s fine to use quotes from others but there are a few things to be aware of:

Make it obvious which words are your own, and which words belong to someone else by using quotation marks or block quotes.
Make your quotes brief. There are no universal rules here. Some larger organizations have guidelines around how much of their work you can quote (e.g. Hubspot’s rules are 75 words). If you’re unsure or think you might be using too much of someone’s article, contact them to ask permission. Never copy the whole post.
Always include the person’s name, and link to their site, article, or book if you can. Obviously, if you’re quoting someone like Aristotle or Mother Teresa, hyperlinking may not be an option!
If you’re using blockquotes, the attribution could be before the quote, inside it, or below it.
If you shorten a quote, use an ellipsis (…) in place of the missing words.
If you’re adding any words or corrections to the quote, use brackets.

Make Your Quotes More Visual

There are many online tools where you can turn your quote into writing on an image. These can make your blog posts look more visually appealing, and are great to share on social media too.

Here are just a few free online tools that might be useful for students or teachers:

Canva

Canva is a really popular tool to make all sorts of graphic designs and documents. The paid premium version of Canva is free for teachers and students.

Learn more about Canva in our guide for educators on The Edublogger.

Here is an example of a quote I made with Canva.

Adobe Spark

Similar to Canva, Adobe Spark is an online drag and drop tool that allows you to make social posts and graphics. Adobe Spark for Education gives students and teachers premium features for free.

Here is an example of a quote made with Adobe Spark:

Pablo And Remix

Pablo is a user-friendly web tool from Buffer (a social media scheduling tool). While Buffer is no longer updating Pablo, it seems to work well, and is fast and free. You simply add your text to a Creative Commons Zero image and save your work.

Buffer also has a free app for iOS and Android called Remix. The great thing about this app is it is completely free with no watermark or in-app purchases.

Here’s an example made with Pablo:

Quozio

Quozio is a really simple tool that doesn’t require any sign up, so it’s ideal for young students to use. You simply add your text and choose your background before saving your image. Here’s an example:

Note On Accessibility

Vision impaired visitors to your blog may be using assistive technology like screen readers to read the page out loud.

If you put words on an image, it’s essential that you write the actual words from the quote in the alt text section. You’ll find this in the Block Image settings on the right hand side of your screen.

If you’re interested in learning more about accessibility, check out the complete guide on the CampusPress blog.

Five Ideas For Using Quotes In The Classroom

If you’re an educator, there are many ways you can weave quotes into your blog or website.

Quote young students: If you teach very young students, you could put the students’ quotes about their learning in a different color on your blog. This makes it easier for them to go home and proudly share their blue/red/green writing with their parents.
Explore a quote in a post: If you have student bloggers, why not have them choose a quote from a fellow student’s blog post as a topic for a post of their own? They can explore the quote in detail and add their own thoughts and opinions.
Posts full of quotes: You or your students could create blog posts that are a compilation of quotes. For example:
- If you were studying World War Two, you could put together a collection of important quotes from this time in history.
- If your class visited the museum, you could add quotes from all the students about their field trip.
- If you were studying a divisive topic, like animal testing or closing a local library, you could interview members of the community and include their quotes in the post.
Quote library: You or your students could start your own library of interesting quotes as you come across them. You could add them to a Google Doc and then refer to them when writing blog posts in the future, or house them on a page on your blog.
Quote of the day blog: Some people have a photo of the day blog. What about a blog where a quote is published each day? This could be a mix of quotes from members of the school community, or well known identities or historical figures.

Bringing in the voices of experts or giving your students a voice through the use of quotations could have a big impact. Why not consider ways that you and your students could integrate quotes into your blog posts?

We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious…and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
― Walt Disney Company

What Can You Add?

Do you use quotes in your blog posts? Share a favorite quote in a comment.

Or perhaps you can share a website to find quotes or tell us how you display quotes as images. We’d love to hear from you.

About Us

At CampusPress, we’re experts in bringing innovative web solutions to schools, school districts, colleges, and universities through WordPress and our wide range of out-of-the-box and custom plugins and products.

In fact, our services in accessibility, security, hosting, support, along with an extensive suite of other tools, power millions of education websites, blog networks and portfolios. Learn more about our school website services or request info today!

Obtaining Permission To Blog With Students (With Example Forms And Guidelines)

Kathleen Morris — Sun, 08 Aug 2021 16:15:00 +0000

So you’ve decided to start blogging with your students. Congratulations! You’re about to embark on an amazing learning journey.

Your first step before introducing blogging into your classroom will be obtaining permission from your school and families.

Ensuring you have the required permission is not only important from a legal perspective, but ensures all stakeholders are well informed and on board with your adventure.

If you’re using the Edublogs platform, you can familiarize yourself with our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. It can be a good idea to make sure your district/school/families are aware of these policies too.

This post goes through some general advice to help you navigate the process of obtaining permission to blog with your students.

We’ll go through three steps:

Consulting with your school leaders or principal
Setting up your blogging guidelines
Obtaining informed permission from parents or carers

Let’s begin…

Step One: Consult With Your School Leaders Or Principal

Edublogs’ users come from many different school districts and countries all around the world. Legal advice and requirements vary greatly. It’s important to consult your own individual legislation prior to publishing online. Your school principal or district administrators will be able to let you know if there are any specific requirements you need to keep in mind.

Hopefully your school principal is already encouraging you and other staff to publish online. If not, it’s a good idea to seek permission and engage in a discussion about how you see blogging being used in your classroom.

If your principal is unfamiliar with blogging and you want to discuss the potential advantages of a blogging program, you might want to jot down the key benefits of blogging that excite you the most. This post explains 18 benefits and you can choose which ones you think apply to you and your students.

Many educators want to start a blogging program to strengthen home-school partnerships, provide a motivating authentic audience for their students’ work, or cover digital citizenship in an ongoing and supported way.

Our Complete Guide to Student Digital Portfolios goes over more benefits for students:

When consulting with your principal about your blogging program, you might like to discuss how you will use blogging to enchance your classroom program.

Here are three things to consider:

1) Will you have a class blog and/or student blogs?

Some educators like to start with a class blog before moving on to student blogs. This approach can allow you to develop blogging skills and confidence with your students, while maintaining control over what’s being published online.

When you are ready to implement student blogs or portfolios, our Guide to Student Digital Portfolios will definitely help.

2) What will blogging replace or improve?

The richest advantages of blogging often emerge when blogging is neither an add-on nor a substitution for pen and paper work.

SAMR (substitution – augmentation – modification – redefinition/reflection) is a popular model to base this reflection on, but there are other models as Michael Gorman has described.

3) What are the key purposes of your blogging program?

Some of the most popular uses for classroom blogs include:

Delivering news and updates to students and families
Posting student assignments and coursework
Facilitating online discussions
Providing a platform where students can publish their work for an authentic audience
Connecting with other classes locally or globally

The purpose of your blogging program will naturally evolve over time but deciding why you want to blog can help you successfully launch your program.

Step Two: Set Up Your Blogging Guidelines

To ensure everyone is safe and happy when publishing online, some guidelines for your blogging program are essential. You’ll also want to consider the level of privacy that will work for you and your school community.

What guidelines and privacy settings you will have in place?

There is a lot to think about here such as:

Will your blog be public or private? We have a post to help you weigh up that decision.
Will you publish students’ photos and names? We recommend you don’t match photos with names.
Will you write posts and have students comment, or will students create posts too?
Will you moderate all posts and comments on the blog? My Class by Edublogs is a tool that makes this easy.
How will you teach students to think before posting and prevent them from revealing personal information?

Example Blog Guidelines

Here are some blogging guidelines I used with my own students. You’re welcome to use and adapt them as you see fit. I published these as a page on my class blog so they were readily accessible by all visitors (find out how to publish a new page in this help guide).

Click here to make your own copy of the Google Doc and edit accordingly.

When you click to make a copy, you’ll be presented with a pop-up like the one shown below. Just select “Make a copy”.

Please edit the guidelines to suit your own class and school.

Step Three: Obtain Permission From Parents

You may be following a long line of bloggers at your school, or you may be the pioneer. Some schools have a general “internet use” permission form, but you might not think this is enough to obtain fully informed consent.

It’s a smart idea to assume that not every parent or guardian will be well-versed in blogging or understand how and why it might be used in the classroom. Therefore, it doesn’t hurt to add an information sheet or brief summary to explain the basics.

Ultimately, parents often just want to know their child will be safe online.

Example Blogging Permission Form

We have a generic permission form that you’re welcome to use and adapt.

Click here to make your own copy of the Google Doc and edit accordingly.

When you click to make a copy, you’ll be presented with a pop-up like the one shown below. This will allow you to save a version in your own Google Drive that you can edit.

If you’re only having a class blog, rather than student blogs, you can remove references to student blogs. Go ahead and make this form your own.

What Can You Add?

While it’s important to ensure you collect fully informed consent before you begin blogging, George Couros points out another important reminder: Ask the students. Do they want all their work and photos online, even if you have parent/school permission?

I appreciate the educators that make this a common practice, no matter what forms are signed. If we do not ask the student for their permission, do all of the other forms and permissions matter as much?
George Couros

How do you obtain permission to blog? Do you have any blogging guidelines, notes or resources you could share?

Leave a comment below with any questions or advice. We’d love to hear from you.

About Us

10 Classroom Blogging Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them)

Kathleen Morris — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 02:16:00 +0000

When you’re an educator, one of your main priorities is finding ways to provide the best possible learning experiences for your students. As such, you may make the decision to start a classroom blog.

This is a great idea! A blog is one of the most flexible and powerful tools you can use in your classroom. However, there are some common pitfalls that new and experienced bloggers alike sometimes overlook.

We’re here to help.

In this post, we’ll discuss the benefits of starting a classroom blog and explain how blogs are often used. Then we’ll go over ten common mistakes teachers make with their classroom blogging program and how you can avoid them.

The Benefits And Uses Of Class Blogs

Starting a classroom blog is more than just an effective way to incorporate technology into your course. A blog is a flexible tool that can be used for communication, learning, interaction, connection, and more.

Class blogs are used in a variety of ways, which is why many educators at all levels find them so useful. Check out these 13 examples of class blogs for some ideas and case studies.

Many educators enjoy using a blog to have an online space that complements their physical space. And we all know how crucial a virtual learning space has become in 2020. A blog can help build that cohesive classroom community that we’re all striving for.

Some of the most popular uses for classroom blogs include:

Delivering news and updates to students and families
Posting student assignments and coursework
Facilitating online discussions
Providing a platform where students can publish their work for an authentic audience
Connecting with other classes locally or globally

Tip: Consider the purpose of your blog before you begin. This might evolve over time but deciding why you want to blog will help you successfully launch your blogging program.

Class blogs can yield many benefits for students, teachers, and the school community.

As a teacher, a classroom blog offers you an online hub to store and distribute important course content. It’s like a digital filing cabinet. Your blog can also make it easier to connect and communicate with both parents and students, as well as other educators.

For your students, a classroom blog offers a place to exercise their creativity. Students can publish their work for an authentic audience on a blog which can fuel their growth as a learner tremendously. A classroom blogging program can serve as a helpful introduction to digital citizenship best practices. Read more about digital citizenship and blogging in this guide.

What about blogs for individual students?

Some educators find it useful to start with a class blog before launching into student blogs or digital portfolios. If you’re interested in using digital portfolios in your classroom, be sure to check out our complete guide. It has everything you need to know about getting started with student blogs or ePortfolios.

10 Classroom Blogging Mistakes

Regardless of how you intend to use your classroom or course blog, it’s crucial to make sure it’s properly set up. Everything from the platform you choose to the guidelines you prepare for students will influence its success.

Let’s take a look at some of the common classroom blogging mistakes educators make and how you can avoid them.

1. Forgetting To Obtain Permission

There are certain situations when it’s necessary to gain permission for blogging. Some schools may have specific criteria, policies, or preferences for sharing student work online. Others may require parental consent. You might need both.

Of course, you don’t want to find yourself in hot water with your school administration, nor with the parents of your students. Therefore, it’s best to err on the safe side and check with your superiors before you begin your blogging program.

Getting permission to blog isn’t just important for legal purposes, either. Looping staff and parents in on the classroom blog can also help encourage participation and make for an overall better student experience.

At the end of the day, most parents will likely just want to know that their children will be safe online. Providing them with simple information could help ease such concerns.

Example Blogging Permission Form

We have a generic permission for that you’re welcome to use and adapt.

Click here to make your own copy of the Google Doc and edit accordingly.

When you click to make a copy, you’ll be presented with a pop-up like the one shown below.

If you’re only having a class blog, rather than student blogs, you can remove references to student blogs.

2. Making Participation Optional

Simply starting a class blog isn’t a guarantee that students will participate. While there are always some students who will naturally gravitate towards a blogging program, others may require extra encouragement or may just need to know that participation is not optional.

Some educators discover that leaving blogging as an optional assignment doesn’t always yield the best results.

It’s important to keep in mind that your classroom blog might be the first introduction students have with creating web content. They may need guidance on how to use your platform. Providing clear instructions can boost students’ confidence and encourage participation.

In addition to explaining how to access and use the blog, you may also want to establish expectations from the start about how you intend for students to use it. This can include guidelines or policies for posting. Here’s an example from The Electronic Pencil:

Determining the purpose of your classroom blog will help inform the parameters you set for using it.

There are some other simple strategies you can use to encourage participation and make students more motivated to contribute in meaningful ways. For example, you may want to end your posts with discussion questions and ask for comments.

Similarly, if you plan to use your blog for student posting, you might consider allowing them to choose their own topics. Being flexible can make it easier for students to find inspiration. You might also provide students with challenges or prompts to help build and maintain momentum.

3. Failing To Share With An Audience

Just because your blog is online, doesn’t mean people will see it.

First, you’ll need to make sure your blog is public on the web. If you’d rather your blog lives behind a password or login, you’ll need to make sure your intended audience (students, families, colleagues) know how to access the blog.

If you’re unsure whether your class blog should be public or private, we have a guide that weighs up the pros and cons to help you make that decision.

But why would you want to share your class blog and student work with a wide audience?

An authentic audience is powerful. When students know someone beyond the teacher will see their work, they can be motivated to push themselves and work harder.

This is something Clive Thompson wrote about in Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better.

Making schoolwork purposeful can really impact student motivation and engagement.

Furthermore, when students have an audience for their blog posts, readers can provide further information, opinions, suggest resources, seek answers to questions and so on. This can drive a cycle of further learning and development.

Is it safe to have your blog open to a wide answer?

In short, yes. As long as you have your guidelines in place. For example, ensuring students only use their first names or pen names, moderating comments and posts before they’re published, and using some basic precautions with student photos.

Learn more about establishing your guidelines in our Teacher Challenge guide.

Who can be an audience for your class blog?

Teachers and families may be the most obvious audiences for your student work, but there are possibilities beyond that. In our guide to finding an authentic audience for your students, we go through six options: classmates, family, team blogging, projects, your PLN, and the web.

When students have a broad audience, they can learn to think beyond grades and pleasing the teacher, and start contributing their voice, knowledge, and resources to a global community. What an exciting opportunity!

4. Publishing Inconsistently

When you set up a new blog, enthusiasm can be high and you might find yourself posting frequently. Over time, bloggers sometimes become less consistent in their approach and this is a problem.

If you’re wanting to “train” students and parents to understand that your blog is a central part of your classroom, keeping it updated is crucial. If students and families check a few times and notice the blog hasn’t been updated, they will no doubt be reluctant to keep visiting the blog.

This doesn’t mean you have to publish daily but if you’re trying to build a dedicated audience (like families on a class blog), making your schedule more predictable can be advantageous. So you might tell your students and families that they can expect updated content on the blog every Monday, for example.

If you’re struggling to find the time to publish consistently, check out our plan for writing a weekly blog post in just ten minutes a day.

A related pitfall is using too many digital channels — for example, publishing some information on a school calendar, some on social media, some in the school newsletter and so on. Having a one stop shop for everything, like a blog, saves headaches for everyone.

Ultimately, you’re building your audience’s expectation that your blogging program is valuable, a key component of your course, and not optional.

5. Not Respecting Copyright

You want your class blog to have useful content for your students, right? This might include text, videos, educational material, and images.

Unfortunately, many bloggers don’t realize that you can’t use just anything you find online and may unintentionally publish copyright material in their posts. This is not only ethically incorrect but you could be violating copyright laws. You also want to be a good role model for your students regarding copyright as the expectations you set can influence them profoundly.

If you find the whole topic of copyright, Creative Commons, and fair use confusing, don’t worry (you’re not alone!). Our popular educator’s guide breaks down these important topics for you in simple terms.

To summarize, below are 5 main rules you need to remember about copyright. (Remember, you can take a deep dive into this topic by visiting our guide.)

1) Just because you found it online, doesn’t mean it’s free to use (even if you’re a teacher or student).

2) There are a lot of resources you can use freely including work that has a Creative Commons license or is in the public domain.

3) You have a right as a creator to have your work protected from copying and you can also give your own content a Creative Commons license.

4) If in doubt about using content, ask the creator for permission, find a free alternative, make your own material, or purchase an alternative that has the usage rights you’re after.

5) Instead of looking for loopholes, consider whether you’re being the most responsible and ethical digital citizen you can be.

6. Forgetting To Use Or Update Pages

Blogs are composed of two main structures: posts and pages. Posts are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order with the most recent post at the top of your blog’s home page.

Your posts are where you’ll publish your main content, such as:

Showcases of student work
Information about what’s been happening in class
Assignment information or learning resources

On the Learning Stories blog, there are regularly updated posts that contain rich content like photos, quotes, videos, curriculum outcomes, and more:

While you’ll be using posts a lot, some bloggers commonly overlook the power of pages. Pages on blogs are normally used for information that you want to share with your readers but don’t expect to update frequently.

You don’t want to have too many pages but a few key ones can really help to improve your class blog. One of the most important pages you could have is your About page. This is the place new readers can visit to find out who writes the blog and what it’s all about. You don’t have to reveal too many personal details. However, some general information like your grade level, subject area, and country can be really helpful for your audience.

If you use your blog over multiple years, remember to give your pages a once over every now and then to ensure the information is still current.

If you want to keep the design of your blog uncluttered, some bloggers choose to have nested sub-pages that sit underneath your main page menus as shown in the example below from St. Charles Borromeo blog.

Learn more about creating pages in this Teacher Challenge help guide.

7. Not Having Clear Grading Guidelines

As we mentioned earlier, class blogs are used for different purposes. Perhaps your blog is used to simply share classroom information or recaps. However, as your blogging program becomes an integral part of your course, you might decide to use the blog for graded student assignments.

Blogging assignments, while useful, can be very different from the traditional type of coursework you may be used to grading. To avoid making it overly complex or difficult, it’s helpful to have a clear strategy ahead of time.

In order to do this, it’s important to first consider how students will use the blog for their assignments. For example, will their posts be treated as writing assignments similar to essays? Alternatively, perhaps your main objective is to assess their discussion and participation skills.

There’s no right or wrong way to formulate a grading strategy for your classroom blog. However, what is essential is that the guidelines you set are transparent and clear to all your students.

As with your expectations for student participation, it’s also useful to include your grading criteria on the blog itself. Below is an example from SCHS Open Studio (a high school ceramics course). These extensive guidelines include information about citations, privacy, commenting, grammar, and more.

When creating your grading guidelines, don’t forget to consider the time that will go into reading and assessing your students’ work. The last thing you want is to realize too late that scoring dozens of lengthy blog posts isn’t practical for your course curriculum.

Using rubrics is another popular approach for grading student work on blogs. For more on this and other approaches to assessing student work on blogs, check out the Complete Guide to Digital Portfolios.

8. Ignoring Categories And Tags

A successful classroom blog is one that is organized and easy to navigate. Depending on how you intend to use it, there’s a good chance it can quickly become crowded with an array of content.

You want to make it as easy as possible for students, families, and other visitors to find the information they’re after on your blog. That’s where categories and tags can help.

What are categories and tags?

Categories and tags offer an effective way for WordPress users to classify and organize their blog post content.

Categories are meant to provide a broad grouping of your posts. Tags are used more for describing specific details.

On a class blog post, one category might be Math and tags might include things like addition, subtraction, number facts, or homework.

There are different schools of thought but in general, you don’t want to assign a post to too many categories or have too many categories on your blog overall. Only create a new category if you will be writing other blog posts that fit into that category. As a ballpark guide, you might want to create 5-10 categories under which your content can neatly fit (perhaps one for each subject area or type of post).

On the other hand it’s a good idea for a post to have multiple tags, perhaps between 2-5 per post. Some educators like to use tags for student names if they’re writing posts or are featured in posts. Naturally, parents are most interested in their own child’s content, so tags can make it easier for them to find this.

How to use categories and tags

You can add a new category or tag (respectively) by going to Posts > Categories/Tags in your WordPress dashboard:

Categories/Tags) in a WordPress dashboard as explained above." width="898" height="406"/>

You can also assign and create new categories and tags from the sidebar of any post:

If you don’t assign your posts to a category, they will go to the default category which is called “Uncategorized”. Not very helpful, right? Tags are optional so if you’re just getting started, we recommend you try using categories first.

For information on how to add categories and tags, please check out the following support documentation:

9. Overlooking Accessibility

In your physical classroom, you no doubt work hard to ensure every student is catered for. The same applies to your class blog.

In order for your class blog to be valuable, it must be accessible to all students. This includes individuals with visual impairments or disabilities that require them to use a screen reader or other assistive technologies.

Creating accessible web content might not be something you’ve considered before. We can help. Our Edublogger post on accessibility includes 7 key ways to make your blog more accessible to all. This includes things like proper heading structures, alt text for images, explained abbreviations, contrasting colors, transcripts, and descriptive links.

These simple strategies make it easier for all blog readers to interpret content.

For a deeper dive into the important topic of accessibility, check out the complete guide on the CampusPress blog.

10. Choosing The Wrong Platform

The first step in setting up a classroom blog is choosing a platform to create and host it on. This is an important decision because it affects the overall usability and accessibility of your website.

There are a handful of popular blogging platforms to choose from. WordPress is an excellent choice considering it powers 39% of all the websites on the internet. However, it’s a smart idea to select a platform that is designed specifically for educational purposes.

One of the most popular educational blogging services is Edublogs, which is powered by WordPress:

Our platform has an easy-to-use interface, making it ideal even for beginners or those who aren’t technically savvy. You can also use it to create student blogs, as well as individual sites for different classes.

Once you set up your class blog, you can easily moderate comments and content, create custom privacy controls, and choose a design to suit your needs.

Getting started with Edublogs is completely free, student safe, and there are no ads. You can learn more about the features of Edublogs in this table or check out this article to find out why WordPress is the best choice for classroom blogging.

Our sister service, CampusPress is also a popular choice for schools and universities planning on a whole school approach to blogging or portfolios. A CampusPress subscription can work alongside a school’s Content Management System (CMS) or even replace the need for one.

Conclusion

Classroom blogging can be a powerful and effective way to enhance the learning experience for your students. However, if you’re new to starting a blog, there are some important things to consider before jumping in.

Let’s recap the ten mistakes to avoid with your classroom blog:

Forgetting to obtain permission
Making participation optional
Failing to share with an audience
Publishing inconsistently
Not respecting copyright
Forgetting to use or update pages
Not having clear grading guidelines
Ignoring categories and tags
Overlooking accessibility
Choosing the wrong platform

Which one could you work on today?

Do you have any questions about avoiding these classroom blogging mistakes? Or perhaps you have some ideas of your own to add? Let us know in the comments section below.

About Us

Best of the Student Blogging Challenge: 10 Prompts

Kathleen Morris — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 21:09:44 +0000

Since 2008, the Student Blogging Challenge has run twice yearly, beginning every March and October. Thousands of students and teachers from around the world have participated to learn about publishing online while connecting with a global audience.

The 25th Student Blogging Challenge was scheduled to begin in October, however, 2020 has proved to be a year like no other. Due to the pandemic and subsequent changes happening in education throughout the world, the Student Blogging Challenge is on pause for now.

But don’t despair! If you’re a student, teacher, or class interested in publishing online, we’ve got ideas for you.

We’ve taken 10 of the best Student Blogging Challenge prompts from recent years for you to work on at your own pace. Perhaps you could aim to do one a week over 10 weeks, or pick and choose the challenges that suit you.

Don’t have a blog yet or want to start a new one? Easy. Just go to the Edublogs home page and look for the box that says Get a Free Blog.

No registration is required and you don’t have to host your blog with Edublogs to take part in this opportunity.

Want An Audience For Your Posts?

One of the most popular features of the Student Blogging Challenge was the authentic audience. If you publish a post in response to one or more of the prompts below, just leave a comment with your link. One of our dedicated volunteers will endeavor to visit your post and leave you a comment.

Remember: If you want to share a link to your blog post, make sure your site is public on the web (not password protected). Also, link to a specific post rather than just the home page of your site as explained below:

These challenges have been condensed but you’re welcome to explore the Student Blogging Challenge website for all the previous challenges with full details.

Challenge 1: Update Your About Page

The most important page on your blog is your About page. Many visitors look for an About page when they visit a blog for the first time. It’s a way to find out who’s writing the blog posts, what their background is, where they’re from and so on.

This task involves publishing or updating your About page on your blog.

Some bloggers forget to edit the default “sample page” that appears when you set up a new blog. Or they forget to update an About page that they might have written years ago.

If you’re using Edublogs or CampusPress, click here to find out how to add an About page.

There are many ways to write an About page. Be creative!

You might want to include:

You first name
Your approximate location (even just state or country)
Your age or grade level
Some of your interests
What your blog is all about. Tell us what you’ll be writing about

Remember to be safe online: don’t include personal details like your YAPPY as explained below:

Here are some About page examples from previous Student Blogging Challenges:

Jodie wrote an About page that included some interesting pictures.
Daniela wrote a poem. Learn about different styles of poetry here.
Ms. Mack created a “fun facts” list on her class blog that links to the students’ blogs.
Rina share 15 things about herself for her About page.
Commenter Dinah created her A-Z About page especially for the Student Blogging Challenge a few years back.
Zaprina made a creative post that’s an acronym of her own name.
Ms. Herring wrote a list of 25 things readers might not know about her.
Rajyashori prepared a creative interview script.

Challenge 2: Share Your Commenting Guidelines

Comments make blogs come alive!

Comments turn your blog from a static space to an interactive space. When someone leaves a comment they can share new perspectives that help you grow and learn. It can also be more motivating when you have an authentic (real) audience.

How would you like people to write their comment on your blog? This task involves coming up with your own commenting guidelines.

You can put your commenting guidelines in a post, but they might be better suited to a page (find out how to allow comments on pages using Edublogs).

You can just write your guidelines down as text or make some sort of poster, graphic, or slideshow.

You might make a How To Write A Quality Comment poster like mine below.

If you want to make your own poster, try a tool like Canva, Adobe Spark, Google Drawings, or even PowerPoint. Of course, if you make your own poster, please personalize it and don’t copy anyone else’s exact wording.

Here are some commenting guideline examples from former Student Blogging Challenge participants:

Evelyn came up with a fantastic “quality commenting” diagram.
Mrs. Yollis made a wonderful infographic using Canva and Bitmoji to share her expectations for quality comments.
Margaret used a rainbow acronym to teach about commenting.
“Dr. Hagle” and “Sarah Gold” used Puppet Pals to explain quality commenting using a Fairy BLOGmother!
Rajyashori used emojis to explain her commenting guidelines.
Brenton shared some specific examples of what makes a good comment.
Karl explained a great “3 C and a Q” approach to commenting.
Miaomiao created a cute comic where a dolphin and turtle learn about quality commenting.

Challenge 3: Fun With Photos

What’s a blog post without images? There are lots of places online where you can find images that you can use freely on your blog but you need to ensure you’re respecting Copyright and Creative Commons. If these are topics you’d like to learn more about, check out our ultimate guide.

Creating your own images for your blog posts is a great idea! You don’t have to worry about copyright and Creative Commons.

This task involves making your own image(s) to share in a blog post. Add your image(s) to a blog post and tell us a bit about the images and how you made them. If you used an online tool, include the link so others can try it.

Click here to find out how to add an image to an Edublogs or CampusPress blog.

You can:

Draw something and take a photo of it.
Take a photo of something in your surroundings (don’t use photos of other people without permission and remember not to include personal details like the front of your house).
Use an app on your iPad or tablet. Here are some recommended apps for different ages from Common Sense Media.
Use an online tool to make an image such as:

Check out our guide to Google Drawings on The Edublogger for tips on using this versatile tool for making images.

Remember, some online tools have age restrictions.

Here are some examples from former Student Blogging Challenge participants:

Alicia used MakeBeliefsComix to share a message about the environment.
Jena made a word cloud.
Wesley shared an original photo he took for a photography class.
Sue Waters from Edublogs took this funny photo of something odd she spotted at the supermarket. What can you find in your surroundings that makes you feel surprised, happy, amused, or frustrated?

Challenge 4: Schools Around The World

During the Student Blogging Challenge, participants have always enjoyed sharing a bit about their school life and finding out how it is similar and different from others.

In 2020, school might look very different for you compared previous years. This task involves you telling your readers a bit about your school or experience with remote learning. You could include text, images, a slideshow, a video, or even an audio recording (Anchor is a great tool for making audio recordings).

Remember, it’s important to think carefully about what information we publish online. Check with an adult about including your school name in your post.

Your post might include details like:

How do you get to school?
What is your timetable like? Do you have set subjects at certain times?
Do you have one teacher or many?
What time do you begin and end school?
Do you get to choose what you learn?
What technology do you have at school?
What is the history of your school?
What activities are popular at break times?
How would you describe your school grounds?

Here are some examples from former Student Blogging Challenge participants:

Kalani wrote a great description of her school day.
Joel made a Google Slides presentation comparing the normal and “lockdown” school day.
Farrah asked her parents about how school has changed.
Van Anh explained how to play a traditional Vietnamese game (it includes an awesome image created in PowerPoint).
Ben wrote a post about break times at his school.

Challenge 5: Emoji Story

Many Student Blogging Challenge participants have enjoyed including emojis in their posts.

The great thing about emojis is they’re a universal language. Emojis can help people communicate, even if they don’t speak the same language.

If you’re using a Windows or Mac computer, there is a simple way to choose an emoji as Tony Vincent demonstrates in the graphic below.

Call up an emoji keyboard in Windows 10 by holding down the Windows key and pressing period (full stop). Holding down the Windows key and the ; key also works.
On macOS, hold down Control and Command and press the space bar to make an emoji picker appear.
Both of these keyboard shortcuts require the cursor to be in a text box.

This task involves using an online tool to create a story from emoji prompts.

Go to byrdseed.com/emoji2. You’ll see one random emoji on the screen.
Press “And then…” to add some more inspiration for your story with new emojis.
If you don’t like the emojis, just press “Start over”.
Write your story in a blog post. If you prefer, you could make an audio recording or even a video.
You could ask your visitors to finish your story in a blog comment if you like.

Don’t forget to take a screenshot of your emojis to add to your blog post so your visitors can check out your inspiration. This article shows how to take a screenshot on any device.

Thank you to Tony Vincent for this great graphic.

Here are some examples from former Student Blogging Challenge participants:

Evelyn’s story is about a koala.
Jordan wrote about a city adventure.
Alivia wrote about writer’s block.

Challenge 6: Music

Music is something that can connect people, no matter where you live, what language you speak, or how old you are.

Maybe you like listening to music? Playing music? Writing music? Dancing to music?

This task involves writing a post about music. You’re going to tell us about your favourite artist, group, instrument or style of music. You might even make your post into a guessing game or a quiz.

Find out more about a singer, songwriter, musician, or group, instrument, or style of music you’re interested in.

You can then choose to:

Share some interesting facts in a post.
Bring your research to life with an image or video.
Give your readers some clues as they scroll down the page and have them guess the artist, song, or instrument. You could put each clue on a slide of a Google Slides presentation or in a video. Invite your readers to put their guesses in a comment.
Quiz your readers about anything music related, for example, facts about artists like the year they were born, or their first number one hit, facts about instruments, music theory, and so on. Google Forms is great for making quizzes but please make sure it’s public.

Did you know, most music is protected by copyright? So you can’t use it for your own digital projects without permission or paying for a special license. You can learn more on our post on copyright and Creative Commons.

Here are some examples of posts about music from former Student Blogging Challenge participants:

Marissa wrote about the udu drum which is part of her Nigerian heritage. She included a video.
Liam created a fantastic post about the electric bass guitar that includes some clues and also asks readers for their opinions.
“Beauty Beatz” shared some lyrics and invited readers to guess the songs.
Alex made a fantastic video guessing game.
Colleen used images to make a “guess the song” post.
Malaika’s post includes a quiz using an online tool called Quiz Maker.
Ella’s post includes a quiz created in Kahoot.
Alexa wrote a post about the clarinet and included a picture.

Challenge 7: Celebrations And Festivities

We always have a diverse group of students taking part in the Student Blogging Challenge with lots of different cultural backgrounds represented.

Around the world, people celebrate different holidays and festivals. It can be fun to tell people about our own traditions while learning more about others.

This task involves sharing a holiday, festival, or celebration that’s important to your family.

You could make a list of your family’s celebrations with a short description for each one, or
You could choose one celebration to explain in more detail.

Don’t forget to include lots of information about your holiday so your readers can get a clear understanding of this special day/season.

You could include things like:

The time of year/date it’s celebrated.
What you do to celebrate? Are there special costumes, decorations, music, lights, food, prayers, etc?
Do people give each other gifts?
Who is involved in the celebration? Do you visit other people or host family and friends?
What special memories do you have?

You might even like to do some research into the origins of your holiday. Perhaps you could include some photos or a video.

At the end of your post, you could invite readers to comment and tell you a bit about a celebration that’s important to them.

Here are some example posts from former Student Blogging Challenge participants:

Nandini from India used a Google Slides presentation to tell us about the Holi festival.
Ayyoob explains Ramandan in his post.
Logan’s post about Christmas includes a poem.
Mr. Matt told us about Chinese New Year in Taiwan.
Brady shared a bit about all the holidays he celebrates.
Satheprincess14 wrote about Holi.
Mrs. Matveyeva’s class in Kazakhstan wrote about their spring festival called Nauryz.
Evelyn included some family photos in her holiday post (be sure to get permission if you want to do this).

Challenge 8: Where In The World?

The world is an amazing place! Many of us enjoy travelling to explore areas local to us or further abroad, however travel is difficult with the pandamic. Let’s explore the world virtually by reflecting on a holiday you had in the past or imagining a place you’d like to visit in the future.

This task involves writing a post about travel.

Here are some ideas for your post:

Write about a holiday you went on that you really enjoyed. Include photos if you have permission.
Make a list of the top 10 travel destinations you’d like to go to. Tell us why you’d like to visit these places.
Create a slideshow or video of your ideal holiday destinations.
Create an imaginary itinerary if you could travel anywhere and had an unlimited budget.

You might also be able to use some of the fabulous Google tools for this topic like Google Earth and Google Maps.

Eleni Kyritsis shows us how to create a virtual tour with Google Tour Creator.
Matt Miller explains how to make a Google Map walking tour with Screencastify.

You might have your own ideas!

Safety Tip: It’s fun to talk about travel, but it’s a good idea to avoid mentioning your specific travel plans online. For example, instead of saying, “I’m going to visit Sydney next Monday” try “I’m planning a holiday to Sydney” or “I’m looking forward to visiting Sydney in the future”.

Here are some example posts from former Student Blogging Challenge participants:

Aliyah wrote a guide to the Bahamas.
Stu used Google Tour Creator to show us around his town in the USA.
Claire used Google Tour Builder to make a tour of North Carolina in the USA.
Adrienne told us about her trip to Costa Rica.
Veronica wrote about holidaying in New York.
Sarah and Jodie worked together on a slideshow about their (separate) family trips to London.
Hay included lots of pictures in her post about her dream destinations.
Emily wrote an expressive post about all aspects of travel.

Challenge 9: Science

The great thing about science is there are so many different fields and topics. Perhaps there are some areas of science you find very fascinating and others that aren’t really your cup of tea.

This task involves writing a post on a science topic that interests you.

Look around you. What do you wonder? Maybe you’re curious about how the internet works or where rain comes from or life on Mars?

Do some research on a science topic you’re interested in and write a blog post about what you discover.

Alternatively you might present your post as A-Z of science or a particular science topic. You could even leave a few letters blank and ask for suggestions in a comment.

For example…

A is for astronomy: the study of outer space

B is for bunsen burner: a device commonly found in a science lab for heating

C is for carbon dioxide: the gas formed when humans or animals breathe out

D is for data: the facts or pieces of information a scientist uses

Here are some example posts from former Student Blogging Challenge participants:

Mr. Howie’s class in Serbia created a class A-Z of science.
Jordyn incorporated her love for animals into a post called What-ology?
Sophia made an A-Z of science.
Kaia did some research into the animals that are closest to humans.
Gab dived into the topic of molecular gastronomy — the study of the science behind food.
Felix decided to find out if fish can swim backwards.
Mrs. Moore’s 5th grade class made an A-Z of science words.

Challenge 10: Share Your Passions Or Interests

Whenever we do the Student Blogging Challenge we have a free choice week where students are welcome to talk about topics that interest them.

This task involves writing a blog post about your own passions, interests, hobbies, recommendations, or curiosities. It’s basically a free choice post to write about anything you like! Your post might include text, images, videos, diagrams, a quiz, a slideshow, or any other sort of media.

Here are some example posts from former Student Blogging Challenge participants:

Ally wrote about her passion for physics and philosophy of the universe.
Julia wrote about her cats and included a video.
Ryder explored the topic of what makes the perfect “surf-able” wave.
Evey argued why Minecraft and Fortnite should not be compared.
Ella offered some book suggestions for her readers.
Quinn reflected on his favorite hobbies: photography, basketball, and skiing.
Kate reflected on whether cats are smart.
Emily wrote about her favorite sport: field hockey.

Need More Ideas?

A couple of months back, we published 150 writing prompts for students on The Edublogger.

The prompts and ideas are divided into broad topics:

Getting started
Online prompts
Interdisciplinary and fun
Art, images, and music
Reading and writing
History and geography
Math and science
Web tools

We have also created a PDF eBook of the 150 prompts that you can save, print, or share.

Share Your Work In A Comment

Don’t forget, after you complete one or more of the challenges, leave a comment on this post with the link. One of our Student Blogging Challenge volunteers will try to visit your post and leave you a comment.

Here’s an example of a quality comment that includes more than just the link:

Have fun and if you have any more questions, you’re welcome to leave a comment below.

150 Student Writing Prompts For Blogs, Digital Portfolios, Or Websites

Kathleen Morris — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 02:18:00 +0000

If your students have their own blog, digital portfolio, or website, you may have found that their enthusiasm for writing was initially high. Students typically can’t wait to unleash their creativity and publish on their own online space, often for an authentic audience.

Sometimes when the initial excitement wears off, students start facing “bloggers’ block” or get in a rut of writing the same style of post over and over.

Our interesting collecting of writing prompts will help your students maintain momentum with their blog, website, or digital portfolio. The prompts allow your students to explore various genres, tools, and mediums. If you have students who are reluctant writers or perhaps you’re just looking for fresh and authentic ideas to get your students publishing, you’re in the right place.

Scroll down to dive straight into the 150 prompts, or read on to find out more about the types of posts you could see on a blog, personal website, or digital portfolio.

We have created a PDF eBook of the 150 prompts that you can save, print, or share. You don’t need to ask permission to use the eBook as it has a BY-NC-ND Creative Commons license. You just can’t make derivatives or use the eBook commercially. And you should give attribution.

Download the PDF eBook version of the prompts.

10 Types Of Blog Posts

Blogging isn’t like traditional writing — it’s a unique genre and it’s worth exploring what’s possible.

Here are 10 types of blog posts you commonly see on the web. This might give you inspiration to mix up the posts on your students’ blogs, websites, or portfolios.

1. Reflection: Deep thoughts and self-reflection on what you’ve learned, experienced, or what you’re thinking about. Putting it all out there can really help organize thoughts and ideas. Yu-Liang Shih’s reflection post and Andrea’s reflections on camp demonstrate how this style can be used as part of a student blog.

2. How-to/Helpful: Everyone loves using the web to find out how to do something. This classic style of post can be enhanced with pictures, videos, and other media. In this example, Steph made a tutorial on how to add a pet to her blog.

3. Journal/Diary/Recount: This is a versatile style of post that’s great for reading logs, field trips, science labs, special events, study abroad, and so on. Here’s an example from Evelyn who published a recount of her field study to Oregon.

4. News/Announcement: These posts aim to keep readers up-to-date with important information. In this example, educator George Couros announces a book study.

5. Marketing/Sales: Typically these are commercial style posts. Students could use blogs to advertise things like school events and fundraisers. For example, the students at Auroa School made a video to promote their school.

6. Controversial/Debate/Editorial: This involves taking a stance on an issue while backing up thoughts with facts and proof. Examples include: Sidd’s debate on cell phones in schools and Jackson’s Kids Watch Too Much TV.

7. Reviews: Many people love to take to the web to share their reviews (sites like Amazon and TripAdvisor may offer inspiration!). Here’s an example of a book review from teacher Kevin Hodgson.

8. Listicle: This is another name for a list post. We know how popular articles are that start with something like “10 ways to…”. These sorts of posts often offer the reader quick wins. In this example, Mrs. Yollis and her students list their top 12 quarantine essentials.

9. Curation Posts: Sometimes a blog post or page is used to curate a list of resources on a particular topic. This page of live events and virtual field trips is an example of a curated list from Mrs. Hamman.

10. Ongoing Series: Choose any of the above, but split it up into several shorter posts that get published over a set period of time. The posts could connect sequentially, or just fall under the same umbrella topic. For example, Sheri Edwards did a series of posts using the Slice of Life writing prompts.

Styles Of Posts On Blogs, Websites, Or Portfolios

There are a number of ideas on how to structure posts. You might want to stick to a consistent style or mix things up.

Informal with short paragraphs and casual language Vs formal with writing that follows traditional academic guidelines, perhaps with references.
Long-form where a topic is broken down into great detail Vs micro-blog which may only include a few sentences, often with the intention to encourage readers to leave comments.
Multimedia rich with slideshows, photos, videos, or podcasts Vs text only such as the style of writing you’d see in a traditional academic essay.

150 Ideas And Prompts For Student Writers

We’ve divided the prompts up into 8 broad topics to make navigation easier. Of course, some prompts could fit into more than one category.

Getting Started

Online Prompts

Interdisciplinary and Fun

Art, Images, and Music

Reading and Writing

History and Geography

Math and Science

Web Tools

Getting Started

These topics are ideal for getting students used to publishing online.

1) Introductions: Who are you? Share your hobbies, interests, family background, and anything else you want others to know while remembering to protect your personal information if your site is public. This information might be best on a static About page so it’s easy for new visitors to refer to. Here’s a great example of an About page from Steph.

2) Personal A to Z: Create an A-Z of yourself or one of your interests (e.g. an A-Z of basketball or gardening).

3) Avatar: Create an avatar (online character) to use on your blog and write a post to explain how it represents you. This post on the Student Blogging Challenge demonstrates some different ways you can make an avatar using online tools.

4) Commenting Guidelines: Write a post to explain what you expect when someone leaves a comment on your blog. There is some information and examples on the Student Blogging Challenge site on how to write commenting guidelines.

5) Goals: Share some goals that you have set for yourself. For example, you could publish one goal for this week, one goal for this month, and one goal for this school year. Describe how you plan to accomplish your goals.

6) Holiday: Share what you did on a recent holiday or vacation. Include photos or videos if you have permission. Alternatively, you could write about your dream vacation. Where would you go and what would you do?

7) Hero/Mentor: Write about someone who inspires you. It could be someone you know in real life or someone famous from the past or present. What is it about this person that makes them so special?

8) My Country or Culture: Publish facts about your country or a culture that you’re interested in. You could write a post focusing on food, festivals, songs, stories, clothing, geography, or anything else.

9) School History: Write some information about your school’s history. You could focus on the buildings, write about someone who used to go to the school, or reflect on how the curriculum or rules have changed.

10) Classrooms: Explain what the classrooms and buildings are like in your school or describe what your perfect classroom would look like. Use your imagination; your dream classroom could be indoors, outdoors, in a school, or somewhere else!

11) Favorite…anything: Publish a post that discusses topics you’re passionate about. You could write about your favorite animal, TV show, movie, holiday, sports, or hobbies.

12) Reader Quiz: Your quiz could be about anything — Disney movies, chemistry, capital cities, football… you choose! Readers could answer in a comment or in Google Forms. This could be a great way to get to know your audience. You might like to do a follow-up post that goes over the results, including graphs, charts, and analysis. BEAM is a simple tool for making basic charts.

13) Guest Post: Ask a friend or family member if they’d like to write a guest post on your blog. Make sure you approve it before publishing.

14) Top 10: Make a top 10 list of anything. For example, you could rank your favorite songs, actors, sports, or foods.

15) Interview: Interview someone in your family or community. There might be interesting people at your school you could interview too like your principal, cleaner, librarian, or crossing supervisor.

16) Three Wishes: If you had three wishes, what would they be? Invite your readers to share their own wishes in a comment.

Online Prompts

17) Video Prompts: John Spencer has made some fabulous short video writing prompts that could really get your imagination going. Check out the YouTube playlists of prompts here.

18) Pobble 365: Every day there is a new photo prompt and literacy starters posted on the Pobble 365 website. These are ideal to respond to when you’re stuck for ideas.

19) New York Times Writing Prompts: Multiple times a week, The New York Times publishes writing prompts for students. There are Picture Prompts (images with questions), What’s Going on in this Picture? (images stripped of captions) and Student Opinions (daily questions inspired by Times’ content). There’s lots of inspiration for you to choose from!

20) What’s Going on in this Graph? Another initiative from The New York Times, a graph, map, or chart is published regularly as an invitation for students to discuss. Find a graph that fascinates you and share your interpretation.

21) 1,000 Writing Prompts: The New York Times has also compiled 1,000 Writing Prompts For Students. There’s sure to be something that interests you amongst that collection!

22) Language is a Virus: This excellent site has a multitude of prompts, exercises, and gadgets to inspire your writing. One example is Visual Poetry where you can display your writing in artistic and whimsical ways. Screenshot your creation for a blog post.

23) Practice Your English: MMG’s English blog has been created by a teacher with prompts for students to practice their English. You will find jokes, quotes, recipes, videos, and more. Find one that interests you and share a response on your blog.

24) Visual Writing Prompts: Teach Starter has created a collection of visual writing prompts. The images are Creative Commons Zero which means you’re free to upload them to your blog.

25) Creative Writing Prompts: Writer’s Digest offers regular written prompts that are ideal for older students. Have a browse and see if there is a prompt to inspire a new post.

26) Scholastic Story Starters: If you’re in K-2, you might enjoy this a fun interactive site where you can create your own prompts for a variety of writing genres.

27) Wonderopolis: This popular multi-disciplinary site posts a “wonder of the day” with lots of kid-friendly information, definitions, and a quiz. You could choose the daily wonder or a past wonder and reflect or summarize it in a blog post. You can even add a Wonderopolis widget to your blog.

28) Secondary Blogging Prompts: Check out these 20 blogging prompts from educator Randy Rodgers. They’re designed for teens but some could be used by younger students. There may be a prompt to get your creative juices flowing.

29) Writer Igniter: Get inspiration from Writer Igniter which provides you with a character, situation, prop, and setting. This is best for middle school or high school students.

30) Printable Comic Prompts: MakeBeliefsComix has a huge collection of writing prompts divided into categories. There’s something for everyone!

31) Random Emoji Generator: Create a story based on emoji prompts. Go to the byrdseed site to generate your prompts. You can then copy the emojis into a post and write a story based on them.

32) Siri Conversation Tool: Generate your own Siri conversation via ifakesiri. Embed the conversation on your blog or take a screenshot. What’s something creative you could ask Siri about?

33) 100 Word Challenge: If you’re under 16, you might enjoy this weekly creative writing challenge. You’ll find more details and registration information on the 100 Word Challenge website.

34) The Student Blogging Challenge: Every March and October we run a free 8 week supported blogging challenge where students aged 8-16 are given weekly prompts. Student and class posts are visited by a global audience. Maybe you can join us for the next challenge?

Interdisciplinary and Fun

35) Expert FAQs: Are you an expert on something? LEGO? Minecraft? Pokemon? Ballet? Write “Frequently Asked Questions” and answers about your topic.

36) Test Review “Cheat Sheet”: Use images, videos, and text to create a post that your classmates can use as a study guide to prepare for an upcoming assessment.

37) Exit Ticket: Write a short summary of what you learned in class before leaving. Include any questions you still have and a list of any assignments or tasks you still need to complete.

38) Quotes: Choose a quote that inspires you or is relevant to what you’re learning. Explain why you chose the quote and what it means to you. We have a post all about using quotes that will give you some tips.

39) Video Comparison: Embed two or more videos on a topic from YouTube, Vimeo, or TED and then compare and contrast the videos. If you’re unsure how to embed videos, we have a help guide to walk you through it.

40) Would You Rather? Create some “would you rather..?” questions for your audience such as, “Would you rather live 100 years in the past or future?” or “Would you rather be able to fly or swim underwater without breathing?” Share your own thoughts too!

41) Future Me: Write an email to yourself when you are one, five, or ten years older. This could be a blog post in itself, or for 13+ students, the FutureMe website could be used to actually send the email.

42) Jokes: Who doesn’t like jokes? Find some online or share your own favorite jokes to give your readers a laugh. The TLC Tutoring Updates blog used images and scrolling space to format their joke post. Alternatively, you could reveal the answers in the comments section.

43) Gratitude Journal: Use your blog or portfolio to reflect on what you’re grateful for. Perhaps this could become a weekly practice.

44) Special Days of the Year: Use a website like Days of the Year to find out what fun or lighthearted days are being celebrated. For a more serious approach, select an International Day from the United Nations International Day list. Write a post to explain the special day and what it means to you. (Teacher tip: You may want to choose the days for younger students, rather than allowing them to browse these sites).

45) Principal for the Day: What would you do if you were principal for the day? Don’t hold back in sharing your ideas!

46) Video Game Review: Write a review for an online game. Share the pros, cons, and a star rating. Don’t forget to include the link to the game so others can try it.

47) Kindness: List some random acts of kindness that you’d like to see other students try. You might get some ideas from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation.

48) Recipes: Pretend you’re a food blogger! Share a recipe that you enjoy eating or making. Spice up your post with a photo of the end result.

49) World Records: Browse the kids’ Guinness World Records website and write about an impressive record. Or tell your readers what sort of world record you’d like to attempt.

50) Secret Code: Come up with a secret code and share a message on your blog or portfolio. Perhaps a number could represent each letter of the alphabet or you could write each word backwards. Ask readers to guess what the post says in a comment.

51) Curious Minds: Publish a list of questions you have about the world or about a certain topic. You don’t have to answer the questions. It can sometimes just be good to explore the things you’re curious about.

52) Memes: These are fun messages that are spread widely online. Maybe you could make a meme that relates to a topic you’re studying at school. Meredith Akers has shared a Google Drawings meme generator that’s safe for students.

53) Sports Report: Provide an overview of a sports competition your school, community, or professional team has been involved in. If you choose a local sport, perhaps you could interview some participants or coaches.

54) Life in the Future: Make some predictions about what life will be like in 5, 10, 50, or even 100 years from now. You could even interview others to find out their thoughts on the future.

55) Trends: Discuss the latest trends in the schoolyard. Games, fashion, toys … what’s hot and what’s not? Maybe you could ask someone older than you what the trends were when they were at school.

56) Playground Fun: Offer activity suggestions that other students could try out at recess and lunchtime if they’re bored. You could even sort your suggestions into age groups.

57) Productivity Tips: Help your fellow students learn to manage their time better with some useful tips and tricks. Maybe you have tips for managing homework or chores at home, using a diary or calendar, or making lists.

58) Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use: These are important topics for any publisher to know about. Check out our Guide to Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use on The Edublogger. Write a post, create a video, or design a poster to teach others about these topics.

59) Digital Citizenship: What tips do you have to stay safe online? Share these with others in a post, a video, comics, memes, or posters. Check out these internet safety tips for students for ideas.

60) Blogging Tips: Be your school’s “problogger” and share some bite-sized tips for fellow bloggers. Maybe you could make tutorials on things like adding images to your post, making a custom header, or adding links to your site. You could even make a screencast using a tool like Loom or Screencastify.

Art, Images, and Music

61) Photo Blog: Have you heard of 365 photography or “a photo a day” type blogs? This is something Linda Yollis has been doing since 2010 with her Yollis’ 365 Project. Students and the community are invited to send in photos and captions. You could create a similar style blog or post series.

62) Picture Prompt: Add a copyright-free image from Photos For Class to a post and write about it. Create a poem, story, information report, or any other style of writing based on your image.

63) Image or Artwork: There are many free web tools where you can create digital artwork. Some examples are Google Drawings, emoji.ink, Toy Theatre Art Tools, Bomomo abstract art, Tate Kids street art, Draw Island, and Auto Draw. If you want to be blown away with what’s possible, check out the Fugle Blog where K-5 teacher, Tricia Fuglestad, combines art and technology in truly creative ways.

64) Emoji Artwork: Make some emoji artwork using emoji.ink. Add your image to a post and tell your readers about it.

65) Infographic: Use a tool like Canva, Piktochart, Venngage, or Infogram to create an infographic and then write a post describing your graphic. Alternatively, create infographics using several of these different tools then write a review of the tools you used. Which one was best and why?

66) Get Crafty: Try a craft activity with paper or other materials you have on hand and write a tutorial. You could include written instructions, photos, or videos. Not sure what craft to try? There’s lots of inspiration online. Education.com has a comprehensive collection of ideas.

67) Make a Song: Create your own original song in Chrome Music Lab. Click on “Save” to get the link or embed code to publish your song in a post.

68) Favorite Instrument: Do you have a favorite instrument or is there an instrument that fascinates you? Do some research and write a post about it. Add an image or video to your post if you can too.

69) Make a Playlist: Write a post that includes a playlist of your favorite songs. Don’t forget to explain why you like each song and why it’s part of your playlist. Your playlist might even be for a specific occasion like a birthday party, wedding, or school graduation. You could even make a soundtrack of your life!

70) Guess the Artist, Song, or Instrument: Give your readers some clues as they scroll down the page and have them guess the artist, song, or instrument. Invite your readers to put their guesses in a comment.

71) Share Your Talents: Can you sing or play an instrument? Film yourself and add your video to a post. If you don’t have musical talents yourself, find someone else you can record and interview them.

72) Guess That Sound: Embed some sounds from the free collection on the BBC website. Have your readers guess the sounds in a comment. Don’t forget to reply to your comments to tell your readers if they were correct. (Tip: To use the BBC sound effects, you need to link back to their site and include the word “copyright” and the year).

Reading and Writing

73) Book Review: You can include a summary of the plot without spoilers, your favorite quotes, a star rating, and a photo of the book. Or maybe you could create some BookSnaps (annotated photos of text from a book).

74) Book Recommendations: Create a recommended reading list for others to enjoy. Check out this list from the OJCS Library blog for inspiration.

75) Poetry: There are many styles of poetry you could experiment with. Ken Nesbitt’s Poetry 4 Kids is a great site to get help with writing poems. You might also like to try a ReadWriteThink poetry interactive that guides you through the writing process then publish your poem on your blog. Tip: you need Flash enabled to use the ReadWriteThink interactives so they won’t work on an iPad.

76) Expand Your Vocabulary: Improve your writing by trying Describing Words. This free web tool helps you find new words to describe nouns. Try out the tool and reflect on your discoveries in a post. There’s also a version that helps you find related words as well as a reverse dictionary.

77) Change a Story Ending: Choose a well-known story (perhaps a fairytale or another classic) and publish a different ending. You can ask for feedback from readers in the comments.

78) Interactive Endings: Write the beginning of a short story and invite your readers to finish it in a comment. Alternatively, you could write two different endings and have readers vote for their favorite.

79) Words From Your Birth Year: Write a post about some of the words that were introduced in the year you were born according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. Include your thoughts or research on why these words were introduced in that year.

80) News Report: Read information on children’s news sites like Newsela, Scholastic Kids, Time for Kids, or DOGO News. Then summarize a news story for your readers with your own reflections or opinions included. Tip: There is even a DOGO News plugin.

81) Wordless videos: Speech pathologist Sarah has compiled a list of wordless videos. You could embed one in a blog post and write a script, recount, or reflection on the meaning behind the video.

82) Interactive Stories: Google Slides can be used to create interactive or “choose your own adventure” type stories. Jake Miller has made a useful GIF to explain how to do this. For an example story, check out The Electronic Pencil blog by Kevin Hodgson. Finally, if you want to know how to embed your Google Slides presentation into a post, these instructions walk you through it.

83) Spelling/Vocabulary: Share your spelling words or a set of interesting words you have recently come across. Define the words or create interesting sentences to share with readers. You could even use a site like Spelling City and screenshot some of your activities.

84) Grammar and Punctuation: Share your understanding of a concept you’re learning to help others understand an aspect of grammar or punctuation. You could make a comic, a poster, a video, a quiz, a song, or anything else!

85) Newspaper: Create your own online newspaper to share on your blog. Kathryn made Early Bird News in Google Docs and added the link to her blog post. It even includes fake news stories, advertisements, and a comic. MHMS Daring School students worked collaboratively on their newspaper.

86) Storyline Online Review: Watch a book being read by a professional actor on Storyline Online and prepare a book review or summary (you can embed the story in a post).

87) Six Word Story: Stories don’t have to be long, they can even have just six words! Melissa Pilakowski has some examples on her teacher blog of six word stories if you’d like some inspiration.

88) Persuasive Writing: Make your case for an argument, for example, why dogs are better than cats, why the school cafeteria should offer a different menu, or why school uniforms are a good idea. You could write a persuasive piece about any light-hearted or serious topic you’re interested in.

89) Emoji Rebus Story: Have you heard of a rebus story? It’s where some words are replaced with an image. There’s a tool called Emoji Translate that will automatically replace some of your words with emojis (you can copy your translated text/emojis back into your post).

90) Language Learning: Do you speak or learn another language? Share some basic words and phrases with your audience. You could even add a voice recording or video. If you don’t have a second language, do some research and pass on what you learned. Or, write about the language you’d like to learn if you had the chance and why.

History and Geography

91) Virtual Field Trips: It’s now possible to visit faraway places without even leaving the classroom. The We Are Teachers website lists 25 of the best virtual field trips to explore. Once you’ve been on your “field trip”, it’s time to review the experience.

92) Tour Builder: Using Google Earth’s Tour Builder tool you can integrate text, photos, and videos onto Google Maps to create an immersive storytelling experience for your viewers. You could share a tour across your town, country, or anywhere in the world. You can also make a tour to map the journey of a historical figure. You can share your tour by embedding it onto your site.

93) Global Issue: Select a global issue that you’re passionate about or interested in and write a post to share your concerns. You might want to base your issue on The Sustainable Development Goals. The 17 goals focus on things like poverty, hunger, health, education, and climate action.

94) Did You Know? Use information from a website like National Geographic Kids, Simple English Wikipedia, or Fact Monster to publish your own “Did you know?” snippets around a particular topic.

95) List of Items: Create a list of items that would be used in a certain time in history, by a historical figure, or in a particular location around the world.

96) A to Z: Create an A to Z list of something you’re studying, for example, a certain historical event or geographical location.

97) Travel Brochure: Design and publish a travel brochure for a particular geographical location. You could use a tool like Canva or Google Drawings to create the brochure and then add it to your blog as a PDF or image file.

98) Landmark Photo: Richard Byrne has demonstrated how to use Remove.bg, Google Slides, and Pixabay to put yourself in front of any world landmark. Try out his method then add your image to a post with some facts about the landmark.

99) Venn Diagram: Choose two different people, places, or events to compare such as two historical figures, two different countries, or two historical events. Make a Venn diagram to compare and contrast. You could use an online tool like Visual Paradigm or something like Canva or Google Drawings to make the Venn diagram. Or you could draw the diagram on paper and take a photo to add to your post.

100) Who Am I? Share some clues about a historical figure, for example — where and when they were born, their education, their personal life, and what they’re famous for. See if your readers can make an accurate guess in a comment.

101) Guess This Place: Share some clues about a geographical location for example — the continent it’s on, the climate, famous citizens, landmarks, well-known events, the latitude and longitude. Ask your readers to share their guess in a comment.

102) Historical Artifacts: Share an image of a historical object or artifact. For example, you might want to look at the public domain collection from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It includes more than 400,000 images from The Met collection that are free to use. Share some images in a post and write your own description. Or ask your readers to guess what they think the images are.

103) Color History: #ColorOurCollections is a website where various institutions add historical images that can be printed and colored in. Find a page that interests you to print and color. Then add a photo of your completed work to your blog and write a description.

104) Make A Timeline: Timelines can be about people’s lives, places, or historical events. Traditionally, you could make a timeline on paper but there are now lots of online tools that help you make your timeline with multimedia. Richard Byrne compares the best tools to use in this post. Try out one of the tools and add your timeline to a post.

105) SMS Generator: Using a free tool called SMS Generator you can make fake text message conversations between two historical figures. When you’re done you can screenshot or embed your conversation.

106) Old Newspaper Articles: Did you know Google has a collection of archived newspaper articles? Find an interesting article from a time or place you’re studying. Link to the article in your post and write an analysis.

107) Flags: Do some research into a flag of the world or another important flags and summarise the key information. Alternatively, you might like to design your own flag. Include the image in a post with a description of your flag.

108) Historical Report or Guest Author: Write a traditional report profiling a historical figure, or pretend you are a famous historical figure that is blogging about a significant event.

109) Historical Stories: Authors often use a historical event as the basis of a fictional story. Create a story based on a certain time and location in history. You would keep the main historical information accurate while coming up with fictional characters and perhaps storylines.

110) Personal History: Interview someone to share a little about their own personal history. Or you could even share some of your own history. Everyone has a story!

111) Maps Comparison: Find two maps from different time periods that show the same location. What are the similarities and differences in the maps? Maybe some things have been added, removed, replaced, or extended. A useful website to find old maps might be Old Maps Online or The Library of Congress. If you want to take it a step further, Richard Byrne demonstrates how to overlay an old map over a current Google Map.

112) Time Travel: If you could live in any other place and/or time, what would you choose and why?

Math and Science

113) Vocabulary: Choose a vocabulary word that you’re learning about and write a post that describes this word in different ways such as: a definition, in a sentence, in an example/image, in a table/graph, in symbols/equations. Check out this vocabulary slide deck template by Meagan Kelly which you could fill out and embed in your blog.

114) Image Hunt: Look around you for examples of concepts you’re studying in class. Take photos and add them to a post. Maybe you could look for mathematical arrays, 3 digit numbers, fractions, or patterns.

115) Riddles: Research some math riddles. There are some on Riddles.com and Mashup Math. After trying some out yourself, share your favorites on your blog or make up your own. Invite your readers to solve your riddles in a comment.

116) Math Movies: Explaining math concepts through videos can be very effective. The students in Mr. Avery’s class share some great examples on the Math Movie Network (many years on these examples are still inspiring). Check out The Educator’s Guide to Using Video in Teaching and Learning to find out more about tools students can use for video creation.

117) NRICH: The NRICH project by the University of Cambridge publishes weekly maths problem-solving tasks for students. Students can submit answers on the website, but you can also publish your response on your blog or portfolio. Problems are broken up into age groups.

118) Estimations: Make some mathematical estimations such as the length of your hallway, the weight of your lunchbox, or the number of shirts hanging in your closet. Share your estimations on your blog and then measure or count to find out the actual answer. How far off were you? How did you make your estimates and how did you find out the actual answers?

119) Math Journals: Use your blog or portfolio as a journal to reflect on your math learning. Here is some math journal prompts from ReadWriteThink that you could base your reflections on.

120) Problem Solve: Publish a problem-solving task in a post and invite readers to provide the solution in the comments. You might get ideas for problems from a site like NRICH. Tip: choose a problem where there are multiple solutions, or hold off on moderating comments until a few readers have had the chance to respond. Maybe you could explain the answer in a follow-up post.

121) Same but Different: Browse the sites Same But Different Math or Same Or Different to see lots of photos of how mathematical concepts are the same but different. Set up some photos of your own to add to a blog post and share your thoughts on how the images are similar and different.

122) Solvemoji: There’s a popular site called Solvemoji.com where emojis are used in maths puzzles. Have a browse, then make your own puzzles for your readers using a tool like Google Drawings, Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Canva. Just save your creation as a PNG or JPEG and upload it to your blog like any other image. Here’s a Google Doc tutorial for this activity from Mrs. Yollis.

123) Would You Rather Math: This website collates pictures with a mathematics problem that asks “Would you rather?” For example, “Would you rather have a box of chocolates with 5 rows and 14 columns or 7 rows and 9 columns”. Make up your own image or link to one from the website. Then tell your readers what you would rather and justify your response.

124) Money: Learn about the currency in another part of the world and share what you learned with your readers. Don’t forget to include some images. You might be able to find some images using the Creative Commons search engine.

125) Math Game Review: There are lots of interactive math games available on the web or on mobile devices. Try out a game and then share a review. Include details like how to access the game, what it helps you learn, pros and cons, and an age recommendation.

126) Science Master: Curious about science? Science Master is a safe site where you can submit your own science question and get a personalized answer. Check out this post on The Edublogger to find out a bit more about how it works. After you submit your question, write about it on your own blog.

127) Science Experiment: Find a science experiment in a book, online, or in a video. For example, Try This! is a series of science experiments from National Geographic Kids. With permission from an adult, replicate the experiment and then blog about it. Alternatively, you might want to make up your own experiment to learn more about something you’re curious about.

128) Science Video: There are lots of great science videos online. Two examples are TED-Ed and SciShow Kids YouTube Channel. Find a video that interests you, then write a post about it. You might write a summary of the video and include your own thoughts or questions. Alternatively, you can make a quiz for your readers about the video. Invite them to answer the quiz in a comment.

129) Two Truths and One Lie: Challenge your readers with a simple “two truths and one lie” quiz. Your task is to write a post that includes two correct statements and one incorrect statement. Ask your readers to guess the lie! Your statements could be about a certain math or science topic or a mix of topics.

130) NASA Space Place: Check out NASA Space Place to learn more about Earth and Space. There are games, activities, articles, videos, and more. Write a post about something you learned from the website.

131) Science News: There is interesting science news being reported all the time. Check out Science News for Students and find an article you’re interested in. Share a summary in your own words on your blog. You might include some follow up questions you’d like to research.

132) Coding: Learning to code can be fun. There are lots of sites and apps you can use to learn to code. Code.org is a good starting place. Try out one of the activities and then write a post about it. Explain what you learned and what challenges you had to overcome to complete the activity.

133) Gardening: Try growing something at home or school like a vegetable, plant, or flower. Blog about the changes in a series of posts and describe how you’re tending to your garden. The Kids Gardening website has some ideas to help you get started including the fun grass seed “chia” pet.

134) Science Careers: Research a science related career and tell your readers about it. Perhaps you could even interview someone in the profession. Is this a career you’d be interested in? Alternatively, you could choose two careers and compare them in a post.

135) Looking After the Environment: Share tips on how to reduce, reuse, recycle, or look after our planet. Maybe you can share some changes you’re making in your own life to be more environmentally conscious.

136) Diagrams: A scientist often makes diagrams to record and communicate information. Make a diagram with labels to illustrate a scientific concept (e.g. parts of an insect, the layers of the Earth, or the water cycle). Check out Science A-Z for some examples of science diagrams. Make your diagram on paper (and upload a photo) or use an online tool like Canva or Google Drawings.

Other Web Tools

Teacher Tip: There are countless free online tools that can be used to create, publish, collaborate, and present. If you’re working with younger students, it’s important to check the terms and conditions on the site as some tools are only suitable for students over the age of 13.

137) GIFs: These can be fun additions to your posts that bring your images and descriptions to life. Try an online tool like Brush Ninja or ABC Animate to make a GIF to demonstrate your learning or feelings.

138) Prezi: Prezi is an online presentation and storytelling tool that uses a single canvas instead of traditional series of slides. The images, text, videos, and other objects are placed on the canvas and users can zoom in and out. Create a Prezi about something you’re interested in and add it to a post.

139) Google Slides: Slides presentations are great to add to posts. The simplest way to use Google Slides is to create a slide deck. That is, a collection of slides put together to form a presentation. Learn more about how to use and embed Google Slides in this beginner’s guide.

140) Animation: Produce a video with a tool like Biteable or Powtoon. Share your animation and write about the decisions you made when making the video.

141) Talking Avatars: Create a speaking character using Voki to read your post or to interact with your blog’s visitors. Voki characters can be customized to look like historical figures, cartoons, animals, or yourself! Voki characters can be embedded on your site on a post, page, or sidebar.

142) Word Cloud: Make a word cloud using one of these online tools or iPad apps. Add your word cloud to your blog. You could even invite readers to guess the topic.

143) Jigsaw Puzzle: Instead of adding a normal photo to your post, make a jigsaw out of one of your photos on Jigsaw Planet or Jigsaw Explorer and embed it. Ask your readers to leave a comment to tell you how they went with the puzzle.

144) Wakelet: Wakelet allows you to save, organize, and tell stories with content from around the web. You can sign up for free or create a quick collection without signing up. Make a Wakelet about a topic you’re studying or something you’re interested in. Embed your Wakelet in a post. Read more about getting started with Wakelet.

145) AnswerGarden: This is a free online tool to get feedback on a question. You make an AnswerGarden with a question and then embed or link to it on your site. When people respond to your question, their answers form a word cloud. Learn more about AnswerGarden here.

146) Comics: Create a comic using Make Beliefs Comix or Toondoo and share it on your blog. Your comic could be designed to educate, inform, or entertain.

147) Podcasts: These are simply audio files that are published online. You might like to make a series of podcasts to coincide with a subject you’re studying or a project you’re working on. Anchor.fm is a popular free service for recording, hosting, and distributing podcasts. Check out The Edublogger’s Guide To Podcasting to learn more.

148) Digital Bulletin Board: Padlet is an online bulletin board that you can embed in a blog post to share notes, voice recordings, videos, documents, links, and more. You can only create three Padlet walls with the free account but Richard Byrne suggests some similar free tools in this post.

149) Animoto: This free tool lets you make videos that combine photos and/or video footage with music and interesting transitions. You can make an Animoto about an event or something you’re learning and embed it on your site.

150) Mindmap: Create a mindmap for brainstorming, collating notes, demonstrating your learning, or presenting your findings. You might like to try a free online tool like Bubbl.us which doesn’t require an account.

How To Apply These Writing Prompts To The Classroom

As you think about using these prompts in the classroom, try to vary it up. Helping students to get out of their comfort zones and try something new might spark a new talent or passion.

It’s always worth considering how you can give some students choice in the type of posts they create. Choice can lead to ownership and higher levels of motivation. You never know what your students might produce!

One tip to keep in mind is that when you’re creating work or images using online tools, you can sometimes save your work as an image (e.g. JPEG or PNG), or embed your work, but at other times you’ll need to take a screenshot. This article by PC Mag explains how to take a screenshot on almost any device.

From a safety perspective, if you have public blogs or websites, ensure students are aware of what information should be kept private before they begin blogging. Edublogs and CampusPress users can use My Class to easily moderate students’ posts and comments before they’re live on the web.

The acronym YAPPY might help your students develop their understandings about privacy. Learn more about digital footprints in this post.

When using writing prompts, it can also be helpful to keep the SAMR model in mind as Silvia Tolisano explained in one of her classic posts.

Sometimes, you might simply be substituting traditional pen and paper tasks for an online task. As you and your students become more comfortable with publishing online, consider ways you can redefine tasks to achieve something that would not be possible without a blog, website, or online tools.

Lefflerd / CC BY-SA

Don’t Stop Here

Hopefully this list will ensure you or your students are never scrambling for blogging ideas again, however, it is far from exhaustive.

Another idea is to recycle posts. This is what we’re doing right here! This post of prompts was first published many years ago and we’ve updated it a couple of times. You might have an old post that you enjoyed or that struck a chord with readers. Why not do an update or follow up post in a similar style? Reflect on your best content and re-purpose or repeat it.

If you have a class blog, you could create a page with writing ideas for your student bloggers. Room 6 in New Zealand have done this on their blog.

This post is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of getting students to write online so we want to hear from you in the comments.

Do you have any additional ideas to share with fellow bloggers? Have you tried any of these ideas? How did they go? Please leave your comments and links below.

Happy blogging!

About Us

School Library Websites: Essential Features And Examples

Kathleen Morris — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 19:17:16 +0000

School libraries come in all shapes and sizes. Whatever the library at your school looks like, a high quality website or blog is crucial.

With a little creativity and a few essential ingredients, you can build an exciting and engaging library website that pushes students to excel in their education. After all, studies have consistently shown that school libraries play a significant role in academic success.

In this article, we’ll explain why your website is a key part of your school library experience. Then we’ll discuss 5 essential features you should include when creating or updating your school library site. We’ve also got 8 examples of great school library websites and blogs to share with you.

Whether you’re part of an elementary school, high school, or university, these library tips and examples will help.

Why Your School Library Website Is Important

All educators know the library plays a vital role in students’ schooling. It serves as a central hub for learning and gathering, while providing resources to help students achieve academic success.

Your school library’s website is an extension of the physical library and serves many of the same purposes. For many students, your website might be their first point of contact with the library, so it’s critical that it provides visitors with the same positive experience they’d have at your physical library.

Your website also gives you an opportunity to extend the advantages your library offers to students or staff who can’t visit in person. This is especially true in the current global climate, when physical locations may have limited hours or might not be open at all.

Your library website isn’t just about browsing the catalog or checking if certain books are available. It also provides a virtual space to interact with your community and spread the word about upcoming opportunities. This is especially helpful for library-specific events such as book fairs, author visits, and more.

5 Essential Features to Add to Your School Library’s Website

Now that you know why your library’s website is so important, you may be wondering how to make it as useful as possible for your students. These five features should give you a solid starting point.

1. Clear Site Navigation

It might seem basic, but the most important feature you can include on your library site is clear, easy-to-follow navigation. In other words, make it easy for your users to find what they’re looking for.

This feature is first on our list for a reason. According to surveys, clean and clear navigation is the most useful feature a website can have.

To ensure clear navigation, follow these guidelines:

Use descriptive labels. Visitors shouldn’t have to guess what they’re clicking on.
Avoid too many dropdown menus in your main navigation. They can make it more difficult for visitors to find the right links.
Avoid the temptation to include a link on the homepage to every page on your site. Stick to a maximum of seven items or less.
Include an easy-to-use, powerful search function. Ensure you have a search box in prominent locations and also link to your library catalog so students can locate books, articles, databases, and other materials.

2. Regularly Updated Content

A school library website or blog requires regular maintenance. This might included:

Removing dead links or outdated information.
Regularly posting new blog posts or relevant content.
Approving and responding to comments if these are enabled on a blog.

An easily-accessible calendar is also a must for most library websites. These are especially useful if your library hosts events such as book fairs, group study times, or training classes. You can also include events from around campus; they don’t necessarily have to be library-related. When you solidify the library (and your website) as a central part of your institution, you can help students maintain interest in reading and education-related opportunities year-round.

Like your navigation menu, your calendar should feature a simple design and focus on providing clear details that are easy to read. If people can’t find key information, they may miss out on the opportunities you’re trying to provide.

A popular choice is a Google Calendar that you might like to add to the sidebar of your site.

The Calendar+ plugin is another option that makes it easy to add events, manage your calendar, and display it in an easy-to-read format. You can select which event categories to display on each page where your calendar appears, making it easy for you to highlight library-specific events if you want to.

3. Consistent Design

If you work in a school library, you probably put a lot of effort into ensuring it’s a welcoming and attractive place to visit. The look and feel of your school library website is equally important.

Choose some design features that will be consistent throughout your school library website or blog. You want students and staff to become familiar with the website design and know that they’re on the library site. Here are some ideas to consider:

Colors: Perhaps you have some school colors that you’ll weave into your website design. Keep these consistent so every page looks like it belongs to the site.
Fonts: Again, consistency is key. Choose one or two easy to read fonts and stick with them.
Mascot: If you have a school or library mascot, this image might feature throughout your content.
Images: Pictures can make your website come alive, but you obviously don’t want to overdo it. Also, choose an image design and stick with it. Perhaps your images will be cartoons, professional photographs, or more casual photographs that are taken by staff and students. Of course, make sure you’re acting as a role model when it comes to copyright and Creative Commons.

Bitmojis are a fun element some educators like to add to their site for a personal and consistent design. Here’s an example from Kim Yeomans:

4. Visible Contact Details

Your school library website is a link between your physical and virtual space. It’s important that the site clearly shows users how they can make contact with the physical library, staff, or other virtual platforms.

Here are some tips:

If your library has an online presence elsewhere on the internet, make these visible. For example, the Jackson Elementary Library blog has embedded links on the sidebar to their YouTube channel, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter account.
Consider sharing the school library phone number and relevant email addresses on the homepage and the footer of every page.
Share opening hours and visitor information in an easy to find location. This is especially important during the pandemic when this information might change.
A map that shares the physical location of the library might be useful especially if you hold events that are open to the wider community, or want to welcome new students.

5. Accessible Design

Your library site must be usable by all people, including those with disabilities or individuals who are less familiar with navigating the web and using technology. A key part of this is following accessible design best practices.

Accessible design requires attention to your site’s color choices. Use a clean, high-contrast theme with a clear distinction between elements. Bright colors are generally the best choice. It’s also important to include readable fonts of an appropriate size, so that users with visual impairments can see them easily.

It’s also crucial to include alt text for your images. Alt text (short for alternative text) is an HTML attribute you can add to images to describe what they look like.

In WordPress, you can add alt text when uploading images in your posts or via your Media Library:

If an image can’t be displayed for some reason, the alt text will be shown instead. It’s also useful for site visitors who rely on screen readers, which will read aloud your descriptions of visual elements.

Finally, make sure hyperlinks on your site use descriptive anchor text. Anchor text is the visible text of the hyperlink. It should clearly describe what content the user will find when clicking on the link. In other words, avoid using phrases such as “Click Here”.

Learn more about accessible design in our complete guide on the CampusPress blog.

8 Examples Of Great School Library Blogs And Websites

We’ve covered 5 basic elements of high quality school library sites, now onto some examples. You’ll see here these examples range from straightforward blogs set up by individual teachers using Edublogs, to professionally designed school library websites. They range from elementary school to college level websites.

1) Jackson Elementary Library Blog

URL: https://jacksonelementarylibrary.edublogs.org
Age Group: Elementary

Amy Kincaid is a teacher-librarian from Texas who runs the very comprehensive Jackson Elementary Library blog.

Amy is a very innovative and future orientated librarian who also enjoys sharing her knowledge with others.

She regularly posts about the wonderful learning activities her K-5 students are working on. Technology is integrated into her lessons in a very creative way.

2) The University of Melbourne

URL: https://library.unimelb.edu.au
Age Group: College/University

Like so many libraries around the world, The University of Melbourne was quick to pivot when physical buildings were closed during COVID, and their library website reflects this.

The University library services are delivered virtually and the website invites staff and students to chat with a librarian, attend online workshops, reach out to librarians via phone or email, or access digital resources.

The clear design of this website, hosted by CampusPress, puts the robust search function in prime position.

3) The MHMS Daring School Library Blog

URL: https://daringlibrary.edublogs.org
Age Group: Middle school

Gwyneth Jones, aka The Daring Librarian, has been blogging since 2006. She is well known in the global education community.

Gwyneth describes her mission as, “to prepare future-ready lifelong readers, learners, makers, and creative thinkers.”

She uses her middle school blog to provide library news for teachers, students, and parents both locally and globally. Gwyneth also shares her lessons and resources on her professional blog which complements the library blog.

4) Reedy High School Library

URL: https://borchardtlibrary.edublogs.org
Age Group: High school

You don’t necessarily need to enlist professionals to help you set up a user friendly school library website. Reedy High School Library is an excellent site created with Edublogs.

It has a clean and clear design that makes navigation easy. The top navigation menu invites users to choose one of five options: search, books to go, eBooks and audio books, digital resources, and help/FAQs.

A welcome video on the sidebar of the homepage gives new users a glimpse into the library atmosphere with a motto of, “One Pride. Many Dreams. You are seen. You are valued at Reedy Library.”

5) Red River College Library

URL: https://library.rrc.ca/home
Age Group: College/University

This extensive website is a one-stop shop for students and staff looking to engage with their college library.

A rotating banner advertises library services, while a central search box invites users to browse for relevant resources.

This is a library that’s also active on social media and links to all social media accounts are displayed prominently.

The announcements on the homepage keep the community up to date with changes to opening hours due to the pandemic.

6) Forest Hill College Library

URL: https://fhclibrary.edublogs.org
Age Group: High school

The Forest Hill College library site is another example of a basic site set up using Edublogs.

It provides a launching point to the library catalog with links on pages and the sidebar. An outstanding feature of this site is the regularly updated blog posts. These posts share a library newsletter, interviews, tips for parents, library services, and more.

7) Wild About Books Blog

URL: http://wildaboutbooks.global2.vic.edu.au
Age Group: Elementary students/educators

Some librarians like creating a blog to share book reviews with others in the community. This could either be as part of a school website or as a standalone site, like Wild About Books.

Kim Yeomans is a teacher-librarian from Melbourne, Australia. She set up the Wild About Books blog for primary school students and enjoys using the blog to share reviews and book related events that make reading fun.

8) Charleston Southern University

URL: https://library.csuniv.edu
Age Group: College/University

The uncluttered design of this university website makes it easy for staff and students to find what they’re looking for. The search box features prominently, and icons are used to direct users to a range of services.

Clear contact details on a library website are important; a footer on every page of this site reminds users of the physical address, email address, and phone number of their university library.

Conclusion

Whether you’re part of an elementary school, high school, college, or university, your library provides a vital service, and its online presence is an integral part of that.

A school library serves as a first point of contact with students, and can provide resources to those who may need additional help but can’t visit in person. Your library site can also serve as a central hub for campus events and other opportunities.

During the pandemic, a high-quality school library website has only become more important to act as a bridge between physical and virtual learning.

The trick making your library’s website or blog as engaging and useful as possible is to include these 5 essentials:

Clear site navigation
Regularly updated content
Consistent design
Visible contact details
Accessible design

Do you have any questions about school library websites? Let us know in the comments section below, or get in touch. We’d love to hear from you and our team can help you set up or improve your own school library website.

Poll: Has The Meaning Of The Word “Blog” Changed?

Kathleen Morris — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 10:32:02 +0000

When I started blogging in 2008, the difference between a blog and a post was pretty clear. A blog was your dynamic website. A post was the article you’d publish on your blog.

Then in recent years I’ve noticed something strange. People have been calling posts, “blogs”.

At first I found this confusing,

“What do you mean you wrote a blog today? You made a whole website? Do you mean you wrote a post?”

Now every time I hear someone say they’re “writing a blog” or they “published a blog” when they mean post I still bristle a little inside. It just doesn’t sound right.

To me a blog is the container and a post is the contents. Calling a blog (post) a blog is like saying you “wrote a book” every time you write a page or a chapter.

Today I had to look up the definition of the noun “blog” in the dictionary for something and I noticed this on Merriam-Webster.

We know the word blog can also be a verb, it always has been. But in terms of nouns, does blog now mean “the contents of such a site (a blog)” as the dictionary advised me today?

I know language does evolve and maybe the noun blog has evolved to have a dual meaning.

Interestingly, I didn’t see the same definition on the Cambridge dictionary or Macmillan.

So, it’s time to ask for your input. What do you call the entry or article that you publish on your blog?

Please take the quick poll below and share your thoughts in a comment. Do you call articles on your blog “posts” or “blogs”? I’d also love to know where you’re from (perhaps it’s a regional thing?) and when you started blogging (perhaps it’s a new thing?).

Scroll down to find the comment box!

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