Blogging For Complete Beginners: Getting Started With Edublogs

You might have read about the benefits of blogging, or admired what others are doing with their class blogs, but have no idea where to start?

If you’re brand new to blogging, this guide is for you.

What Is A Blog?

First, if you’re very new to blogging, you might want to check out this video that describes what exactly a blog is and how it works.

Tip: This can be handy to show students too.

Permission

The next step if you’re blogging with students is to make sure you have all the permission you need. This post will help. It outlines a three step process we recommend and includes sample notes you can use too.

Starting Your Blog

This 15 minute video tutorial walks you through setting up your blog. It’s like a quick start guide to get you going if you’re totally new to blogging.

Tip: If you’ve already signed up and want to know what to do next, you can start at the 1 minute 40 mark, or click here to go straight to that point.

Want to go over some of the topics covered in this video again, or in more depth?

Here are the links to the specific written tutorials.

• Signing up for your blog
• Logging in to your blog
• Using your dashboard
• Publishing your first post
• Editing a published post
• Publishing pages
• Changing settings like your blog title, tagline, time zone and language
• Changing your theme

Note About CampusPress

Before signing up with Edublogs, you might want to check if your district or state already has a CampusPress subscription. This is Edublogs with your school’s own branding and some premium features.

If your school or district does have a CampusPress subscription, instead of going to edublogs.org to get your blog, head straight to your CampusPress site.

Help And Support

Now it’s time to explore our help and support site further. This is the place where you can find everything you need to know about setting up and customizing your blog.

Make yourself familiar with the search function and the user guides.

Note: All the Edublogs help resources also apply to CampusPress blogs.

Further Reading

• TIME Not sure if you have time to blog? This post offers some suggestions on how to face this obstacle.
• PARENTS Want to get your students’ families engaging with your class blog? Here are some ideas and examples for you.
• PRIVACY Unsure whether your students should be publishing publicly online? We weigh up the pros and cons, and explain the options available with your privacy settings.
• CLASS BLOGS Want to look at examples of different types of blogs? We maintain a list of various examples of blogs which should provide you with some inspiration. 
• STUDENT BLOGS Interested in student blogs or digital portfolios? Take a look at the way other teachers use student blogs in the classroom.
• POST IDEAS Not sure what to write about? We have a mega guide of over 100 prompts and ideas for blogging with students. If you’re a teacher blogger, we have ideas for you too.

Learn More: Teacher Challenge Course

Want to learn more about blogging step-by-step in your own time? We have a series of free self-paced courses for students and teachers that help you learn to blog.

You might be particularly interested in:

Blogging With Students (For Teachers — this shows you how to set up a class blog)

Blogging Bootcamp (For Students — feel free to assign this to your students)

Personal Blogging (For Educators — learn how to create your own personal blog)

Contact Us

Need more help? You can email our support team any time. 

Conclusion

It can sometimes feel overwhelming to look at established blogs with lots of content and attractive features. Comparison paralysis or fear of imperfection is common when starting something new. Please don’t worry!

At the end of the day, the best way to learn is to start. Your first blog posts probably won’t be perfect but that doesn’t matter. Demonstrating to your students that you too are a learner and willing to give new things a go is an excellent trait.

So it’s time to jump in and start blogging. Have fun!

Please comment and let us know if you found these resources helpful or if there is anything else that would be beneficial to help you start blogging.