Dear blogger,

You have such wonderful ideas to share!

Your content is excellent; it’s just that I find myself skimming your posts, because, to be frank, your posts are … kind of hard to read.

It’s not that your writing isn’t “correct”, it’s just that things have changed since you learned to write.

In fact, it might be time to forget a lot of what you learned about writing at school.

Can we chat about making your blog posts easier to read?

With thanks,
A hopeful reader

Getting a blog post together isn’t easy, is it? You have to put all the distractions on your computer aside and focus on one task: tapping away at the keyboard and organizing all your thoughts until your post takes shape.

So, of course, you want people to actually read your post. Whether your audience is students, parents, or educators, you have an important message to share.

There are many personal benefits to simply writing too. Many bloggers describe how writing helps them organize and develop their thinking. However, if this is the only reason you’re writing, you probably wouldn’t be publishing on a public blog, would you?

So how do you encourage your visitors to not only start reading your blog post but also stick around to the end?

Maybe the solution isn’t changing your words. Maybe it’s simply changing your styling and post layout.

Here are ten tips for making your blog posts easier to read. I hope you’ll share your ideas in a comment too.

1) Paragraphs and Sentences

Is there anything more off-putting than clicking on a blog post and seeing a great big block of text?

You want to read it but there is nothing for your eyes to grab on to. Try as you might, you find yourself skimming and not fully comprehending the content.

The truth is, a digital paragraph is different from an analog paragraph. The way we consume media online is different to the way we consume media offline.

There was a popular post on The Slate a few years back called “You Won’t Finish This Article“. It shares data demonstrating that most people don’t even scroll down after they arrive on your post; they leave your blog almost immediately. The data published in The Slate estimates that most visitors read about 50% of your content. 50% might even be optimistic when looking at similar statistics from other sources.

Short paragraphs make your posts more readable.

Instead of starting a new paragraph when the topic changes, consider keeping your paragraphs only a few sentences long and play around with length and rhythm. Sometimes you’ll have slightly longer paragraphs, and sometimes you might have a paragraph that’s only one sentence long for impact (that’s not what your teacher taught you at school, is it?).

When it comes to writing online, paragraph structure is more of an art than a formulaic science.

The same rhythmic variation works well for sentence structure and length as well.

Gary Provost demonstrates,

2) Fonts

There is a lot of debate and research out there about typography or font choice. Personally, I find a common issue is bloggers using a font that’s too small.

Professional bloggers generally opt to use larger sized fonts now as it enhances the readability of online text. Some bloggers haven’t caught onto this. Combining a small font with long paragraphs is a sure fire way to have readers skim a post and close their tab, no matter how good the content is.

If you’re using Edublogs, there is a handy plugin called Supreme Google Webfonts. It allows you to change the type and size of the fonts in your post. Have fun playing around but obviously look for a font that will be easy to read. Another useful tip is to stay consistent with your font choice.

3) Headings

Sub-headings are an excellent way to break up the text while enhancing the readability and comprehension of your post. This sounds like something we covered at school now, doesn’t it? Or maybe not?

I admit, it wasn’t until last year (after many years of blogging) that I discovered I was using headings all wrong. I thought the idea was to pick a heading based on size and appearance.

It turns out, there is another layer to heading choice on blog posts.

Heading tags not only enhance your blog post visually but help organize the content of your blog. This helps search engines like Google scan and categorize your information.

If you want to follow blogging best practice, you technically aren’t supposed to skip a heading level.

Heading 1 will already be used for your blog post title. When you’re writing posts (or pages) you should use Heading 2 for post sub-headings. Then if you nest other sub-headings under that, you’d use Heading 3 and so on. You probably wouldn’t have a need for Heading 5 onwards.

Structuring your post with this hierarchy can also assist blind readers who rely on screen readers to access your content (find out more about accessibility issues in point ten).

4) Lists and Bullet Points

Most writers know the value of bullet points. Listicles, or posts with numbered lists, are hugely popular too (hey, this whole blog post is a listicle!).

Here are five reasons why numbered lists or bullet points are great:

• They make your content easier to digest
• They break up information and offer more white space on the page
• They offer your eyes something to grab onto
• They keep you moving through the content, rather than skipping over a paragraph
• Readers can easily chunk or categorize information

Need I say more?

5) Links

Hyperlinks are one way that digital writing is very different from traditional writing. In fact, this is a topic that we could really invest a lot of time in exploring with our students. If you’re interested in learning more about hyperlinked writing, check out some of the posts by Silvia Tolisano (Langwitches).

From a visual point of view, hyperlinks or bold words are another good way to make key pieces of information in your post stand out. It draws you in when you’re skimming or scanning the page.

Of course there are other reasons why hyperlinks enhance your post:

• It’s polite and ethically correct to acknowledge your sources
• It can add depth to your topic if readers can go elsewhere to learn more
• Linking to credible sources can back up what you’re saying
• Your readers will hang around your blog longer if you link to other relevant posts you’ve written

Here are two things to remember about using hyperlinks:

• Try to make your links descriptive and weave them into your sentence, rather than saying “…click here, here, and here“. (Yep, I used to be guilty of the latter once upon a time).
• Don’t go overboard with links. Stay relevant and focus on quality over quantity.

6) Images

When you’re scanning posts, no doubt your eyes are naturally drawn to images. Breaking up your text with some visuals can definitely make your blog posts easier to read.

But not all images are created equal.

Firstly, make sure you’re not using copyright images. I’m sure you know, you can’t just use anything you find on Google Images. We have a post all about copyright, Creative Commons, and fair use if you’d like to learn more.

Also, make sure your images are enhancing your post and helping your readers to gain an understanding of what the post is about. Too many decorative or abstract images might be confusing.

Finally, remember that you can use more than simple pictures. You can embed all sorts of media in your blog posts such as comics, quizzes, polls, videos, social media, and more. We have a help guide about embedding media if you need more information about this.

7) Color

Color in blog posts is a contentious topic. Certainly on professional blogs, you’ll generally just see bloggers sticking to the traditional black fonts.

But what school teacher doesn’t like color? I used to use color a lot on my own class blogs.

Some teachers of very young students use different colors to type their students’ responses in a blog post. Then they could tell the student to show their parents the “blue comment” when they get home, for example.

Sometimes color is used for tasks on student blogs. For example, Zehra responded to a news video by using color coding for summary, facts, understandings and questions.

If you do use color, remember:

• Be consistent: For example, I used to always use red for my closing questions on a class blog post. It helped students know what to look out for when responding to the post.
• Choose colors wisely: Clearly darker/contrasting colors are going to be best. Yellow or aqua on a white background is not going to enhance the readability of your post.

8) Alignment

I’ve shared with you a few of my “mistakes” from my early years of blogging. Here is another one: I used to center align all of my text. Oh dear.

When I look at blog posts with center aligned text now I find them very hard to read. The starting point of each line constantly changes, so it’s hard work to keep track of where you’re up to.

Left aligned text is best as demonstrated below.

9) Widgets

In my experience, students love widgets! Many teachers do too.

Some widgets add a lot of value to your blog. They help visitors find relevant content and related blogs. They can offer families the chance to subscribe to the blog or stay up to date via a class calendar.

There are also a plethora of fun widgets out there: jokes of the day, virtual pets, music widgets, weather widgets, random facts … the list goes on.

If you want visitors to be reading your blog posts, you probably don’t want them distracted by too many widgets on your sidebars. Furthermore, excess widgets can slow down the loading time of your blog.

Like many aspects of blogging, it’s worth considering how you can strike a balance. Maybe less is more.

10) Alternative Text And Accessibility

You want to make your blog posts readable for everyone, including visitors who are vision impaired. This is an issue that is overlooked by many bloggers.

You might not realize that vision impaired visitors to your site may be using assistive technology like screen readers or other software which reads the page out loud.

This software will read the alternative text (alt text) instead of the image.

You can see how it would be difficult for a vision impaired visitor to take in your content if it is full of images that they can’t access.

Adding the alt text is easy. When you upload an image, there is a box where you can write your description before pressing ‘Insert Into Post’.

You can describe what you image looks like. Or write a brief description of the content if it’s a graph, chart, or other visual.

Alt text is just one way you can make your blog more accessible. The American Foundation for the Blind offers more tips for making print more readable, including selecting appropriate fonts and colors.

There are also more barriers to consider apart from vision impairment, including language and other physical restraints.

You can read more about making school websites accessible in this CampusPress post by Rachel McCollin.

When it comes to styling, a lot of ideas come down to personal preference. However, it’s always great to be open to trying new things and you might find yourself with a larger or more engaged audience as a result.

Maybe there are a few tips here that you or your students could try on your next blog post?

What can you add to this list? What sorts of things encourage you to read through a whole blog post? What do you find off-putting?

We haven’t talked about language. Do you prefer a conversational tone, or posts that are written in a more formal style? Share your thoughts. 

The aim of this post is to provide an overview of categories and tags; there is so much more that could be covered.

Tags vs Categories

The whole reason why tags, categories, and search widgets are used on blogs is to serve one purpose — help your readers locate the information they want on your blog. Readers want quick and easy solutions; too hard and they look elsewhere.

While the aim of using tags and categories is the same — to help readers locate information — they are used differently.

Categories are like book chapters; they provide a general overview of the topics you blog about. Whereas tags are more like the index at the back of the book and explode the topic into a million bits.

Categories and tags are displayed in your blog sidebar using the categories widget and Tag cloud widget.

Categories Are Used For Categorizing

Let me show you. I’m currently using 17 categories on my Mobile Technology in TAFE blog. Unfortunately, I blog on a wide subject area, so I’ve so many categories. Ideally, I believe it would be better for me to use fewer categories and for the category’s names to be descriptive enough without using two lines.

Categories can have unique names and be wordy; you want them sufficiently descriptive so your reader understands the type of subject matter they will find when they click on the link. For example, my Cool Web 2.0 & Desktop Tools category contains all posts that review, road test, or tell my readers how to use Web 2.0 or desktop tools more effectively.

Posts can be allocated to more than one category; I assign Twitter posts using the categories Cool Web 2.0 & Desktop Tools and Microblogging Tips similarly those on Flickr are distributed using the categories Cool Web 2.0 & Desktop Tools and Photosharing and Editing Tips. Remember I’m doing this to make it easier for my readers to locate the information they need quickly.

Tags and Tag Clouds

Tags are displayed on your blog as a tag cloud; clicking on a tag name will take your readers to all posts tagged with that term. Tags are normally short, one or two words, and are generally keywords (i.e. terms readers would be likely to use if they searched your site); terms that your readers will understand.

The number of categories you allocate to a post is normally limited whereas you will use as many tags on a post as you like.

Tags or Categories: Which One To Use?

If you checked out problogger sites — you will see each has their own preference as to which they use, or if they use both.

However, if you are planning on using categories like I have, you really need to sit down, think carefully about what content you will blog, and allocate categories that reflect this. You may want to use the categories I use on my Mobile Technology in TAFE blog as a guide.

If you’re going to use categories you need to do it properly; your readers expect that when they click on a category they will get ALL posts on the topic. If you add new categories this means you will need to go back through old posts and allocate them to these new categories.

Creating categories can be time-consuming — if you want to promise a “good enough” system, then use tags, where no thoroughness is implied. You will still need to be consistent with tagging e.g. use widget, Widget or widgets not all three. It’s worth checking out popular tags for ideas of what to use — check out Edublogs tag cloud.

Changing my Mobile Technology in the TAFE blog from the old system of just categories to now using categories and tags did take time — I had to sort through 223 posts. If you’ve got lots of old posts it may be better to stick with how you’ve been doing it and add a search widget to the top of your blog.

FINAL THOUGHT

I’m definitely not an expert with categories and tags; thanks to all the people who helped me out in coming to terms with using them.

Recommend you also check out the difference between pages and posts plus how you can use categories to separate different subjects or classes on a blog.

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I love teaching people how to create digital stories and videos because it’s a skill that most learners, regardless of age, enjoy learning and experimenting with and are more likely to spend time perfecting their skills in their own time. A great way of engaging even the most reluctant educator to use technology.

However, there are so many videos available online, on so many different topics, that it’s sometimes more effective to use ‘others videos’ than create your own video.

Locating Videos Online

The efficient and fastest platform to locate videos is YouTube

YouTube has made it easier than ever to share and embed videos across the web. Embedding a video from it onto your website allows you to seamlessly integrate multimedia content without the need for complex coding or hosting the video files yourself.

YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is also worth mentioning. It has the ability to suggest videos that are tailored to the viewer’s interests, which keeps users engaged and coming back for more and can be extremely helpful for students to consume similar resourceful video content.

Embedding Videos From YouTube

1. On your blog dashboard, go to Posts > Add New
2. Completely write your post adding all text and images including adding your categories, tags, and post title.
3. Make sure you tell your readers that you have embedded a video below as many feed readers such as Google Reader may remove the video).
4. It’s best to add any code you want to embed as the last step just before you click publish as you’re less likely to have problems.
5. Click on Save Draft and Preview this Post to make any final edits to your post
6. Locate the video you want to embed from YouTube. Click Share to view the embed URL.
   
7. Click Copy to copy the embed URL for the video.
   
8. In your post, you can either insert a YouTube or Embed block on the location where you want the video to appear.
   
9. Now, paste the previously copied embed URL for the video in the YouTube/Embed block, and click Embed.
   

In the provided example, I’ve added the A Guide to Clients & Billing video using the above-mentioned method.

Final Thought

What are your favorite video-sharing websites? How do you use video with your learners?

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Deciding when to use blog posts vs pages can be puzzling so we decided to write a post to explain the difference between a Page and a Post, plus share ideas for separating topics or classes on a blog to help address some of the confusion.

Posts properties

• Blog posts appear in reverse chronological order by default so that the most recent post is the first post that your readers see.
• Posts are dynamic (updated regularly) and have time stamps i.e. display the date posted.
• You can assign tags and categories to organise blog posts.
• Posts appear in RSS feeds – i.e.: your readers who subscribe to your blog will receive your latest post in their feed reader.

Page Properties

• Site pages are displayed independently of their creation date and are more static – i.e.: they remain the same from day to day since they are rarely updated.
• You normally use pages for information that you want to share with your readers but don’t expect to update frequently. School & District Websites and Student ePortfolios are pages.
• Pages don’t have time stamps – i.e.: they don’t show the date they were posted.
• Pages can appear anywhere on your blog depending on your theme.
• You can change the order pages appear. Pages are normally displayed in alphabetical order but their order can be changed using Page Order.
• You can’t assign tags and categories to pages.
• Pages don’t appear in RSS feeds so readers need to visit your site to view the latest updates to pages.
• You can create sub-pages which you assign to a parent page to build a more complex site.

Ways of separating topics or classes on a blog

If you don’t want students from different classes seeing posts or information that don’t relate to their class, the best solution is separate blogs for each class. Benefit is students have an increased sense of ownership. However if you want to use just one blog, the best way of separating topics or classes is using categories.

By using categories, students can access their posts by:

• Clicking on their category link in the blog sidebar
• Subscribing to the RSS feed for their post’s category using a Feed Reader like Google Reader.

FINAL THOUGHT

We hope this has helped you understand the differences between Pages and Posts.

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Your blog might be full of inspiring ideas but are people reading your posts? Are they sticking around and returning when you publish new content?

I have the pleasure of reading a lot of blogs as part of my role with Edublogs. I’m going to fill you in on a few easy tweaks that I believe can improve the reader experience and help you build a bigger audience.

Regardless of whether you have a professional educator blog, student blog, or class blog, there’s a lot to be gained from building an active and authentic audience.

You can start implementing these 10 simple tips today to make your blog instantly better!

1) Have An About Page

Who are you?

The very first thing I do when visiting a new blog is look to see who the blogger is. The first port of call is generally an About page.

There are different ways to approach About pages:

• They can be a brief overview of who you are and what your blog is about.
• They can be a detailed summary of your career or blogging journey.

Don’t want to give away too much personal information? That’s fine.

People will generally want to know:

• Where you live (if you’d rather not be specific, a country is fine).
• What your role is (e.g. 5th grade teacher, 8th grade student, teacher-librarian, 3rd grade class etc.).
• Some clues about what the blog is about or who it’s intended for.

If you’ve got a lot to share and you’re comfortable sharing it, you could even build a series of pages as Larry Ferlazzo has done here.

The more the readers get to know you, the stronger the relationship will be.

Don’t want to have an About page? As a bare minimum, I’d recommend at least having some sort of blurb/bio on your sidebar to give readers a quick snapshot of what you’re all about.

Here’s my example from my own blog.

If it’s been some time since you’ve looked at your About page, maybe it’s due for an update?

2) Use Short Paragraphs

Personally, if I open a blog post and am presented with a big block of text, no matter how interesting the content, I’m probably going to hit x and leave.

And I know I’m not alone.

There was a popular post on The Slate a few years back called, “You Won’t Finish This Article“. It shares data demonstrating that most people don’t even scroll down after they arrive on your post; they leave your blog almost immediately.

The data published in The Slate estimates that most visitors read about 50% of your content. 50% might even be optimistic when looking at similar statistics from other sources.

What does this mean? We have to make the text as easy to consume as possible.

This means short paragraphs. You want your post broken up into bite-sized chunks. This makes it easy for a reader to scan and take in. Sub-headings are highly recommended as well.

People read differently on the web. So this means two things:

• We have to write differently.
• We may have to forget many of the things we learned at school or university.

3) Use Large Fonts That Contrast With The Background

For me, something that’s almost equally as off-putting as a blog post made up of long paragraphs (or *gulp* no paragraphs), is small fonts.

Even worse is when those small fonts don’t contrast enough with the background (e.g. light grey… or any light colors).

Sadly, I’ve noticed this is an issue on some really great blogs and it’s a fairly easy fix:

• Sometimes you might need to choose a better theme that allows your text to shine through clearly in your blog posts.
• Or, you can use font plugins that allow you to change the type and size of the fonts in your post. Look for a font that will be easy to read and stay consistent.

Students are often more drawn to using colored fonts than adults. There’s nothing wrong with this but they may need encouragement to choose fonts that will stand out. Yellow or aqua on white backgrounds are really going to make the reader squint!

4) Add More Images

Words are important but don’t forget the power of visuals. Imagery can really add interest to posts and aid comprehension. They also help to break up your text and make it easier to digest.

A blog post with a great image is also more likely to be shared on social media, if that’s one of your aims.

You can take your own photos, or make your own graphics. Or you can use images from Creative Commons Zero sites like Unsplash, Pixabay, or Pexels. Find a comparison of these sorts of sites here.

The important thing to remember here is to avoid using images that are protected by copyright. You generally will want to stay clear of Google Images (check out The Educator’s Guide To Copyright, Fair Use, And Creative Commons).

When enhancing your posts with visuals, you aren’t just limited to photos or illustrations. Infographics, diagrams, charts, slideshows, videos, and polls all make excellent visuals to bring your posts to life.

Step 8 of our Teacher Challenge offers an overview of some other sorts of tools you could add to your posts other than images.

5) Declutter Your Sidebar

Doing a little decluttering on your blog can make it better instantly!

Does your blog have a sidebar? If you haven’t paid much attention to your sidebar in a while, you might find that it has become very busy with widgets that you might not need.

If your widgets aren’t adding anything to your readers’ experience, maybe you need to remove some.

Personally, I enjoy seeing these widgets on blogs:

• Search box (usually appears by default with the theme but essential on every website).
• Email subscription and/or social media information so visitors can follow you. You want your readers to like what they see and want to come back.
• Author bio (this is often in the About page but can also enhance the user experience).

Sue Waters’ popular post 40+ Popular Widgets For Your Blog may also offer some inspiration.

6) Use Categories And Tags

If you use a WordPress blogging platform like Edublogs or CampusPress, you’re probably familiar with categories and tags. They’re used to organize your content and help readers find posts that interest them.

Maybe you’re not using categories and tags, or maybe you’re overusing them? Fixing this can be a quick way to help readers navigate your blog better.

Confused about categories and tags? This diagram might help.

If you’re interested in learning more about categories and tags you can read up on some best practices for WordPress. There are also some clear Edublogs help guides about tags and categories.

7) Shorten Your Permalinks

Every time you write a blog post, it will have a unique URL (permalink). Many experienced bloggers like to alter their permalink before they hit publish.

There are a few reasons for this:

• It looks tidier for sharing with others.
• If your blog is indexed by search engines like Google, it can improve your ranking. Apparently, Google doesn’t know what the important words are when there are too many. Google ignores words like at, in, it, of etc. So you may end up getting higher rankings by just including keywords in your permalinks.

So instead of something like…

https://mrskathleenmorris.edublogs.org/2018/10/22/grade-five-students-visited-the-local-library-for-book-week

I could change it to just the keywords “library visit”.

It would look like…

https://mrskathleenmorris.edublogs.org/2018/10/22/library-visit

Editing your permalink is just a matter of pressing ‘edit’ under your post title.

Important: If you do decide to shorten permalinks in future, don’t change the permalink of any old posts or it will break the links to your posts.

8) Use Hyperlinks In Your Posts

Do your posts include hyperlinks?

Strategically placed links offer a number of benefits.

They can:

• back up your opinions
• provide background information for your readers
• connect your thoughts with others’
• reference your information

Some bloggers argue that it’s good practice to label your links so it’s clear where the links lead to.

So instead of writing,

“I’ve written about that here, here, and here”

You might say something like,

“In recent months, I’ve written about podcasting and global collaboration.”

You might also want to set your external hyperlinks to open in a new tab. You want people to return to your blog after visiting your links, not get lost down the rabbit hole of link clicking. This GIF demonstrates how to set your links to open in a new tab.

Learning how to hyperlink well can improve the overall quality of your posts. It’s an important part of digital writing and is a skill that Silvia Tolisano argues should be taught in the classroom.

Learn more about adding links in this help guide. 

9) Proofread And Delay Publishing

A polished post is definitely going to improve the quality of your blog.

It’s so tempting to hit publish once you complete a post, but distancing yourself from your blog before publishing can often enhance the quality of your work.

Letting your post “marinate” for a few hours or days after you’ve written it can be a powerful strategy. Looking for typos and other errors with fresh eyes can also be more effective.

You might even think of new perspectives or different ways to explain your topic.

Do you find it hard to see your errors on a screen? Here are some tips to help you with proofreading:

• Preview your post to ensure your formatting is clear and easy to read.
• Ask a friend or colleague to read your posts (maybe you could set up a reciprocal relationship with another blogger). The Public Post Preview plugin is handy if you want to share your draft with anyone.
• Read your post out loud.
• Read your post on a different surface. For example, you might print it off or read it on your phone.
• Use a free tool like Grammarly. The thing I like most about Grammarly is it catches those small mistakes that your eyes just don’t see — things like double words or missing words. Of course, these automated tools are not foolproof and you need to use your own judgment as to whether to accept their suggestions.

10) End Your Posts Strongly

You might have a great title, introduction, and body to your post but don’t forget your conclusion. End your post as strong as you started to encourage your readers to take further action and become a returning visitor.

Here are some ways you can end your post with impact:

• Ask some open-ended questions to encourage comments.
• Link to some other posts you’ve written on a similar topic.
• Encourage readers to share your post with others if they enjoyed it.
• Encourage readers to follow you on social media or subscribe to your blog or newsletter.
• Tell your readers what you’ll be posting about next.
• Ask your readers to take action after reading about your experiences and tips.

Over To You

Those are my top tips to make your blog instantly better but I’d love to hear from you. What do you like seeing on blogs? What sorts of things encourage you to read a post? Is there anything that makes you feel like closing a tab instantly?

Scroll down to find the comment box.

Recommended Reading

You might also enjoy reading:

• 10 Tips For Making Your Blog Posts Easier To Read
• Organize And Spring Clean Your Blog In 10 Steps
• So You Want To Start A Teacher Blog?

This is the next post in our “blog makeover” series that provides an excellent opportunity to respond to a reader’s suggestion to include an image using HTML in a page or sidebar.

It is recommended you read the previous post on Getting more out of Widgets prior to reading this post.

Basic knowledge of HTML provides greater ability for customizing text widgets. It means you can embed photos in your sidebar, link to pages on your blog or other websites, write text using bold and italics, for example.

What is HTML?

HTML is a bit like RSS, for bloggers there is no need to fully understand it but helpful if we learn the basics of how to use.

HTML is short for “Hyper Text Markup Language” and a language used to tell a browser how to organise the layout of a web page it has downloaded from the net – e.g. it influences if text is bold, italics, a heading, bullet points, etc.

When you write a post or page inside your blog dashboard you don’t worry about HTML because the Visual Editor does it for you. If you switch to the Code Editor from the editor options menu, it shows the HTML code instead.

Basic knowledge of HTML is really helpful for tasks like customizing widgets and writing comments on blogs.

Examples of HTML used to highlight text include:

• <strong> tag makes text strong e.g. I <strong>really like</strong> this idea produces: I really like this idea.
• <em> emphasizes text e.g. I <em>really like</em> this idea produces: I really like this idea.

Notice you must use the < and > symbols around the HTML Tags and the tag is closed using a ‘/’ (slash) in front of the tag keyword e.g. </strong>

Here’s how you can use HTML to add an image to your blog sidebar

Uisng the Code Editor to add an image to a page or sidebar is a simple matter of enclosing the image URL in an img tag, much like the examples above. The only difference is that you do not need a closing tag for the image HTML.

For example, <img src=”https://www.theedublogger.com/files/2008/01/question.jpg” alt=”question mark” />
produces

Final Thought

As Kevin pointed out:

if you doing a blog makover, make sure you write a post to invite your readers to comment on your changes. Readers who read your post via RSS won’t be aware of the change because everything will look the same in their feed reader.

Remember to pop past Larry Ferlazzo’s Website of The Day blog and give him feedback on his makeover!

It does take time to get used to using HTML; the key with technologies is willingness to experiment. As you become experienced with using HTML you will recognise opportunities that can be enhanced with it’s use.

Other posts in our “blog makeover” series include:

• Tips For Doing A Blog Makeover
• Creating Hyperlinks Using HTML
• What To Consider When Choosing Your Blog Theme

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Fantastic news! Our Getting More Out of Widgets! post inspired community members to make adjustments or add extra widgets to their blog, plus motivated some to do “blog makeovers”.

Larry Ferlazzo suggested

Here in the U.S there’s a popular TV show where producers go into someone’s home, and completely redo a room. Crazy idea, I know, but it might be fun for you to offer to do that to a blog and as a teaching tool for the rest of us.

What an excellent idea Larry and here’s the best news!

As you asked for assistance, we choose your blog for the makeover and will be writing a series of posts on Larry Ferlazzo’s Website of the Day “Blog Makeover” to share blog design tips and additional info for customizing widgets.

But before we begin– Gail Desler, from Blogwalker blog, has shared with us her excellent Introductory manual for using Edublogs which is definitely worth bookmarking for future reference! Make time to go past Gail’s blog and write a comment to thank her for sharing!

Importance of Your Blog’s Presentation Theme

Your blog has two distinct groups of readers:

• Those that subscribe to your blog via RSS feed or email;
• and first time readers who view your blog via it’s web address.

It’s these first time readers we want to engage and get to subscribe to our blog. Unfortunate fact of life, we do judge a book by it’s cover! People are more likely to both read your posts and subscribe to your blog if it’s pleasing to their eyes.

Refer to page 12 & 13 of Gail’s Introductory Manual to Edublogs.

Larry’s Original Theme

For those unfamiliar with Larry Ferlazzo’s Website of the Day — Larry’s well known and very popular for sharing great information on websites for teaching ELL, ESL and EFL. His original theme was Batavia 1.5.

Nice simple theme but the beige background behind the text in his posts detracted from the great content he was sharing. Made worse by his long blog name that cluttered his blog header.

Larry’s Next Theme

Larry had already decided that there was better themes for his blog and was trailing them before we offered our assistance.

But there was two main problems with the new Copyblogger theme:

1. His long blog name was totally overwhelming the blog header. Solution was to shorten his blog name and use a theme that included a tagline!
2. Too many page links displayed along the top of his blog was making it cluttered and messy. Answer lies with Pages, Sub-pages and a widget.

Why Blogs have Taglines

The concept behind a blog tagline is to create a memorable phrase that sums up the tone and premise of a blog. Ideally all blogs should have a tagline since they instantly tell first time readers what your blogs all about and whether you write posts in topic areas that interest them.

Unfortunately not all blog themes include a tagline however a work around, if you’re good with Photoshop, is to use a theme with a customisable header and add the tagline to the image in the header e.g. check out the header on my personal blog and Graham Wegner’s Teaching Generation Z blog.

With Larry we changed his blog name from Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day for Teaching ELL, ESL & EFL to Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… and added the tagline … .For Teaching ELL, ESL & EFL.

Larry’s New Theme

He also decided to change from the theme Copyblogger but couldn’t choose between Glorious Day or Glossy Blue.

The trouble with themes is each has their advantages and disadvantages. Both the new themes included taglines but the background colour behind the text and the text styles was easier to read with Glorious Day.

Why Blogs Have Pages

Edublogs, because it uses WordPress, has the definite advantages of being able to customize and reduce blog clutter considerably more than Blogger blogs. Clutter distracts readers making them less inclined to subscribe to your blog. One of the best ways to reduce clutter is to use pages.

Pages, are similar to posts, except they can do more than a post. You normally use pages when you want to present information about yourself or your blog that you always want readers to be easily able to access. Examples of pages on this blog are: About and Want Automatic Notification.  For more information, read the differences between pages and posts.

Pages can also be organised into Sub-pages within your pages, creating a hierarchy of pages. For blog themes that display pages along the top, this is a great way of controlling what pages are displayed as only those with no parent are displayed. The Want Automatic Notification is located on a sub-page below the About page.

Larry’s New Look

Below is what Larry’s blog now looks like after creating pages, sub-pages and using a widget to link to the sub-pages.

Our next post will show how to create widget that link to sub-pages, a widget for photos and provide tips for decluttering your side bar.

General Tips for doing a blog makeover

Here are some tips for doing a blog makeover that will make your site look and feel new again

1. Identify your goals: Before you start making any changes, take some time to think about what you want to achieve with your blog makeover. Are you looking to increase traffic, engage readers, or improve your branding? Knowing your goals will help you make informed decisions about what changes to make.

2. Choose a new theme or template: The design of your blog is one of the first things that readers notice, so it’s important to choose a theme or template that reflects your style and brand. Look for a design that’s easy to navigate and visually appealing.

3. Update your logo and branding: If your blog has been around for a while, it might be time to update your logo and branding. Make sure that your logo is clear and easy to read, and that your branding is consistent across all your social media accounts.

4. Clean up your sidebar: Your sidebar is a valuable space for showcasing your content and promoting your brand. Remove any clutter and make sure that your most important widgets are easy to find.

5. Improve your navigation: Make it easy for readers to find the content they’re looking for by improving your navigation. Add drop-down menus or a search bar to help readers quickly find the information they need.

6. Update your content: A blog makeover is a great opportunity to update your content and make sure that it’s fresh and relevant. Remove any outdated posts and make sure that your most popular content is easy to find.

7. Optimize for mobile: More and more people are accessing the internet on their mobile devices, so it’s important to make sure that your blog is optimized for mobile. Choose a responsive theme or template that will look great on any device.

A blog makeover can be a lot of work, but the results are worth it. By following these tips, you can create a blog that looks and feels new again, and that attracts new readers and engages your existing audience.

FINAL THOUGHT

We’d love feedback on Larry’s blog makeover, please check it out and provide your thoughts on further improvements. And if you’re in the process of a blog makeover let us know so we take a look!

Other posts in our “blog makeover” series include:

• How To Add Your Photo to Your Blog Side Bar
• Creating Hyperlinks Using HTML
• What To Consider When Choosing Your Blog Theme

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Many readers express interest in widgets, so we have decided this is a good place to start!

What are Widgets?

Web terminology makes it so much harder when people are starting their online journey; suddenly you’re being bombarded with all these foreign terms, and widgets are a classic example! In simple terms, widgets are mini web applications that you can put onto your website; e.g. the Clustrmap on the side bar is a widget.

How To Embed A Widget

People use widgets to add extra features to their website. But be warned! Choose widgets for your blog wisely because they can clutter your side menu which will distract your readers. My list of “must have widgets” on a blog include:

1. Search – so readers can easily search your blog
2. Email subscription – for readers who prefer to be notified of new posts by email
3. RSS feed – not all feed readers are able to detect the RSS feed from the site URL; this is why I add a Feed burner feed to my sites to make it easier for readers to subscribe
4. Categories and Tag Cloud – to make it easier for readers to locate posts on your blog. We will be writing a post soon to explain the difference between categories and tag clouds; and why/how each is used

I also like to add a widget that links to information on how to be notified of new posts; to make it easier for new people to understand how to subscribe to blogs.

Could I Mess up My blog Embedding Widgets?

Don’t worry! Widgets won’t break your blog. Any widgets you add can easily be removed, and won’t effect existing widgets in your side bar.

To try out widget, go to Appearance > Widgets, click the [+] sign in the widget area / sidebar where you want to add a widget. Search for the one you want in the sidebar and click to add it. Then click Update and view your site.

To remove a widget, click on it and, under the ellipsis icon at top-right, click the Delete option. Then click Update to save your changes.

What Widgets Should I Add To My Blog?

Widgets are PERSONAL. We all have our favourites.

Many educators like to add Clustrmaps, especially those with younger students, because the students loving seeing the red dots grow as their readers from around the world visit their site.

Other common widgets bloggers use include:

• Meta – shows your latest updates from Meta/Facebook
• Flickr – shows the latest photos you have uploaded to your Flickr Account
• Twitter – shows your latest updates from Twitter

Not all widgets can be embedded in Edublogs because some types of code and code that includes Java Script can cause problems. For example, when adding a Clustrmaps widget, you’ll want to copy the embed code and paste that in a Custom HTML widget in your sidebar.

FINAL THOUGHT

For those struggling to embed widgets we hope these “how to” tips have helped! For everyone else we hope that you find these tips useful when demonstrating to new people.

Please leave a comment to let us know how you go, and if you need any help with widgets I haven’t mentioned.

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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:

1. You can back up your thoughts and make your writing more credible.
2. Student voice can be incorporated into a blog post written by a teacher.
3. You can provide alternative viewpoints or encourage readers to reflect.
4. Quotes can help you begin or end your blog post with impact.
5. The research involved in finding quality quotes is a solid learning experience.
6. 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:

• GoodReads Quotes
• LitQuotes
• BrainyQuote

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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!

When high standards are set for publishing online, students tend to yield the greatest results. They can meet academic outcomes while learning how to be a safe and positive digital citizen.

This post goes through 10 elements of a quality blog post. Feel free to share these tips with students (they might be useful for adult bloggers too!).

10 Elements Of A Quality Blog Post

Scroll down for summary poster that you’re welcome to use in your classroom or on your blog. You’ll also find some student examples below.

1) Great Title

Does your title explain what your post will be about and encourage visitors to read on?

Put a little thought into your title and you might find your readers are more willing to click and read through your post.

Tips for writing effective blog post titles:

• Brainstorm a number of titles and then choose the best one. Many bloggers start with a “working title” and then change it before publishing.
• Make your title specific and enticing.
• Think about what will encourage readers to click.
• Avoid clickbait. That is, a title that entices readers to click but is dishonest about the content of the post, or doesn’t explain what your post is about. For example “You Won’t Believe These 100 World’s Best Study Tips”. This sort of title might over promise and under deliver. Do you really have 100 tips? Are they really the best in the world?

This flowchart from Orbit Media shows that when people come across a headline, they decide in about 2 seconds whether to click and read the post or keep scrolling.

2) Short Paragraphs

Do you break up text into short paragraphs to make your posts easier to read?

Many readers will just be scanning your post and if they’re presented with a big block of text they may not read it at all.

It’s also a good idea to break up text with:

• subheadings
• bullet point lists
• numbered lists

You might have been taught at school that you don’t start a new paragraph until you change topics but this does not apply to digital writing.

Short paragraphs are good. Very good!

3) Visuals Or Multimedia As Well As Text

Does your post include at least one visual?

High-quality posts include more than just text, they have visuals as well.

Along with being nice to look at, images serve two purposes:

• They help readers understand what you’re writing about (especially if your image is something like a graph, diagram, or video).
• They break up your text and make it easier to read.

What sort of visuals can you include in posts? Here are a few examples:

• Photos you take yourself.
• Creative Commons images (this guide shows you some good websites for students).
• A graph or chart (try BEAM for an easy web tool).
• Videos (e.g. embedded from YouTube or Vimeo).
• Google Slides presentations.
• Google Drawings (check out this tutorial from Sheri Edwards).
• An image you make in Canva (learn more about Canva here).

4) Internal And External Links

Do you include links in your post either to other posts you’ve written or inspiration/ideas you’ve come across on the web?

In the past when we only wrote with pen and paper or on word processors, writing was more linear. Writing on the web is different. An important part of digital writing is using hyperlinks.

Hyperlinks are the heart of the web. They bring together various pages from different websites and your own website.

Any article you read on the web probably includes hyperlinks. It’s important for students to learn how to include these in their own writing.

Hyperlinks:

• Help readers learn more about a certain topic.
• Help readers understand where the writer is coming from.
• Cite sources to back up what you’re saying.
• Save you having to define words or ideas. You link the word/phrase to an explanation and readers can choose to explore the definition if they need to.
• Allow you to practice good online etiquette by showing where your ideas or inspiration is from.
• Remind readers of older posts you’ve written that they might like to look at.

This Edublogs help guide shows you how to add links to your blog posts.

5) Fonts And Colors

Are the fonts you use easy to read? If you’re using colors, do they stand out against your background?

Many students love playing around with different fonts, colors, and backgrounds but it’s important to always keep these question in mind:

• Can people easily read the blog post?
• Are you being consistent in your color/font choices?
• Are your fonts big enough and clear enough?
• Is there enough contrast? (e.g. red text on an orange background would be hard to read).
• Is there too much movement? This can be very off-putting for readers.

Overall, less is more!

Find out how to change your fonts and colors in this help guide.

6) Proofread

Have you proofread your work before publishing?

No one expects bloggers to be perfect but proofread work is much easier to read.

Before you publish, it’s important to check your spelling, grammar, punctuation, and spacing.

If you can, enlist the help of someone else to check your work. It’s harder to spot your own mistakes! Perhaps students could pair up with another student for proofreading.

For older students, Grammarly is a great free online tool to check your writing. Grammarly is 18+ but if you’re aged between 13-17, you can use it with permission.

7) Digital Citizenship

Have you checked that you haven’t revealed your personal information (YAPPY) or copied text/images/work that doesn’t belong to you?

It’s great for readers to learn a bit about you but it’s important to avoid sharing too much information or personal details.

I like to tell my students to never share their YAPPY online as per in the image below. There is some other information that’s more of a “grey area”. These are things that students should discuss with teachers and parents.

Students also need to make sure they’re not using work that doesn’t belong to them. This includes images as well as text and other content.

Further advice on digital citizenship and copyright:

• Read more about blogging and digital citizenship here.
• Learn more about digital footprints in this post. 
• Should you publish students’ photos online? Check out this post for advice. 
• Check out The Educator’s Guide To Copyright, Fair Use, And Creative Commons.

8) Categories And Tags

Do you assign your post to at least one category? Bonus points if you use tags to organize your posts too!

Tags and categories on posts are used to help readers locate information in different ways.

You don’t have to use tags but each post has to be assigned to at least one category. If you don’t do this manually, it will be assigned to a category called “Uncategorized” by default.

Take a look at this chart to learn more about the differences between categories and tags.

Learn more about using categories and tags in this help guide.

9) Questions

Do you include questions at the end of your post to encourage visitors to leave a comment?

Comments bring blog posts alive. They turn your blog from a static space to an interactive space. Some fantastic learning can happen in the comment section.

Readers can leave feedback, offer constructive criticism, or share new perspectives. This can help you grow and learn.

You can’t assume that readers will think to leave a comment. You need to invite them. Try coming up with some open-ended questions that you can include at the bottom of your blog posts.

10) Comments

Do you approve comments quickly and write polite replies?

If you do receive comments on your post, it’s important to approve them in a timely manner and write a reply.

This will encourage readers to keep returning and interacting.

Try to make your comments high-quality.

Here are some elements of a quality blog comment:

• Written like a letter with a greeting, body, and sometimes a closing.
• Includes correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and spacing.
• The content might include questions, compliments, and/or relevant new information.
• Aim to make connections without revealing personal information like surnames, specific plans, addresses, birthdays, etc.

You won’t always include all of the above in your comments but these are the sorts of things you might aim for.

Summary Poster: What Makes A Quality Blog Post

>>Download a PDF version of the poster

Student Examples Demonstrating Elements Of A Quality Blog Post

Examples are always helpful to show students. Here are some examples of posts from Student Blogging Challenge participants. 

You’ll notice the annotated posts don’t necessarily include all of the 10 elements described above. Blogging is a learning journey and it’s also a personal representation of yourself. So you don’t need to follow a formula although having some tips to refer to is always helpful.

Raise the bar and reap the rewards!

Check out the examples from students in:

• 2nd grade
• 3rd grade
• 6th grade
• 10th grade
• Higher ed/ESL

2nd Grade: Miss Blessings Class

Cherie Blessing is an experienced teacher and longtime blogger from central Vermont in the United States.

Cherie’s class blog is called The Great Adventure. Her student blogs are linked to her class blog using My Class. 

Let’s take a look at examples from two of her young bloggers. The students use pen names. These students have just turned 8 years old proving you’re never too young to blog!

Fluffy: Spring

Bee Buzzer: Colonial Farmer 

3rd Grade: Mrs. Yollis’ Class

Linda Yollis from Los Angeles has been blogging with her 3rd grade students for over a decade. This year she has helped her students set up individual blogs on Edublogs.

Linda has always set a high standard for students and is also very dedicated to involving parents in student learning.

Because of this, Linda’s students are already producing some fantastic work despite only blogging for a few months and only being 8/9 years old.

The students in Mrs. Yollis’ class use pen names and their work is moderated by Linda using My Class features.

Let’s take a look at two examples:

Ana’s Amazing Achievements: Tremendous Track

Veronica Pink: Fun With Pets

6th Grade: Wilderness School

The students from Year 6 at Wilderness School in South Australia have been keen participants in the recent Student Blogging Challenge.

Their students are very creative at trying out various web tools and adding an assortment of multimedia to their blogs.

One student, Lauren, even made a tutorial video for Student Blogging Challenge participants about blog headers.

Here are two examples from Year 6 at Wilderness:

Sonali: About Me

Olivia: A Quality Comment

10th Grade: Emily

Emily is a grade 10 student in the Performance Learning Program at Seycove Secondary in Canada. Her school uses a CampusPress network to host their impressive blogging program.

Emily has been blogging for nearly 3 years. You can read about her experiences with the Student Blogging Challenge in this post (she made a video about the challenge with two friends).

The following annotated post is just an example of the high-quality content that Emily regularly publishes on her blog. She’s an exceptional student and role model for other bloggers.

Along with excellent writing, Emily includes creative graphics, charts, and diagrams to make her posts a true delight to read.

Due to the length of Emily’s post, only snippets were included below. Be sure to read the full post here.

Higher Education (ESL): Mrs. Matveyeva’s Class Blog

Nadia Matveyeva is an English instructor from a university in Kazakhstan. She started a class blog this year with her second-year college students.

2019 is the second year her students have been learning English. They were excellent participants of the Student Blogging Challenge.

Here is one of their posts about family celebrations in Kazakhstan for the new year. It was written collaboratively by Nadia K., Lisa T., Christine M. and Farisa S. The poem was by Sasha R. and Ruslan B.

Due to the length of the post, only snippets were included below. You can view the full post here.

Over To You

We’ve shared the 10 elements of a quality blog post but this is not an extensive or rigid guide. No doubt, you and your students will have your own ideas about what makes a quality blog post.

We’d love you to share your own ideas and examples in the comments below.

Scroll down the find the comment box. 

Further Reading

My Class: Student Blogs Made Easy

Different Approaches To Using Student Blogs And Digital Portfolios

Check Out These Class Blogs