Top 3 Educational Blogging Sites

I hope that everyone had a nice relaxing holiday break and is energized and ready to take on the winter ahead.  After a week off, I decided that this week will be a series of "best of" posts.  To start, let's look at the top three blogging websites for teachers and students:

1.  Kidblog

Kidblog is a very simple blogging site which has grown up quite a bit over the past year.  On  Kidblog you have complete control over your students and the content that is posted.  I really like Kidblog because it eliminates all of the extra "stuff" from the equation and just focuses on student blogging.  Kidblog is free to use and does not have any advertisements.

2.  Edublogs

Edublogs is like Kidblog in that it was created for the sole purpose of classroom blogging.  This means that your class blog will be completely separate from anything else happening within the Edublogs community.  Edublogs seems to be more customizable than other educational blogging sites and is advertisement free.  I have never used  Edublogs but I have read a lot about it and have seen many positive reviews.

3.  Edline

For those of you who are using Edline as your LMS (learning management system), you can be blogging right from within your classroom website.  Edline's blogging feature is very simple to use and because your students are already on Edline, you do not have to setup a class or create user accounts.  As soon as you decide to get started, you could have your students blogging that same day.

It is important to note that these are my top three educational blogging sites and do not include other blogging applications that are not exclusively set up for educational blogging such as Blogger and Wordpress.

Now What?

Get blogging!!!  Before you get started, it is important to think about how you will use your blog in your classroom and also your expectations for students.  You will also want to talk with your classes about blogging etiquette and responsible use.