Step 11: Set Up Student Blogs (l)

Tips for creating student blogs
You can use any blogging platform you like including Edublogs, WordPress, and Blogger, however when, we write detailed instructions they will refer to Edublogs.
You can adapt this information to the blogging platform you are using. Unsure about what blogging platform to use? Edublogs is based on WordPress software that’s designed for education which makes it in excellent choice.
We will now go through three important things to consider before creating your student blogs:
1. Student Usernames, Blog URLs, and Blog Titles
Educators normally use the same name for both the student’s username and blog URL. Keep them simple and easy for the student to remember. Most educators use a combination of their student’s first name followed by numbers that might represent the year, class number, and/or school initials.
This is done to:
1. To protect the identity of the student (by not including their last name).
2.  To ensure their username is unique (as Edublogs has close to 1,000,000 users).
For example, you could have: username: mistybp 16, blog URL: mistybp16.edublogs.org and blog title: Misty’s Blog Tips for creating Student Blogs
The Blog Title is one of the first things a reader sees when visiting a blog. Unlike the URL, the title can be changed easily. We recommend you keep the student’s first name as the first part of the blog title if you are using My Class. This makes it easier to identify a student blog from the Class Blog widget. The Class Blog widget is used to list all student blogs attached to My Class.
Note: Remember, you can always change the blog title any time via Settings >General in the student blog dashboard.
2. Add Yourself to your Student Blogs 
Always add yourself as an administrator to your student blog. This means if you need to edit/delete a post, page or comment you can quickly access their blog from your blog dashboard.
We will show you how to do this using My Class tool below.
3. Moderate Comments 
In any case, there are pros and cons to each approach. Educators either prefer to let their students moderate their own comments or they moderate all the comments for their students. Sometimes, educators moderate to begin with but then hand over responsibility when their students demonstrate they are ready. We will show you how to do this using My Class tool below.