Two easy ways for educators and students to start a blog (for free)

It's really easy to get started blogging – here's two different ways to get up and running with a quality blog site quickly.

With the start of the new school year many teachers, administrators, and students will be thinking about finally starting that blog they've been considering. I promised in last week's final post in my “Blogging in Education Today” series that I would write a post about how to get started, and here it is.

Below I provide a little information about two of the major players in the educational blogosphere. Following these introductions, I've provided a couple brief video tutorials that show you how to get started with either one of these blogging applications.

Edublogs.org

One easy way to get started is with Edublogs. They've been around since 2005, and the site provides only education related blogs. Given that focus, they offer some unique functionality for educators and students. For example, Edublogs permits no adult content in their blogs and they don't faciliate exposure to blogs other than the one you are specifically looking at (whereas other popular blogging sites provide buttons and links that encourage you to click through to other blogs they host).

Edublogs is the premier site for education related blogging, and the site's features and functionality are constantly evolving. See the video “Starting A Blog On Edublogs” below for an overview of how you go about getting started with your own Edublogs blog.

Blogger.com

Blogger is the original blogging platform, started by three friends in 1999, and purchased by Google in 2002. By default, blogs created on blogger get a ‘blogspot.com' url. You can also have Blogger blogs hosted on your own custom domain name (note that you would have to purchase a domain name in order to do this).

Blogger has many features, and as a Google application, it integrated nicely with many other Google apps. You can also monetize Blogger blogs with Google AdSense ads. Blogger is a good alternative to Edublogs if you are looking for a different level of functionality, and the ability to grow your blog over time into a custom site with more advanced capabilties.

See the video “Starting A Blog Using Blogger” below for a tutorial on getting started with Blogger.com.

Watch this video to learn how to start your own blog on Edublogs:

 

Watch this video to start your own blog using Blogger:

  

I hope this post and these videos encourage you to get started blogging today. As you can see, it really is quick, easy, and free. There are many resources available all across the web that will help you learn more about this. Of course, if anyone has any questions, feel free to submit them (comment below, or use the Contact form). Happy Blogging everyone! 

Next
Next week's feature post is a great article providing “5 easy steps for students to establish their personal brand using social networking” by guest poster Angelita Williams. I hope you'll stop by and learn with us.

Since most schools here is the U.S. and many abroad are starting a new term this week, here's wishing everyone an enjoyable and productive first week of the new school year!

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Blogging In Education Today (a multipart series)
Blogging in Education Today (part 2 – Classroom Blogging)
Blogging in Education Today (part 3 – Student Blogging)
Blogging in Education Today (part 4 – Administrator’s Blogs)
Blogging in Education Today (Part 5 – Education Technology Blogs)