TeachersFirst: Gated Blogs for the Classroom

Blogger
General profile: Blogger is owned by Google and available for free for the public. It is not specifically designed or adapted for educational use. Blogger places small, text-based advertisements on your blog. A major drawback is the “next blog” button which invotes student curiosity and may bring up content inappropriate for school. This alone has caused many schools to block Blogger entirely. If you, your school parents, or your school administration prefers closely-held controls on your classroom blog, Blogger may not be your best option. It is not designed as a fully “gated” blog. The Google Educators forum offers some ideas for using gmail and Blogger with students, including how to get rid of the "next blog" button (not for beginners). The user side is VERY easy. The start-up of a blog using Blogger is VERY simple, and the ability to choose your own URL is a help for forgetful students. Overall: A simple-to-use tool for those who do NOT need the full security of a fully-gated blog. back
Features available:	Yes/no	What they call it, and how to find it	Reviewer comments
Password-protect entire blog	N		You can limit who “sees”the blog to those you specifically allow, but the permission will be based on allowing specific people “in” by their Google memberships, not by password. This would require having user accounts for all students on Google, which defeats the purpose of protecting users.
Choices of blog appearance	Y	Choose a Template	The options are common looks you have seen on the web.
Customization of appearance with own graphics	Y	Create a Custom Design Template	Can be changed at any time.
Keywording/tagging	Y	Labels	Use the space at the end of the post form to enter labels, separated by commas.
Teacher-managed registration options	Y	Register members under Settings> members.	Members must have email accounts. Google is pushing using gmail accounts for all students.
Teacher-managed posting options	Y	Posts only allowed by registered members of the blog. Registration is the only limit they offer.	Only one level of “member” available. You cannot assign differing levels or capabilities to different people, such as parents vs students.
Teacher-managed commenting options	Y	Under Settings>Comments> Who Can Comment?	To completely control posts/comments, set choice to Members only, then register only your class members if you wish to restrict commenting to your students. You also have the option of “registered users only” for comments, but this does not prevent someone from a becoming registered user on their own.
Teacher-approval of posts and comments	Y	Settings> Comments> Enable Comment Moderation
Teacher-managed control over what different members can “see”	Y	Settings>Permissions> Blog Readers “Who can view this blog?”	If you set this to “only people I choose,” you invite them via email to access the blog. They must, howver, set up a Google account (requires email, so this option may be problematic). You can also elect to limit view of the blog only to blog authors.
Other capabilities	Y	Keep blog out of public listings. Spam controls-- turn on at Settings> Comments>	Under Settings> Basics> Add your Blog to our listings? Choose NO to limit how many people can “find” it, but not completely hide it from public view.
RSS Feeds	Y	Settings> site feeds	Monitor all posts and comments via an RSS feed to a teacher feed reader such as Google Reader. This will save you time accessing changes and comments on multiple blogs.
Help available	Y		Help appears in pop-up windows, which enable you to read the help and do the tasks as you read.
User comments: (from Maria Angala, TeachersFirst Class Blog Winner) free! user friendly has the easiest management application I’ve seen so far I guide the teachers step-by-step in creating their own class blogs. In less than 10 minutes, most often than not, they’re able to learn to get it up and running and they’re able to upload files and create their “Welcome” and “Rules for Using this Blog” back