Peter Ford @ ICT4Schools

What if you have tested out a single blog and are convinced that you could make effective use of blogs in your school? If as a teacher or school you decide that you want to create and use blogs more widely than in one class or with just a few students, then you should consider a multi-user blog platform.

Managing the security and administrative aspects of many standalone blogs on a free weblog server can prove time-consuming and counter-productive to the teacher or school wanting to see blogs impact everyday teaching and learning. Let’s look at multi-user options in more detail.

What are multi-user blogs?

Put simply, multi-user blog software allows you to set up and customise your own named space on the web where you have the ability to create and delete blogs as and when you need them.

What are the advantages?

• You can create and delete blogs as and when you need to without fuss.
• In setting up a multi-user blog platform you can pre-determine the content and control in detail how each newly-created blog performs, dovetailing its security and editorial settings with your school’s internet use policy.
• Overall management functions allow those responsible for the school blogs to control and edit every aspect of every blog – from it’s themes to the plugins it uses, to the content of every post, page and comment.
• Safe in the knowledge that site security is taken care of, users i.e. teachers and students can be given freedom to harness the potential of blogs in the classroom and beyond.
• Management of users means that they can be easily created and deleted, or assigned the functions they can perform within the sytem. For example, you may want students to be able to freely contribute to a particular blog while still maintaining the right for teachers to view what they have written before it is published to the world. This option along with a host of others are simply implemented with multi-user blogs.

What are the disadvantages?

The traditional drawback of multi-user blogging is that it runs server-side software that needs to be installed and hosted on a server. This costs both financially, in terms of hosting and software costs, and time in terms of technical learning and maintenance of server space and software.

If you are an uber-geek teacher who enjoys nothing more than spending hours of free time pursuing the mysteries of server-side blogging software then it is possible to set up up multi-user blogs yourself. There is some excellent software out there and if that prospect motivates then you have our admiration and instant respect. The advice that follows is directed at those mere mortal teachers like us, who simply wish to use blogs in schools without expending too much time or effort getting them off the ground.

Multi-user Blogging - a new approach.

Unless you have an overwhelming desire to learn how to set up and maintain server-side software then by far the best option is to buy a multi-user blogging package that will allow you to enjoy the benefits of multiple blogs in school without the time-consuming drain of maintaining a server.

The initial set-up and ongoing server-side maintenance is taken care of, allowing educators and students to get on with using blogs to impact teaching and learning from the outset.

If you are interested in a multi-user blog set-up, get in touch - blogs@ict4schools.info