Update #2 (Dec 2009): Why we’re thinking about leaving Bluehost. (We still love WordPress, mind you…)
Update #1 (Sep 2009): We’re still using WordPress and BlueHost to run our classroom website.
We created a free ebook with step-by-step instructions on how to create a classroom blog, educational blog or school website using WordPress, but don’t bother reading it.
You can still download it below, but the quickest and easiest way to install WordPress is by using a web host that offers Simple Scripts: you can read step-by-step instructions to set up WordPress or you can watch a video tutorial on installing WordPress.
- Download our Free eBook with step-by-step instructions to start a class blog using WordPress:
Classroom Websites (1.5 MiB, 10,006 hits)
Heard some of the reasons why teachers are bringing blogs into their classrooms? Want to start an educational blog, but not sure how to do it?
Well, you have several options, depending on how comfortable you are with technology:
- Use your school website
- Use an online educational community
- Use a free blog service
- Use a self-hosted website
This post will give you an overview of how to start your classroom blog. When you’re ready to actually set up your classroom blog, download our step-by-step instructions to get your classroom blog set up.
NEW: You might be interested in setting up an online literature circle for your classroom. Read this post for more information.
1. Use your school website to publish your student work online.
Generally speaking, this is not the most convenient option. First, the person who runs the school website may not have the time to help you publish student work online (or to keep that content updated). Second, most school websites are not powered by blogging software (see below), so it can be difficult to publish new content, as well as for visitors to leave comments. Finally, if you change schools, the content doesn’t follow you, and may get deleted when you move on.
Download step-by-step instructions on how to set up your classroom blog.
2. Set up your blog using a prepackaged site with an online educational community like Edublogs.
Many teachers join a community of online educators who are already blogging in the classroom. That way, you can learn from others, and see what’s possible.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, Ontario Blogs is now closed due to lack of funding.
We started blogging with 
Ontario Blogs, which is an online project where students from Gr 4-12 in Ontario can write and read posts. All content is moderated by teachers as they are the only ones with the authority to publish posts and comments. It’s easy for teachers to register and set up a class blog.
Ontario Blogs is a great place to start if you’re new to educational blogging. It’s run by Ontario educators. However, there are a few downsides. The biggest downside is that you’re stuck with the same theme as the Ontario Blogs site. You can’t change the theme, even if you wanted to. The second downside is that they don’t archive your student work forever. We had a classroom blog with Ontario Blogs in the 2005-2006 school year, but they took down our site. We had to rescue our student content using the way-back internet machine. Finally, only Ontario Blog users can leave comments. This means that the general public can’t leave a message or feedback.
Edublogs.org hosts hundreds of thousands of education blogs. You can easily create and manage student blogs or teacher blogs. It’s powered by WordPress and you can use many WordPress features, including the customizable themes. It’s easy to set up podcasting, videos, and photos. You have complete control over which comments and posts get published. Any visitor can leave a comment, and you can moderate the comments before they go live on your site.
Edublogs.org offers more flexibility than Ontario Blogs and is a great, quick solution to starting your own classroom blog. However, it’s a WordPress blog running with limited features. You’ll need to pay if you want to do anything beyond the basics, like install plugins. Still, this is probably your best options to get a classroom blog set up and running quickly.
Download step-by-step instructions on how to set up your classroom blog.
3. Set up your own blog using a free blogging platform like Blogger or WordPress.
Although there are several free blogging platforms, two of the best are Blogger and Wordpress.
Blogger is run by Google and allows you to create a free blog. You can choose from a variety of template and features (gadgets), including the option to add Google Ads on to your blog to monetize your site. (You also have access to the HTML code of your site which means you have more control over your site than a prepackaged blog offered by Edublogs or Ontario Blogs.
WordPress is a free blogging platform that comes in a few varieties.
You can either get a free blog account hosted by WordPress.com, or you can download the WordPress software for free and install it on your own website. (This is called a self-hosted WordPress account. See #4 below.)
Over 3 million blogs are hosted by WordPress.com. You have access to a variety of themes and features (widgets) that are pre-installed in the software. Unfortunately with a free WordPress account, you can’t use the site to make money (i.e. with Google Ads) and you have limited access in terms of extra code that you can ad to your site (i.e. you don’t have access to the HTML code of the site). However, this won’t be a problem for most people.
Download step-by-step instructions on how to set up your classroom blog.
4. Set up your own blog on your own self-hosted website.
Running a blog on your own website costs money, can require some technical know-how, but offers the most flexibility and control. It’s not for everyone.
Let’s be honest: the average teacher doesn’t blog in the classroom. The ones who do, probably do so because they’re interested in technology. They may already manage their school website or perhaps they’re the computer contact teacher for their school.
Most teachers who blog in the classroom will opt for option 2 or 3 in the list above. Setting up an account with Edublogs or WordPress.com will have you up and blogging in a matter of minutes and at no cost to you. Some teachers may even go one step further and buy their own domain name. With blogger, edublogs and wordpress.com, it’s (relatively) easy to set up your blog at classroomteacher.ca instead of classroomteacher.wordpress.com.
Problems with using a free service to run your classroom blog
But some of us want more out of our classroom blogs and school websites. Here are the main reasons people want to host their own WordPress blog.
- You see what other people can do with their WordPress blogs and realize that edublogs.org and wordpress.com offer watered-down versions of the WordPress software. (You can’t install plugins or add your own themes in Edublogs or Wordpress.com)
- You want to make money online with your blog. (You’re not allowed to run Google ads or sell stuff on Edublogs or Wordpress.com)
- You realize that if you’re going to pay a couple of bucks a month to get extra features (like the ability to use your own domain name or to install a few features) anyways, why not pay a few more dollars and get access to all of the features out of WordPress
We did a considerable amount of research before choosing BlueHost to be our web host. We pay $6.95 per month (in a single installment for a year) to have our own space on the internet. We chose BlueHost for several reasons.
UPDATE: Why we’re thinking about leaving Bluehost…
- First, you can install WordPress with the click of a button. (Here are step-by-step instructions to set up WordPress. You can also watch a video tutorial on installing WordPress.)
- Because we’re running WordPress on our own server (i.e. we have a BlueHost account), we can use Google Ads. If you use the free WordPress account at WordPress.com, you can’t use Google Ads.)
- You can create over 50 WordPress blogs and host them all on your single BlueHost account. We run several classroom blogs, school forums, teacher blogs, and professional sites off of our single BlueHost account.
- You get a free domain name included in the web hosting price and that domain is yours for life (for as long as you have a BlueHost account.) Additional domain names cost $10 (USD) per domain name per year and you can have an unlimited number of domain names pointing to your web host account. This means you can create an unlimited number of independent websites that are hosted on your single web host account. (Not all companies allow you to do this.)
- Finally, you have complete control over the look and feel of your blog. With a self-hosted WordPress blog, you can install any template or any feature (plug-in) and it’s this ability to install additional pieces of code that allows WordPress to be infinetely extendable.
By itself, WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform. That’s why Ontario Blogs and Edublogs are both self-hosted WordPress accounts. However, when you create a free WordPress account with Ontario Blogs, Edublogs, or WordPress.com, you only have a limited number of features availble.
When you run a self-hosted WordPress account on your own web host, it’s like unlocking all of the doors and allowing you to customize your site any way you like.
Read step-by-step instructions on how to set up WordPress or you can watch a video tutorial on how to install WordPress.
Visit BlueHost.com
Related posts:
- Geotag Your Classroom Blog – Show Off Where Your Visitors Come From Geotagging is the art and science of adding geographic information...
- WordPress Lessons We’re in the process of finishing our first ebook on...
- Edublogs Scheduled Maintenance We’re working on our free ebook with step-by-step instructions on...
- 4 Extra Things That You Can Do With a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog (that you can’t do with a Free WordPress blog) We’re writing our ebook with step-by-step instructios on how to...
- Still using WordPress for our Classroom Website We’re just creating our new classroom website for the 2009-2010...
61 responses so far ↓
1 Classroom Blogs - How to Protect Your Students’ Identities | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Jun 21, 2008 at 2:55 pm
[...] hiding your blog from the search engines. (If you run a blog powered by WordPress on a self-hosted website, or through a site like Ontario Blogs or Edublogs.org, you can click on [...]
2 Classroom Blog Ranking - How Popular is Your Classroom Blog? | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Jul 29, 2008 at 2:09 am
[...] to be able to edit the widgets on your blog, which means either a classroom blog hosted by 1) an educational service like edublogs, 2) a free blog service like WordPress.com, or 3) a self-hosted [...]
3 There’s more to Educational Blogs than just EduBlogs | ClassroomTeacher.Edublogs.Org from United States
// Aug 11, 2008 at 7:27 am
[...] be the first to admit it – if you’re interested in starting a blog for your classroom, but you’re not sure how to do it, EduBlogs is a great place to do it. There’s a built [...]
4 Free Domain from India
// Aug 20, 2008 at 8:29 am
Nice article, but why limiting it to Edublog or Ontario, there are hundreds of free blog providers. And about hosting your own blog, you can do that on free web hosting providers too without any charge whatsoever. And with all the documentation, even if you are new to this, I don’t see any issue learning it, my 2 cents…
5 Mr Kuroneko from Canada
// Aug 21, 2008 at 2:37 am
Hi Free Domain,
You’re right – there are hundreds of free blog providers and hundreds of free webhosts.
We included Ontario Blogs because we’re based in Ontario, Canada and it’s where we first started blogging. We’ve included Edublogs because several of our colleagues blog with them and it’s a pretty simple interface. (Well, WordPress in general is a pretty simple interface.)
And, you’re right about the documentation – even if you’re pretty new to it, as long as you’re pretty computer savvy, you could set up anything.
But, that’s the problem. Many classroom teachers aren’t computer whizzes. Thinking about blogging in the classroom is often a major step, and having to research the options out there can be intimidating. Setting up a free WordPress.com account or Edublogs.org account is a great solution.
The second problem is time. From lesson planning to assessment and evaluation to professional development and professional learning communities, we’re swamped. Even if you have the computer know-how, you might not have the time.
Personally, we use BlueHost because you can install WordPress with the click of a button using Fantastico de Luxe (but lots of other webhost providers also offer that).
We noticed your sitenodes website has some information on starting your own site for free, so we’ll definitely check it out.
Cheers, Kisu
6 Extra Things That You Can Do With a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog (that you can’t do with a Free WordPress blog) | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Aug 24, 2008 at 1:11 pm
[...] writing our ebook with step-by-step instructios on how to make a school website or classroom blog and quickly remembering why we like self-hosted WordPress blogs so [...]
7 About This Site « Sample School Website from United States
// Aug 24, 2008 at 1:41 pm
[...] sample school website is run off of a self-hosted WordPress blog with the following [...]
8 Leo from Russia
// Aug 25, 2008 at 1:22 am
Appreciate you message. Friends reccommended to visit you. Intresting. Added in favourites! Wanna read you more!
9 Maintenance Mode - Hiding your school website while it’s under construction | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Aug 26, 2008 at 8:49 pm
[...] working on our school website (using a self-hosted WordPress blog to create the site) and we need a blank splash page so that visitors can’t see the real site [...]
10 Edublogs Scheduled Maintenance | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Oct 4, 2008 at 10:54 pm
[...] working on our free ebook with step-by-step instructions on how to set up a school website or classroom blog using WordPress, and hit a minor snag: Our edublogs.org account was [...]
11 Technology in the Classroom - Ways to Integrate Educational Technology Into Your Teaching Practice at Bloggers Paradise from United States
// Oct 11, 2008 at 11:09 am
[...] you’re ready to start a classroom blog, we’re here to help at http://blog.classroomteacher.ca where you’ll find this [...]
12 Why we chose Bluehost to run our Classroom EduBlogs | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Oct 11, 2008 at 4:12 pm
[...] start out with a free WordPress blog, either at WordPress.com or Edublogs.org. Try it out, create a school or classroom blog and see what you can and can’t [...]
13 Technology in the Classroom - Ways to Integrate Educational Technology Into Your Teaching Practice at Open Blog Site from United States
// Oct 14, 2008 at 5:27 pm
[...] you’re ready to start a classroom blog, we’re here to help at http://blog.classroomteacher.ca where you’ll find this [...]
14 Technology in the Classroom - Ways to Integrate Educational Technology Into Your Teaching Practice at Calling All Gamers from United States
// Oct 21, 2008 at 7:23 pm
[...] you’re ready to start a classroom blog, we’re here to help at http://blog.classroomteacher.ca where you’ll find this [...]
15 WordPress Roles and Capabilities: How to get Students and Teachers to Put Content on Your School or Class Website | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Oct 21, 2008 at 8:59 pm
[...] use WordPress as the engine behind our school website and classroom blogs. It’s great because you can log in to the class website online and use [...]
16 WordPress Lessons | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Oct 25, 2008 at 10:33 pm
[...] in the process of finishing our first ebook on how to set up your school website or classroom blog using [...]
17 Social Networking with Web 2.0 | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Nov 15, 2008 at 12:54 am
[...] we’ve set up real estate on. Some of these networks are linking back to our ebook on how to create a classroom blog. (The ones with nofollow written after the network have the “Google juice” turned off [...]
18 Use Technology to Engage Boys in Reading and Writing | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Nov 22, 2008 at 1:43 pm
[...] Start a Classroom Blog [...]
19 How to hide unmoderated comments in WordPress | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Nov 24, 2008 at 9:47 pm
[...] Start a Classroom Blog [...]
20 Infinuele from Israel
// Dec 19, 2008 at 6:25 am
Hi all!
As newly registered user i just want to say hi to everyone else who uses this site
21 Technology Projects for the Classroom | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Dec 21, 2008 at 2:33 am
[...] Start a Classroom Blog [...]
22 Gordon from Canada
// Jan 29, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Hi Everyone! I’m new and just wanted to drop a friendly hello
23 Frank from Canada
// Feb 4, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Just a heads up. Your link to the pdf on the top of this page is missing. Can it be repaired? It looks like a great resource!
Thanks
24 WordPress Plugins we use on our School Website | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Feb 13, 2009 at 2:35 pm
[...] turns out that one of our colleagues has a kindergarten student who has his own free blog. Apparently, he reports on the classroom activities and uses exclamation marks quite liberally in [...]
25 Mr Kuroneko from Canada
// Feb 13, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Hey Frank, thanks for letting us know about the problem with the link to our pdf. We’ve since fixed the link and it should be working now.
We’re trying the WordPress Download Monitor plugin on our school website and so of course we’re giving it a go on this site as well. I don’t think the broken link was due to the download plugin, but instead with a problem on our end with the WP super cache plugin that we also used. We just needed to update our permalinks and now everything seems to be working again.
Fingers crossed, and thanks for helping us. You know how it is when things get busy in the classroom and our attention turns elsewhere.
Cheers, Kisu
26 jake- maine rafting from United States
// Mar 8, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Hey! New to this site. Came across it by mistake but did enjoy reading it and though I would just comment.
27 Use Google Translate to Help Parents Understand What is Going On | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// May 9, 2009 at 2:03 am
[...] Start a Classroom Blog [...]
28 Hide Google Ads based on Geographic Location (Country or City) | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// May 18, 2009 at 2:30 am
[...] blog. (Note, you can’t do this in the free version of WordPress.com. You can only do it on a self-hosted blog using the free version from [...]
29 Web Hosting Toronto from Pakistan
// Jun 25, 2009 at 12:49 pm
why just edublog? You can create Tutorials for your students and also you can put School magazine site. I like the article.
30 Review of MDG Flip Tablet Netbook in the Classroom | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Jun 29, 2009 at 12:22 am
[...] Start a Classroom Blog [...]
31 Twitter in the Classroom | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Jul 10, 2009 at 1:36 am
[...] Start a Classroom Blog [...]
32 Michael from United States
// Jul 17, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Good resource for people that are looking to start a Educational Blog. I feel though for any one to really get a blogging experience, they need to jump to either steps 3 or 4.
33 Real Estate in Panama from Panama
// Jul 18, 2009 at 11:27 am
If the above sounds like work, it is! Having helped set up a blog for our business here in Panama I can tell you that nothing comes easy but it is very rewarding to have a working blog.
34 William from Sweden
// Jul 21, 2009 at 4:28 am
Excellent information, have been meaning to blog about this myself for some time, but you beat me to it.
35 Lea-Muellerson from Germany
// Jul 29, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Sometimes it’s really that simple, isn’t it? I feel a little stupid for not thinking of this myself/earlier, though.
36 Cyph0n from United Arab Emirates
// Aug 10, 2009 at 2:42 am
Great post, great content. I’m gonna subscribe!
37 Prasit from Thailand
// Aug 15, 2009 at 2:20 pm
my blog give free domain for thai people.
38 jhon from Thailand
// Aug 18, 2009 at 4:11 am
Thank you for information.I think this nice post.
39 self esteem from United States
// Aug 24, 2009 at 1:22 am
Great Post… dont stop… keep up the good work
40 Roasted Coffee from United States
// Aug 25, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Very cool article and will probably be used more and more as more schools move to online classes.
41 Elcorin from Turkey
// Sep 10, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Greatings, Thanks for article. Everytime like to read you.
Have a nice day
Elcorin
42 Robor from Turkey
// Sep 22, 2009 at 2:02 am
Greatings, Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Thank you
43 Vick from Canada
// Sep 30, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Great post,for people that are looking to start a Educational Blog.
44 Tom James from Colombia
// Sep 30, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Nice article,for teachers is important to learn to manage the new technology on these blogs about education grade level content and k 12 instruction online…there are a lot of blog about it…
45 Pamela @ CRE from Philippines
// Oct 30, 2009 at 1:54 am
Excellent idea!With this, students will be able to express herself in the right manner and with the help of their moderator.Keep up the good work!
46 Digital Projector, LCD Projector – How to Use it Effectively in the Classroom | cheap projector 1080p from United States
// Dec 1, 2009 at 12:12 pm
[...] you’re ready to start a classroom blog, we’re here to help at http://blog.classroomteacher.ca where you’ll find this [...]
47 Jsmith from India
// Dec 2, 2009 at 5:16 am
Hi friend,
I like your motivational blog contents and appreciating your views regarding education.
48 Why we’re thinking about leaving Bluehost | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Dec 5, 2009 at 8:35 pm
[...] Start a Classroom Blog [...]
49 German-Thai Dictionary from Thailand
// Dec 8, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Congratulations for this project. This is seriously a great idea! Introducing students to learning openly with blogs is a wonderful way to promote learning outside of the classroom and creates an interactive atmosphere where learning in itself gets interesting again. There are some really big problems nowadays with unmotivated students, unmotivated teachers and the like. So this step is a great step towards a future of learning. Wish, my school had done such a project when I still was young. Thanks for your efforts.
Cheers!
50 Garf1eld from Malaysia
// Dec 9, 2009 at 2:26 am
Just browsing around in Blogger United and found your blog, so just wanted to come and say hi.
51 Rainbow Skill from India
// Jan 16, 2010 at 2:50 am
It helps to create Classroom Blog, Edublog or School Website.Great resource for those people who are looking to start a Educational Blog. Thanks for the blog.
52 Classroom Blogs, Bluehost CPU Throttling and pSek Webhosting | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Feb 6, 2010 at 2:10 am
[...] course, “free” always comes at a price and there are always limitations with using these free services. In the end, we decided to run the (free) open-source WordPress software off of our own webhost [...]
53 pSek Technical Support and WordPress MU issues | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Feb 14, 2010 at 1:46 am
[...] “powerful” plugins and “premium” themes. They’re the people behind edublogs and the plugins that they use on edublogs are available to be downloaded [...]
54 WordPress MU and pSek Technical Support | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// Feb 19, 2010 at 7:50 pm
[...] “powerful” plugins and “premium” themes. They’re the people behind edublogs and the plugins that they use on edublogs are available to be downloaded [...]
55 Nimit Kashyap from India
// Mar 1, 2010 at 6:09 am
great post…i have also written a post about how to start a blog which is about creating a self hosted blog.
56 Andri Apriyadi from China
// Mar 22, 2010 at 3:18 am
Hi Everyone! I’m new and just wanted to drop a friendly hello
57 Mark Rathbun from United States
// Mar 27, 2010 at 5:59 am
Great Article
58 Joe Brewer from United States
// May 5, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Very nice read. I am in a class that I have to start creating blogs and using them. I am all new to the idea. This was a really helpful article. Some great ideas, and some ideas that are no longer available. I hope I can get going on this and it comes easy for me. Once again. Thanks for the great read.
59 Integrating Technology into your Language Arts Public Speaking Lesson | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// May 9, 2010 at 2:40 pm
[...] Start a Classroom Blog [...]
60 Classroom Technology Wish List: 101 Ways to Bring Technology into the Classroom | blog.classroomteacher.ca from United States
// May 27, 2010 at 8:09 pm
[...] Start a Classroom Blog [...]
61 Anseruf from Turkey
// Jun 14, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Thank you for nice article,Best regards.
Leave a Comment