Mr. McNamar’s got a problem:
My school has blocked access to blogger this year. I’ve been using it
for two years and would like to continue to do so. But, because
Blogger.com and the blogspot url needs "full site access," and because
the "next blog" feature in the top right, the filters will now block
access. Is there a way around this? Or has anyone used edublogs.org?
Send your suggestions his way.
I’ve used edublogs and like it.
I think you will have to think about this though. If your district/county is starting to block sites like this it’ll be likely to grow (ours certainly did). Depending on how things are run there you may easily be blocked from a site you’ve invested quite a bit of time and effrot into.
I’d first try to get something hosted on your school’s server (if they have one).
If that fails (and it has for me so far) you can get can get a good deal on server space from any number of sites and set things up yourself. This is what I do and it’s worked well for me so far. Although I recommend talking to your filter people to make sure your site doesn’t get blocked.
I’ve never used edublogs, but David Warlick’s Classblogmeister is getting rather slick. You might want to try that out as well.
Why not buy a cheap hosting account and use WordPress? That’s what I’ve done. Using WordPress gives you a great deal more flexibility in your blog than just about anything else out there.
I have the very same situation with my district. I am still requesting that they allow access to the site (3rd attempt, no answer yet). I was concerned with the “Next Blog” button myself, because of adult blogs I encountered, so I altered the template to remove that function. I know this really is not in alignment with the agreement, but I thought my intentions were good anyway. I had originally set things up with edublogs.org only to find out later, in the faqs,that the blogs are not for student use.
We have an Apple Server (and the Tiger upgrade) at school not being used at the moment, but our tech guy is not a mac person so I am beating the bushes for assistance. At this point, Im inclined to agree with gls.