Does setting up your own teacher blog appeal to you? We can help!

We have just updated our 10 step self-paced course on personal blogging!

About The Course

Here’s what you need to know about the Personal Blogging Teacher Challenge course:

• This is a free course that’s open to anyone.
• You can work at your own pace in a time frame that suits you.
• If you complete all 10 steps you can access a certificate and badge.
• Each step includes reading material, examples, and a choice of tasks to demonstrate and develop your skills.
• You can pick and choose, and just complete certain steps if you wish.

Enjoy The Benefits Of Blogging

By the end of the course, you’ll have a blog with strong foundations that will set you up to enjoy the many advantages of educational blogging.

So what are those benefits of blogging? Let’s break down some of them!

• Blogging helps teachers to reflect and develop their thinking.
• Teacher-bloggers can be role models for students as digital citizens and writers.
• The act of researching and writing authentically for an audience is a fantastic way to learn.
• A blog can act as your home base for all your work and can serve as a digital portfolio which can be an advantage for furthering your career.
• Trying out blogging before introducing it to your students can be a comfortable progression for many educators.

Optional Workbook

This PDF workbook will help to keep you on track and focused as you work through the 10 steps. The workbook also explains more of what the course is about.

Scroll down and click on the ‘download’ button under the document to save it to your computer or print a copy.

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Get Started!

As Zig Ziglar said, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

Now is a great time to jump right in!

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the growing expectations placed on today’s educators? Feel like there’s never enough time to build a strong rapport with your community while delivering a rich, modern curriculum? Blogging might help you in more ways than you’d expect!

Blogs have become a well-established part of the online landscape over the past decade. The educational blogging community continues to grow at a rapid pace — evidenced by the over four million blogs on Edublogs, and countless more across other platforms.

You may have no blogging experience at all, or you may have tried it before. Whatever your background, now is a great time to consider starting a new blog.

Here are ten reasons to integrate blogging into your classroom or professional practice — and make sure you read to the very end for a summary infographic you can share!

1. Home-School Connections:

Many teachers establish a class blog as a ‘virtual window into the classroom’. This was my primary purpose for beginning a blog back in 2008 before other advantages and uses became apparent.

Through reading and commenting on posts, families can be a part of what is happening in the classroom and have unmatched access to their child’s education.

Research shows that parent engagement is associated with improvements across a number of areas such as educational outcomes, behaviour and school attendance. Participating virtually now tends to suit many parents who are juggling careers and other demands. This is something that can be actively capitalized on through a classroom blogging program.

It is important to remember that most parents are busy people who need education and ongoing invitations to participate. As a teacher, I certainly found that actively encouraging parent participation in blogging was something that paid off. You may consider offering your parents: handouts, video tutorials, family blogging events, parent information evenings, commenting challenges or email newsletters.

2. Authentic Audiences:

In the traditional classroom, the only audience for student work was the teacher and sometimes classmates and parents. Blogs provide a much larger audience for student work and an avenue for feedback and self-improvement through commenting.

I found that students took particular pride when publishing work for our blog and often wanted to do their best for their impending audience. When we establish an authentic audience for our students we help them connect their classwork to the real world. After all, isn’t that what education is supposed to be about?

3. Literacy Skills:

With a class or individual blog, students are reading and writing for a purpose and genuine audience. Unlike other approaches to teaching literacy, where you may study a genre or style for a few weeks, blogging can be an ongoing occurrence in the classroom.

When high standards are set, and explicit teaching is embedded, a blogging program can be a powerful catalyst to improved literacy skills.

If we want our students to be motivated to use their emerging writing skills, we have to make writing purposeful, challenging, and real-to-life. Blogging offers this.

Traditional literacy skills are also no longer enough for our students. As innovative educator Silvia Tolisano points out, there are now many types of 21st literacies including: digital, media, visual and global literacies. A classroom blogging program can help integrate these literacies into your classroom seamlessly.

4. Classroom Community:

Creating a class blog requires teamwork and collaboration. Students and teachers can learn and share together. The Edublogs’ student and teacher challenges can be a great place to start this learning process.

A real sense of classroom community can be developed through blogging and establishing a class identity. Even if teachers are initially writing posts, students can take on roles and responsibilities such as capturing images, creating multimedia or replying to comments. A class blog mascot can also be a fun way to represent your classroom community.

5. Internet Safety:

Teaching students to be safe and responsible online is an increasingly important issue. Effective internet safety education does not involve one off lessons. This is a notion supported by the experts at Connect Safely who say internet safety concepts should be woven into the curriculum. They point out that students don’t distinguish between their digital lives and their personal lives, and there is a lot of power in using ‘teachable moments’ just as you would with any subject matter.

A classroom blogging program offers ongoing opportunities to discuss internet safety and appropriate online behaviours in an authentic setting. Blogging is an excellent way to learn about being a responsible member of an online community, digital footprints, netiquette, making safe choices and more. As Connect Safely identify, the key messages educators need to teach are: ‘think before you post’ and ‘be kind and respectful’. There is amazing potential to use blogging to promote these exact messages.

Using a platform like Edublogs offers you a lot of freedom to select the privacy settings that you and your community are comfortable with.

6. ICT Skills:

It can be easy to assume that students are ‘digital natives’ and come to school already equipped with a broad range of ICT skills. A review paper published in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education found that “information-savvy digital natives do not exist”.

Becoming an effective and fluent user of information technology requires explicit teaching and practice. Through blogging, many skills are able to be discussed and practised, often incidentally. These can range from keyboard shortcuts, coding, Creative Commons, research skills, using multimedia, troubleshooting and a lot more. Again, these learnings are all for an authentic purpose rather than through skill and drill exercises.

7.Global Connections:

I have found this to be one of the most exciting benefits of blogging for both teachers and students. Blogging can help flatten classroom walls like no other tool.

Over my years of blogging, my students and I got to know many classes across the world who we called our ‘blogging buddies’.

The benefits of global connections are priceless. A sense of understanding and tolerance develops and students can learn a lot about the world in which they live. Blogging partnerships allowed my students to learn from and with their global classmates about topics such as geography, cultures, time zones, seasons, language, internet safety and more.

When blogging is established in your classroom, there is also the possibility to organise or join in structured global projects. The opportunities and potential outcomes are endless.

And from a teacher’s perspective, once you become involved in blogging, your professional learning network can rapidly expand to be a lot larger than your school staffroom. You never know who you will meet and what wonderful relationships you can form!

8. Personal Development:

The process of blogging allows a lot of scope for personal development, for both students and teachers. Blogging offers reinforcement and feedback through comments beyond the immediate classroom community. This can drive self-esteem, personal reflection and growth, as well as confidence. Students and/or teachers may realize they have something important to say, and blogging may encourage individuals to speak their mind, reflect deeply and share their understandings.

Blogging is also a fantastic creative outlet. Whether it’s writing, designing your blog layout, or using photography, video, podcasts or other multimedia tools, blogs offer so much scope for creativity and fun. Blogs can also be used to showcase creative pursuits in art, music, sport, science or any other field.

A blogging program can also help to foster individual talents and passions while driving creativity and personal growth.

9. Lifelong Learning:

Blogging can be an excellent meta-cognitive process and avenue for reflection. The process of creating blog posts, allows you to ‘think about what you think’ and put those thoughts into words. Through delving into my thoughts on topics, and writing about what was happening in my classroom, I often came up with new ideas and strategies to use in my teaching. Additionally, when others offer thoughts and opinions on blog posts, you can be introduced to new perspectives that drive further reflection.

Effective teaching and learning does not occur in a vacuum, and establishing a broad network of global educators is priceless. It’s hard to believe that the majority of teachers are still relying on the insights of their immediate team or school when there are billions of people out there who can broaden their horizons!

Whatever position we are in, we must take advantage of the tools we now have for connecting beyond our immediate surrounds.

10. Blogging is versatile … and free!

What is a blog? It’s anything you want it to be really. It’s like asking ‘what is a classroom?’ We all know a classroom can be indoors, outdoors, in rows, in circles, big, small or even flipped. A blog is merely a website that can be customized to meet your individual requirements.

Blogs offer you the versatility to create a unique online space to represent yourself and/or your students and community. Unlike some online tools, blogging is completely free yet the potential uses and advantages are incomparable.

What Now?

You may be convinced, but what about your school leadership team or community? This post may help you to persuade them that it would be doing your students a disservice to not expose them to all the advantages that blogging offers.

Be sure to check out the infographic summary of this post too!

If you’re ready to start setting up a blog, click here. If the Edublogs team can help with any other questions about blogging, simply leave a comment or contact us on our help and support page.

If you’ve been blogging for a while, no doubt you would have heard of Linda Yollis?

Linda is a third grade teacher from Los Angeles, California. She began blogging with her students in 2008.

Linda has impacted countless members of the educational blogging community over the years. She willingly shares her insights and experiences at conferences, on social media via X and on her blog.

Linda has been a huge influence on many teachers’ own blogging programs. She inspires them to set a high standard for writing and actively teach and promote quality commenting. This leads to a very noticeable improvement in student outcomes.

Some of our staff have also worked on many global collaborative projects together over the years.

Linda has come up with so many catchy ideas, such as Family Blogging Month. This concept has been borrowed by many others as a way of encouraging family participation in blogging.

New Video: Tips For You And Your Students

Linda recently created a new video with her students called Tips To Ensure Quality Blogging.

It’s part of a post she prepared on teaching and promoting quality writing.

This fabulous short video is well worth watching and sharing with your students.

It outlines the students’ rules for participation in their classroom blogs and the agreements they make when publishing on the blogs.

If you enjoyed the video, you might like to check out some of Linda’s other videos that she’s created with her students over the years.

The Benefits of Blogging

How to Write a Quality Comment

Blogging is Learning

Blogs are made up of two main content types: posts and pages.

A common question for people new to blogging is, “What’s the difference between posts and pages?”

Here’s a simple explanation to help demystify the difference and understand when to use each one.

Introduction to Posts

Your posts are where you’ll publish your main content.  On class blogs and student blogs your posts are where you’ll publish your main content such as:

• showcases of student work
• information about what’s been happening in class
• assignment information or learning resources

Posts are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order with the most recent post at the top of the page.

By default, your home page is your blog post page and this is where you’ll see your new posts published. If you want your posts to appear on a page other than your homepage refer to:

1. Static Front page.
2. Posting on different pages.

If you look closely at a post you will see it is normally made up of:

1. Post Title – tells the reader what the post is about.  A great post title grabs readers attention and is more likely to encourage them to read your post.
2. Date published – all posts display the date a post was published.  You’ll normally see this displayed at the top of the post.
3. Written by – most themes display the name of the post author.  Your username is automatically displayed unless you have changed your display name.
4. Comments – all themes have a link to comments.  This is where your readers can click to write a comment in response to your post.  Comments allow students and other readers to engage in discussions, share their thoughts, and connect with your class blog.
5. Your post content – this is the main information that you want to share or reflect on with your readers.
6. Categories – are used to help readers locate posts on your blog.  Categories are often used like chapters of a book; they provide a general overview of the topics you blog about.
7. Tags – are used to help readers locate posts on your blog.  Tags are more like the index at the back of the book and explode the topic into a million bits.

Introduction to Pages

Pages on blogs are normally used for information that you want to share with your readers but don’t expect to update frequently.

Common pages on class and student blogs include:

1. The About page – Your About Page is used for telling readers more about yourself and your blog.  Here are how-to’s with examples of About pages on Class blogs and student blogs.
2. Blogging Rules and Guidelines (here’s how to create Blogging Rules and Guidelines).

The main things to remember are:

1. Pages are best suited for information you rarely update such as your About and Blogging Guidelines pages.
2. Situations where you want to discuss a question or topic are better suited to publish as a post and not a page.
3. Assignment and homework information is normally best published as posts and not on a page.
4. Too many pages can make information harder to manage and find.

If you look closely at a page you will see it is normally made up of:

1. Page title – tells the reader what the page is about.
2. Your page content – this is information you want to share on this page.
3. Comments – most themes support comments at the bottom of the page.  Comments are disabled on pages by default and can be enabled.

Posts vs Pages

Below are key differences between pages and posts that are important to understand when working with them.

Commonly asked questions

Here are answers to commonly asked questions we receive:

1. What does the “Not found” message on my homepage mean?

By default, the front page of your blog is set to display your latest posts.

If you delete the default “Hello World’ post before you publish a new post then your front page will display ‘Nothing Found’, ’404 – Not Found Error’ or something similar depending on the theme you are using.

This message is displayed because there is nothing to display on your front page.

All you need to do is go to Posts > Add New and publish a new post.  Once the new post is published you’ll see it displayed on your homepage.

You’ll find more detailed step by step instructions on how to fix a Not Found message here.

2.  How do you delete the Hello World Post?

Every newly created blog is the same default lay out with posts displayed on its home page with a ‘Hello World’ post and a ‘Sample’ page.

You can delete this post at any time by going to Posts > All Posts.  

Hovering your mouse over the title of the Hello post brings up four action links.

Now click on Trash.  This sends it to your Trash folder where it is permanently deleted within 30 days of when you trashed it.

Remember if you delete all posts, and your homepage is your blog post page, you will see a “Not Found” message.

To remove that message you just need to publish a new post by going to Posts > Add New.

3.  Is it possible to publish posts to different pages on my blog?

We’re often asked if it is possible to add posts to other pages, rather than just the front page of the blog.  This approach is used by educators who want to use one blog for multiple classes or subjects and sometimes by students for their ePortfolios.

You do it by sending posts to different pages on your blog by assigning different categories to posts, based on the class or subject, and using a custom menu to create a link to the categories from your top navigation.  When students and parents click on their category they’re taken to all the posts for that class or subject.

You’ll find step by step instructions on using categories to organize multiple classes or subjects on your blog here.

Leave a comment on this post if you need help!

4.  How do you enable comments on pages?

Most themes support comments at the bottom of the page.  Comments are disabled on pages by default and can be enabled by following these instructions.

Do you blog as part of your teaching practice?

Are you looking to reach a wider audience and build a stronger professional network around your work?

This practical post outlines five simple, effective ways to share and promote your teacher blog. Whether you’re just getting started or want more people to engage with what you’re already publishing, these strategies can help your posts reach the readers they’re meant for:

1. Make posts ‘shareable’
2. Use social media
3. Set up an email subscription
4. Encourage others to share your posts
5. Be an audience

If you don’t yet have a blog, that’s no problem. You can get one for free by heading over to the Edublogs homepage.

And if you want to be walked through the process of setting up your blog, check out our free, self-paced course.

Marketing? Really?

The word marketing has got a bad rap in recent decades. Perhaps it makes you think of cheesy, spammy scams, used car salesmen, or endless infomercials.

This is definitely not the sort of marketing we’re talking about here.

As Seth Godin explains, modern marketing is really using the culture to reach people who want to be reached and offering them something they’re glad to find.

There’s probably many members of the education community out there who would love to find you. So, do them a favor and start marketing your wonderful work!

The Benefits Of Blogging For Yourself

Before we look at building an audience through sharing and marketing your blog, let’s go over the many benefits of blogging just for yourself.

What’s the point of blogging even if no one is reading? Is there a point?

Of course!

Blogging is a fantastic way to reflect and develop your thinking

As Clive Thompson stated in Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better,

Professional writers have long described the way that the act of writing forces them to distill their vague notions into clear ideas. By putting half-formed thoughts on the page, we externalize them and are able to evaluate them much more objectively. This is why writers often find that it’s only when they start writing that they figure out what they want to say.

The research process of blogging is also an excellent way to learn

Take a topic you know a little about or have some interest in, do some research and present it in an easy-to-digest way for others. You might be surprised at how transformative this learning process is!

Having your own online space can present you with career opportunities

Some professionals also enjoy having a blog or website that serves as a digital portfolio. This home base for all your work and credentials can be an advantage for furthering your career.

Becoming a blogger will help you help your students

Teacher-bloggers can be role models for students as digital citizens and writers.

Furthermore, trying out blogging before introducing it to your students can be a comfortable progression for many educators.

Why Sharing And Marketing Your Blog Applies To Everyone

Despite all of the personal benefits of blogging, you can really amplify things by building an audience.

Clive Thompson explains,

…studies have found that particularly when it comes to analytic or critical thought, the effort of communicating to someone else forces you to think more precisely, make deeper connections, and learn more.

Building an audience also means expanding your professional learning network (PLN); there are countless benefits to building a strong network as we explore in our free self-paced PLN  course for educators.

So we know there are benefits to having an audience for your blog, but building an audience does take work and it requires you to share and market your posts.

How exactly can you share and market your blog? Let’s take a look…

With the rise of the ‘edupreneur’ some teachers are using blogging for financial benefit, however, we’ll be focusing on sharing and marketing for the teacher blogger who’s interesting in connecting and learning with others. 

Strategies To Share And Market Your Posts

You might have put together a fantastic blog post and felt satisfied as you hit the publish button, but your job is not done.

Just because you publish something online, doesn’t mean it will be seen. People won’t know about your post if you don’t share it.

Standing out in a blogosphere populated by millions of people can take work. Fortunately, there are some simple strategies to help ensure your blog post gets an audience.

1) Make Posts ‘Shareable’

Blogging is not like writing a high school essay. A long chunk of text on a page is just not going to appeal to your potential audience. They’ll move on.

The first thing you need to do is look at your styling and post layout because let’s face it; people aren’t going to share your post if the content was too difficult to even read.

Our post 10 Tips For Making Your Blog Posts Easier To Read will help guide you through the process of creating easy to read posts.

The Power Of Visuals

We know how powerful visuals are! A Hubspot article tells us,

Eye-tracking studies show internet readers pay close attention to information-carrying images. In fact, when the images are relevant, readers spend more time looking at the images than they do reading text on the page.

Studies have shown that visitors to your blog will probably only read about 20% of your post. People generally scroll through and skim posts. Images give people a reason to stop scrolling.

Through an image, people may be more likely to take in your content and share it with others.

What Sort Of Visuals Can You Make For Blog Posts?

There are all sorts of visuals you can include in your posts. Let’s explore three popular additions to blog posts — social media graphics, infographics, and quotes.

Graphics to share on social media

Bloggers often create a graphic to accompany their blog post which makes a social media post stand out. It’s generally just the title of the blog post with an image and the blog URL — perhaps with blogger’s name or social media handle too.

Whenever we create a new post on The Edublogger, we create a simple graphic to go with it.

For example:

There are certain size dimensions that are ideal for different social media platforms as outlined here by Louise M. (Tip: If you’re using Canva which we will explain below, it will generate the correct size automatically).

Infographics

An infographic can be a great way to summarize information or data and make posts more shareable.

The 10 Ways To Make You Blog Posts Easier To Read visual above is an example of an infographic that acts like a ‘cheat sheet’.

Here is another example we prepared for International Dot Day. This sort of thing can really help the time-poor reader.

Quotes

Quotes can be powerful additions to blog posts. They can offer a burst of insightful learning and back up your own thoughts.

In our post about quotes, we outlined different ways you can use quotes and turn them into shareable graphics.

You wouldn’t want to make every quote into a graphic but it can certainly give your readers something else to focus on and share.

A quote graphic might display the words over an image, pattern, or a block color.

How To Make Visuals For Blog Posts

There are many different ways you can make the sorts of visuals we described above.

There are a number of offline tools available, such as Adobe Photoshop or Indesign, however, online tools are more popular than ever. A lot of these tools are based on templates, so you don’t even need design skills.

Just some online tools for making visuals include:

• Canva (solid free plan with paid options — see below)
• Adobe Express (free for teachers and students)
• Stencil (free plan allows for 10 creations per month)
• Snappa (free plan allows for 3 downloads per month)

Canva tips and information

Canva is certainly one of the most popular tools for bloggers and it’s one I personally love to use!

• Canva has millions of users worldwide and is popular in many industries, including education.
• Students under 13 can use Canva if they’re ‘appropriately supervised’. (Read Richard Byrne’s post about this topic for further clarification).
• Canva is a web-based tool but there are also apps for Android and iOS.
• The free plan allows you to make unlimited creations and download them in high quality without watermarks. This sets Canva apart from some similar tools.
• The paid ‘Canva for Work‘ plan gives you access to more templates, images, and icons etc. It also allows you to resize your design without starting again (e.g. you might make something in A4 size then want a smaller version to share on social media). Additionally, you can download your designs with a transparent background (handy for logos, badges, buttons etc.).
• Canva uses a drag and drop interface which is very simple to use but like all tools, does require a little bit of playing around to develop fluency. It’s worth the investment in time!

Check out this post I wrote about Canva for more information and ideas.

2) Use Social Media

A lot of people who might be interested in your blog posts are hanging out on social media. You want to strategically share your content on social media and make it easy for others to share as well.

Share Your Own Content

There are a few things to keep in mind when sharing your own blog posts on social media

Consider your platform(s)

Teachers are active on different platforms — X (formerly Twitter) has traditionally been very popular with teachers (if you’re new to X you can find out more information here). There are also a large number of teachers active on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc.

You don’t have to be sharing on every platform. Using one or two social media platforms well can be a more successful approach than spreading yourself thin across different networks.

Tailor your message

If you are going to share your posts across various social media platforms, tailor your message to cater to the different audiences and the different ways the platforms are used.

For example, Instagram and X use hashtags more than Facebook. Pinterest tends to center around larger ‘shareable’ images. X has a 280 character limit whereas Facebook allows you to write lengthier posts.

Keep these sorts of details in mind if you’re going to cross-promote your posts. Copying and pasting may not be the best approach.

Repeat, but don’t overdo it

Just because you post something on social media, doesn’t mean it will be widely seen. You might need to post a variation of the message a number of times.

Repeating the same message without variation is not a good idea and is against the rules with some social media channels. On X posting ‘duplicative or substantially similar content’ is not allowed.

To make posting on social media easier, some people use a social media scheduler like Buffer or Hootsuite although use this approach with care. You don’t want to look like a robot!

Make your posts stand out!

We know that each social media platform has its own best practices for formatting updates. Let’s focus on X for a moment and take a look at the sorts of tweets that are more likely to stand out.

You can just share the title of your post and the link but is this really going to be noticed in a busy stream of tweets?

Compare these two tweets about the same post and consider which one would stand out more…

Images, emojis, quotes, summaries of information, GIFs, videos etc. can all help to make a tweet stand out and encourage others to read it, share it, and/or click on the link to the post.

3) Set Up An Email Subscription

How are people keeping up to date with blogs?

Traditionally, people would subscribe to get email notifications of new posts on blogs they enjoy reading. Or they’d use an RSS Feeder (a popular one is Feedly. You can read more about how this works here).

Email and RSS are still being used, however, things have changed a little.

These days, many readers keep up with blogs through social media rather than email or RSS.

Why is social media a popular way to follow blogs?

Perhaps:

• People are getting more emails than ever before so are becoming more selective with what subscriptions they sign up for. They might only subscribe to a handful of their favorite blogs.
• Some individuals are becoming more satisfied with consuming information serendipitously.

Should I bother with an email subscription?

Social media is a great way to share but here are a few thoughts to keep in mind about the power of offering an email subscription:

• Having an email subscription option is going to allow your most loyal and valuable members of your community to stay in touch with you.
• There are no guarantees that people in your network will see your posts on social media. You can’t control that. Offer your readers a channel to make sure they don’t miss your content.
• Email is much more personal than social media. Your readers can hear directly from you and it can help to build a relationship.

How To Make An Email Subscription

So we’ve established that it’s definitely a good idea to have some sort of option available for readers who would like to subscribe to your blog via email.

Now you have two choices. Do you want to use an automated service? Or do you want to create a handcrafted newsletter style email that you send out on a regular basis?

Automated Email Subscription Widget

If you’re using Edublogs Pro, did you know you can add a simple email subscription widget on the sidebar of your blog?

Subscribers will receive an email automatically to alert them to new posts. You can choose to send a full post, complete with all images, or a post excerpt.

Find out how to activate the email subscription widget here.

Create An Email Newsletter

It’s becoming increasingly common for bloggers to create their own newsletter using an email service provider. 

There are many email service providers out there and many are free to use until you reach a certain number of subscribers. If you’re interested in comparing different email service providers, check out this guide from ProBlogger. 

When you use an email service provider, you can either:

• Automatically send out emails to people on your list when a new post is published.
• Create a personal email to your email list telling them about your new post(s). Generally, you might give an introduction to the post and ask them to click to visit your blog and read your post. You might send this out every time you publish a new post or at regular intervals (weekly, monthly etc.).

MailChimp Tips And Information

One of the most popular email service providers is MailChimp.

• It is free to use up to 250 subscribers.
• MailChimp uses a simple drag and drop editor and offers a range of different templates for the design of your newsletter.
• There are also different options for creating sign-up forms. You’ll probably want a sign-up form on the sidebar of your blog but you might also include it at the bottom of your blog posts, in a page on your blog, or as a ‘landing page’ that you can share on social media.

Check out the Getting Started With MailChimp guide for more information.

4) Encourage Others To Share Your Content

It’s ideal if people who are reading your posts share it with others. This can be a great way to find new audience members.

Everyone has their own tribe or network. If someone from your network introduces your work to others in their own network, the results can be exponential!

Consider putting a call to action in every blog post asking your readers to share it on social media or share it with colleagues if it resonated with them.

You can also use a variety of plugins to encourage your readers to share your posts.

Let’s take a look at Scriptless Social Sharing and Jetpack.

Scriptless Social Sharing

Scriptless Social Sharing is a lightweight plugin that adds social sharing buttons to your posts and pages, making it easy for readers to share your content.

You can display the sharing buttons above and/or below your posts, and choose which social networks you’d like to include.

Since it uses simple sharing links (no JavaScript), it’s a great option if you want fast, no-fuss sharing buttons.

You can also display the social sharing buttons using a shortcode, so you can place them anywhere on your site.

Jetpack Plugin

Jetpack is a powerful plugin that adds several different features and tools to your blog, some of these make it easier for others to share your posts.

Once you’ve activated Jetpack, you might like to activate:

• Publicize: Makes it easy to share your posts on social networks automatically when you publish a new post. Learn more.
• Sharing: Enables you to add sharing buttons to your posts so that your readers can easily share your content on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. Learn more.

Check out our help guide for more instructions on setting up Jetpack.

5) Be An Audience

The final tip is a simple one that’s often overlooked: If you want to have an audience you need to be an audience.

This might involve:

• Subscribing to some blogs you like via email or RSS (e.g. Feedly). Or, following bloggers on social media.
• Sharing blog posts that resonate with you on social media; support other bloggers.
• Leave comments on posts that you enjoyed, leave you curious, or challenge your thinking.

Rather than being a passive reader, try to find a way to be active in your approach to really support others in your community (e.g. sharing, commenting, connecting).

Follow this approach in an authentic way and show genuine interest in others. Apart from learning a lot and building your PLN, you might find your audience begins to build naturally as well.

As you get to know other bloggers, you might also consider guest posting. It could introduce you to a new network of readers and you could be helping a fellow blogger too.

How does guest posting work?

• You might connect with someone who has a small but engaged network of readers.
• Arrange to write a relevant guest post on each other’s blogs.
• The guest post could include a short introduction with a link to your blog, and/or a bio at the bottom of the post.
• Perhaps some of those readers will start following you and vice versa. Win-win!

Conclusion: Stick With It!

If you ask any blogger who has a reasonable sized audience, they will no doubt tell you they started with a very small number of readers.

Building your audience takes time, patience, and a commitment to stick with it. Need help building momentum with your blog? Check out this post. 

Remember, the rewards will be worth it!

As George Couros said as he reflected on his 8 years of blogging,

Blogging has helped my learning grow significantly because I have done it consistently for myself, not necessarily for an audience. Knowing an audience is there though, has made me think a lot deeper about what I share though, and it helps me create a “360 Degree View” of my learning; I do my best to focus on all angles of what I am sharing before I share it.

Dean Shareski has also boldly stated, 

I’ve yet to hear anyone who has stuck with blogging suggest it’s been anything less than essential to their growth and improvement. I’ve no “data” to prove this but I’m willing to bet my golf clubs that teachers who blog are our best teachers.

We think so too.

New To Blogging?

There are so many benefits to having a class blog! A class blog can a virtual space that complements a physical learning environment for all age groups.

If you don’t know anything about blogging, don’t worry! We have a free self-paced course for teachers that walks you step-by-step through the process of setting up a class blog and blogging with students.

You can even join our 30 Day Challenge at any time to complete the 11 step course over a period of one month.

In this post, we’ll show you 10 ways you can introduce your class to blogging. Be sure to share any of your own ideas or experiences in a comment!

1) Introductory Video

If your students are new to blogging (or need a refresher) you might want to start by showing them this short video.

The video goes through the terminology of blogging and explains how blogs are used. For a simple follow-up activity, check out this blogging vocabulary crossword.

2) Kahoot!

Have you caught on to the Kahoot! craze? It’s a free tool that allows you to create and play engaging learning games (called Kahoots).

The multiple-choice questions appear on the screen in the classroom and students submit their responses in real time using their computer, tablet, or mobile device. Students can work in teams and can work for points (most correct answers and quickest responses).

It’s a lot of fun!

We’ve made an Introduction To Blogging Kahoot. It goes over some of the key terms, vocabulary, and uses of blogs. There are 15 multiple choice questions.

How To Play Our Blogging Kahoot

To access the Kahoot, click on this link.

You don’t need an account to play, however; you will need to log in if you want to edit the quiz (we encourage you to adapt it for your own students if necessary).

You also need to be signed in to save results.

You’ll have the option for your students to play against each other individually (classic mode) or in teams.

You’ll also have a variety of game options you can play around with (see below).

Once you finalize your selections, a game pin number will show up. Students will go to the Kahoot app on their device, or to https://kahoot.it/ and enter the pin number to begin!

3) Blog Exploration

Having your students explore examples of different blogs can help them learn more about blogging and gather ideas.

If you’ve blogged with students in previous years, you might opt for your new cohort to look at former students’ work.

Alternatively, we have a list of class blogs that might be helpful. Check it out here. You might like to simply send students to this list, or handpick a few blogs that you’d like your class to look at specifically.

The blog exploration could be a whole class exercise or students could work in small groups.

You may like to prompt students with a series of questions you’d like them to take note on, such as:

• What is the writing style like on the blog — casual, formal, academic?
• What safety or blogging guidelines can you find on the blog?
• How are pages used for static information?
• Are the posts time specific or ‘evergreen’?
• What images and multimedia are being used?
• Is there a sidebar? What is its purpose?
• How has the text been formatted to make it easier to read — are there headings, bullet points, or colors etc?
• How does digital writing differ from analog with hyperlinks etc?

This exploration can lead to a valuable classroom discussion; students could share ideas and examples that they could bring to your own class blog.

4) Paper Blogging

Paper blogging is a concept that has been going around for years. It can make the abstract concept of blogging really concrete for students.

These are the basic steps you’d follow to try paper blogging:

• Have students handwrite a blog post on paper (make it simple, like a hobby or recount of something that happened at school).
• Put paper blog posts on walls or around the room for everyone to read.
• Using sticky notes, all the other students can comment on the paper blog posts.
• You can have discussions about what makes a great comment and how blogging can create a community in your classroom.

5) Safety Guidelines

It’s a good idea to discuss or inform students of your safety guidelines for your blog ASAP.

As students are exploring other blogs, you might have them look at safety guidelines to see what information is being published. Have them consider what information might be kept private? What are they not seeing?

The visual below might provide some useful reminders or discussion starters. While there are many things that definitely shouldn’t be shared in your blog posts and comments (YAPPY), there are some grey areas.

Students should be encouraged to think before they post and always discuss anything they’re unsure about with an adult before posting.

6) Begin With The Teacher Posting

Having the teacher publish posts first, and having the students comment can be a really good way to set the scene for a quality blogging program. It gives you the opportunity to teach the students explicitly about quality commenting while helping them learn the basics of blogging.

Even if you want students to be publishing posts down the track, strongly consider having the teacher publish first. This could even be an introductory post where students can practice leaving quality comments to introduce themselves and answer comments.

Having the teacher post and students comment might be the model you continue with for the whole year, or after a post or two, you might have students post on the class blog, or on their own blogs. Often, this depends on age and experience as well.

Many teachers like to give a gradual release of responsibility as demonstrated in the graphic below.

*Note the option for students to ‘earn a blog’ is something some teachers try if they’re just starting out, teach young children, or face obstacles like limited technology.

Some teachers also have a selected group of interested students set up a blog — perhaps in the style of a ‘blogging club’. This leads to our next idea…

7) Have Students Lead

Teachers don’t have to be the expert when it comes to setting up your blogging program. While you’ll definitely want to keep an eye on things, especially in terms of what’s being published and your safety guidelines, you can have students help other students learn about blogging.

Perhaps you could have a small group of students dedicate some time to learning about blogging (perhaps through the Student Blogging Bootcamp — see below).

Your ‘tech-perts’ could then come up with some activities to introduce the rest of the class to the blog. I’ve even heard of students in classes setting up ‘online courses’ for other students in their class!

8) Student Blogging Bootcamp

If you’re interested in assigning your students a self-paced course which walks them through the process of setting up their own blog, check out our free Student Blogging Bootcamp.

There are 10 steps in the course. You could assign students one step per period, or let them work through the whole series at their own pace. Alternatively, you could pick and choose and just assign students a handful of the steps.

Have a look through the course and see what would work for your class!

9) Student Blogging Challenge

Every March and September, the 8 week Student Blogging Challenge is held.

The challenge is made up of a series of 8 weekly tasks all designed to improve blogging and commenting skills while connecting students with a global audience.

The Student Blogging Challenge is totally free and open to students or classes from all over the world, using any blogging platform. It’s most suitable for students between the ages of 8-16.

The next challenge begins October 6, 2019. Find out more by exploring the Student Blogging Challenge website. Registrations will open in September.

10) Involve Families

One of the many benefits of having a class blog is the strengthening of home-school relationships. It’s never too soon in the school year to start involving families. Families and students can learn about blogging together!

Long time blogger Linda Yollis has found the first posts of the school year can be ideal for connecting with families and students.

Check out Linda’s Welcome Back 2018-2019 post. It includes a personal video message and an invitation for students and parents to comment together.

There were many rich commenting conversations between members of the classroom community. What a great way to learn!

If you’re looking for more ideas on how to educate and involve families in your blogging program, check out Step Six of our Blogging With Students Teacher Challenge.

Cybercriminals have firmly set their sights on higher education.

According to the 2025 UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey, about 91% of higher education institutions identified a cybersecurity breach or attack in the past year, much higher than the ~43% of UK businesses that reported the same.

This is no surprise: personal data (of everyone from alumni to staff to faculty), academic research, and cross-institutional records make attractive targets for hackers.

Several cybersecurity incidents have been publicly announced by higher-education institutions, such as:

• A University of Maryland database breach targeting the university’s network revealed the records of 287,570 affiliated personnel, students, faculty, and staff
• A hack of UCLA’s health system may have exposed records of more than 4 million patients
• A 2023 ransomware attack on the University of Manchester resulted in the theft and public leak of sensitive staff and student data after the university refused to pay the ransom

The information at risk is often that of young individuals laying the foundation for their education and professional lives. Imagine a hacker with access to your Social Security number while you’re still 18. How could that disrupt your ability to get a loan, buy a car or get a job? A decade later, what would happen when you apply for a housing mortgage?

Colleges and universities find themselves locked in a costly arms race as they try to install new tools and modify their tactics to mitigate the latest cyber attacks. However, the attackers continue to switch schemes, find ways around the tools, and hit different victims.

In other words, technological defenses can only go so far. No matter how versatile an institution’s cybersecurity software may be, its end users lead the line of defense during an attack.

That’s where security awareness comes in.

Awareness often takes a backseat due to the busy lives of faculty, and hectic schedule of students. However, it’s important to educate faculty, students, and staff about security awareness if higher education wants to stand a chance against digital crime.

What Can Higher Education Institutions Do to Raise Awareness?

Security is a success-driver when done right, and a considerable risk with potentially devastating consequences when it fails.

Here are five ways higher education institutions can raise awareness on security.

1) Simulated Phishing Exercises

Students, faculty, and staff can be educated on security via simulated phishing.

Universities can build phishing campaigns in-house, where IT can send out fake phishing emails with embedded links. Anyone who clicks on any of the links is redirected to a web page that informs them of the simulation exercise and provides further security-related information.

Alternatively, institutions can partner with organizations who offer phishing simulations in the form of videos, modules, and games. Most vendors will be able to customize awareness training to fit the needs of several types of institutions.

2) Data-Sharing Lectures

Students and faculty members share a variety of personal data through apps and other online services. Specific apps ask to access or use far more data than they need in exchange for free services, and some of them are designed by adversaries who are looking for gateways into institutions.

Personal data can be used to guess passwords and gain access to a device that may contain sensitive data about a college or university. Therefore, lectures should be arranged about data sharing via mobile apps and social networking sites, where the focus should be on reading user agreements to check the amount of data requested before someone downloads a new game or tries a new service.

3) Incentives

Incentives can help boost behavior changes, and industries have turned to using awards to make security-awareness education more interesting.

For instance, schools may award prizes to students, faculty, and staffers who flag a vulnerability, while the IT department may compete for a monetary reward based on who can identify the most security threats.

On the flip side, those who engage in unsecured browsing and device usage behavior will hear about it too. In fact, incentives may encourage staffers to take their institution’s security seriously and become part of the first line of defense against attackers.

4) Institution-Wide Security Hygiene

Everyone from students to external stakeholders should be educated on the significance of security hygiene.

Colleges need to start enforcing an acceptable-use policy, where all devices and workstations are locked down by stakeholders and signed out when they’re inactive. Training programs should be set up to educate end users about the importance of strong passwords and timely updates of devices’ operating systems.

Research what individuals require and create baseline rules for essential security controls that should be followed at all times. Students can also be asked to access university applications through a secure portal that keeps data secure and doesn’t place restrictions on student-owned devices.

5) Executive On-Campus Sponsorship

Get buy-in from campus leaders to ensure that a culture of security spreads through an institution. Top individuals, like the president of the student union, can be tasked with the executive responsibility to drive awareness and keep things on track, and they should report to the upper management directly.

This will give institutions the best opportunity to ensure that their security goals are balanced with other risks, like lack of student interest. To keep interest high, campus leaders can arrange events like a “security awareness day” with activities.

Conclusion

Security awareness offers several key benefits to higher-education institutions. It helps them facilitate behavioral change to mitigate potential risks, comply with laws, and reduce unnecessary cost.

However, instead of relying entirely on information-security professionals to prevent infiltration and minimize vulnerabilities, institutions should bank on the persons within to learn and digest new information about security.

By taking the measures mentioned above, schools will be in a better position to create a culture of continuous learning and security awareness.

Take a moment to think about this quote…

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, was lucky enough to rediscover his love of literature in his later years. Is this true for all students?

What role do teachers play in instilling a passion for learning and a love of reading? What impact do reading logs, chapter studies, exams, worksheets, teacher-generated questions and so on have on a student’s love of reading?

As avid readers, we’d love to share an author we’ve recently come to appreciate with some lessons that may be useful to everyone in the education community.

About Sir Arthur Conan Doyle And Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes wasn’t the first fictional detective but he is the most portrayed literary human being in film and TV in history. The Sherlock Holmes stories have had a profound and lasting effect on mystery writing and popular culture.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, has been credited as an influence to forensic science as a result of Holmes’ use of methods such as fingerprints, trace evidence, serology, ciphers, and footprints long before they were commonly used by the police.

Lesson — we’re not bound by what’s already possible. Anyone is capable of invention and creativity. 

From Humble Beginnings

The first Sherlock Holmes story, “A Study in Scarlet”, first appeared in print in 1887 after it was rejected by about five publishers. It was finally accepted by Ward, Lock & Co, who specialized in cheap and often sensational literature, for £25 for the copyright.

The book was published in Benton’s Xmas Annual of 1887 and Arthur Conan Doyle never received any further money from the sale of the book. His follow up Holmes novel, “The Sign of Four”, published in 1890 fared slightly better but it wasn’t until Conan Doyle published Holmes as a series of short stories in The Strand magazine did he go onto to become a popular author — and the highest paid of his time.

Lesson — resilience and determination often lead to success. 

Watch Treasures of the Sherlock Holmes Collections to see an original copy of “A Study in Scarlet” and to learn more about The Strand Magazine.

Practice and Persistence

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story is no different from others that go on to achieve greatness in any field — science, engineering, sports, or the arts; it’s more about practice and persistence than innate talent.

Conan Doyle’s literary journey didn’t start with his Sherlock Holmes stories and he didn’t give up when his stories or novels weren’t received as well as he would have liked.

This is why he continues to inspire new generations 88 years after his death and 131 years after the first Sherlock Holmes novel was published.

Lesson — we all have our own stories to tell or legacy to share. Sometimes the impact will be astounding.

Impact of Sherlock Holmes’ Death

On a side note, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle says in his memoirs that,

If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher works, my position in the literature would … be a more commanding one.

Conan Doyle even killed off Holmes in the “Final Problem” published in The Strand Magazine in December 1893.

Tired of writing about Holmes, he wanted to focus on writing what he considered more serious literature. On a practical level, writing out twelve short stories, each with unique plots, in a year would have been hard work.

His fans weren’t happy — more than 20,000 Strand readers canceled their subscription, outraged by Holmes demise.

Eight years later, in 1901, he published “The Hound of the Baskervilles” as a serial in The Strand Magazine set before Holmes dies in the “Final Problem” and in 1903 he resurrected Holmes in “The Adventure of the Empty House”.

Serialization of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” in 1901-1902 was estimated to have increased the magazine’s circulation by 30,000 — with Conan Doyle being paid £480 – £620 per episode.

Lesson — learn when to follow your heart and when it’s important to listen to others.

For More Inspiration

It’s impossible to do justice to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and all his literary, and other work, in this short post.

Read his Sherlock Holmes stories! They are suitable for young adults upwards.

Being reluctant to read his stories after watching the different movie and TV adaptations, we now appreciate how amazing his stories are and how they’ve withstood the test of time.

The hardest part was working on where to start so here’s our recommendation of order to read:

1. A Study in Scarlet (1887) – introduces Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
2. The Sign of Four (1890) – introduces Dr. Watson’s future wife Mary.
3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 12 short stories published in The Strand in 1891-1892 with the most famous being “A Scandal in Bohemia” which introduces Irene Adler.
4. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes – 11 short stories published in The Strand in 1892-1893 with the most famous being “The Final Problem” which kills off Sherlock Holmes.
5. The Return of Sherlock Holmes – 13 short stories published in The Strand in 1903-1904 with the most famous being “The Adventure of the Empty House” where Sherlock Holmes is resurrected.
6. The Hound of the Baskervilles – serialized in the Strand in 1901-1902. Considered by many as the best Sherlock Holmes novel.
7. The Valley of Fear – serialized in The Strand from 1914–1915.
8. His Last Bow: Some Later Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes – stories published 1908–1917.
9. The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes – stories published 1921–1927.

You can read as individual novels or you’ll find them all in The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

To learn more about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle refer to:

1. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle “Memories and Adventures”  – provides good insight but isn’t the easiest biography I’ve read.
2. Arthur Conan Doyle Interviewed on Sherlock Holmes and Spirituality – 10 minute interview on YouTube from 1930.
3. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Stamp of Greatness – Documentary 1985 – 26 minute video on YouTube.
4. The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – BBC Radio – 43 minute audio from BBC radio documentary in 1980.

Final Reflection

Reading opens up a whole world of new insights and perspectives. The joy of reading is too important to not instill or encourage in every student.

After reading this post, we’d love you to share one of your favorite authors with your students. Or perhaps tell them about Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes.

Teaching and visuals naturally go together.

Visual aids have long been an effective way to engage students and support learning. Well-designed visuals also make it easier to communicate clearly with the wider school community.

In the past, teachers often had to choose between buying generic, impersonal resources or spending a lot of time creating their own.

Thankfully, there are now plenty of free online tools that make it easy to create professional-looking graphics. One of my favourites is Canva.

Canva isn’t just useful for teachers. We’re surrounded by visual media, and developing strong visual literacy skills is becoming increasingly important for students. Canva gives students the opportunity to communicate ideas and tell stories in creative and engaging ways.

In this post, I explain how to get started with the free version of Canva and share 10 examples of the types of resources you can create for your classroom.

And if you think you have zero design skills, don’t worry! It’s not a problem with Canva and I have some tips that will help you look like a pro in no time.

Canva Basics

This is Canva in a nutshell:

• Canva has millions of users worldwide and is popular in many industries, including education.
• Students under 13 can use Canva if they’re ‘appropriately supervised’.
• Canva is a web-based tool but there are also apps for Android and iOS.
• The free plan allows you to make unlimited creations and download them in high quality without watermarks. This sets Canva apart from some similar tools.
• The paid plans gives you access to more templates, images, and icons etc. It also allows you to resize your design without starting again (e.g. you might make something in A4 size then want a smaller version to share on social media). Additionally, you can download your designs with a transparent background (handy for logos, badges, buttons etc.).
• Canva uses a drag and drop interface which is very simple to use but like all tools, does require a little bit of playing around to develop fluency. It’s worth the investment in time!

Great news! The paid version of Canva is free for teachers and students. Read more here. 

Getting Started With Canva

The first thing you’ll need to do is sign up for a free Canva account.

Head to https://www.canva.com. From here, you can then sign up with your Facebook account, Google account, Apple account, or email.

There are a number of ways you can learn how to use Canva. Like any tool, spending some time ‘playing around’ can be helpful.

Guides for Beginners

This getting started guide introduces the basics of Canva and shows you how to work with colours, images, templates, and more.

Get an idea of how to use Canva in less than two minutes in this video. 

Check out Canva’s YouTube channel for more helpful video tutorials.

Quick Start Guide

This Quick Start Guide goes through:

• How to use the Canva homepage
• Finding your way around the Canva editor
• Creating your first design
• Publishing your design
• Design tips and tricks

Canva’s Design School

This is a resource hub for learning the basics of designing with Canva. The Teachers & Students section has workshops, lessons, and ideas from a community of education experts.

10 Designs You Can Create With Canva

You can create pretty much any graphic design you can think of using Canva.

Visit Canva’s template library to browse the templates you can adapt.

Let’s take a look at 10 sorts of designs that might be helpful in the classroom or wider school community.

1. Posters
2. Presentations
3. Infographics
4. Business cards
5. Certificates
6. Labels
7. Newsletters
8. Social graphics
9. Class logo
10. Blog header

1) Posters

Posters are staples for school communication and are a great way for students to demonstrate their learning.

You or your students can choose from pages and pages full of poster templates. There’s everything from inspirational quotes (like the one below), classroom rules or procedures, upcoming events, and so on.

2) Presentations

You might give presentations to staff, students, or parents, or perhaps your students present to the class from time to time.

There are options beyond PowerPoint and Google Slides; Canva offers lots of professional-looking templates that can blow your audience away!

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3) Infographics

All sorts of infographics, charts, timelines, or graphs can be created with Canva to clearly present information. Infographics not only serve as a great visual aid for teaching but can also spice up blog posts.

This post walks you through the process of creating your own effective infographic.

4) Business Cards

A business card can be a handy way to display your contact information and links to your virtual spaces, including your blog.

You could display a ‘business card’ as an image on the sidebar of your blog, or print some out, laminate them, attach a magnet to the back, and send them home!

Including both the URL and including a QR code offers your community choice. Many people love using QR codes because they can simply use their phone’s camera to scan the code and they’ll be on the website in seconds.

Tips on QR codes:

• You can create a QR code for your blog with a transparent background using a tool like this one from Pinetools.
• You can then upload the QR code as an image and add it to your design.
• Show students and families how to scan a QR code using the camera of their phone or tablet to go straight to the blog.

5) Certificates

Create professional looking certificates with just a few clicks using Canva templates. These might be useful for student awards, graduation, sports, or certificates of appreciation for members of the school community.

6) Labels

What teacher doesn’t like a nicely labeled classroom? Clear and attractive labels can help you and your student get organized while brightening up the learning environment.

Tip on size: With Canva, you can create labels for equipment, books, and stationery that are a perfect fit. From your Canva homepage, click on ‘Custom dimensions’ on the right-hand side.

You can enter your required width and height in pixels, inches, millimeters, or centimeters.

You can also explore Canva’s label hub that makes it easy to design all sorts of labels that you can print yourself or order professional prints.

7) Newsletters

Whether you’re designing a newsletter to print or distribute digitally, a clear and attractive design can really help engage your readers and get your message across.

Once you decide on a template that works well, you can re-use the design to build the consistent ‘brand’ of your class or school.

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Download

8) Social Graphics For Your Blog

Have you got a class blog or teacher blog? Adding images or graphics to your posts is really going to add impact and make your content easier to read.

Bloggers also often create a graphic to accompany their blog post which makes a social media post stand out.

The graphic is generally just the title of the blog post with an image and the blog URL — perhaps with blogger’s name or social media handle too.

Whenever we create a new post on The Edublogger, we create a simple graphic to go with it. For example:

9) Class Logo

Build community and morale by coming up with a class name and logo. Perhaps students could have a go at designing a logo and then put it to a vote!

You could display your logo on your blog, on your bulletin board, on notes home, and use it as an avatar if you have class Twitter or Instagram accounts etc.

10) Blog Header

Many teachers and students like to give their blog a personal touch by using a custom header image. It’s easy to make your own custom blog header using Canva.

The first thing you’ll need to do is go Appearance > Customize in your blog dashboard. If you don’t see the Header Image section in the Customizer, it means your theme doesn’t support the use of a custom header image.

When you click on Header Image in the Customizer, it will show you the dimensions of your header image. Make a note of this. For example:

You’ll then go to Canva and click on ‘Custom dimensions’. You’ll need to input your required dimensions (e.g. 1000 x 150 pixels as per the example above).

You’ll then have a blank canvas to work from. The first thing you might want to do is drag across a simple rectangular grid.

This will allow you to then find a free image to drag over and it will fill the space of your design.

Next, you can add text and other elements to complete your design.

When you’re done, download your design as JPEG or PNG and follow these instructions to upload it to your blog. Easy!

Design Tips

I’m no design expert but it’s something I really enjoy learning about. Here are my 5 top tips for designing with Canva! I’d love to hear yours too.

1. Less is more. Cliche but true. It’s easy to ‘over-design’ when there are SO many images, shapes, fonts, patterns etc. to use. Try not to use too many colors, keep text minimal, don’t use too many different fonts, and generally avoid clutter.
2. Be consistent. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time you start a new design. In fact, consistency helps to create your ‘brand’. Consider sticking with the same sorts of fonts and colors etc.
3. Can you read it? If you’re using text, make sure it can be read easily. Sometimes you need to change the colors of your design. Or if you’re putting text over an image, place it over a solid or semi-transparent shape. Alternatively, putting a filter over the image might help make the text stand out.
4. Keep it neat. You want all the elements in your design to line up nicely. Canva shows you grid lines to make alignment easy, although it can sometimes take a little playing around to get your design just right!
5. Look around. Once you start designing, it can be helpful to look around you for examples of designs you like. Canva’s template library is a great place to start! You can easily adapt your favorite designs to make them your own.

How Did Canva Come About?

The story of Canva began when 19 year old Australian Melanie Perkins found that students were struggling to learn the basics of graphic design.

Melanie partnered with Cliff Obrecht to launch Fusion Books, an online design tool that made it easy for students and teachers to create their own yearbooks.

Realizing this technology could be used more broadly, they launched Canva.

There is a lot written about the story of Canva. You can follow the timeline of events on their website or listen to this interesting interview with Melanie on NPR’s popular How I Built This podcast.

If you’re using Canva with students it could be interesting to share the story of how the company came about.

Melanie and Cliff were not long out of high school themselves when they dived into their entrepreneurial journey. No doubt they could offer inspiration for young people everywhere!

You’re probably familiar with the range of free, web-based tools offered by Google within its Google Drive service?

These tools include Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Forms, and Google Slides. They’ve become staples in classrooms, homes, and businesses around the world.

For teachers and students, Google Slides is one of the most exciting and versatile tools on offer.

Maybe you’ve heard of Google Slides and you’re wondering how you can use it in the classroom?

Or perhaps, you’ve dabbled with Google Slides but you’re not sure exactly how it can be used beyond presentations?

Or are you a blogger wondering how Google Slides can complement your blog posts?

This post explains:

What is Google Slides?

How to create a Google Slides presentation

How teachers and students can use Google Slides in the classroom (7 creative examples)

How to embed Google Slides into your blog posts (PDF and video tutorial included)

Using Google Slides in Remote Learning

What is Google Slides?

You’re probably familiar with Microsoft PowerPoint — the software used to create and present slideshows?

Google Slides is similar except it’s hosted online and allows for multiple people to collaborate on the same presentation in real time.

Quick facts about Google Slides:

• It’s free.
• You can start with a blank document or use a pre-designed template. 
• It’s available via the web, a mobile app (Android, iOS), and as a desktop application on Google’s ChromeOS.
• PowerPoint files can be imported into Google Slides and then edited. Your Google Slides presentations can be exported as a PowerPoint file, PDF, JPEG, PNG and more.
• Images and video can be added to presentations.
• There are many sharing options for your Google Slides presentation. It can be private, you can share it with select people, or you can share it publicly on the web. You can choose whether people can view or edit your presentation.
• If you’re collaborating with others on a Google Slides presentation, you can chat, leave comments, and work simultaneously on the same presentation.
• Your work is automatically saved as you work on your presentation.
• You can present your slides within the platform (View > Present). You can either plug your computer into a screen or use Chromecast or AirPlay to show a live audience. You can also present virtually via Google Hangouts.
• You can add real-time automatic captions when you present in Google Slides. Find out more here.
• There are many add-ons available for Google Slides. These are tools from 3rd party developers to add more functionality to Google Slides. Most add-ons are free but some have paid premium versions. Learn more about add-ons by reading Eric Curts’ post: 9 Awesome Add-ons to Supercharge Google Slides.
• Google Slides presentations can be embedded in blogs and websites.

Here’s a graphic summary of the above. Feel free to share it with colleagues who want to learn more about Google Slides.

How To Create A Google Slides Presentation

You’ll need a Google Account to access Google Slides. There’s a high chance you already have one! This is the same username/password you use for Gmail and other Google Products. You might also have a school Google account.

If you haven’t got a Google account yet, you can sign up here:

https://accounts.google.com/signup

Google Drive is the place where your Google Slides presentations are stored. It’s also one of the ways you can start a new Google Slides presentation.

You access your Google Drive on the web through this URL:

https://drive.google.com

Click on New in the top left-hand corner. Then click on Google Slides and either Blank Presentation or From a template.

Other Ways To Start A New Google Slides Presentation

• You can go straight to your Google Slides collection to view past Slides and create a new one using this URL https://docs.google.com/presentation
• In late 2018, Google introduced some new shortcut URLs to start new Google Slides. You simply type these into your browser to start a new Slides presentation. They are:
  • slide.new
  • slides.new
  • deck.new
  • presentation.new
• You can also start a new Slides presentation in the app (Android | iOS)

Using Google Slides Offline

To access Google Slides when you’re offline or have poor internet connection, first enable offline access in your Drive settings.

• Go to your Google Drive and click the gear icon at the top right corner
• Select Settings > General and select “Sync Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings files to this computer” so you can edit offline.
• You can then right-click on any file in your Google Drive and select “Available offline” from the menu (while connected to the internet).
• You’ll need the free Chrome Google Docs Offline extension to access your offline documents.

Check out the full instructions to access Google Slides offline on any device here.

How To Make A Google Slides Presentation

You’ll notice when you start a new Google Slides presentation, using the methods described above, you have the option to build a blank presentation or work from a pre-designed template.

Whatever option you choose, creating your presentation is straightforward.

Here are the basics of creating a Google Slides presentation.

• You add text via text boxes which you can drag around to suit.
• You then insert other elements via “Insert” on the main toolbar. These elements include:
  • images
  • video
  • audio
  • shapes
  • tables
  • charts
  • diagrams
  • word art
  • animations
• Use the + button on the top left to add a new slide
• Right-click on your slide on the left navigation panel to duplicate it (this can be easier than building a slide from scratch). Duplicate is also found under the “Slide” menu.

This diagram shows the basic functions you will use most with Google Slides. Feel free to share it with your students or colleagues.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Learn More About Google Slides

Learn more about getting started with Slides with the Google Workspace Learning Centre. 

“Get started with Slides” is an easy to follow tutorial that’s suitable for both teachers and students.

Video Tutorials: Google Slides Overview

This two-minute video tutorial provides a simple overview of Google Slides basics.

After a more detailed video? Check out David Lee’s 12-minute introduction to Google Slides.

Add Audio To Google Slides

In April 2019, Google began rolling out the ability to add audio to Google Slides presentations. This long-requested function could be very handy for teachers and students.

Audio can be great for reflection, narration, feedback, and all sorts of creative projects.

Want more examples of how audio can enhance Google Slides for teachers and students? Kasey Bell has written a blog post that shares 25 Ways to Use Audio in Google Slides Projects.

Although the ability to add audio is a great new feature, you can’t record audio directly into your Slides presentation.

As Eric Curts explains,

You see, even though we can now add audio to a Google slideshow, there isn’t a simple built-in recording button. Instead you need to record the audio separately with another program, then save it to Drive, and then add it to a slide.

Thankfully, Eric has put together a helpful collection of Free and Easy Audio Recording Tools for Google Slides.

The tools Eric recommends to make audio recordings are:

• ChromeMP3 Recorder from HablaCloud
• Online Voice Recorder
• TwistedWave

You can find out all about this process and how exactly you insert audio into Google Slides in Eric’s blog post, podcast, or video.

Using Google Slides In The Classroom: The Basics

The simplest and most obvious way to use Google Slides is to create a slide deck. That is, a collection of slides put together to form a presentation.

A slide deck is used to support an oral presentation.

There are many times when teachers or students might need a basic slide deck:

• Teachers can create a slide deck to support the lessons they’re presenting to students.
• Students can make a Slides presentation to accompany an oral presentation that’s part of their classwork.
• Students or teachers can create slide decks when they need to showcase learning or share school programs (e.g. information evening, school assembly, parent-teacher night, etc.).
• Teachers can collaborate on a slide deck for a conference or staff meeting presentation.

Apart from these basic uses, there is so much more you can do with Google Slides.

Let’s take a look…

7 Creative Ways To Use Google Slides In The Classroom

Kasey Bell isn’t wrong when she calls Google Slides the Swiss Army knife of Google Workspace. Let’s take a look at some creative ways you could use Google Slides in the classroom.

1) Introduce Your Class

Alethea Vazquez is a teacher who participated in the Student Blogging Challenge with her students a number of times. Her students collaborated on a great Google Slides presentation to introduce themselves on their class blog.

In this post, Alethea explains how she carried out this process. It involved giving students a Slides template that they could edit.

Take a look at the end result. This is perfect for an About page on a class blog.

2) Make Choose Your Own Adventure Stories

Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books that were popular in past decades?

Creating a similar style of “interactive fiction” is a creative way to use Google Slides. It includes a certain amount of planning as teacher Kevin Hodgson explains in this post.

Here’s an example of interactive fiction using Google Slides by Kevin Hodgson. He shared this on his class blog as an example for students.

Tutorials For Choose Your Own Adventure Stories

• Check out this post by Eric Curts for a detailed explanation
• Jake Miller has made a useful GIF to explain the instructions
• This resource from Google explains how to make a collaborative “If-then Adventure Story”

As Kevin Hodgson says,

Most of my students really enjoy this writing, as it is very different from traditional pieces we do, but a few do struggle with the unconventionality of it. That’s OK, too, for what I am trying to show them is that writing is not one form, but many forms and always adaptable.

3) Try Collaborative Storytelling And Research

Two students in Linda Yollis’ third grade class collaborated together on a Google Slides presentation for the Student Blogging Challenge.

They shared their experiences of traveling to London with their own families and included some great research.

4) Compile Individual Slides Into One: Poetry Example

Sometimes you might want students to all contribute one slide to a group presentation.

There are two ways to do this:

• You can start a new Slides presentation and share this template with the class. You would assign a slide number to each student. You just need to make sure students don’t interfere with other students’ slides.
• Or, you can have students create their own new Slides presentation and then share their completed slide with you. You can then compile all slides into one group Slides presentation. These instructions from Erintegration explain how to do this.

5) Share Photos Of Work That’s Not Digital

Google Slides doesn’t have to just be used to share digital work. It can be used to share and present any work students complete in the classroom.

6) Flip Your Classroom: Create A Self Guided Lesson

Google Slides is a great way to help someone work through a lesson, either in a live classroom setting, or in their own time.

You’ve probably heard of the term “flipped classroom”? This is where students can learn content outside of the classroom freeing up face-to-face class time for rich discussions, projects, collaborations and so on.

Teachers can prepare Google Slides presentations that walk students through lessons. Students can work through these presentations at their own pace and in their own time. A similar model can be used for staff professional development.

7) Make Images

Google Slides offers a blank canvas where creations can be download into image formats like JPEG and PNG.

For those reasons, it’s a great way for students and teachers to make images that they can print or use digitally.

Examples of images you could create in Google Slides:

• Blog headers
• Other blog images (e.g. see the example of the promotional graphic at the start of this post. These are great to share on social media).
• Certificates
• Comics
• Photos with captions
• Flowcharts, mindmaps, or other graphic organizers
• How-to tutorials
• Classroom labels

Note: Another option for making images is Google Drawings. In this Venn diagram, Tony Vincent shows us how Google Drawings and Google Slides are the same and different.

Be sure to follow Tony on X or Instagram as he often shares tips for using Google Slides and other tech tools.

How To Make A Graphic Or Image Using Google Slides

#1 Open Google Slides

You can work with a blank presentation or a template.

#2 Change your image size (optional)

If you want your image to be a certain size (e.g. the size of your blog header), you can change this in File > Page Setup > Custom. You can enter the dimensions you’re after in inches, centimeters, points, or pixels.

Tip: If you’re making a blog header, you’ll find the required dimensions in Customizer as demonstrated here.

#3 Make your background transparent (or another color)

If you want your image to have a transparent background, click on File > Change background.

Then choose Transparent (or another color).

If you select a transparent background, there will be no background when you download your image as PNG or JPEG.

#4 Create your design

Add the text, images, and shapes that you’d like on your design.

Tip: If you want to experiment with a design element but you’re not sure if you’ll like it, duplicate your slide before making your changes. Then you can choose the one you like best.

Right-click on the slide in the navigation panel and select “Duplicate slide”.

#5 Save your design as an image

When you’re ready, go to File > Download as > JPEG image or PNG image. Save your image to your device. 

You’ll then have an image file that you can print or use in your digital creations.

Here is a simple blog header image made with Google Slides by modifying a template.

These 7 examples are only the tip of the iceberg of ways you could use Google Slides in the classroom.

We’d love you to share your own examples in a comment. Scroll down to find the comment box.

How To Embed Google Slides In Your Blog Post Or Page

As you’ve seen, Google Slides can be used in so many different ways. You can amplify this learning even more by sharing your work with an authentic audience on your blog.

Google Slides presentations can be easily embedded in blog posts or pages using HTML code (don’t worry if you’ve never done this before — it’s easy).

Note: If you’re using Edublogs, you’ll need Edublogs Pro or CampusPress in order to embed HTML code. This is to prevent misuse by spammers.

Let’s take a look at how to embed a Google Slides presentation into a blog post or page. You’ll find the written instructions below and then a video and PDF version.

This is a two-step process. First, you need to get the embed code from your Slides presentation then add it to your blog.

Step One: Get the embed code for your Slides presentation

1) Open your Slides presentation

You can go to your Drive or directly to your Slides collection to find your presentation. Double click on the presentation to open it.

2) Publish to the web

Go to File > Publish to the web

You’ll find File in the top left-hand corner of your page.

Click on Embed. There are a few options to control the size and speed of the slides. Changing these options isn’t essential (medium is usually a good size).

Click on Publish.

You’ll receive a warning that you’re about to publish to the web. Press OK.

3) Copy the embed code

After you press OK, your HTML embed code will appear in a box. You need to copy this code to add to your blog post or page.

How to copy:

• Click on the text to highlight it if it’s not already highlighted
• Press Control C (Windows) or Command C (Mac)
• Alternatively, right-click and press Copy

Note: If you ever want to unpublish your Slides presentation so it’s not available on the web, repeat these steps and click on the small arrow at the bottom of the box that says Published content and settings. Select Stop publishing.

Step Two: Add the embed code to your blog post or page

These instructions show how to add your Slides presentation to a blog post. The same process applies to pages.

1) Open your post

Go to your blog dashboard and open the post you’re working on. Or, go to Posts > Add New.

2) Add Media

Place your cursor where you want the Slides presentation to appear and then click on the Add Media button.

3) Insert Embed Code

In the Add Media window, click on the Insert Embed Code tab on the left.

4) Paste Embed Code

Paste the embed code into the Insert Embed code box.

How to paste:

• Press Control V (Windows) or Command V (Mac)
• Alternatively, right-click and select Paste

Click Insert Into Post.

5) Publish

When you’ve finished writing your post, click Publish.

You should now see your embedded Slides presentation when you view the published post. You can also preview your post to see what it looks like before publishing.

Here’s an example of an embedded Google Slides presentation.

Video: How To Embed A Google Slides Presentation

This 3 minute video takes you through the process described above.

PDF: How To Embed A Google Slides Presentation

You’re welcome to print this 2 page PDF to show your students or colleagues how to embed their Google Slides presentation into a blog post or page.

>>Click here to download a copy of the PDF

Using Google Slides In Remote Learning

If you’re teaching remotely, you’ll need to offer your students a planner or lesson descriptions.

Some teachers put their planners in a Google Slides presentation.

Don’t forget to add these Slides presentations to a blog, LMS, or website so they don’t get lost).

• You can include text, links, and videos of yourself teaching to a Slides presentation amongst other things.
• One major benefit is you can copy and edit your planner so you don’t have to start from scratch each day.
• Check out this post by Alice Keeler for more advice on using Slides in remote learning.

Here’s an example from US kindergarten teacher Megan Peschke @MeganPeschke). Don’t be put off by the age group. This idea could be adapted for any age!

Click here to view the Google Slides presentation in a new tab.

Instructions for Editing and Using Megan’s Google Slides

1. Click on this link:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Bl534rtloR0AjD2wgfLPVrJs2Q6BDS9DEz2G2m9Fzgs/copy

2. You will be prompted to make a copy (screenshot below).

3. The Slides will be saved in your Google Drive.

4. You can edit the Google Slides to suit.

SlidesMania have also published a fantastic free weekly planner template that can be used in Google Slides or PowerPoint. Find it here. 

Conclusion

Google Slides is a versatile way for teachers and students to create, collaborate, and present. There’s a lot you can do with Google Slides beyond a standard oral presentation.

Many teachers and students enjoy embedding their Google Slides presentations into a blog post or page. Sharing work with an authentic audience yields many benefits!

Further Reading

You might also be interested in reading:

A Beginner’s Guide To Google Photos

Canva In The Classroom: Getting Started, Example Designs, And Tips!

Six Tools To Create Interactive Learning Content On Your Blog