So you are planning to create 100 student blogs...

“Is there a template that can be duplicated... can we push new blogs out to students through Hapara teacher dashboard?” 

The short answer is no, however whether you are creating 10 or 100 blogs there are some recommendations that will support the process and potentially save you a lot of time. 

The Effective Blogging site is a must read before you start creating student blogs, especially the Student Blog Protocols.

Familiarise yourself with the process on the Effective Blogging site and follow the steps for organising and creating individual blogs. By following the steps and recommendations a single blog can be created and set up in a few minutes.

Some additional tips...

Create a folder for your blog's .xml file template and the text doc with the html for the blog gadgets so files are easy to locate and access when you need them.

In addition to the gadget html the text doc should also include descriptions that you are going to use in your blog header and teacher emails that you will copy and paste into your blog layout. 

Multiple users in Chrome

If you’re a facilitator supporting multiple schools:

• Create a separate user in Chrome for each of your blogger admin accounts. 

• Bookmark the master spreadsheet and Blogger Dashboard for easy access

Create a text doc with the html for the blog gadgets for each school you create blogs for as the teacher information and headers will vary.

Organise them in separate folders on your computer. This will also help when the time comes to teach others in the schools to take over this responsibility.

Templates and text docs set up for individual schools are organised in folders

If you're on a Mac use Exposé or your computer’s dock to quickly move between docs and your browser as you are creating each blog. This is a lot faster than moving or minimising/maximising windows.

Initially teachers will not need to be as familiar with the processes above however there are some key messages for teachers and students when they start blogging.

The Manaiakalani Cybersmart site includes further support for getting started with Blogging