Host your own blogs ?

[pooley]

The HT has decided he would like the children to be able to have group blogs for different project.

 

I wont allow access to external blog sites as can of worms and opening come to mind.

 

So is there a way of hosting a blog(s) internally, if so what software/system will i need.

 

I've no experience with moodles, vle's or web building tbh.

 

Any advice appreciated.

[Geoff]

We're trying out Mahara at the moment. It includes a blogging component.

 

http://www.mahara.org/

[pooley]

Thanks Geoff, looks interesting

[Oakie]

Take at look at the most excellent, opensource, multi user WORDPRESS. It requires php and mysql. If you have a linux server great, if not you can install a WAMP server on a windows box in minutes using something like easyPHP or Xampp. drop the folder with the Wordpress files into the server, navigate to the install folder and it starts right up. answer a few config questions and it's ready to go. I believe this is the exact system edublogs uses.

 

http://edublogs.org/

 

http://mu.wordpress.org/

[MkII]

I use Wordpress MU

 

A good recommendation is the example set up by history teacher and edugeek member Doug Beshaw:

 

blogs: http://learning.mrbelshaw.co.uk/blogs/

 

WPMU Vs ELGG: http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/index.php/2006/12/08/wordpress-mu-vs-elgg-spaces/

[laserblazer]

Mr Belshaw is one brave teacher

[master]

Installled wordpress on my vmware virtual linux server thats hosting my new website on monday an i was amazed how simple it was

change 1 config file to match the database on local host i created copied the files to the virtual server went to the address cliked erm 3 buttons ? and typed the name of the blog an my email address and it was witting there waiting for me to use it

 

oh an the wordpress site even has a link to this : http://cre8d-design.com/blog/2006/01/19/how-to-install-wordpress-20/

a visual tutorial

why arent more things this easy to install ?

[Sylv3r]

@Geoff

 

What did your findings bring for Mahara? Did you continue using it or not? It looks useful but i'd be interested in hearing if it is likely to work in a school.

[Sirbendy]

Wordpress vote here too. We use it for the "Student Support and News" intranet section that the kids maintain. All runs quite happily on our CCTV box under Uniform Server on XP.

 

Uniform is a self contained portable Apache/PHP/SQL server with a small footprint..I keep a copy on my USB stick for testing as well.

[Geoff]

@Geoff

 

What did your findings bring for Mahara? Did you continue using it or not? It looks useful but i'd be interested in hearing if it is likely to work in a school.

 

It's nice but we couldn't get the Moodle networking to work. Thus we couldn't integrate it into our VLE (which was the point). We'll probably have another look at it when it's matured slightly.