Blog for multiple schools

[Joanne]

Hi guys,

 

my headteacher has asked me about implementing several blogs for a cluster of schools to add to. I was thinking about hosting the blogs on our website, but with the Jotter 2 software, I think we are limited with permissions. I can give a user blog permissions, but they will be able to add to any blog! Which isn't ideal. I've asked WebAnywhere for a solution, but I'm not optimistic about it! There are going to be 6 blogs for Year 1 through 6 and about 19 schools will be writing to them. Each school will have a single log in and have access to all 6 blogs.

 

SO... is there a site that is child friendly and not on the big bad internet that I could create a blog? I guess I could do wordpress and buy a domain name, but that seems a little excessive for what they need. Also I have a feeling it won't really get used...

 

BRAINSTORM TIME!

[Norphy]

I'm beginning to sound like a stuck record...

 

Are the schools and students using Office 365? If so, you could set up a team site in SharePoint and add blogs to those? I know that O365 is on the big bad intarwebz but it can at least be very tightly restricted.

[Joanne]

I can't confirm if they are all using Office 365. I would imagine that they are, however our Office 365 is controlled by County. Will this potentially have an effect?

 

The answer is yes...

 

Edited October 24, 2016 by Joanne

[Norphy]

D'oh.

 

Can you raise a ticket with them get a site created?

[Joanne]

Would it be accessible by anyone? We'd probably want parents to be able to read it and such. I thought sharepoint was more of a cloud storage type thing?

[Norphy]

Access control can be set entirely by you. It can be set to be accessible to anyone and everyone or to specific people. However, if you wanted it to be accessible to parents but not to the big bad world in general, you'd have to set your parents up in O365 as well but then, the same could be said for any blogging platform. SharePoint is at its heart a document management system but it can do a lot more than that. Here is a screenshot of a team blog I'm looking at setting up:

[p858snake]

Self host a Wordpress install your schools website?

[Steve21]

Have you considered just using the free Wordpress hosted one? One site, 6 categories for the years etc.

 

Not looked at the limitation side but would mean no issues self hosting etc and can just point them to the free Wordpress url from your site

 

Else would say self hosted Wordpress again, quick and easy to setup The basics

 

Steve

[Joanne]

I'm going to take a look at Google Sites and wordpress today and see which one is best.

[Anothername]

We just tend to use edublogs as there are free and paid options, though it is web based. I just put an RSS feed to the website.

[angrycomputingteacher]

Use WordPress Multisite. Multiple sites across multiple sub directories or sub domains.