Your own website making machine Powerful and simple cutting edge networks of websites for schools HomeHome pageThe front page, the diary, the jumping off point for everything StoriesMain list of pages All our main pages, jump into who, what and why DiscussJoin our discussion group Come on in and start communicating those ideas, just join up or log in MembersA list of all our site members If you want to be anonymous with-hold your name, use something like Mickey Mouse, or Anonymous Coward Email usNeed to tell the webmaster... Get in touch straight away! If we need to we'll pass on your comments to the right person About usEverything about us Read more about who we are, and why we're doing this
We build and run sites for schools. Killer, kicking sites. Sites you'll love.
Site structure
Home
Create About
How much? What users say Legal Legals 4 kids More Stats Educational uses of blogs Bloom's taxonomy & blogs Case Studies Supporting the curriculum
Lesson Plans
Using text Text and graphics Different audiences Further reading
Parts
How tos Joining children Sign up Login Create news item Alter text size Use bold Use effects Cut and paste Undo and redo Clear formatting Over-type words Add a link Search Add comments Edit/delete comments Upload an image Text & images Save but not publish Cookies
Managing members Resources
Talk about Schools' banner ads Curriculum Online FAQs Thumbnail interface Group brains Don't do this on your website
News Departments
Members
About us
We want to and will make it easy for schools to keep their staff, pupils, parents, partners, other stake-holders and wider community informed, updated and engaged.
Now, by merely typing in the text you can do it too!
It's so easy even 7 year old children can do it. If you are able to move a mouse, click a few buttons and string a few sentences together you can maintain a cutting edge site.
We'll give you all the training you'll need, support you on the phone or with email, all to make sure you get the best out of your investment.
Our killer features are:
Superb content management and blog software. Excellent Google optimisation.
An email to weblog interface, making updating your school blog a doddle.
Top draw support and feedback.
Try a demo or build your
Now, by merely typing in the text you can do it too!
It's so easy even 7 year old children can do it. If you are able to move a mouse, click a few buttons and string a few sentences together you can maintain a cutting edge site.
We'll give you all the training you'll need, support you on the phone or with email, all to make sure you get the best out of your investment.
Our killer features are:
Superb content management and blog software. Excellent Google optimisation.
An email to weblog interface, making updating your school blog a doddle.
Top draw support and feedback.
Try a demo or build your
30 day free trial
school website yourself. What will you write today's school news to be?Joining children
Signing up children or letting them sign up themselves?
| The most necessary parts of operating a school weblog is managing your members and bulk signing up the children who are going to take part. |
| There's several ways of doing this. That is, signing up everybody, signing up everybody in small or large groups, or letting them sign up themselves, perhaps from home, maybe with the help of parents. |
| If they're going to sign in themselves you need do nothing other than tell them where (under the Members panel on any page) and explain that they'll need an email address. Try and get them to fill out all the details in their sign up page or, later, in their Prefs page. |
| As a Managing Editor, you'll get a copy of their confirmation email when they do sign up. |
| For organised activities, it's far better to control who, how and when the signing up takes place. It's your choice then who is signed, if they're signed individually or as a group. |
| If you're going to sign them up, then you'll need to be a Managing Editor and logged in as such. |
| As extra information you should read about logging in and out, cookies and expiring cookies. |
| Rather than signing up each child one by one logging out each time to sign up the next; you can bulk sign up children. Go to the Editors only: ==> Admin ==> Membership ==> Add multiple members feature. You can even join up individuals through this feature. |
| All you need to is add a bunch of emails separated by commas, like this: |
| paul_smith@yahoo.com, alan.griffiths@hotmail.com, sianthomas@gmail.com |
| Use the drop down menu to make sure they're joined as members and not editors, and hit the Add members button. Passwords will be made up for them, they'll be sent a confirmation email (you and all Managing Editors will be sent a copy of these confirmations) and you'll be sent a long list of their emails and passwords in one handy email, useful for printing out. Children invariably forget their email addresses or passwords (see the red note below). |
| The caveat with bulk signing is the lack of detail for each member. After all, all we know is their email address or their name (if you're not using email addresses). Children should log in and via their Prefs page (under the Members panel, once they're logged in) add their real name, nicknames and some info about themselves. This is especially true when using email addresses, as they'll be exposed to spam harvesters. Once a name is added their email address is hidden from such spam bots. |
| Signing up each and every individual |
| Ideally, each pupil will need an email address. If your school can do this, so much the better. Or, you could use one of the numerous free on-line services: |
| Yahoo! |
| Hotmail |
| Gmail |
| This is a great step to digital citizenship, and as such should probably be used for older children. The sign up process through Hotmail, perhaps could become a lesson in itself. |
| Signing up groups |
| In this case you will separate your class into groups. You've probably groups like this already. You may also consider the number of machines available in the ICT Suite and base the number of groups around this. |
| Groups maybe arbitrary: green, triangles, bears. Based on ability: top, advanced, basic. Mixed in any way you feel is right for your situation. |
| Groups may also be based on names for example, Paul, Jane and Peter J. In this case their group email maybe paul.jane.peterj@yahoo.com. |
| Work can be individually signed as one would in a letter (see below) or submitted as part of some group work. It's up to you if you allow children to know the password to the group. If you want them to work on items at home, they will need it. Differentiating who did what will be difficult. |
| Signing up a whole class as one member |
| This is a great first step, useful with younger chidren or if you're in a hurry or new to this whole weblogging thing. |
| For example, Mrs Smith's class will have an email address like mrs_smiths_class@hotmail.com. It's probable that you'll not want to share the password and thus children will not be able to log in at home under this account, though they could sign up as their individual selves, but, as such, they will not be able to edit any of the group's work (unless and in the unlikely event you bump them up to Managing or Content Editor). |
| When you're working, every machine will be logged in as this personality. Every message will be posted as being from this personality, all your news posts, comments, messages—everything. Try to add, or make sure your children add their name to the foot of their message, just like a letter, in this way you, your children and surfers are able to differentiate authorships. For example, individual news items or comments can be signed (as one would a letter) or story pages may have several paragraphs each authored and signed by a different child. |
Note on forgetting emails or passwords: if any child forgets their password, it can be emailed to them from the login page, just add their email address and it'll be sent immediately. If any child forgets their email, any Managing Editor can look it up in the stats/members page, there too a Managing Editor can look up passwords. Not to forget passwords can be changed through the member/changePassword page. |
Note on monitoring communications: we monitor all emails sent through the site through the little yellow email icons, and they're copied to all on the notify list. This is so we and the school can secretly monitor all emails through the site. Obviously, email to email cannot be monitored. |
| Children's email addresses can have privacy, logistical, time or other issues surrounding them. So, if you are a Managing Editor, you can bulk sign up members without email addresses although only through the bulk sign up feature Editors only: ==> Admin ==> Membership ==> Add multiple members. You cannot sign up with no email address through the normal member/signUp page (though Managing Editors can sign up individuals through the bulk sign up feature). |
| For bulk sign up of individual members it's simply like this: |
| Paul Smith, Alan Griffiths, Sian Thomas |
| Or, if you want to work in groups, as above: |
| Green, Yellow, Red, Purple |
| Paul & Jane and Peter J, Sian & Yasmeen and Parmjit, Simon & Stephen and George |
| Mrs Smith's class, Mrs Jones class, Art class, English class, The Blog Club |
Notes: Pay close attention to the use of commas separating the groups! If you screw it up, you'll have to manually and individually delete the members through the stats/members page. |
Be careful with your spellings! Get it wrong and you'll need to manually delete the member through the stats/members page. |
The keys, be that the name, group name or email address cannot be changed, or upgraded from a name to an email address. A key is a special database term. It's key :-) However, the displayed name can be changed to a nickname, as many times as the child likes. All previous messages and comments under that membership also change. |
| Obviously, in this case, email notifications — when a discussion is added to and the little yellow email icons will not work for this type of member. However, this can be a good thing. Now, there's no worry that strangers can contact them through the site. |
| Everything else works as it's supposed to. They can post news items, comments, discussion group messages... Everything. Except logging in... Where the log in page asks for an email address, you add the name instead. |
| They need to use the name or nick name you bulk signed them up with, in place of their email. As they can't receive the emailed confirmation telling them of their password, you'll be emailed a list of all the members you bulk signed up with their name (to be used in place of their email log in) and their password. You can always look up members and their log in and passwords with the stats/members page — if you're a Managing Editor. |
