Blogging instead of site building

Sitting in on a Jen Roberts session is dangerous.  Well, maybe that's the wrong word. You will learn, you will be infected by her passion and enthusiasm, and you will be inspired.  But you’ll also be sold on there being a better way to do things - she’s that persuasive.

We’ve been looking for a way to get websites set up for our teachers.  I’ve been trying to convince myself to blog more.  I even built a blog site.  Now, I’m regrouping on both fronts.  Jen has convinced me that we need to dump the idea of websites for all teachers.  And she’s convinced me that the environment should be Blogger, not Wordpress.  So I’m shifting my blog to Blogger and I’m shifting my recommendation for our district to using Blogger instead of Google Sites for teacher / class pages.

Blogger is easier than Google Sites, and just as flexible and accommodating for teachers’ use.  It does some things fairly automatically that are very useful in the classroom, such as Archiving posts - which means that as a teacher adds assignments and information (each as a separate blog post), students and parents can find that stuff at a later date.  (I’m imagining the utility for students who miss a class!)  It integrates way better than Wordpress with Google Apps (because Google owns it).  It has great controls over comments (turn on comment moderation) and such.

OK, Jen - I'm sold, and I'm going down the Blogger rabbit-hole. We'll see if the district goes with me!