You’ve laid a strong foundation for your blogging journey — now, how do you keep the momentum going?

Here are 12 tips to offer you some inspiration.

1) Do a little bit each day

Imagine what you could accomplish by the end of the year if you did a little bit of work on your blog each day!

This doesn’t mean publishing a post daily but it might mean starting a post, writing a list of post ideas, commenting on other blogs, updating the design of your blog, updating an old post or page, sharing your blog on social media.

This poster also gives you ideas of tasks you could work on to improve your blogging in the months to come.

2) Don’t break the chain

Have you heard of the “don’t break the chain” method for productivity or to get hooked on a habit?

It works like this:

• You set yourself a mini goal (like working on your blog for 10 minutes a day).
• Every day you complete your goal, you mark off that day on a calendar.
• The longer the chain your build, the harder it will feel to break the chain.
• Before you know it, the habit will be in place!

It’s thought that Jerry Seinfeld came up with this method and advised an aspiring comedian to write one joke a day and mark it on a calendar.

Apparently, Jerry has since said that he did not come up with this method. Still, it remains popular and is a key way many social media, game, and app developers get users hooked.

If you want to try creating a chain on your phone, there are a number of apps available like this one.

3) Schedule time for blogging

If blogging is important to you, then don’t put it at the bottom of your list of priorities after you complete all your grading, preparation, and other administrative tasks. We know a teachers’ work is never done so sometimes you need to refocus your priorities.

Many well-known writers have talked about scheduling a daily habit into their calendars. For example, John Grisham is famous for waking up at 5am to write one page of his novel before heading to his day job. Many bloggers enjoy the same sort of approach and find it to be an enlightening way to start the day!

Early morning, lunch break, on the train, late at night — it doesn’t matter. Find the extra hour, go to the same place, shut the door.

No exceptions, no excuses.

~ John Grisham

Not a morning person? No problem! Schedule your blogging session whenever you can but make it happen.

4) Get a blogging buddy

Goals can be so much more enjoyable when tackled with someone else. Why not ask a friend or colleague if they’d like to blog with you, or help keep you accountable by having a weekly check-in?

This could be someone you know in your local community or a member of your global PLN.

You might be able to brainstorm ideas with your buddy, seek advice, or promote each other’s work.

5) Make a public commitment

Publically announcing that you are blogging regularly can be a great motivator to make it happen.

For example, you could send out a monthly email newsletter to readers of your own blog. Explain that this newsletter will share the posts you’ve written during the month. This is motivation to make sure you have content to share each month.

Maybe you’d like to try a similar approach, or simply announce to your X followers or colleagues that they will find a new post on your blog every week/two weeks/month. You pick the time frequency that will work for you.

6) Treat yourself

Well-known author Gretchen Rubin often talks about the strategy of “treats” when trying to form positive habits.

Gretchen explains,

A treat is different from a reward, which must be justified or earned. A treat is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it.

Treats give us greater vitality, which boosts self-control, which helps us maintain our healthy habits.

Perhaps you can treat yourself after you publish your weekly blog post with a movie, a game, or a catch up with friends. In this post, Gretchen talks about the idea of finding healthy treats that you enjoy.

7) Immerse yourself in the community

Blogging can feel quite lonely at times but it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s a huge community of educational bloggers online. Immersing yourself in the community has many benefits:

• It will keep your goal of “being a blogger” at the front of your mind if you surround yourself with other bloggers.
• You can get new ideas for your blog from others. Just as student bloggers often look to one another in class and ask, “how did you do that?”, you can do the same.
• You’ll begin to develop an authentic audience which can be very motivating as a blogger. Remember the golden rule though, if you want to have an audience, you also need to be an audience.

8) Find inspiration from others

Sometimes it can be hard to think of what to write about. You might be facing a clear case of “blogger’s block” or perhaps you have lots of big ideas that you’re not sure how to transform into posts.

Look to others for blog post ideas. You might read something on someone else’s blog, in a comment, or on X that strikes a chord. Perhaps you feel like you have more to say on the topic. Go for it!

Don’t forget, we have two sets of blog post prompts for educators and students that might also help keep the ideas flowing.

9) Try something new

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you might start to get tired of the same old process. Why not try something new?

Perhaps you could make a video for your post. Meredith Akers has recently shared some great tools here and we also have a guide to using videos in your blog posts.

Alternatively, you might like to make an audio recording with a tool like Spotity for creators. Or, you could explore the range of fun web tools that are out there to edit images, make comics or cartoons, make polls and so on. Check out Step 7 of our Teacher Challenge course for educators to learn more about cool tools to embed.

10) Forget about perfection

During one of our 28 day challenges, a new blogger asked how others go about getting a blog post published. Karen Richardson sent out some great advice in a tweet which she followed up in a post,

I do. I want to be able to think out loud in the midst of community. I draft and edit but give myself permission to publish something unpolished.

— Karen Richardson (@witchyrichy) January 12, 2019

If you get nervous about publishing your work for a public audience, perhaps it’s time to stop hovering over the publish button and just do it. It’s only a blog post, you won’t be getting a grade. And there’s an edit button!

If you allow perfection paralysis to take over, then you won’t end up enjoying all the benefits of blogging. What a powerful message to send to your students to show them that you too put your work out there and no one is perfect.

11) Keep a list going

Are you the sort of person who gets ideas during the night? Or perhaps when you’re doing the dishes or folding the laundry?

Many bloggers find it useful to have an ongoing list where they can jot down ideas for posts and other blogging tasks they’d like to tackle. This can be a simple notebook, a Google Doc, or perhaps an app on your phone. Use whatever suits you best.

Having an ongoing list means you won’t forget great ideas and won’t waste precious time when you sit down at your scheduled time to start work.

12) Don’t lose sight of your why

Why are you blogging?

• To reflect and develop your thinking?
• To be a role model for students as digital citizens and writers?
• To learn through researching and writing authentically for an audience?
• To build a home base for all your work or a digital portfolio to further your career?
• To become comfortable with blogging before introducing it into the classroom?

When you feel like giving blogging a miss, remember why you started in the first place. It’s worth it!

Tips From An Experienced Blogger

As his article was being written, we asked #blogging28 participant, Sheri Edwards for her tips. She began blogging in 2007 and still blogs very regularly.

This will be so helpful for bloggers, Sheri! You obviously have a great routine for blogging so regularly too. I’ve just written a post for The Edublogger with tips on maintaining momentum with blogging. How do you do it? Do you have scheduled time each day?

— Kathleen Morris (@kathleen_morris) January 26, 2019

Instead of replying to the tweet, Sheri blogged about it! And not just with one post, but with a series.

Check out Sheri’s series by using the following links:

• Part One 
• Part Two (topics)
• Part Three (social ideas)
• Part Four (connections)
• Part Five (reflection)
• Part Six (goals calendar)

Conclusion

The challenge is over but the community doesn’t have to unravel. Feel free to keep the conversations going on X with the hashtag #blogging28 and tag @edublogs. You can also subscribe to our X list of participants to keep in touch with what they’re up to.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in 2019 following our Blogging Challenge of that year.

We know that many Edublogs users have already shared the platform with colleagues during staff meetings, team discussions, or professional development sessions.

Some educators also like to give parents an overview of Edublogs during parent information evenings or school council meetings.

To make it easier for teachers to share the power of Edublogs with others, we’ve put together some resources.

Overview Presentation

This overview of Edublogs can be viewed as a Google Slides presentation or as a PDF. 

It goes through:

• What is Edublogs?
• The benefits of using Edublogs
• How to get started with Edublogs
• Example blogs from different age groups and settings
• How to learn more

>>Download the PDF here

>>Make a copy of the Google Slides presentation here

Printable PDF

This two page document explains Edublogs in a nutshell and goes through some frequently asked questions.

Distribute it to staff or share it with parents.

>> Download the PDF here

You’ll also find these resources on our Blogging 101 page.

Anyone Can Publish Online

When many educators and parents were at school, publishing online was either impossible or reserved for the very tech savvy. It’s now easier than ever to claim your own space on the web!

Edublogs uses a customized version of WordPress which gives you the scope to either stick to the basics, or create a highly personalized site to share with the world.

Edublogs offers you flexibility beyond blogging. You can:

• Set up a blog in a traditional way (i.e. regular posts showing up in reverse chronological order)
• Create a more static website
• Include a mixture of blog and website
• Develop a resource portal
• Work on a digital portfolio
• Develop any other kind of online space that interests you

Whatever stage you’re at or whatever sort of site you’re working on, our support team is just an email away — 24/7. So you’re never alone on your blogging journey!

Questions? Comments?

If you have any questions about Edublogs, please do get in touch.

Any suggestions for other resources that would help you learn more about Edublogs or introduce it to others? Be sure to let us know.

You Might Also Enjoy Reading…

• 10 Examples Of Great Class Blogs
• 10 Great Schools Websites Built With WordPress
• 6 Tools To Create Interactive Learning Content On Your Blog
• Why WordPress Is The Best Choice For Student Blogging

Do you have a professional educator blog?

Many teachers start blogs with good intentions but keeping them active long term can be a struggle.

Sometimes the hardest part of maintaining momentum with your blog is knowing what to write about.

We’re here to help!

Throughout the year, we’ve been including blogging prompts for teachers and students in our email newsletter.

Not signed up to our email newsletter? You can add your details here and make sure you add news@edublogs.org to your contacts to prevent the emails from going to your spam folder!

We’ve compiled these prompts into a resource for you. With 50 new blogging prompts, you should be set for many months to come!

Scroll down to find a printable PDF.

We also published over 100 prompts for students on The Edublogger.

Wait! I Don’t Have A Blog!

If creating your own blog is something that’s been on your to-do list for too long, we can help.

Earlier in the year, we updated our free, self-paced course for educators looking to get started with blogging.

There are ten steps which you can work through in a sequential order. Or you can pick and choose as you wish.

Read more about the Personal Blogging Teacher Challenge here or go straight to the course. 

The 50 Prompts For Educators

1. Write a book review — it could be a book you’ve read for fun or learning.
2. Make a list of 10/50/100 things you’re grateful for. Maybe you could even create a sketchnote or graphic like Dani Dipirro.
3. Compare your first year of teaching to today. How have things changed?
4. Share some of your favorite ways to relax and recharge outside of school hours.
5. Embed an inspiring TED Talk and write your reflections.
6. Share 5 myths about teaching or a topic you’re passionate about.
7. Write about an app or web tool you use regularly or find useful.
8. Publish a photo of when you were a student and describe this time of your life.
9. Try Hubspot’s Blog Ideas Generator. Just enter three words and you’ll be given five ideas that you can tweak.
10. Blog roundup. Create a list of 5 or 10 of your favorite blogs and share the reasons why you recommend them.
11. Interview someone for a blog post. This could be a colleague, a former student, or someone from your professional learning network. Or, you could invite someone to prepare a guest post for your blog.
12. Create an A-Z of yourself, your career, or one of your passions.
13. Where do you connect with other teachers online? Twitter? Facebook groups? Instagram? Share your favorite ways to learn from others in the education community.
14. Explore the website Will Robots Take My Job? Share your findings in a post.
15. Write about the old technology you used to use at work or home that’s now obsolete. Perhaps it’s the VCR, floppy disk, or typewriter.
16. Make a new anchor chart for your classroom and photograph it for your blog. Check out this We Are Teachers post for inspiration.
17. When was the last time you wrote a poem? Why not give it a try in a blog post? For inspiration, Kevin Hodgson has written 3 poems about writing.
18. Consider the popular quote doing the rounds on social media: “Do more things that make you forget to check your phone”. What does this mean to you?
19. What do you do when you have a few minutes left at the end of a class? Share your ideas with other teachers.
20. Flexible seating is a hot topic! Share your thoughts in a blog post or weigh up the pros and cons. Pernille Ripp’s post might provide some inspiration.
21. Suggest some ideas for worthwhile activities at the start or end of the school year. Ten Creative Alternatives to Showing Movies Before the Break by John Spencer might provide some inspiration.
22. Try making a meme that you could share with readers, colleagues, or perhaps your students. Check out ISTE’s post about using memes with students.
23. There has been some online debate about having a “Pinterest perfect” classroom. What are your thoughts on this topic? Maybe you could add a touch of humor to your post like this post on Bored Teachers. 
24. Offer some tips for new teachers. This might be general advice or specific to a certain subject or age group.
25. Write about how you keep your passion for teaching alive. This post on Edutopia might provide some inspiration.
26. Share a tweet, Facebook post, or Instagram post that made you reflect, laugh, or change your way of thinking.
27. Check out the self-care calendar from Action for Happiness. Use one or more of these challenges as inspiration for a blog post.
28. Richard Byrne has explained how to find old newspapers through Google’s Newspaper Archive. Reflect on an interesting article in a blog post.
29. Lumen5 is a cool tool to make a video out of an article or blog post. Give it a try and share your video in a post.
30. If you could choose any book as mandatory reading for all high school students, what would it be and why?
31. What role do you think technology should play in the classroom?
32. What makes you happy at work? Your colleagues? Your leaders? The students? Write a post about happiness in the workplace.
33. Larry Ferlazzo has written about the impact of making positive phone calls home. Blog about your favorite approach to parent communication.
34. Publish a post sharing your own favorite tips to get more out of your day.
35. Read Kevin Hodgson’s post, “How Can We Tell If We Are Biased If We Already Are Biased?” Write your own reflections on this topic.
36. Sue Waters has shared her top 100+ crime and mystery novels of all time. Choose a category of books that you enjoy and share your own top reads.
37. How do you build relationships with students? Reflect on your approaches in a blog post.
38. Rich at 4 O’Clock Faculty has blogged about “do it yourself professional development“. Read the post and write about your own favorite forms of PD.
39. Tell your readers something about your colleagues. “We All Need To Be/Have Kind Colleagues” from The Idealistic Teacher might provide some inspiration.
40. Teachers are also students and students are also teachers. Education isn’t just one way. Write about lessons you have learned from students.
41. Larry Ferlazzo has shared an article about using “cash” as a behavior management strategy. Share your own approaches to behavior management.
42. David Geurin asks 5 Questions For Deeper Reflection. Use one or more of these as inspiration for a blog post.
43. Write about your morning routine at home, work, or in the classroom.
44. How do you find balance in your life? “Rethinking Balance” by George Couros might provide some inspiration for your own post.
45. Write your own reflections about grouping students by age.
46. Have you tried sketchnoting? Why not give Sylvia Duckworth’s #SketchnoteFever mini lessons a try and blog about it?
47. Explain why you blog. What do you get out of it? Does it help refine your thinking or do you just enjoy helping others?
48. Write about your life before teaching. What other jobs did you have? How did these experiences shape you?
49. Try Impact Impact’s Blog Title Generator to spark ideas for blog post titles.
50. Check out last year’s publication with 50 more blogging prompts for teachers and see what you’ve missed!

Get Your PDF

For your convenience, we’ve assembled these prompts into a PDF that you can save to your computer, print, or share with colleagues.

If your students have their own blog, digital portfolio, or website, you may have found that their enthusiasm for writing starts off strong. Students typically can’t wait to express themselves and publish on their own online space, often for an authentic audience.

Sometimes when the initial excitement fades, students start facing “bloggers’ block” or get in a rut of writing the same style of post repeatedly.

Our engaging collection of writing prompts is designed to help students keep the momentum going with their blogs, websites, or digital portfolios. These prompts encourage exploration across different genres, tools, and mediums. Whether you’re working with reluctant writers or simply looking for fresh, authentic ideas to inspire your students to publish, you’ve come to the right place.

Scroll down to dive straight into the prompts, or read on to find out more about the types of posts you could see on a blog, personal website, or digital portfolio.

We have created a PDF eBook of the prompts that you can save, print, or share. You don’t need to ask permission to use the eBook as it has a BY-NC-ND Creative Commons license. You just can’t make derivatives or use the eBook commercially. And you should give attribution. Note that this eBook was created in 2021 may contain outdated links.

10 Types Of Blog Posts

Blogging isn’t like traditional writing — it’s a unique genre and it’s worth exploring what’s possible.

Here are 10 types of blog posts you commonly see on the web. This might give you inspiration to mix up the posts on your students’ blogs, websites, or portfolios.

1. Reflection: Deep thoughts and self-reflection on what you’ve learned, experienced, or what you’re thinking about. Putting it all out there can really help organize thoughts and ideas.

2. How-to/Helpful: Everyone loves using the web to find out how to do something. This classic style of post can be enhanced with pictures, videos, and other media.

3. Journal/Diary/Recount: This is a versatile style of post that’s great for reading logs, field trips, science labs, special events, study abroad, and so on.

4. News/Announcement: These posts aim to keep readers up-to-date with important information. In this example, educator George Couros announces a book study.

5. Marketing/Sales: Typically these are commercial style posts. Students could use blogs to advertise things like school events and fundraisers. For example, the students at Auroa School made a video to promote their school.

6. Controversial/Debate/Editorial: This involves taking a stance on an issue while backing up thoughts with facts and proof. Sidd’s debate on cell phones in schools is a good example.

7. Reviews: Many people love to take to the web to share their reviews (sites like Amazon and TripAdvisor may offer inspiration!). Here’s an example of a book review from teacher Kevin Hodgson.

8. Listicle: This is another name for a list post. We know how popular articles are that start with something like “10 ways to…”. These sorts of posts often offer the reader quick wins. In this example, Mrs. Yollis and her students list their top 12 quarantine essentials.

9. Curation Posts: Sometimes a blog post or page is used to curate a list of resources on a particular topic. This page of live events and virtual field trips is an example of a curated list from Mrs. Hamman.

10. Ongoing Series: Choose any of the above, but split it up into several shorter posts that get published over a set period of time. The posts could connect sequentially, or just fall under the same umbrella topic. For example, Sheri Edwards did a series of posts using the Slice of Life writing prompts.

Ideas And Prompts For Student Writers

We’ve divided the prompts up into 8 broad topics to make navigation easier. Of course, some prompts could fit into more than one category.

Getting Started

Online Prompts

Interdisciplinary and Fun

Art, Images, and Music

Reading and Writing

History and Geography

Math and Science

Web Tools

Getting Started

These topics are ideal for getting students used to publishing online.

• Introductions: Who are you? Share your hobbies, interests, family background, and anything else you want others to know while remembering to protect your personal information if your site is public. This information might be best on a static About page so it’s easy for new visitors to refer to.
• Personal A to Z: Create an A-Z of yourself or one of your interests (e.g. an A-Z of basketball or gardening).
• Avatar: Create an avatar (online character) to use on your blog and write a post to explain how it represents you. This post on the Student Blogging Challenge demonstrates some different ways you can make an avatar using online tools.
• Commenting Guidelines: Write a post to explain what you expect when someone leaves a comment on your blog. There is some information and examples on the Student Blogging Challenge site on how to write commenting guidelines.
• Goals: Share some goals that you have set for yourself. For example, you could publish one goal for this week, one goal for this month, and one goal for this school year. Describe how you plan to accomplish your goals.
• Holiday: Share what you did on a recent holiday or vacation. Include photos or videos if you have permission. Alternatively, you could write about your dream vacation. Where would you go and what would you do?
• Hero/Mentor: Write about someone who inspires you. It could be someone you know in real life or someone famous from the past or present. What is it about this person that makes them so special?
• My Country or Culture: Publish facts about your country or a culture that you’re interested in. You could write a post focusing on food, festivals, songs, stories, clothing, geography, or anything else.
• School History: Write some information about your school’s history. You could focus on the buildings, write about someone who used to go to the school, or reflect on how the curriculum or rules have changed.
• Classrooms: Explain what the classrooms and buildings are like in your school or describe what your perfect classroom would look like. Use your imagination; your dream classroom could be indoors, outdoors, in a school, or somewhere else!
• Favorite…anything: Publish a post that discusses topics you’re passionate about. You could write about your favorite animal, TV show, movie, holiday, sports, or hobbies.
• Reader Quiz: Your quiz could be about anything — Disney movies, chemistry, capital cities, football… you choose! Readers could answer in a comment or in Google Forms. This could be a great way to get to know your audience. You might like to do a follow-up post that goes over the results, including graphs, charts, and analysis. BEAM is a simple tool for making basic charts.
• Guest Post: Ask a friend or family member if they’d like to write a guest post on your blog. Make sure you approve it before publishing.
• Top 10: Make a top 10 list of anything. For example, you could rank your favorite songs, actors, sports, or foods.
• Interview: Interview someone in your family or community. There might be interesting people at your school you could interview too like your principal, cleaner, librarian, or crossing supervisor.
• Three Wishes: If you had three wishes, what would they be? Invite your readers to share their own wishes in a comment.

Online Prompts

• Video Prompts: John Spencer has made some fabulous short video writing prompts that could really get your imagination going. Check out the YouTube playlists of prompts here.
• Pobble 365: Every day there is a new photo prompt and literacy starters posted on the Pobble 365 website. These are ideal to respond to when you’re stuck for ideas.
• New York Times Writing Prompts: Multiple times a week, The New York Times publishes writing prompts for students. There are Picture Prompts (images with questions), What’s Going on in this Picture? (images stripped of captions) and Student Opinions (daily questions inspired by Times’ content). There’s lots of inspiration for you to choose from!
• What’s Going on in this Graph? Another initiative from The New York Times, a graph, map, or chart is published regularly as an invitation for students to discuss. Find a graph that fascinates you and share your interpretation.
• 1,000 Writing Prompts: The New York Times has also compiled 1,000 Writing Prompts For Students. There’s sure to be something that interests you amongst that collection!
• Language is a Virus: This excellent site has a multitude of prompts, exercises, and gadgets to inspire your writing. One example is Visual Poetry where you can display your writing in artistic and whimsical ways. Screenshot your creation for a blog post.
• Practice Your English: MMG’s English blog has been created by a teacher with prompts for students to practice their English. You will find jokes, quotes, recipes, videos, and more. Find one that interests you and share a response on your blog.
• Visual Writing Prompts: Teach Starter has created a collection of visual writing prompts. The images are Creative Commons Zero which means you’re free to upload them to your blog.
• Creative Writing Prompts: Writer’s Digest offers regular written prompts that are ideal for older students. Have a browse and see if there is a prompt to inspire a new post.
• Scholastic Story Starters: If you’re in K-2, you might enjoy this a fun interactive site where you can create your own prompts for a variety of writing genres.
• Wonderopolis: This popular multi-disciplinary site posted a “wonder of the day” with lots of kid-friendly information, definitions, and a quiz. You could choose the daily wonder or a past wonder and reflect or summarize it in a blog post. You could even add a Wonderopolis widget to your blog. The site was unfortunately closed in July 2025.
• Writer Igniter: Get inspiration from Writer Igniter which provides you with a character, situation, prop, and setting. This is best for middle school or high school students.
• Printable Comic Prompts: MakeBeliefsComix has a huge collection of writing prompts divided into categories. There’s something for everyone!
• Random Emoji Generator: Create a story based on emoji prompts. Go to the byrdseed site to generate your prompts. You can then copy the emojis into a post and write a story based on them.
• The Student Blogging Challenge: Every March and October we run a free 8 week supported blogging challenge where students aged 8-16 are given weekly prompts. Student and class posts are visited by a global audience. Maybe you can join us for the next challenge?

Interdisciplinary and Fun

• Expert FAQs: Are you an expert on something? LEGO? Minecraft? Pokemon? Ballet? Write “Frequently Asked Questions” and answers about your topic.
• Test Review “Cheat Sheet”: Use images, videos, and text to create a post that your classmates can use as a study guide to prepare for an upcoming assessment.
• Exit Ticket: Write a short summary of what you learned in class before leaving. Include any questions you still have and a list of any assignments or tasks you still need to complete.
• Quotes: Choose a quote that inspires you or is relevant to what you’re learning. Explain why you chose the quote and what it means to you. We have a post all about using quotes that will give you some tips.
• Video Comparison: Embed two or more videos on a topic from YouTube, Vimeo, or TED and then compare and contrast the videos. If you’re unsure how to embed videos, we have a help guide to walk you through it.
• Would You Rather? Create some “would you rather..?” questions for your audience such as, “Would you rather live 100 years in the past or future?” or “Would you rather be able to fly or swim underwater without breathing?” Share your own thoughts too!
• Future Me: Write an email to yourself when you are one, five, or ten years older. This could be a blog post in itself, or for 13+ students, the FutureMe website could be used to actually send the email.
• Jokes: Who doesn’t like jokes? Find some online or share your own favorite jokes to give your readers a laugh. The TLC Tutoring Updates blog used images and scrolling space to format their joke post. Alternatively, you could reveal the answers in the comments section.
• Gratitude Journal: Use your blog or portfolio to reflect on what you’re grateful for. Perhaps this could become a weekly practice.
• Special Days of the Year: Use a website like Days of the Year to find out what fun or lighthearted days are being celebrated. For a more serious approach, select an International Day from the United Nations International Day list. Write a post to explain the special day and what it means to you. (Teacher tip: You may want to choose the days for younger students, rather than allowing them to browse these sites).
• Principal for the Day: What would you do if you were principal for the day? Don’t hold back in sharing your ideas!
• Video Game Review: Write a review for an online game. Share the pros, cons, and a star rating. Don’t forget to include the link to the game so others can try it.
• Kindness: List some random acts of kindness that you’d like to see other students try. You might get some ideas from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation.
• Recipes: Pretend you’re a food blogger! Share a recipe that you enjoy eating or making. Spice up your post with a photo of the end result.
• World Records: Browse the kids’ Guinness World Records website and write about an impressive record. Or tell your readers what sort of world record you’d like to attempt.
• Secret Code: Come up with a secret code and share a message on your blog or portfolio. Perhaps a number could represent each letter of the alphabet or you could write each word backwards. Ask readers to guess what the post says in a comment.
• Curious Minds: Publish a list of questions you have about the world or about a certain topic. You don’t have to answer the questions. It can sometimes just be good to explore the things you’re curious about.
• Memes: These are fun messages that are spread widely online. Maybe you could make a meme that relates to a topic you’re studying at school. Meredith Akers has shared a Google Drawings meme generator that’s safe for students.
• Sports Report: Provide an overview of a sports competition your school, community, or professional team has been involved in. If you choose a local sport, perhaps you could interview some participants or coaches.
• Life in the Future: Make some predictions about what life will be like in 5, 10, 50, or even 100 years from now. You could even interview others to find out their thoughts on the future.
• Trends: Discuss the latest trends in the schoolyard. Games, fashion, toys … what’s hot and what’s not? Maybe you could ask someone older than you what the trends were when they were at school.
• Playground Fun: Offer activity suggestions that other students could try out at recess and lunchtime if they’re bored. You could even sort your suggestions into age groups.
• Productivity Tips: Help your fellow students learn to manage their time better with some useful tips and tricks. Maybe you have tips for managing homework or chores at home, using a diary or calendar, or making lists.
• Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use: These are important topics for any publisher to know about. Check out our Guide to Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use on The Edublogger. Write a post, create a video, or design a poster to teach others about these topics.
• Digital Citizenship: What tips do you have to stay safe online? Share these with others in a post, a video, comics, memes, or posters. Check out these internet safety tips for students for ideas.
• Blogging Tips: Be your school’s “problogger” and share some bite-sized tips for fellow bloggers. Maybe you could make tutorials on things like adding images to your post, making a custom header, or adding links to your site. You could even make a screencast using a tool like Loom or Screencastify.

Art, Images, and Music

• Photo Blog: Have you heard of 365 photography or “a photo a day” type blogs? This is something Linda Yollis has been doing since 2010 with her Yollis’ 365 Project. Students and the community are invited to send in photos and captions. You could create a similar style blog or post series.
• Picture Prompt: Add a copyright-free image from Photos For Class to a post and write about it. Create a poem, story, information report, or any other style of writing based on your image.
• Image or Artwork: There are many free web tools where you can create digital artwork. Some examples are Google Drawings, emoji.ink, Toy Theatre Art Tools, Bomomo abstract art, Tate Kids street art, Draw Island, and Auto Draw.  If you want to be blown away with what’s possible, check out the Fugle Blog where K-5 teacher, Tricia Fuglestad, combines art and technology in truly creative ways.
• Infographic: Use a tool like Canva, Piktochart, Venngage, or Infogram to create an infographic and then write a post describing your graphic. Alternatively, create infographics using several of these different tools then write a review of the tools you used. Which one was best and why?
• Get Crafty: Try a craft activity with paper or other materials you have on hand and write a tutorial. You could include written instructions, photos, or videos. Not sure what craft to try? There’s lots of inspiration online. Education.com has a comprehensive collection of ideas.
• Make a Song: Create your own original song in Chrome Music Lab. Click on “Save” to get the link or embed code to publish your song in a post.
• Favorite Instrument: Do you have a favorite instrument or is there an instrument that fascinates you? Do some research and write a post about it. Add an image or video to your post if you can too.
• Make a Playlist: Write a post that includes a playlist of your favorite songs. Don’t forget to explain why you like each song and why it’s part of your playlist. Your playlist might even be for a specific occasion like a birthday party, wedding, or school graduation. You could even make a soundtrack of your life!
• Guess the Artist, Song, or Instrument: Give your readers some clues as they scroll down the page and have them guess the artist, song, or instrument. Invite your readers to put their guesses in a comment.
• Share Your Talents: Can you sing or play an instrument? Film yourself and add your video to a post. If you don’t have musical talents yourself, find someone else you can record and interview them.
• Guess That Sound: Embed some sounds from the free collection on the BBC website. Have your readers guess the sounds in a comment. Don’t forget to reply to your comments to tell your readers if they were correct. (Tip: To use the BBC sound effects, you need to link back to their site and include the word “copyright” and the year).

Reading and Writing

• Book Review: You can include a summary of the plot without spoilers, your favorite quotes, a star rating, and a photo of the book. Or maybe you could create some BookSnaps (annotated photos of text from a book).
• Book Recommendations: Create a recommended reading list for others to enjoy. Check out this list from the OJCS Library blog for inspiration.
• Poetry: There are many styles of poetry you could experiment with. Ken Nesbitt’s Poetry 4 Kids is a great site to get help with writing poems. You might also like to try a ReadWriteThink poetry interactive that guides you through the writing process then publish your poem on your blog. Tip: you need Flash enabled to use the ReadWriteThink interactives so they won’t work on an iPad.
• Expand Your Vocabulary: Improve your writing by trying Describing Words. This free web tool helps you find new words to describe nouns. Try out the tool and reflect on your discoveries in a post. There’s also a version that helps you find related words as well as a reverse dictionary.
• Change a Story Ending: Choose a well-known story (perhaps a fairytale or another classic) and publish a different ending. You can ask for feedback from readers in the comments.
• Interactive Endings: Write the beginning of a short story and invite your readers to finish it in a comment. Alternatively, you could write two different endings and have readers vote for their favorite.
• Words From Your Birth Year: Write a post about some of the words that were introduced in the year you were born according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. Include your thoughts or research on why these words were introduced in that year.
• News Report: Read information on children’s news sites like Time for Kids or DOGO News. Then summarize a news story for your readers with your own reflections or opinions included. Tip: There is even a DOGO News plugin.
• Wordless videos: Speech pathologist Sarah has compiled a list of wordless videos. You could embed one in a blog post and write a script, recount, or reflection on the meaning behind the video.
• Interactive Stories: Google Slides can be used to create interactive or “choose your own adventure” type stories. Jake Miller has made a useful GIF to explain how to do this. If you want to know how to embed your Google Slides presentation into a post, these instructions walk you through it.
• Spelling/Vocabulary: Share your spelling words or a set of interesting words you have recently come across. Define the words or create interesting sentences to share with readers. You could even use a site like Spelling City and screenshot some of your activities.
• Grammar and Punctuation: Share your understanding of a concept you’re learning to help others understand an aspect of grammar or punctuation. You could make a comic, a poster, a video, a quiz, a song, or anything else!
• Newspaper: Create your own online newspaper to share on your blog. For example, MHMS Daring School students worked collaboratively on their newspaper.
• Storyline Online Review: Watch a book being read by a professional actor on Storyline Online and prepare a book review or summary (you can embed the story in a post).
• Persuasive Writing: Make your case for an argument, for example, why dogs are better than cats, why the school cafeteria should offer a different menu, or why school uniforms are a good idea. You could write a persuasive piece about any light-hearted or serious topic you’re interested in.
• Emoji Rebus Story: Have you heard of a rebus story? It’s where some words are replaced with an image. There’s a tool called Emoji Translate that will automatically replace some of your words with emojis (you can copy your translated text/emojis back into your post).
• Language Learning: Do you speak or learn another language? Share some basic words and phrases with your audience. You could even add a voice recording or video. If you don’t have a second language, do some research and pass on what you learned. Or, write about the language you’d like to learn if you had the chance and why.

History and Geography

• Virtual Field Trips: It’s now possible to visit faraway places without even leaving the classroom. The We Are Teachers website lists 25 of the best virtual field trips to explore. Once you’ve been on your “field trip”, it’s time to review the experience.
• Global Issue: Select a global issue that you’re passionate about or interested in and write a post to share your concerns. You might want to base your issue on The Sustainable Development Goals. The 17 goals focus on things like poverty, hunger, health, education, and climate action.
• Did You Know? Use information from a website like National Geographic Kids, Simple English Wikipedia, or Fact Monster to publish your own “Did you know?” snippets around a particular topic.
• List of Items: Create a list of items that would be used in a certain time in history, by a historical figure, or in a particular location around the world.
• A to Z: Create an A to Z list of something you’re studying, for example, a certain historical event or geographical location.
• Travel Brochure: Design and publish a travel brochure for a particular geographical location. You could use a tool like Canva or Google Drawings to create the brochure and then add it to your blog as a PDF or image file.
• Venn Diagram: Choose two different people, places, or events to compare such as two historical figures, two different countries, or two historical events. Make a Venn diagram to compare and contrast. You could use an online tool like Visual Paradigm or something like Canva or Google Drawings to make the Venn diagram. Or you could draw the diagram on paper and take a photo to add to your post.
• Who Am I? Share some clues about a historical figure, for example — where and when they were born, their education, their personal life, and what they’re famous for. See if your readers can make an accurate guess in a comment.
• Guess This Place: Share some clues about a geographical location for example — the continent it’s on, the climate, famous citizens, landmarks, well-known events, the latitude and longitude. Ask your readers to share their guess in a comment.
• Historical Artifacts: Share an image of a historical object or artifact. For example, you might want to look at the public domain collection from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It includes more than 400,000 images from The Met collection that are free to use. Share some images in a post and write your own description. Or ask your readers to guess what they think the images are.
• Color History: #ColorOurCollections is a website where various institutions add historical images that can be printed and colored in. Find a page that interests you to print and color. Then add a photo of your completed work to your blog and write a description.
• Make A Timeline: Timelines can be about people’s lives, places, or historical events. Traditionally, you could make a timeline on paper but there are now lots of online tools that help you make your timeline with multimedia. Richard Byrne compares the best tools to use in this playlist. Try out one of the tools and add your timeline to a post.
• SMS Generator: Using a free tool called SMS Generator you can make fake text message conversations between two historical figures. When you’re done you can screenshot or embed your conversation.
• Old Newspaper Articles: Did you know Google has a collection of archived newspaper articles? Find an interesting article from a time or place you’re studying. Link to the article in your post and write an analysis.
• Flags: Do some research into a flag of the world or another important flags and summarise the key information. Alternatively, you might like to design your own flag. Include the image in a post with a description of your flag.
• Historical Report or Guest Author: Write a traditional report profiling a historical figure, or pretend you are a famous historical figure that is blogging about a significant event.
• Historical Stories: Authors often use a historical event as the basis of a fictional story. Create a story based on a certain time and location in history. You would keep the main historical information accurate while coming up with fictional characters and perhaps storylines.
• Personal History: Interview someone to share a little about their own personal history. Or you could even share some of your own history. Everyone has a story!
• Maps Comparison: Find two maps from different time periods that show the same location. What are the similarities and differences in the maps? Maybe some things have been added, removed, replaced, or extended. A useful website to find old maps might be Old Maps Online or The US Library of Congress.
• Time Travel: If you could live in any other place and/or time, what would you choose and why?

Math and Science

• Vocabulary: Choose a vocabulary word that you’re learning about and write a post that describes this word in different ways such as: a definition, in a sentence, in an example/image, in a table/graph, in symbols/equations. Check out this vocabulary slide deck template by Meagan Kelly which you could fill out and embed in your blog.
• Image Hunt: Look around you for examples of concepts you’re studying in class. Take photos and add them to a post. Maybe you could look for mathematical arrays, 3 digit numbers, fractions, or patterns.
• Riddles: Research some math riddles. There are some on Riddles.com and Mashup Math. After trying some out yourself, share your favorites on your blog or make up your own. Invite your readers to solve your riddles in a comment.
• Math Movies: Explaining math concepts through videos can be very effective. The students in Mr. Avery’s class share some great examples on the Math Movie Network (many years on these examples are still inspiring). Check out The Educator’s Guide to Using Video in Teaching and Learning to find out more about tools students can use for video creation.
• NRICH: The NRICH project by the University of Cambridge publishes weekly maths problem-solving tasks for students. Students can submit answers on the website, but you can also publish your response on your blog or portfolio. Problems are broken up into age groups.
• Estimations: Make some mathematical estimations such as the length of your hallway, the weight of your lunchbox, or the number of shirts hanging in your closet. Share your estimations on your blog and then measure or count to find out the actual answer. How far off were you? How did you make your estimates and how did you find out the actual answers?
• Math Journals: Use your blog or portfolio as a journal to reflect on your math learning. Here is some math journal prompts from ReadWriteThink that you could base your reflections on.
• Problem Solve: Publish a problem-solving task in a post and invite readers to provide the solution in the comments. You might get ideas for problems from a site like NRICH. Tip: choose a problem where there are multiple solutions, or hold off on moderating comments until a few readers have had the chance to respond. Maybe you could explain the answer in a follow-up post.
• Same but Different: Browse the sites Same But Different Math or Same Or Different to see lots of photos of how mathematical concepts are the same but different. Set up some photos of your own to add to a blog post and share your thoughts on how the images are similar and different.
• Solvemoji: There’s a popular site called Solvemoji.com where emojis are used in maths puzzles. Have a browse, then make your own puzzles for your readers using a tool like Google Drawings, Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Canva. Just save your creation as a PNG or JPEG and upload it to your blog like any other image. Here’s a Google Doc tutorial for this activity from Mrs. Yollis.
• Money: Learn about the currency in another part of the world and share what you learned with your readers. Don’t forget to include some images. You might be able to find some images using the Creative Commons search engine.
• Math Game Review: There are lots of interactive math games available on the web or on mobile devices. Try out a game and then share a review. Include details like how to access the game, what it helps you learn, pros and cons, and an age recommendation.
• Science Experiment: Find a science experiment in a book, online, or in a video. For example, Try This! is a series of science experiments from National Geographic Kids. With permission from an adult, replicate the experiment and then blog about it. Alternatively, you might want to make up your own experiment to learn more about something you’re curious about.
• Science Video: There are lots of great science videos online. Two examples are TED-Ed and SciShow Kids YouTube Channel. Find a video that interests you, then write a post about it. You might write a summary of the video and include your own thoughts or questions. Alternatively, you can make a quiz for your readers about the video. Invite them to answer the quiz in a comment.
• Two Truths and One Lie: Challenge your readers with a simple “two truths and one lie” quiz. Your task is to write a post that includes two correct statements and one incorrect statement. Ask your readers to guess the lie! Your statements could be about a certain math or science topic or a mix of topics.
• NASA Space Place: Check out NASA Space Place to learn more about Earth and Space. There are games, activities, articles, videos, and more. Write a post about something you learned from the website.
• Science News: There is interesting science news being reported all the time. Check out Science News Explores and find an article you’re interested in. Share a summary in your own words on your blog. You might include some follow up questions you’d like to research.
• Coding: Learning to code can be fun. There are lots of sites and apps you can use to learn to code. Code.org is a good starting place. Try out one of the activities and then write a post about it. Explain what you learned and what challenges you had to overcome to complete the activity.
• Gardening: Try growing something at home or school like a vegetable, plant, or flower. Blog about the changes in a series of posts and describe how you’re tending to your garden. The Kids Gardening website has some ideas to help you get started including the fun grass seed “chia” pet.
• Science Careers: Research a science related career and tell your readers about it. Perhaps you could even interview someone in the profession. Is this a career you’d be interested in? Alternatively, you could choose two careers and compare them in a post.
• Looking After the Environment: Share tips on how to reduce, reuse, recycle, or look after our planet. Maybe you can share some changes you’re making in your own life to be more environmentally conscious.
• Diagrams: A scientist often makes diagrams to record and communicate information. Make a diagram with labels to illustrate a scientific concept (e.g. parts of an insect, the layers of the Earth, or the water cycle). Check out Science A-Z for some examples of science diagrams. Make your diagram on paper (and upload a photo) or use an online tool like Canva or Google Drawings.

Other Web Tools

Teacher Tip: There are countless free online tools that can be used to create, publish, collaborate, and present. If you’re working with younger students, it’s important to check the terms and conditions on the site as some tools are only suitable for students over the age of 13.

• GIFs: These can be fun additions to your posts that bring your images and descriptions to life. Try an online tool like Brush Ninja or ABC Animate to make a GIF to demonstrate your learning or feelings.
• Prezi: Prezi is an online presentation and storytelling tool that uses a single canvas instead of traditional series of slides. The images, text, videos, and other objects are placed on the canvas and users can zoom in and out. Create a Prezi about something you’re interested in and add it to a post.
• Google Slides: Slides presentations are great to add to posts. The simplest way to use Google Slides is to create a slide deck. That is, a collection of slides put together to form a presentation. Learn more about how to use and embed Google Slides in this beginner’s guide.
• Animation: Produce a video with a tool like Biteable or Powtoon. Share your animation and write about the decisions you made when making the video.
• Talking Avatars: Create a speaking character using Voki to read your post or to interact with your blog’s visitors. Voki characters can be customized to look like historical figures, cartoons, animals, or yourself! Voki characters can be embedded on your site on a post, page, or sidebar.
• Word Cloud: Make a word cloud using one of these online tools or iPad apps. Add your word cloud to your blog. You could even invite readers to guess the topic.
• Jigsaw Puzzle: Instead of adding a normal photo to your post, make a jigsaw out of one of your photos on Jigsaw Planet or Jigsaw Explorer and embed it. Ask your readers to leave a comment to tell you how they went with the puzzle.
• Wakelet: Wakelet allows you to save, organize, and tell stories with content from around the web. You can sign up for free or create a quick collection without signing up. Make a Wakelet about a topic you’re studying or something you’re interested in. Embed your Wakelet in a post. Read more about getting started with Wakelet.
• AnswerGarden: This is a free online tool to get feedback on a question. You make an AnswerGarden with a question and then embed or link to it on your site. When people respond to your question, their answers form a word cloud. Learn more about AnswerGarden here.
• Comics: Create a comic using Make Beliefs Comix and share it on your blog. Your comic could be designed to educate, inform, or entertain.
• Podcasts: These are simply audio files that are published online. You might like to make a series of podcasts to coincide with a subject you’re studying or a project you’re working on. Spotify for Creators is a popular free service for recording, hosting, and distributing podcasts. Check out The Edublogger’s Guide To Podcasting to learn more.
• Digital Bulletin Board: Padlet is an online bulletin board that you can embed in a blog post to share notes, voice recordings, videos, documents, links, and more. You can only create three Padlet walls with the free account.
• Animoto: This free tool lets you make videos that combine photos and/or video footage with music and interesting transitions. You can make an Animoto about an event or something you’re learning and embed it on your site.
• Mindmap: Create a mindmap for brainstorming, collating notes, demonstrating your learning, or presenting your findings. You might like to try a free online tool like Bubbl.us which doesn’t require an account.

How To Apply These Writing Prompts To The Classroom

As you think about using these prompts in the classroom, try to vary it up. Helping students to get out of their comfort zones and try something new might spark a new talent or passion.

It’s always worth considering how you can give some students choice in the type of posts they create. Choice can lead to ownership and higher levels of motivation. You never know what your students might produce!

One tip to keep in mind is that when you’re creating work or images using online tools, you can sometimes save your work as an image (e.g. JPEG or PNG), or embed your work, but at other times you’ll need to take a screenshot. This article by PC Mag explains how to take a screenshot on almost any device.

From a safety perspective, if you have public blogs or websites, ensure students are aware of what information should be kept private before they begin blogging. Edublogs and CampusPress users can use My Class to easily moderate students’ posts and comments before they’re live on the web.

The acronym YAPPY might help your students develop their understandings about privacy. Learn more about digital footprints in this post.

When using writing prompts, it can also be helpful to keep the SAMR model in mind.

Sometimes, you might simply be substituting traditional pen and paper tasks for an online task. As you and your students become more comfortable with publishing online, consider ways you can redefine tasks to achieve something that would not be possible without a blog, website, or online tools.

Don’t Stop Here

Hopefully this list will ensure you or your students are never scrambling for blogging ideas again, however, it is far from exhaustive.

Another idea is to recycle posts. This is what we’re doing right here! This post of prompts was first published many years ago and we’ve updated it a couple of times. You might have an old post that you enjoyed or that struck a chord with readers. Why not do an update or follow up post in a similar style? Reflect on your best content and re-purpose or repeat it.

If you have a class blog, you could create a page with writing ideas for your student bloggers.

Happy blogging!

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There are two types of bloggers.

One has a never-ending list of blog post ideas but just can’t find the time to write them all. The other wants to write more blog posts but is stuck for ideas.

Which type of blogger are you?

If you’re the latter, you’re in luck. This post offers you 7 ideas to help you find inspiration for your future blog posts.

These ideas apply to both student and teacher bloggers.

Scroll down for a printable worksheet where you can jot down your ideas as you read through the post.

(Tip: If you have the ideas but not the time, check out our Plan For Writing A Weekly Blog Post In 10 Minutes A Day).

1) What are your most popular posts?

Blogging isn’t only about writing for an audience—it’s also a powerful tool for reflection and documenting your own ideas.

That said, many bloggers find real value in connecting with an authentic audience. A smart first step is to look back and see which of your posts have resonated most with readers in the past.

If you use Edublogs Pro or CampusPress, the ideal way to do this is via Google Analytics. 

These instructions explain how to set up Google Analytics and you’ll be able to access your data via the Google Analytics website, or app.

You’ll also be able to check out a snapshot of your most popular posts by going to Dashboard > Statistics.

Once you know what your most popular posts are, ask yourself:

• What else could I write on that same topic?
• Could I break down the topic further? For example, if you wrote an overview of teaching geometry to 8th graders, could you break it down and share a sequence of detailed lesson plans, assessments, or resources?
• Is there a style of post that’s been popular with readers? Have you written some “top 10” posts or “how-to” posts or “comparison” posts that have done well? Could you write more posts in a similar style?
• Could you re-purpose some of your old content into a different format? For example, could you turn one of your popular posts into a video, slideshow, checklist, graphic, etc?

2) Poll your audience

If you’ve been blogging for a while and have built an audience for your blog, consider asking your readers what they’d like you to write about.

Google Forms is a great way to make a simple survey but there are other tools available such as Crowdsignal (formerly called Polldaddy).

Keep the survey as simple as possible so busy readers don’t feel reluctant to submit a response.

Example: Google Forms

A few years ago, one of our authors polled her own readers on her blog to find out what topics they’re most interested in. She included an option to write any other feedback (38% of readers added additional information while 62% of readers just used the checklist).

The responses and trends were insightful.

This is what the poll looked like (the poll is no longer live so this is just an image).

3) Build on someone else’s blog post

If you’re a blogger, you probably read other people’s blog posts as well. This is an important part of the blogging process. Reading other blogs not only helps you develop your thinking but helps you become part of an online community.

Have you ever read a blog post that really got you thinking? You might be left with a lot of unanswered questions or you might simply feel like you have more to add to the conversation.

You could leave a blog comment or you could expand on the topic even further by writing a blog post.

Examples

• A teacher might read a blog post about flexible seating. This teacher might be trying out some flexible seating options in their own classroom. They could write a post to share their approach along with some images.
• A student might read another student’s post about their trick for learning times tables. The student might have their own tricks they use which they could share in their own blog post.

Remember to link back to the inspiration for your blog post and when it’s published reach out and tell the blogger about it. The blogger might like to continue the conversation with you further or share your post with their own network.

4) Write a how-to

As Derek Sivers says,

What’s obvious to you is amazing to others.

It’s true! There’s a lot you know about or have had experience with. It might not seem like anything overly special but it could really help your readers.

How-to posts are often popular as they help your readers overcome their problems. Your helpful post is likely to stick in a reader’s mind and they may become a loyal and regular visitor to your blog.

How can you make a how-to post? 

• Write out the steps and include images.
• Make a video tutorial or a screencast using a tool like Loom or Screencastify.
• Make a checklist.
• Create a diagram or other type of graphic (Canva is a great tool for this).

5) Share something from your life

What’s been happening in your life lately? You don’t have to have been doing anything extraordinary to create an interesting blog post.

Have you read a book? Write a review or share some takeaways.

Have you come across an interesting quote? Share the quote with your readers and explain what it means to you.

Have you watched a thought-provoking movie, tv show, or video? Or perhaps you have listened to an interesting podcast? Tell your audience about it. How did it change your thinking? What has it left you curious about?

Have you had an interesting conversation with someone? Whether or not your conversation was on the web or in real life, is there anything you could share with your audience?

You might even reflect back on a book, quote, video, podcast, or conversation that you engaged with long ago. Why has it stuck in your mind?

6) Interview someone

Interviews with others can make interesting blog posts. You and your audience might learn a lot and gain new insights!

You can interview someone via video or an audio recording, but the simplest way to do it is by writing out the questions and answers.

Tip: Make sure the questions and answers stand out in the body of the text; use bold, dark colors, or headings.

If you’re interested in interviewing someone on your blog, here are a few steps to follow:

1. Research. Consider why you want to interview the person. Decide what sort of questions you’d like to ask them.
2. Request. Ask the person face-to-face or via a polite email and explain what you’d like to interview them about.
3. Conduct the interview. If you can meet with the person face-to-face, you might like to type their responses out as you talk to them. If not, send the questions via email and give the person a guide on how much information you’re after for each question and when you need it by.
4. Add an introduction and conclusion. Your blog post will need context so write an introduction that tells your reader about the interviewee. Don’t forget to link to the interviewee’s site if they have one. Your conclusion might include your own takeaways on what you learned or a call to action (suggesting readers visit the interviewee’s blog or follow them on social media).
5. Revise. After you’ve drafted the interview post, share it with the interviewee and ask them if there is anything they’d like to change. Tip: Public Post Preview plugin can be handy here.
6. Publish the post. Share the post with your network and invite the interviewee to do the same.

7) Use blogging prompts

Many bloggers enjoy coming up with lists of blogging prompts and these can be a great way to get ideas!

We’ve published a number of these lists on The Edublogger. Here are some for teachers and students:

• 50 Blog Post Ideas For Educators (2018)
• 50 Blog Topics And Prompts For Teachers (2017)
• 100+ Ideas And Prompts For Student Blogging (2021)

Students might also be interested in checking out the work of John Spencer. He has recently released a fantastic PowerPoint full of creative writing prompts to his community.

Check out the preview below and access the full collection of prompts here. 

John also has some excellent creative writing prompts on YouTube. Students could embed a video prompt in a post and then write their response.

Here’s an example,

Take Action — Start Brainstorming

Are you now full of ideas for future blog posts? I hope so.

Don’t let those ideas go!

Why not print off our brainstorming sheet now and jot down your thoughts?

>>Download the PDF

When you’re done, you could keep your brainstorming sheet by your desk and use your blog post ideas throughout the coming months. Or you might like to transfer your ideas to a Google Doc, diary, or editorial calendar.

Related Reading

A Plan For Writing A Weekly Blog Post In 10 Minutes A Day

5 Ways To Share And Market Your Teacher Blog

12 Tips For Maintaining Momentum With Blogging

Have you ever walked away from a visit to another school feeling energized and full of fresh inspiration? Sometimes stepping beyond the walls of your own environment is exactly what it takes to spark new ideas and uncover fresh perspectives.

How often do you get to actually visit other schools? Perhaps not nearly as often as you’d like.

Fortunately, you can take a virtual peek at class blogs and savor the benefits of school visits.

Many educators enjoy using a blog to have an online space that complements their physical space. Class blogs are very popular and yield many benefits for students, teachers, and the school community.

Because we know many of our readers love seeing examples, we’ve put together an updated showcase of 13 great class blogs powered by Edublogs, CampusPress, or WordPress.

If you’re wondering why WordPress, scroll to the end of the post to find out what WordPress is all about and why it’s the perfect platform for class blogs.

Some Great Class Blogs

These class blogs are just a tiny fraction of the high-quality spaces out there. We strongly encourage you to leave a comment on this post with your contributions!

You can also see more examples on our list of class blogs which has been updated twice a year since 2008.

This post showcases blogs from a range of different age groups, subject areas, and locations to demonstrate what’s possible. It’s roughly ordered by age.

1) Learning Stories

Year level: PreK-K1 (age 3-5 multi-age setting)

Location: Nanjing International School, China

Teacher: Shemo Gani

Blogging platform: Edublogs

Shemo Gani started this wonderful blog in September 2015 when she had a kindergarten class of 5-6 year olds. She was kind enough to share some of her insights,

After sending out class newsletters for years, I wanted to find a better way to showcase the learning stories of the children. I also wanted to collect the stories in a way that I can access them more freely, even after a few years.

The blog has helped me strengthen my own practice in many ways. I have learned the value of listening, documenting and following student interests and learning.

My parents are my biggest advocates. They always share how valuable the blog is to them, how it helps them connect with their children on a different level. They enjoy following our stories and often encourage and share action as a result.

One of the fantastic things about this regularly updated blog is that it’s rich with a whole range of content: photos, quotes, videos, curriculum outcomes, and more.

The blog also links in with the class Twitter account.

2) Join the Adventure (French Immersion)

Year level: Grade 3

Location: New Brunswick, Canada

Teachers: Mme Harrison and Mlle Nicholson

Blogging platform: Edublogs

One subject area that has been totally transformed by technology is language learning. What a joy to be able to hear, see, and connect with other language learners or speakers.

Grade Three French Immersion Teachers, Mme Harrison and Mlle Nicholson use their class blog to introduce the students to French resources, as well as sharing student learning.

One particularly interesting idea they use is a ‘Thought Box’ page where students and parents are invited to share thoughts that won’t be published.

3) Mrs. Rupp’s Class

Year level: Grade 4

Location: The American School of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Teacher: Leslee Rupp

Blogging platform: Edublogs

This is a fantastic class blog that Leslee Rupp updates regularly. Leslee told us a bit more about how her blog works,

I use it as my primary home-school communication tool, posting weekly homework and announcements.

In addition, because I encourage my students, as Scholars, to “consider different points of view” and “use multiple sources,” I try to provide enriching extensions for them to explore further or tools to help scaffold learning. I’ve also tried to make the blog a bit interactive by embedding videos and related Google Forms or Padlets to highlight student responses and reflections.

The blog is intentionally photo-rich, as well. Students love to see themselves on the blog, which I hope helps them share learning experiences with their families.

As an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (IB PYP) candidate school, we seek to develop a learner profile, which, among other things, includes students who are inquirers, thinkers, knowledgeable, risk-takers, principled, and reflective. My hope is that the blog will nurture those traits in my students.

Looking ahead to next year, I would like to include more student work samples and reflections and assessment tools to encourage self-assessment and growth. I would also like to update some of the resources under the drop-down menus to more-accurately reflect our developing inquiry program.

This class blog is well worth a look!

4) Mrs. Moore’s Class

Year level: Grade 5

Location: Arizona, USA

Teacher: Amber Moore

Blogging platform: Edublogs

Amber Moore teaches 5th grade math and science at a STEAM school.

The blog has a great mix of images and recounts to keep their community up to date with all their wonderful learning.

This class also enjoys global collaboration and has participated in the Student Blogging Challenge. 

Mrs. Moore’s class also uses Instagram to share their daily activities (@mooreclass).

5) ePencil

Year level: Grade 6

Location: Massachusetts, USA

Teacher: Kevin Hodgson

Blogging platform: Edublogs

Kevin Hodgson (aka Dogtrax) is a long time blogger who maintains both a professional blog and a class blog for his sixth grade writing workshop students.

The Electronic Pencil class blog is a place where Kevin provides guidelines and examples for student assignments. Student creations are also showcased on the blog

On his professional blog, Kevin often publishes more detailed posts about lessons, while exploring various other topics.

Kevin shares many creative ideas and his blogs are well worth a look.

6) Early History of the United States

Year level: Grade 8

Location: California, USA

Teacher: Barry Hayes

Blogging platform: Edublogs

Barry Hayes has been using Edublogs for the last four years exclusively for classroom assignments.

He told us about the purpose of his blog,

Blogging allows my students to venture beyond the textbook, to explore the richness and vast expanse of the world through the window of their computers, using Edublogs to showcase all they have and hope to learn in the future. We travel time together as adventurers of the digital medium.

The students have their own blogs to share their thoughts, discoveries, research, and experience within the subject of American history. You can find the links to the student blogs at the bottom of the class blog.

7) WooTube

Year level: High school

Location: Sydney, Australia

Teacher: Eddie Woo

Blogging platform: WordPress

Have you ever thought about recording your lessons and publishing them, not just for your own class, but for anyone who wants to watch and learn? Eddie Woo is a Sydney maths teacher who has done just that.

Eddie’s award winning work has earned him a huge following with students from across the world. Eddie uses a WordPress site as an online hub for a blog, his YouTube channel, learning resources, and more.

This is a great example of how blogs have evolved to be dynamic homes for any online creations.

8) Jurupa Hills High School Photography

Year level: High school

Location: California, USA

Teacher: Rebecca Cauchon

Blogging platform: Edublogs

A blog is the perfect complement to a photography class. After all, what’s the point of working on all those images if no one sees them?

Teacher, Rebecca Cauchon showcases her students’ truly amazing creations on the Jurupa Hills High School Photography blog. This is done through posts on the class blog and individual student blogs (see the links on the sidebar on the right-hand side).

This blog really is a visual delight!

9) NCH Chemistry

Year level: High School

Location: Mississippi, USA

Teacher: Tammy Skinner

Blogging platform: Edublogs

Tammy Skinner teaches chemistry and physics at Northpoint Christian School.

She has a very active and popular class blog that houses class notes, videos, test reviews, links, and more.

Tammy Skinner shared the following insights about her blog:

My students and I have been using our Edublogs class website since 2008. It all begin with a huge challenge my students were facing – students gone on mission trips, students out with the flu, students in tournaments, or students who missed the concepts in class and just needed to hear the lesson again.

Our Edublogs class website is a virtual classroom of sorts, with tons of resources for my students. I use it for posting videos of daily lectures, reviews, and help sessions. It’s also a place where my students can access the weekly syllabus, assignments, rubrics, project information, interactive websites, tutorials, etc. So many wonderful teachers and organizations have put incredible resources for learning chemistry and physics online, and my students are able to easily access them though our class website.

Another very important way I use our class website is to keep in touch with my students, and also for them to keep in touch with each other, outside of class. They share lab results, collaborate on projects, etc., through comments. They also use the comments to ask me (or their classmates) questions they forgot or might have been hesitant to ask in class.

These resources are useful not just for her own class but for other teachers and students at schools around the country and around the world.

10) Connected Teaching And Learning

Year level: Senior High School (age 16-19)

Location: Oslo, Norway

Teacher: Ann Michaelsen

Blogging platform: Edublogs

Norway educator, Ann Michaelsen operates this blog in a very unique style. Connected Teaching And Learning is Ann’s professional blog where she publishes regular reflections on what she is reading and learning. Beyond that, it is also a classroom hub for lesson plans and materials, as well as a home for many student blogs (links are on the right sidebar).

Ann shares a great overview of the benefits of blogging for her high school students in this post from 2016.

Ann’s approach makes us wonder if it would be beneficial for more educators to set up one blogging hub for the many aspects of their professional lives. What are the pros and cons of this approach? Leave a comment and tell us what you think.

About Edublogs, CampusPress, and WordPress

Confused about the platforms these blogs are built with? Let’s break it down.

You’ve probably heard of WordPress? It’s the most popular content management system out there. In fact, around a third of websites worldwide are built with WordPress.

Some educators build their blogs straight from WordPress.com or WordPress.org.

Edublogs is a popular option for those who are interested in using a WordPress platform but want the technical side of things taken care of including hosting and backups. Edublogs also offers a blogging platform that’s purely for education with the added elements of support and safety.

CampusPress is a WordPress platform for a whole school, university, district, or other educational institution. It offers the same great features that come with Edublogs, plus more, including individual branding.

So why is a WordPress platform like Edublogs the way to go?

• The fact that it’s export-friendly is a big reason. You want to be able to take your work, or your students’ work, with you.
• Of course, safety is a huge decider for many schools too and we have that covered.
• Many teachers really appreciate being able to have personalized support to help them through their blogging journey.
• Students and educators love being able to customize their online space. Themes, plugins, and other extensions allow you to do just that.
• It’s a great idea to consider the future of your blogging platform too. With WordPress powering so much of the web now, who knows where your students’ blogging skills could take them in the future!

Read more about the benefits of WordPress for student blogging in this post. 

Want To Start Blogging But Not Sure How?

Check out our Blogging 101 page. It includes a 15-minute tutorial video and all the help guides you’ll need to get going!

If you have students with their own blogs, you might be wondering what to do with the blogs at the end of the school year.

There are a number of options which we’ll go through in this post. We’ll also offer you some tips for dealing with your class blog.

Contents

Click on the linked headings to go straight to that section

Common Scenarios With Student Blogs

When Students Want To Keep Their Blog

• Asking Teachers About Student Blogs
  • Adding and removing teachers assigned to student blogs
  • How to hand a blog over to a student
• Asking Parents About Taking Over Student Blogs
  • How to hand a blog over to a parent

Dealing With Student Blogs That Are Discontinuing

• Should you delete a blog?
• Archive student blogs instead of deleting them

Changing The Privacy Settings Of A Student Blog

Exporting A Blog

Creating A Memento Of Student Blogs

Approaches Used With Class Blogs

• Changing your class blog URL
• Hiding content from new students
• How to reuse old posts
• Removing email subscribers
• Updating your About page
• Handing a class blog over to a new teacher

Conclusion

Decision-Making Flowchart

This flowchart might help you decide what action you want to take with your student blogs. Read on to find out exactly what you need to do.

Common Scenarios With Student Blogs

In an ideal world, you’d be part of a school-wide program where students keep working on their blogs or digital portfolios as they progress through their school years.

This is not always the case and teachers are often left with the decision of what to do with student blogs.

Often, there are two main scenarios for the fate of student blogs:

1. Students want to keep their blogs. If students are too young, you’ll need a parent or teacher willing to be an Administrator on their blog.
2. Blogs need to be archived or deleted. This is due to a parent request, the student moving schools, school/district guidelines, or lack of adults willing to supervise the student blogger.

When Students Want To Keep Their Blog

For students that want to keep their blog you need to consider who will monitor the blog. Or does someone even need to? This depends on the age of your students.

Some teachers are happy to continue to support their bloggers who are no longer in their class although this can get difficult if you have many students.

Some teachers organize for parents to take over the responsibility.

Sometimes the teacher of the class the student will be moving into is happy to take over the responsibility.

You’ll need to work out what works best for you and your school community.

Asking Teachers About Student Blogs

It’s ideal if a student can take their blog with them when they move to a new class.

This is not always possible. The teacher might be unwilling to embark on a blogging program. Or the student blog might be related to a special class that is no longer continuing (e.g. the blog might have been used as a portfolio for a photography class).

A good first step is to find out whether there is a teacher who could take over the blog.

If there is a teacher who is willing to try blogging but not confident in their own abilities, you might like to direct them to our free self-paced Blogging With Students course. Remind them that our support team is also available via email 24/7.

If students have been blogging for some time, no doubt they can help guide their new teacher as well!

Adding and removing teachers assigned to student blogs

If a teacher is taking over responsibility for the student bloggers, then the students will need to join the new teacher’s class using My Class.

First, remove the students from your class

Go to My Class > Student Blogs in your class blog dashboard and remove the student blogs from My Class.

You’ll find the full instructions to do this in bulk here.

Then have the students join their new class

The new teacher will need to have a class blog. It’s okay if they aren’t going to be posting to the class blog but they’ll need one to manage student blogs.

These instructions explain how to set up a class blog using My Class.

To join their new class, students will need to login to their student blogs and follow the instructions below:

1.  Login into your blog dashboard.

2.  Go to My Class > Join a Class.

3.  Search for your class blog.

4.  Click Send a request to join.

How to hand a blog over to a student

If a student wants to continue blogging on his/her own these are the steps you should follow:

1. Go to My Class > Student Blogs in your class blog dashboard and remove the student blogs from My Class. You’ll find the full instructions to do this in bulk here.
2. This also removes the Teacher from the student blog and the student automatically becomes the Administrator of the blog and is able to continue blogging.

Asking Parents About Taking Over Student Blogs

If there are no teachers who are willing to take over the blog and the students are too young to continue blogging without support, ask the parents.

This might involve sending a letter or email with clear choices.

Here is a sample letter you can adapt if you like.

>>Click here to make your own copy of this Google Doc

How to hand a blog over to a parent

If a parent is happy to be an Administrator of their child’s blog, these are the steps you should follow:

1. Go to the dashboard of the student blog and go to Users > Add Users
2. Add a username for the parent and add their email address
3. Select ‘Administrator’ as the user role
4. Click Add New User
5. The parent will be automatically added to Users > All Users and will receive an email with their login details

Dealing With Student Blogs That Are Discontinuing

There are a number of reasons why a student blog might be discontinued when the school year ends.

• There isn’t teacher or parent support to continue with the blog
• The student does not wish to continue blogging and blogging is not part of future classes
• The student is moving schools or has finished school
• There are school or district guidelines that need to be followed

Should you delete a blog?

Unless the parent, student, or school absolutely demands student blogs be deleted, it’s better not to delete the blogs.

A blog is part of a student’s journey; one day they may want to resume blogging or look back at their work.

Delete is DELETE. It’s impossible to undelete blogs.

Archive student blogs instead of deleting them

If you archive a student blog, it stays on the web as an ‘orphan blog’ that’s not attached to a Teacher or Administrator.

This is the approach we recommend to archive student blogs:

1.  Set up an Archive page on your class blog of all student blogs. You could call this page ‘Former students’ or something similar.

• The easiest way to do this is to copy and paste the list of student blogs from the sidebar of your class blog (Class blog widget).
• Here’s an example on Huzzah’s class blog.

2.a.  Change each student’s user role to Subscriber so they can’t write any posts.

• This is only possible if you are an Administrator user or Teacher on the student’s blog
• Go to the Dashboard of the student blog on the Users Tab. Select the student’s username and click on Change role to … Subscriber. Press Change.

2.b. Remove each student from their blog so they can’t write any posts.

• This is only possible if you are an Administrator user or Teacher on the student’s blog
• Go to the Dashboard of the student blog on the Users Tab. Hover over the student’s username, click the Remove link and confirm the action.

3.  Disable the ability for comments to be added to existing posts. 

• Select ‘Automatically close comments on articles older than 14 days” in Settings > Discussion of each student’s blog

4.  Remove yourself from student blogs.

• If you’re using My Class, you can remove the student blogs from your class in bulk by going to My Class > Student Blogs. You’ll find the full instructions here.
• If you’re not using My Class, you can remove yourself from multiple blogs using the bulk actions drop-down menu on your My Sites page. Find the instructions here.

Changing the privacy settings of a student blog

Whether a blog is going to be archived or is being handed over to a parent, the parents may wish for the privacy settings of a student blog to change.

For example, the student might have had a public blog while it was active but they’d now like it to be password protected.

There are 6 privacy options available on the Edublogs and CampusPress network.

The first public option below where sites can be indexed by search engines is only available for Edublogs Pro and CampusPress users to prevent misuse by spammers.

To change the privacy settings, a Teacher or Administrator needs to go into the dashboard of the student blog and go to Settings > Reading.

You can read more about privacy settings in this help document.

Exporting A Blog

One of the great things about using a WordPress based blogging platform is the ability to export your blog.

You can save the export file for future reference or upload it to a new blog (e.g. on Edublogs, WordPress.com, or self-hosted WordPress).

How to export your blog

Go to Tools > Export in your dashboard.

From here you just need to select all content (or the content you want to export) and click Download Export File. 

Save the export file to your computer. You can use the file now or in the future to import into a new blog.

Creating A Memento Of Student Blogs

If you don’t delete your student blogs they will remain online and act as a keepsake.

However, if you want the student blogs in alternative formats you could create a PDF version using BlogBooker.

Below are the instructions for turning your blog into a PDF with BlogBooker.

• BlogBooker is a free tool for exporting up to 3 blogs with low-quality images.
• You can convert one year’s worth of content if you’re creating a PDF.
• Otherwise, it’s 6 months for Word document conversions.
• You don’t need to sign up to use BlogBooker.

Approaches Used With Class Blogs

If you have a class blog, you might also be wondering what you should do. Keep the blog going with a new cohort of students? Start a new blog?

Many educators use the same class blog each year. You’ll get ideas on how they do this by looking at our class blog list here.

Here’s a checklist of what you might need to do to get your class blog ready for a new group of students. We explain each step in detail below.

Changing your class blog URL

Occasionally you’ll have situations where you need to change the URL of your blog.

You might have called your blog “UShistory2019.edublogs.org” and moving forward you might want to change the subject or year mentioned in your URL.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to change your blog URL. Your only option is to create a new blog with your preferred blog URL and import the content from an existing blog into your new blog.

You can change the title and tagline of your blog as often as you wish. You do this by going to Settings > General in your dashboard.

Tip: When setting up a new blog, avoid including dates or subjects that might change to give your blog more longevity. 

Hiding content from new students

You might have posts about lessons or units of work that you’d like to show to your new students in the future. You might like to hide these so students can’t access them until you’re ready.

The easiest way to hide content you don’t want the next group of students viewing is to change the posts to draft mode.

You can do this in bulk by following these steps:

1. Go to your dashboard and click on Posts
2. Select the posts you want to edit
3. Select Edit in the Bulk Actions drop-down menu
4. Click Apply

Now you can go to Status and select Draft. Then press Update.

How to reuse old posts

If you want to re-use the same post without the old comments you can just copy the content of the post into a new post then publish it when ready.

An easier way to do this is via the Duplicate Post & Pages plugin. It allows you to duplicate a post or page, including the title, contents, tags, and categories.

To activate the plugin, just go to Plugins in your dashboard and search for the word ‘duplicate’.

Then click on Activate.

Using the Duplicate Post plugin, you can easily turn an existing blog post into a new draft. You can publish the post with or without amendments.

Once the plugin is activated, you’ll notice the option ‘New Draft’ appears under posts when you look at your lists of posts in Posts > All Posts.

Find out more about the Duplicate Posts & Pages plugin here. It’s available to both free and Edublogs Pro users.

Removing email subscribers

If you have set up an email subscription for your class blog, you might want to remove the subscribers for the new year (so parents aren’t alerted to posts about a new cohort of students).

You can remove email subscribers by going to Subscriptions > Subscribers in your class blog dashboard.

You can cancel subscriptions in bulk by:

• Selecting the subscribers you want to cancel
• Selecting Cancel subscriptions from the Bulk Actions drop down menu
• Clicking Apply

Updating your About page

An About page is a really important part of a blog. It’s often the first thing a new visitor will look at to find out who you are and where you’re from.

If you’ve got a new group of students, don’t forget to check if your About page needs updating.

You can find out more information about About pages in our Blogging With Students course.

Handing a class blog over to a new teacher

If you’re leaving your school or want to hand your class blog over to another teacher, here’s what you need to do:

1. Add the teacher as a user to the blog using Users > Add New. Here are the instructions you’ll need to follow
2. Change the email address in Settings > General to the new teacher’s email address

• For Edublogs Pro blogs — cancel your Edublogs Pro subscription and get the new teacher to resubscribe when the subscription expires (as per the date shown in the Pro tab) by following these instructions.

Your class blog will now be ready for a new group of students!

Conclusion

If you’re coming to the end of your first year of blogging with students, the decision of what to do with your student blogs or class blog might seem overwhelming.

Don’t worry! Remember, there are options.

Talk to your students, parents, and leaders to decide what works best for you and your school community.

If you need any additional help, you’re welcome to contact our support team at any time.

Do you have any other advice dealing with blogs at the end of the year?

Or perhaps you have further questions?

Feel free to leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you.

Further Reading

My Class: Student Blogs Made Easy

Different Approaches To Using Student Blogs And Digital Portfolios

Check Out These Class Blogs

10 End Of Year Blogging Activities

Are you a teacher blogger? Or do your students blog? We’re guessing one of your biggest obstacles to doing as much on your blog as you would like is time.

When we surveyed our Edublogs community about their biggest obstacle to blogging, the results were clear. Time is a barrier for everyone!

This post outlines a simple approach that will see you develop consistency with your blogging and publish one blog post a week.

Whether you’re a teacher or a student, you can use this plan to reach your blogging goals, without sitting at your computer for hours on end.

Sound good? Let’s take a look!

Blog In Your Head

Before we dive into our weekly outline, consider using the time you’re not at your computer to do something productive and ponder blogging ideas.

Blog in your head? Really?

You might think you can only blog when you’re sitting at a device but, you can in fact blog anywhere at any time.

Many regular bloggers note that even when they’re not at their computer, they’re thinking of ideas for posts, or even coming up with phrases or layouts.

To reach your blogging goals, try to make a conscious effort to put some thought into your blog during your downtime: driving, standing in line at the store, folding laundry and so on.

Using your “white space” well can nourish your creativity and imagination!

In the classroom setting, try taking your class for a 10 minute walk around the school grounds to give them time to think. Maybe it can help them with idea generation.

Then write down your ideas…

We know how easy it is for thoughts to come and go, so make sure you have a strategy for getting those great ideas jotted down. This might be on a Google Doc/Sheet, in a notebook, or in a Note on your phone.

Tip: Most professional bloggers have some sort of editorial calendar. Often this is just a calendar in Google Sheets where you plan out your blog titles and dates. This could really help you stay organized and prioritize your blog.

The Weekly Blogging Plan

Here’s our 5 day blogging plan that will see you get a blog post written every week using small blocks of time; ideally 10 minute blocks!

Obviously, feel free to adjust the actual days to what suits you best, or even spread this process out over two weeks if that publishing schedule suits you better.

Monday: Outline Your Post With Headings

Hopefully, on Monday you will already have an idea for a blog post. It might be something that’s been brewing in your head or you might grab it off your running list of ideas/editorial calendar.

Today is all about creating an outline. You should be able to get this done in 10 minutes.

Two Simple Steps To Follow

1) The first step is opening up a new blog post. Write a working title. Don’t worry too much about it as you might think of a better idea later.

2) Next, you’ll use headings to outline your post.

Here are some things to remember about headings:

• Start with Heading 2 as Heading 1 is your title.
• If you put sub-headings under Heading 2, they’ll be Heading 3.
• Any sub-headings under that will be Heading 4.
• You don’t want to skip levels.

To make headings in your classic editor, just highlight your text and look for the ‘Paragraph’ option in the toolbar. Clicking on it will bring up a menu of the heading tags and you click on the level you’re after.

More Headings Tips:

• Use a number of headings to break up your text.
• Often, readers will only scan your page and just look at your headings. So make them informative. For example, in the heading above we wrote “Monday: Outline Your Post With Headings”. If we just wrote “Monday”, skim readers wouldn’t understand what they need to do on that day.
• Professional bloggers rarely use colored headings but some students and teachers like to. If you do choose to use color make sure it’s a dark color that people can read (i.e. avoid yellow/aqua/light green or you’ll leave your readers squinting to make sense of the text).

Example of the structure of Headings

Say you were writing a post about a sports day. Your heading structure could look like this…

H1 (post title): Our Junior Primary School Sports Day

H2: The Sports Day Schedule

H2: Kindergarten Events

H3: Results of the Kindergarten Events

H2: Grade One Events

H3: Results of the Grade One Events

H2: Grade Two Events

H3: Results of the Grade Two Events

H2: Conclusion

Tuesday: Draft Your Post

Today is the day where you’re going to set your timer for 10 minutes and write as much as you can of your post.

Of course, if your typing isn’t overly speedy or you haven’t got your thoughts together, you might need a little more time. However, spending a short block of time on intensive writing can really help you be productive.

Tips for writing your post:

• Just write! Don’t worry about fixing up your spelling or grammar. You can come back to that.
• If you can’t think of the perfect word or phrase to use, just write something and come back to it later.
• You don’t want to do any editing today because giving yourself space to do this with fresh eyes can work wonders!

Wednesday: Add Visuals To Your Post

Remember we mentioned that most readers will just skim your post?

Along with headings, your readers’ eyes will be naturally drawn to images.

Images can help make your blog posts easier to read and understand.

But not all images are created equal.

Firstly, make sure you’re not using copyrighted images:

• Most images you find on a Google or Pinterest search are protected by copyright and cannot be used without permission (even if you attribute them).
• We have a post all about copyright, Creative Commons, and fair use if you’d like to learn more.
• Check out a comparison of sites where you can find images that don’t require attribution.

Also, remember that you can use more than simple pictures:

• You can embed all sorts of media in your blog posts such as comics, quizzes, polls, videos, social media, and more.
• Canva is a fantastic place to make images. You might like to read our guide on using Canva.
• For a quick graph, a handy choice is a free tool call Beam.
• We have a help guide about embedding media if you need more information about this. Alternatively, check out our help guide for adding an image to a blog post.

Now, you could spend a lot longer than 10 minutes on this task. It can be easy to go a little crazy!

Limit yourself to finding one or two great images for your post or making something yourself — e.g. a graph or comparison chart.

Thursday: Edit Your Post

Now the bulk of your post is done, it’s time to come back with fresh eyes to edit.

Tips for editing your post:

• Look at your title. Does it describe your post well? Is it clear? Does it make your visitors want to read your blog post?
• Fix up any spelling or grammar mistakes. Need help with proofreading? Try a free tool like Grammarly. Note: Grammarly is 18+ but users aged between 13-17 can use it with permission.
• Rephrase anything that doesn’t work. If some of your phrases or word choices in your draft weren’t the best, now is the time to fix them up. Use a thesaurus to improve your word choice if necessary. Power Thesaurus is a free crowdsourced online tool.
• Check for readability. Is your post easy to read even if readers are skimming or on a mobile device? Would more paragraph breaks, bullets, or images enhance your post?
• Add and check your links. Including links is an important part of blogging. Your links could either be to other relevant posts on your blog or other websites. Add your links now and ensure those links are working.
• Preview in your browser. Rather than reading through your post in your editor, it can be helpful to press ‘preview’ and look at your post in a new tab. You’ll be able to see what the published post will look like and it might be easier to spot errors.

What else do you need to add to your blog post?

• Add categories and tags. All blog posts need to be in a category and tags can help organize your content. Read more about using categories and tags in this help guide.
• Does your blog post theme have a custom excerpt or a featured image? If so, remember to add this information before you’re done.
• SMO and SEO tips for more advanced bloggers: Remember to fill in the details of your Search Engine Optimization Simple SEO Plugin and Social Media Optimization WP SMO Plugin if you’re using them.

Friday: Publish And Share Your Work!

Yay! You’ve done all the hard work. Now it’s time to publish your post and share it with the world.

Before you do hit publish, it never hurts to preview your blog post and have a final quick read.

When you finally press the publish button, your work is not done. Just because it’s online, doesn’t mean it will be seen.

• Could you share the post on social media?
• Could you comment on another related blog post and leave the URL to your own post in a thoughtful comment?
• Could you email your new post to anyone (especially if you’ve linked to them in your post)?
• Could you pin your post to Pinterest?

5 Ways To Share And Market Your Teacher Blog is a recent post with lots more ideas for what you can do after hitting that publish button.

Summary

We said visuals can enhance your blog posts, right? Here’s a summary of what we discussed. Feel free to share this with fellow bloggers.

Conclusion

Our 5 day plan can be carried out in under one hour a week if you are strict with yourself.

This can be a more productive approach than sitting down in one block of time and trying to get your post started, finished, and published.

Spacing out your post and letting it “marinate” can be an excellent way to ensure your content is top notch!

Finally, remember to figure out what works for you. We’re all different and while it’s interesting to hear about approaches, stay faithful to what you know fits in your schedule and helps you produce the best results.

Further Reading:

Teachers: Finding Time To Blog

12 Tips For Maintaining Momentum With Blogging

So You Want To Start A Teacher Blog?

My Class: Student Blogging Made Easy

When high standards are established for online publishing, students are more likely to achieve impressive results. They can meet academic goals while also developing the skills to be responsible and positive digital citizens.

This post outlines 10 key elements of a great blog post. Feel free to share these tips with students—they could be helpful for adult bloggers as well!

10 Elements Of A Quality Blog Post

Scroll down for summary poster that you’re welcome to use in your classroom or on your blog. You’ll also find some student examples below.

1) Great Title

Does your title explain what your post will be about and encourage visitors to read on?

Take some time to craft your title, and you may find that readers are more likely to click and explore your post.

Tips for writing effective blog post titles:

• Brainstorm a number of titles and then choose the best one. Many bloggers start with a “working title” and then change it before publishing.
• Make your title specific and enticing.
• Think about what will encourage readers to click.
• Avoid clickbait. That is, a title that entices readers to click but is dishonest about the content of the post, or doesn’t explain what your post is about. For example “You Won’t Believe These 100 World’s Best Study Tips”. This sort of title might over promise and under deliver. Do you really have 100 tips? Are they really the best in the world?

This flowchart from Orbit Media shows that when people come across a headline, they decide in about 2 seconds whether to click and read the post or keep scrolling.

2) Short Paragraphs

Do you break up text into short paragraphs to make your posts easier to read?

Most readers tend to skim through posts, and if they come across a large block of text, they may skip it altogether.

It’s also a good idea to break up text with:

• subheadings
• bullet point lists
• numbered lists

You may have been taught in school that a new paragraph only starts when the topic changes, but this doesn’t apply to digital writing.

Short paragraphs are good. Very good!

3) Visuals Or Multimedia As Well As Text

Does your post include at least one visual?

High-quality posts include more than just text, they have visuals as well.

Along with being nice to look at, images serve two purposes:

• They help readers understand what you’re writing about (especially if your image is something like a graph, diagram, or video).
• They break up your text and make it easier to read.

What sort of visuals can you include in posts? Here are a few examples:

• Photos you take yourself.
• Creative Commons images (this guide shows you some good websites for students).
• A graph or chart (try BEAM for an easy web tool).
• Videos (e.g. embedded from YouTube or Vimeo).
• Google Slides presentations.
• Google Drawings (check out this tutorial from Sheri Edwards).
• An image you make in Canva (learn more about Canva here).

4) Internal And External Links

Do you include links in your post, either to other posts you’ve written or inspiration/ideas you’ve come across on the web?

In the past when we only wrote with pen and paper or on word processors, writing was more linear. Writing on the web is different. An important part of digital writing is using hyperlinks.

Hyperlinks are the heart of the web. They bring together various pages from different websites and your own website.

Any article you read on the web probably includes hyperlinks. It’s important for students to learn how to include these in their own writing.

Hyperlinks:

• Help readers learn more about a certain topic.
• Help readers understand where the writer is coming from.
• Cite sources to back up what you’re saying.
• Save you having to define words or ideas. You link the word/phrase to an explanation and readers can choose to explore the definition if they need to.
• Allow you to practice good online etiquette by showing where your ideas or inspiration are from.
• Remind readers of older posts you’ve written that they might like to look at.

This Edublogs help guide shows you how to add links to your blog posts.

5) Fonts And Colors

Are the fonts you use easy to read? If you’re using colors, do they stand out against your background?

Many students love playing around with different fonts, colors, and backgrounds but it’s important to always keep these question in mind:

• Can people easily read the blog post?
• Are you being consistent in your color/font choices?
• Are your fonts big enough and clear enough?
• Is there enough contrast? (e.g. red text on an orange background would be hard to read).
• Is there too much movement? This can be very off-putting for readers.

Overall, less is more!

6) Proofread

Have you proofread your work before publishing?

No one expects bloggers to be perfect but proofread work is much easier to read.

Before you publish, it’s important to check your spelling, grammar, punctuation, and spacing.

If you can, enlist the help of someone else to check your work. It’s harder to spot your own mistakes! Perhaps students could pair up with another student for proofreading.

For older students, Grammarly is a great free online tool to check your writing. Grammarly is 18+ but if you’re aged between 13-17, you can use it with permission.

7) Digital Citizenship

Have you checked that you haven’t revealed your personal information (YAPPY) or copied text/images/work that doesn’t belong to you?

It’s great for readers to learn a bit about you but it’s important to avoid sharing too much information or personal details.

I like to tell my students to never share their YAPPY online as per in the image below. There is some other information that’s more of a “grey area”. These are things that students should discuss with teachers and parents.

Students also need to make sure they’re not using work that doesn’t belong to them. This includes images as well as text and other content.

Further advice on digital citizenship and copyright:

• Read more about blogging and digital citizenship here.
• Learn more about digital footprints in this post. 
• Should you publish students’ photos online? Check out this post for advice. 
• Check out The Educator’s Guide To Copyright, Fair Use, And Creative Commons.

8) Categories And Tags

Do you assign your post to at least one category? Bonus points if you use tags to organize your posts too!

Tags and categories on posts are used to help readers locate information in different ways.

You don’t have to use tags but each post has to be assigned to at least one category. If you don’t do this manually, it will be assigned to a category called “Uncategorized” by default.

Take a look at this chart to learn more about the differences between categories and tags.

Learn more about using categories and tags in this help guide.

9) Questions

Do you include questions at the end of your post to encourage visitors to leave a comment?

Comments bring blog posts alive. They turn your blog from a static space to an interactive space. Some fantastic learning can happen in the comment section.

Readers can leave feedback, offer constructive criticism, or share new perspectives. This can help you grow and learn.

You can’t assume that readers will think to leave a comment. You need to invite them. Try coming up with some open-ended questions that you can include at the bottom of your blog posts.

10) Comments

Do you approve comments quickly and write polite replies?

If you do receive comments on your post, it’s important to approve them in a timely manner and write a reply.

This will encourage readers to keep returning and interacting.

Try to make your comments high-quality.

Here are some elements of a quality blog comment:

• Written like a letter with a greeting, body, and sometimes a closing.
• Includes correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and spacing.
• The content might include questions, compliments, and/or relevant new information.
• Aim to make connections without revealing personal information like surnames, specific plans, addresses, birthdays, etc.

You won’t always include all of the above in your comments but these are the sorts of things you might aim for.

Summary Poster: What Makes A Quality Blog Post

>>Download a PDF version of the poster

Student Examples Demonstrating Elements Of A Quality Blog Post

Examples are always helpful to show students. Here are some examples of posts from Student Blogging Challenge participants. 

You’ll notice the annotated posts don’t necessarily include all of the 10 elements described above. Blogging is a learning journey and it’s also a personal representation of yourself. So you don’t need to follow a formula although having some tips to refer to is always helpful.

Raise the bar and reap the rewards!

Check out the examples from students in:

• 2nd grade
• 10th grade
• Higher ed/ESL

2nd Grade: Miss Blessings Class

Cherie Blessing is an experienced teacher and longtime blogger from central Vermont in the United States.

Cherie’s class blog is called The Great Adventure. Her student blogs are linked to her class blog using My Class. 

Let’s take a look at examples from two of her young bloggers. The students use pen names. These students have just turned 8 years old proving you’re never too young to blog!

Fluffy: Spring

Bee Buzzer: Colonial Farmer 

10th Grade: Emily

Emily is a grade 10 student in the Performance Learning Performance Learning at Seycove Secondary in Canada. Her school uses a CampusPress network to host their impressive blogging program.

Emily has been blogging for nearly 3 years. You can read about her experiences with the Student Blogging Challenge in this post (she made a video about the challenge with two friends).

The following annotated post is just an example of the high-quality content that Emily regularly publishes on her blog. She’s an exceptional student and role model for other bloggers.

Along with excellent writing, Emily includes creative graphics, charts, and diagrams to make her posts a true delight to read.

Due to the length of Emily’s post, only snippets were included below. Be sure to read the full post here.

Higher Education (ESL): Mrs. Matveyeva’s Class Blog

Nadia Matveyeva is an English instructor from a university in Kazakhstan. She started a class blog this year with her second-year college students.

2019 is the second year her students have been learning English. They were excellent participants of the Student Blogging Challenge.

Here is one of their posts about family celebrations in Kazakhstan for the new year. It was written collaboratively by Nadia K., Lisa T., Christine M. and Farisa S. The poem was by Sasha R. and Ruslan B.

Due to the length of the post, only snippets were included below. You can view the full post here.

Further Reading

My Class: Student Blogs Made Easy

Different Approaches To Using Student Blogs And Digital Portfolios

Check Out These Class Blogs

Google Photos is my favorite photo and video sharing and storage service.

My phone is set to automatically upload photos to Google Photos when I’m connected to wifi.

With Google Photos, I can access my photos across all my devices and it’s packed with numerous features that help me organize, use, share, and manage my photos.

Get Started With Google Photos

One of our most popular posts on The Edublogger is our Beginner’s Guide To Google Photos. It explains how Google Photos works, how to get started, and lots of tips and tricks for getting the most out of it.

This post expands on our guide and explains how you can embed Google Photos albums into your blog or website.

Embed Google Photos Albums

I really love organizing my photos into albums BUT Google Photos frustrates me as they don’t provide an option to embed my Google Photo albums into my website.

I’ve been searching for the solution for the past year and tried numerous solutions including some WordPress plugins.  None suited what I was looking for until now!

Albums are just collections of photos and in your Google Photo account. You can add up to 20,000 photos or videos to an album and you can also add things like maps and text.

Learn more about creating and editing albums in this Google Photos help guide.

Embed Google Photo Album

Here’s how to embed a Google Photos album:

1.  Log into Google Photos on your computer.

2.  Click on the Album you want to embed. Click on the Share icon.

3.  Click on Get Link and then Copy. 

4.  Go to Publicalbum.org

5.  Paste your Google Albums link into the box and press Create Embed Code. 

6. Here you’ll be able to change the way your album is displayed if you wish. When you’re happy, select the embed code on the right and copy it.

7.  In your blog dashboard, add a Custom HTML block and paste in your code.

The method you use will depend on the website or blog platform you use. This is how you do it on Edublogs and CampusPress networks.

8.  Once the post is published you will see the album embedded as a slideshow.

Google Photos Album Embed Examples

Below are two different examples of embedded Google Photos albums so you can see what the embed looks like.

A photo album from Sculptures by the Sea.

A photo album of the Western Mail Centenary Number (1828 to 1929)

Viewing this slideshow on a mobile device allows you to zoom in to read the text.

Using Google Photos Albums In The Classroom

There are many ways teachers and students can use albums in Google Photos.

Of course, before using Google Photos with students you’d need to ensure you have the correct permission. You might also find our post on using students’ photos online handy.

Here are a few ideas:

• You (or students) can take photos of work samples. You can store the photos in albums and share with parents, or use the samples when it’s time to write report cards.
• Albums of student work could be handy to show as examples to your future cohorts of students who might be completing the same task.
• Is your filing cabinet full of important testing, planners, reports, and other paperwork that you think you should keep “just in case”? Consider taking photos of them and organizing them in albums.
• Save photos from throughout the school year in an album and use the collection to make an end of year video or slideshow for/with your students. Tip: We have a guide to making a slideshow style video with music. 
• When you have events or field trips, put the photos in an album and embed it on your blog to share with the school community.

If you’re scanning documents and images, you might find you get a better result with Google’s PhotoScan app. You can find out how to use it in our Beginner’s Guide To Google Photos.