Edublogs.org was one of the first WordPress.com style blogs based upon the multi-user blogging program, WordPressMU. Recently, it was announced that Edublogs.org now has almost 17,000 bloggers signed on, an amazing number.
Edublogs is a free blogging service for teachers, researchers, librarians and other educational professionals. It creates an interesting blogging community, all blogging about educational issues, topics, news, information, resources, and more.
They have expanded their free blogging service to include narrower categories of education-related bloggers. They offer learnerblogs for school students, uniblogs.org for university and college students, and eslblogs for those involved in teaching English as a second language and English as a foreign language.
Not only are these a benefit for those working in the educational field, but it creates a community with much in common. How amazing it must be for a teacher in England to communicate with a teacher in New Mexico, learning about how much they have in common as well as their differences, and expanding their teaching knowledge and abilities through the networking communication. Having spend some time teaching English and other subjects to those whom English is not a first, second, or even twelfth language, I sure wish I had such a community of blogs to read and question. The amazing level of support and information available astounds me.
Edublogs also had a one year birthday and their stats are amazing.
By the end of January (6 months) the site had served 38,534 unique browsers and 1,448,743 page impressions that month. By the end of July (12 months) we’d gone through a whopping 113,883 unique browsers and 3,607,871 page impressions.
In the same month learnerblogs.org, uniblogs.org and eslblogs.org went though over 50,000 unique browsers.
OK, it isn’t quite myspace but it’s pretty cool 🙂
As for blogs on May 23rd the 10,000th edublogs.org blog was created. Which was great. But as of this moment today (August 14th) there are 17,869 blogs. Yikes.
Honestly, I thought the “community blogging” spirit would take off stronger than it has. I expected to see a lot of grouped bloggers working together within their own communities, emphasizing collective knowledge. That’s part of the spirit of Web 2.0. As WordPress.com and other WordPressMU blogging tools become more stable and easier to use, more groups will embrace it. I hope. I think this kind of blog networking is very exciting.
Site Search Tags: blogging community, education blogs, teacher blogs, student blogs, university blogs, free blogs, community blogging, network, community network, blogging network, network of blogs, wordpress, wordpressmu, edublogs, uniblogs, learnerblogs
Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network
Lorelle on WordPress 
11 Comments
Thanks for the nice article Lorelle, it’s an interesting tension between service & community but something that we’re offering seems to be hitting the nail on the head.
Thank you too for the neverending supply of WP goodness.
It’s really amazing what you’ve done, James. It helps so many while benefiting society as a whole. Brilliant. Thank you for helping to change the world through education.
Thank you for the blog, Lorelle. I wanted to learn how to make a wordpress theme from scratch (the one I have is a adaptation from another I used before, an so I’m not satisfied at all) and finally I’ve found how to do it fine.
I tried several times ’cause I have notions in PHP, HTML and CSS but I didn’t know where to start. After reading a little bit of your blog, I’ve found some useful clues. Thank you. And sorry for my awful english ^^U
Eee! This sounds like JUST the kind of place to put EducateDeviate in. However, I’m not sure where I belong in. EduBlogs sounds like the best place, however I’m not an educational professional – just a uni student currently. But “UniBlogs” doesn’t sound sufficient.
Ideas?
Why isn’t Uniblogs sufficient? If you are a university student, then it sounds appropriate. However, it is a good question, Tiara. I recommend you ask them directly.
Your blog covers so much educational material, part of me wonders why you aren’t on an education track. 😉 You are destined for great things, and helping others is something you are great at.
Let me know what you find out from them.
I use the edublogs for mostly non-collaborative stuff. I set up a uniblogs site, http://ykalaska.uniblogs.org, in anticipation of allowing students (of whatever school or out-of-school level) to co-write. At the moment, a user at one site can’t be “invited” to write at the other.
I would think a uniblog would be a great venue for showing what university students do.
On the other hand, this is the Internet so no one knows if you are a student (or even a NYorker dog.)
I truly believe that the most revolutionary facet of the web is the Blog.
it was ok i mean needs better information i enjoy it though
I was wondering why the edu blog site is constatly down my daughters teacher requests that she go on it for school but she can never get on the sight??
And I’m wondering why you came to this site to ask. It is smarter to go to the site and officials in charge of the site to ask such a question. I don’t know which site you are talking about nor the people involved, or even the geographic location of where you and the edublog is.
Good luck with getting the right help from the right people and I recommend you help your daughter learn how to get the right help from the right people via the web, too. It’s an important lesson.
Thanks.
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[…] With WordPressMU, blogging communities can be developed. Edublogs.org is one such example I highlighted recently, featuring free blogs to teachers. It’s now grown to include several other educational groups like students and university students, creating a huge network of bloggers blogging on related topics and a community from which to learn and study from and with. […]
[…] This is demonstrated over at Edublogs. In the year since it first launched using a beta version of WordPressMU, it’s accumulated an impressive number of readers and writers, but, as Lorelle notes, it’s not developed an obvious community: Honestly, I thought the “community blogging” spirit would take off stronger than it has. I expected to see a lot of grouped bloggers working together within their own communities, emphasizing collective knowledge. That’s part of the spirit of Web 2.0. As WordPress.com and other WordPressMU blogging tools become more stable and easier to use, more groups will embrace it. I don’t think it’s simply a matter of stability and ease of use though. I think the problem is that WordPressMU lacks community features that help people find and stay connected with other bloggers using the service. […]
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