I’ve now been running blogs with & for my classes since 2005. I still find them a really useful tool for teaching and learning. The focus and content has changed continually over the years.

Back in the noughties I was keen on having my class blog kept up by pupils (archive.org link).

I find this harder to organise now, not sure if it is my age, the demands of the curriculum or something else. Pupils in my class now post to their e-Portfolios1 and add pieces of work to the class blog which I collate into posts. I also pinch quotes from their e-portfolios for the class blog2.

Like my own blog here I still find my class blog a great resource to remember & review. Of course it is a curated view. Much depends on what I am finding most interesting at the time. I both enjoy reading back and use it as a tool when asked for feedback or a record of some sort.

I was somewhat cheered up by Matt Mullenweg’s birthday. Sometimes it feels like WordPress is focused on content management. Matt’s post show that blogging is still loved.
While content management is a main focus of Glow Blogs my love is blogging. I still think we are only scratching the surface of the use of WordPress in school3.

Posts Last Term (Oct 2023 – Dec 2023 on my class blog )

  1. Glow Blogs – WordPress blogs for Scottish Education
  2. example of quote collection
  3. H5P for example

Bookmarked Building a Block-Based Microblog by Jan Boddez.

IndieBlocks, which I am using to post this, is an alternative to the Post Kinds plugin that works with the block editor instead of classic.

I am still using mostly using classic on this blog as it seems the right tool for the job. But WordPress’s future seems to be blocks. I like the ui for bookmarks etc in IndieBlogs and guess I can ignore most of the blocks editor features.

I am a bit conflicted as to how switching approaches would work. For example Post Kinds adds an extra taxonomy for different kinds of post, IndieBlocks uses custom post types. I’ve got 7 years of post kinds posts here. I’ve also some styles based on the kinds.

I lean towards taxonomies over custom posts. This probably due to an over enthusiastic use of custom post kinds a few years back.

I think I prefer the incorporation of the link, author & quote into the main entry in IndieBlocks.

Good to have choices I guess 😉

According to my Books page, I’ve read 46 books this year. I started adding star ratings as tags so can give a list of 5 star books (weight by my enjoyment ) using the lovely display posts plugin.

Replied to 07/23/22 by joe jenettjoe jenett (pointers.dailywebthing.com)
podviaznikov.com (new) wyvy.net (new) ThoughtAsylum

Hi Joe,

Another trio of fascinating links. podviaznikov.com took me to montaigne.io which the site is made with. Montaigne is a simple tool that allows you to publish any type of website from Apple Notes , the docs are not yet complete but I certainly want to keep an eye on.

Thanks!