Chosing a blog host is a matter of taste, how much and how long you want to spend on it and depends on what your objective in class is. There are a number of free weblogs you can sign up for and each will provide you with different options and built-in tools. The most popular are:
BLOGGER: http://www. blogger.com
XANGA: http://www.xanga.com
BLOG CITY: http://www.blog-city.com/
(wonderful guide at:
http://howto.blog-city.com/)
BRAVENET: http://www.bravenet.com
TRIPOD: http://www.tripod.lycos.com/
I have opened the four blogs that were mentioned in the mails: Tripod, Bravenet, Xanga and Blogger.
Buthaina mentioned she is using Tripod. It is a nice option as it offers you a variety of possibilities like comments and a tagboard. I have a paid subscription to it as this is the server which hosts my website. However, I do not use its blogger service. Although subscribed Tripod users can maintain multiple blogs, Tripod users on a free plan can maintain only one blog and you cannot keep a Community blog either. So this was not a good option for a class blog.
Daf goes for Bravenet and Sus has her blog on Xanga. However, although they offer a number of built-in accessories, the post page is too many clicks away. I have chosen http://www.blogger.com (free edition) for my students because I feel it has the simplest interface for my needs. Students are not too distracted with all the add ons you find on the bravenet or xanga start page...there is too much there and I fear that some of my students would spend more time verifying all the options than doing what they are supposed to do.
Once the students become acquainted with the interface, some want to add links, comments, change the template and so on. At that moment, I direct them to the template area and quickly explain how to include the extras...this is a nice moment, because some of the weaker students in English are strong in HTML...so they serve as tutors to the others, which creates a good collaborative atmosphere in class.
Vance has posted
instructions on how to open a blogger account at:http://www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/efi/blogger_tutorial.htm
and I have posted instructions on how to post at: http://the_english_dept.tripod.com/blog/blogging.html
