How to create a teacher-managed blog using Blogger

If you are not comfortable with letting students run rampant with their own blogs, you can always create your own teacher-managed blog to maintain control.  Students can still contribute to such a blog through comments and discussions.

To set up a blog, follow the directions on the previous post: "How students can create their own blogs for personal reflections" 

Setting up permissions 

Using permissions, you can make your blog private to only you and your students. To change permissions, follow the directions below

1. In the dashboard dropdown, click on Settings. This takes you to the "Basics" settings page.
2. Click on "Edit" in the Blog Readers section.
3. Change your option from "Anybody" to either "Only Blog Authors" or "Only These Readers." When adding students as blog authors, they will be able to post to your blog. By manually adding students as readers, you can . 
4. After choosing to add students as readers, manually add their email accounts to this page.

Setting up comments 

With blogs, you can turn off comments completely, turn them on with moderation, or turn them on so they display automatically. To change permissions:

1. Go to Settings > Posts and comments
2. Change the "Who can comment?" option to only users with Google Accounts, or only students who are members of the blog.
3. Change the "Comment moderation" section from "Never" to "Always" or "Sometimes"