General profile: 21Classes offers a two layer system of free blogs: a teacher/class portal blog and/or up to ten student blogs associated with that portal. Creating more than ten individual student blogs costs a subscription fee. Teachers control the admin functions unless they CHOOSE to release some of these to students. There are extensive controls, but the defaults are enough to get you started. We recommend making the teacher/class blog to learn the tools. Under Classroom Home Page> More options> teacher blog, you can establish a blog just for the teacher, and this is a great way to become familiar with the tools your students will be using. You might want to learn alongside a small group of student tech helpers and then have the rest of the class join in. Then add the ten student accounts and log ins. To stay within the free options, form small groups to use each of the ten accounts. If you teach several sections/classes of students, make ten groups per class. You can use categories or tags to identify posts from each section. Since multiple students will be using the same account, there is a concern that students in period 4 may alter work from period 1 or 2, so be sure you know how to “see” when work has been changed. We suggest you start out with student options "locked down" and loosen up. It is much easier than going the other way, especially if your school has strict policies. |
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| Features available: | Yes/no | What they call it, and how to find it | Reviewer comments |
| Password-protect entire blog | N |
Only on PAID accounts |
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| Choices of blog appearance | Y |
Dashboard>layouts | Teacher controls main portal layout and how much students can customize their own, even their choice of “themes.” |
| Customization of appearance with own graphics | Y |
Under Layouts | Beware of uploading images and maxing out your file storage space. |
| Keywording/tagging | Y |
Layouts> categories for student blogs. | Teacher can set predetermined categories, such as by subject or curriculum topic, turn off tagging, or allow students to create their own. We recommend using a standard set of tags for easy sorting across all student blogs. Use tags to odentify different classes, too. |
| Teacher-managed registration options | Y |
Add Student Accounts>Add and manage student accounts | Teacher can register all users or allow self-registration. Can disable the requirement for an email account for students (under Student accounts> students’ blog settings> uncheck the box for E-Mail functionality enabled) |
| Teacher-managed posting options | Y |
Student accounts>Students' blog settings>Student interaction, Entry visibility, comments |
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| Teacher-managed commenting options | Y |
Student accounts> Students' blog settings>Student interaction, Entry visibility, comments |
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| Teacher-approval of posts and comments | Y |
Student accounts> Students' blog settings>Student interaction, entry visibility |
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| Teacher-managed control over what different members can “see” | Y |
Student accounts> Students' blog settings>Student interaction, entry visibility |
Teachers should NOT check the box that allows users to override default settings for visibility if they wish to retain this control. |
| Other capabilities | Y |
See More options under EACH menu | Teacher-controlled. Include profile settings, predefined groups to protect visibility of some content, co-authoring, and more. |
| RSS Feeds | Y |
RSS logo appears on home page | Outgoing feed |
| Help available | Y |
Help link (Upper right) | Separate help for students and site admin (teacher) |
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