Blogging

[AAK]

I know that a lot of you blog. I was thinking about trying this out to kinda document our learning experiences. Does anyone have recommendations for me on how to get started? Free places to blog that are user friendly too? Are there blogging hosting places that are meant for homeschoolers? Tips, tricks, privacy matters, etc.?

Amy

[Hiker Mama]

I'm sure that others may have more to say, but here is my experience. I looked around a few years ago at the major blog hosting sites, and eventually settled on Blogger because it seemed easy enough and free. You can set the privacy for various levels, I believe - public available to everyone, and private for only those you invite to see (my parents have a blog like that for when they travel so the whole world won't know their home is empty). Some moms don't mention their kids' real names, but some do. I feel fine with it, myself, but others may not. I also try to be sensitive to friends or family members who may not want photos of them or their children posted.

For me the biggest thing is being consistent without spending too much time on it. Sometimes I feel that the amount of time I take to fiddle with the photos, upload them, and write an amazing post just takes too much time. But some moms set themselves a 30 minute limit or something like that. Blogging has been a good outlet for me to journal and photograph stuff that was just going by too fast each day. I am able to take a photo and write down my thoughts about it quickly, as opposed to having to get the photos developed and make the time to scrapbook them. And looking back, I have been able to record a lot of things we've done for school, and see just how much we really have done.

Whatever you decide, good luck! And have fun with it!

[Momma Aimee]

we do not use real names. their is one family we are dear with and they have a "fake name" too so i can talk about them. I use the real name of people of public record (the librarian for example).

There are no photos of my DH on ours, only me and the boys.

Our excate location is not stated.

I use wordpress -- http://scribinglife.wordpress.com/ -- and am happy with it.

I have things i'd like to have different or "more easy" buttttt I am not sure how much of that is my host, and how much is me (I wish i could change my format with more ease)

my best advice is to think about your name, tag and and so on a lot before hand so you are sure of what you like before you start.

[tallulahma]

i use blogger and mainly use the app on my iphone to post.

I take "real" pics for our albums and such, but I try to snap a few pics of us doing things throughout the day with my phone, then I upload them and call it a day.

Im using the blog as a scrapbook for our family. my dh's family in ny check it every night and call me if Im not posting with enough frequency.

I use alternate names.. but i only do it so that when they get older and an employer googles their name they dont get pictures of them in cloth diapers and such.

[Momma Aimee]

Originally Posted by tallulahma

i use blogger and mainly use the app on my iphone to post.

I take "real" pics for our albums and such, but I try to snap a few pics of us doing things throughout the day with my phone, then I upload them and call it a day.

Im using the blog as a scrapbook for our family. my dh's family in ny check it every night and call me if Im not posting with enough frequency.

I use alternate names.. but i only do it so that when they get older and an employer googles their name they don't get pictures of them in cloth diapers and such.

DH prints my posts to PDF and we save them that way -- DH seems really excited about that aspect "think if you had a book, book,, of your 4th year of life, photos of art project, cute stories and everything and you could literally look back at 2 or 3 or most days of a normal week when you were 2 or 3 or 5 or .."

Our is life, and school and my thoughts. i try to keep it to a standard -- but it is life -- NIP and all Some of DH's family is annoyed "That doesn't need to be shared" but whatever -- we have friends in China, and family all over that follow us.

=because the NAK 2 yo insists

I'd guess ours ins 70% 'school" -- i know some families that run 2 -- one fore life and one for school --- but i can't separate our life like that.

I take photos most days anyway. i think "thinking in blog post" thinking about what i want to show or photo for the blog or whatever helps me structure my thinking and structure what we do -- a big bonus -- as i end up think though projects a bit better before starting them.

[The Amber Lily]

I post the books we read, the activities and crafts we do, the outdoor exploring, etc, but without giving much detail into our personal lives. I don't post pictures of our activities partly because they're personal, and partly because the process is extremely time consuming for me, lol. I have other images, videos, links, and thoughts that I like or impact me in some way though. It's my general blog that I include my homeschooling stuff on, not just a specific homeschooling blog.

We bought the domain - theamberlily.com - and I use Wordpress Thesis. My husband does all the tech work, but once that is set up the site is fairly easy to manage. Otherwise, I would just use a free site.

[Momma Aimee]

anyone making changes for 2011 --

or any new momma gonna start a blog for scfhool for 2011

[ocelotmom]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee 

anyone making changes for 2011 --

or any new momma gonna start a blog for scfhool for 2011

I've had a blog for a while, but would like to keep it more up-to-date, and hopefully a little more interesting, this year.
 

learninglemurs.blogspot.com :)

Edited by ocelotmom - 1/5/11 at 3:16pm

[inky leeuhhh]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee 

anyone making changes for 2011 --

or any new momma gonna start a blog for scfhool for 2011

i hope to keep mine updated more often, but who knows if that will happen. we're so stinkin busy!

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee 



DH prints my posts to PDF and we save them that way -- DH seems really excited about that aspect "think if you had a book, book,, of your 4th year of life, photos of art project, cute stories and everything and you could literally look back at 2 or 3 or most days of a normal week when you were 2 or 3 or 5 or .."
 

I've been blogging since 1997, though originally I was just manually posting pages of HTML. I switched to Blogger in about 2001. Anyway, I have done exactly what your dh is excited about. I've used Blog2Print to publish hardcover copies of my blog archives. We all just love them. We recently had 2007 printed. The nostalgia effect is wonderful for parents and kids alike. My kids love reading our family blog, either online or especially in book form.

I post maybe three or four times a week on average. Not everyone we do, by any stretch, though I do post a couple of "day in the life" descriptions a year. Mostly what I post is meaningful stuff, reflections, notable achievements, areas of sudden interest or growth, shifts in learning or maturity, passages, my own thoughts about the course our home-learning and family life is taking. Where detailed (i.e. mostly boring) accounting of the learning is required, as it is this year for the charter-type school we're part of, we set up separate blogs for each child and log hours, post work samples, tally up work done. My kids now do all their own logging/posting on their personal learning blogs.

Miranda

[Momma Aimee]

:0)

[Greenmama2]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee 

anyone making changes for 2011 --

or any new momma gonna start a blog for scfhool for 2011

Changes? Hmm, I'm not sure. I have two blogs, one I started when DD was still crawling that has her name in the title and one started around the time DS was conceived. Both are set to public but I tend not to share the link to DD's with anyone but family and close friends (yet it has more followers lol), the second one was supposed to be my more public one and the one where I blathered on more generally about unschooling/homeschooling, got all opinionated etc. I think in a lot of ways it would work well for me to have general blog & a homeschool blog for each child, but as you said I just can't separate our life out like that.

Oh, here is the "public" one:

http://greendraggon.blogspot.com/

[Brisen]

I use blogger, too, though I was with a dedicated homeschooling blog, um, service provider? a few years ago.  It was nice, but not really the atmosphere I was looking for.  I have been thinking of looking around for another lately.  I really enjoy browsing other hsing blogs and it was much easier when I was there.

I do a quick summary of our day, the books we read, games we played, workbooks the kids worked in, etc.  It's mostly for my own record keeping, though for it to be useful, I would have to keep up with it more than a smattering of posts every few months.

I rarely post pictures, unless it's something I've put on the computer anyway and it won't take me long and I really want to include it.  I use first initials instead of names, don't use my location, etc.

[heatherdeg]

I have (thinking...) 7 blogs.  I think 7.  Possibly   Only 2-3 of them get updated regularly (and by "regularly" I mean weekly).  Another 2-3 get updated maybe once/month.  The rest are defunct  (I love to write and belt out stuff very quickly  :)  ).  I have half on Blogger (one is actually on homeschoolblogger which is a Blogger.com system now) and half on WordPress.  I absolutely hands-down love Wordpress better.

Only one of them uses any real names (only first names--the food blog) and only two of them use real locations (because they are related to real estate).  I have yet to ever post photos of people and often link out to photos on the internet (especially for the renovation blog).  I have posted pictures, just not of people.  Actually I have a blog on allergenic eating, renovating, building wealth by following specific theories, creating a peaceful life, our homeschool journey, a court case we were involved with regarding a former foster daughter (almost never updated anymore), a full-on diary (that's been neglected for a few months), a blog I started from the perspective of one of the dogs that has probably not been updated for over a year or two, a blog I started to highlight great stuff about my former town (that I'm about to delete), and another I was trying to write about how being a SAHM was akin to my life in corporate america (that has like 2 posts total and never gets updated... ought to delete that one, too).  I seriously love to write.  :)  The first five get the most hits by far.  The allergenic eating blog is on blogger and has been a nightmare to update because Blogger has problems inserting a new post when I log in as one user, but not when I log in as another user.  I separate some of my blogs by different log ins because people can connect you to all the blogs you have under one login and I want to be sure anything referring to location isn't connected to me.

Right now, Wordpress is doing a Postaday and Postaweek thing where they encourage you to post either daily or weekly depending on your goals and will e-mail you accordingly with helpful topics in case you're stumped and don't know what to write.  :)   See the details here:  http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/how-to-sign-up-postaday-postaweek/

The best advice I have is: don't worry if you don't have a lot to say.  Just post the one sentence you're thinking... just do it.  By the same token, don't worry about rambling on, either.  There are absolutely guidelines about post length, etc. for people who write professionally--but please, don't sweat it.  Just get started.  :)

[Brisen]

So, are there no homeschooling blog communities out there, other than homeschoolblogger?  I left there in a bit of a huff 5 years ago over The Old Schoolhouse magazine accepting advertising from No Greater Joy Ministries.  It was really nice having a community like that, though.  Are there no others?

[GPTwins08]

I blog a lot about home preschool activities http://graham-and-parker.blogspot.com/