One of the questions that I often field during my workshop on blogging is, “how do you keep track of what students are writing?” The answer to that depends on a few things including how frequently your students are publishing and the platform through which your students are blogging.

Option 1:
If you are using Edublogs, there is a section in your dashboard called My Class. Within the My Class section you can see a list of your students’ individual blogs. There is also a section in your dashboard called Users. Within the Users section you can see each students’ account and how many posts they’ve made. Also in the Users section you will find the option to run reports to find out which users have recently published on your classroom blog.

Option 2:
The strategy that I used for years was to have students enter their names and links to their most recent posts into a Google Form. All of their submissions will appear in a tidy spreadsheet. In that spreadsheet I can see a timestamp, name, and the link to go directly to a student’s most recent post. I can also add a column in the spreadsheet for noting whether or not I have given them feedback.

Option 3:

I use Feedly to subscribe to my favorite blogs. If your students are maintaining individual blogs, you could create a free Feedly account and then subscribe to your students’ blogs. You’ll then be able to see all of their blogs from one convenient dashboard. In the following video I demonstrate how to use Feedly.