February 2nd, 2009 at 8:27 pm

Hello Mrs C

I had the same trouble with the learnerblogs accounts a year ago. Once the Edublogs support went, they were peppered with adverts. The final straw came when a child received an extremely inappropriate spam comment. I always moderate comments, but it was just unfortunate that she logged into her blog and saw it before I had the chance to do that.

This happened at the weekend and it was so offensive, that I made the decision there and then to delete the blog (it was a panic reaction – I could have just disabled the comment function). I then spent hours making the children new edublogs accounts.

When I returned to school on Monday, I explained the situation to the children and then demonstrated how they could export their own learnerblogs data into their new Edublogs accounts. I also showed them how to activate the Akismet plugin and shared my wordpress API key with them.

A great worry now is that, although it’s possible to stop ads appearing in individual pupil blogs by adding them to a Supporter’s blog, there is no way to obtain the all important Akismet plugin for these blogs. Plugins are now only available to supporters.

Thank you very much for your kind offer to use your supporter status to de-advertise any blogs here. I might be in touch if I find we have some in need of rescuing!

Meanwhile, I’ve posted some basic self-hosting ‘how to’ ppts on my new blog, if you think that might be an option.

http://ourblog.globalstudent.org.au/

Mrs C Says:

January 31st, 2009 at 9:10 pm edit

It’s funny to come across a blogger who feels exactly as I do, but that’s the case here. I have preached the Edublogs message to my school, sucked our whole staff into signing up and now I feel stupid because of the sometimes-inappropriate ads appearing and the lack of functionality for those who don’t want to pay $40. Worse, my whole grade from last year used Learnerblogs that became obsolete within 6 weeks of starting them. The kids kept them going but there was no support, minimal widgets, wouldn’t accept Javascript – many issues. Now, even though I am a supporter (and was before my hand was forced), I can’t block ads from my kids’ Learnerblogs at all – although I was offered advice that it’s “easy” to move them all to Edublogs. (Obviously the assurance came from someone who doesn’t have a grade with 31 blogs running.)
I don’t mind that Edublogs charge for their service – I’m offended and angry that they changed the rules after we’d put so much work in – it’s a betrayal.
MVass – I hope it’s appropriate to mention this here (please delete this para if it’s inappropriate) : I have about 20 unused spaces to de-advertise blogs (I can’t use them as my kids have Learnerblogs) – contact me via my new class blog if you’d like me to de-ad your edublog. My supportership lasts until April.

January 27th, 2009 at 3:00 am

Hello and thanks for the comment.

I agree with all of your points. An email warning would have been nice. Even then, I would have expected any ads to have been appropriate for an educational site. As you say, most folk only visit the forums when they have a problem, so they’re not lingering there to read all the posts from users who have come across these ads and are complaining.

It’s strange how some blogs are targetted more than others. I’ve spoken to a few teachers here who’ve set up free blogs recently with edublogs. Some are peppered with ads (lots of inappropriate ones) and others are completely ad-free – for now.

I’m fortunate enough to have a ’supporter’ class blog with space in it (I can add up to 30 other blog url’s) to ‘rescue’ those pupils, teachers and parents who are exposed to ads until we come up with an alternative sulution.

LibrarySupporter Says:

January 25th, 2009 at 9:40 pm edit

No advertising of any kind is permitted on school blogs in my district. Period. And certainly not the kind that’s been popping up on edublogs. I took the edublogs student blog down after the first ad was reported. There’s a spending freeze in my district, so they won’t be paying for Edublogs Supporter. I won’t either, mostly because there was no warning whatsoever of the ads. And I don’t include some vague discussion on the Edublogs forum, because like most educators, I visited the forum when I had a problem, searched for what I needed, and went on my way. Had a nice e-mail gone out explaining that Edublogs was no longer able to provide the current level of service without advertising, I might have felt differently. Instead, I got “good morning! Did you know there’s a sexy babe popping up on your website?” Not fun to be in violation of the AUP I helped write.

As for “only $39.95? the fact that Edublogs doesn’t take purchase orders tells me they know that most teachers will pay out of their own pockets for things they want for their students, and decided to take financial advantage of that impulse.

I’m looking at classblogmeister here in the US and our tech folks are looking at in-house hosting.

I had absloutely no complaints about the service at edublogs until the unsafe ads began appearing. The good thing about all this is that I’m being forced to learn the art of self-hosting. I’d never have taken that step otherwise

I”ve never heard of Gail Desler (and wouldn’t begin to know how to contact her) but i’m sorry that you needed to get out of bed at 3 AM because she needed your urgent assistance!

I know how that feels, though, because I was up all night last night trying to figure out a way to remove the ads from the Primary 2 class blog before any more damage was done. Thank goodness I became an edublog supporter two years ago (I did it voluntarily when there was no pressure to do so – I wanted to show James that I appreciated the great free service)

After a ‘tossing and turning’ for most of the night, I realised that I could add the P 2 blog to the Carronshore blog and make them ad-free. It felt good to get to work and telephone the teacher to tell her that she could relax, too, because there would be no more horrible adult ads appearing on her six year olds’ class blog.

I hope I sleep tonight – I’m off now to check the other class blogs I’ve helped to set up since I came into post in August. I hope I get to any inappropriate ads before the families do

Thanks for commenting. Like you, I’ve always been delighted with Edublogs free service and that’s why I had no hesitation recommending it to the LA.

In my new secondment post, however, i can’t take the chance of having inappropriate ads appearing – and I can’t recommend it as a free service if the only option is to become a supporter to guarantee safe use in education.

If I’d still been in class, I would probably, like you, be defending edublogs. But I’m having to look at things from a different perspective now.

Once I’ve moved over here and settled in for good (a matter of days hopefully – just a few things to tidy up!) then I intend to do just that

First of all, I’d like to welcome you to my site – I’m so used to reading your advice on the Edublogs forums that this feels weird! Not too long ago, I received a comment from James himself when I posted about my M.Ed. graduation ceremony (my dissertation focussed on my use of edublogs with my class) and I felt very chuffed that he took the time to visit my site and leave his kind comment
I’ve sung Edublogs’ praises for the past two and a half years. I never once doubted the commitment to education and have valued the wonderful support from the forums on the few occasions when I’ve felt the need to seek it. I’ve also taken the time to share a couple of ‘Here’s How I Did it’ tips.

A trust was built up and I believed that this was a site that I could recommend to, not only fellow teachers, but my Local Education Authority.

I took up my new post in August as an ICT Curriculum Development Officer, and one of my main roles is to convince teachers that blogging will have a positive impact on their classroom practice (I firmly believe that!)
I have taken the time to produce a variety of ‘blogging’ presentation material – all based on edublogs – and the teachers here are beginning to come on board.

The latest changes within edublogs didn’t bother me too much because there was always a way around them. For example, the cut in storage space can be can be remedied by compressing pics, hosting them on sites such as photobucket, etc.

The recent ads issue, though, has left me feeling betrayed.

James stated from the outset that he needed to take this step so that he could continue to provide the free service. He also promised that there would be no inappropriate ads because it was an educational site. More and more very inappropriate ads are sneaking in now. Why is it up to me to complain to a third party about this?

…….. and by that time, how many children and their parents will have been exposed to them?

I have taken the time to look at the whole situation and I still stand by my ‘enough is enough’ proclamation. We’ll need to agree to differ