Welcome to Latest Version of Kidblog!
Our development team has spent the past two months working tirelessly to bring you the most significant upgrade in Kidblog’s history. The upgrade is now official, and you and your students will notice the fantastic new features immediately.
For Teachers/Administrators:
User Management
- Bulk-creation of users - our most-requested feature. Create up to 200 students at a time with a simple text file!
- Multiple-class memberships for students and teachers. Students use a single login account to access each of their Kidblog classes. Teachers can add colleagues to current Kidblog classes and collaborate.
- More control for Administrators. All existing ‘Teacher’ accounts have been upgraded to Administrator’ status. Administrators can now restrict teachers’ permission levels. New “Moderator” role can fully manage posts/comments without access to user accounts.
- User groups can be created within a class to logically organize students’ published content.
Dashboard
- iPhone & iPod Touch support! Manage posts/comments from anywhere! Download the Wordpress app
- New dashboard with post/comment statistics at-a-glance
- Available upload space – no more wondering how close you are to your quota. (Remember, we can always increase your available disk space upon request.)
- Media file management – view/delete files. You can remove bulky or redundant items that are taking up space within your account.
Posts
- New post editor provides the ability to embed the latest Web 2.0/Flash objects for a truly integrated, multimedia experience.
- Streamlined approval process for pending posts. Quickly approve multiple posts from a single list, just like you do with comments! You can even expand the posts and view all content at once on a single screen.
Comments
- Approve comments directly from the main dashboard. No extra clicks required!
- Teachers can now comment on draft/pending posts to provide feedback for writing projects in-process. (Thanks to Lee Kolbert for the feature request!)
- Comments are visible at the post-editing screen for easy reference when revising posts based on reader/teacher feedback.
- More prominent notifications alert you to pending comments (and posts)
New Class Themes
- The original Kidblog look & feel has been given a modern makeover. Your visitors will now see a more feature-laden, widget-friendly theme.
- Multiple themes available - Administrators can now choose between color schemes for their class.
For Students:
Full Content on Author Archive
- A more standard, professional look for students’ blogs. See multiple posts in a rolling list, not just single-post views.
- Peruse students’ writing in a more reader-friendly manner
iPhone & iPod Touch Publishing!
- Write posts and leave comments from your mobile device
- Download the Wordpress app
Sidebar Widgets
- New sidebars provide an efficient way for readers and writers to notice new posts and comments on an author’s blog
For Everyone!
No Distractions
- We’ve packaged all of our new features into the same, beloved Kidblog interface.
- No extraneous distractions. When students log in, they know how to get to work and know what to do – BLOG!
- Students are free to focus on content and discussion without the settings/configuration headaches of other platforms.
- No Advertising. We’ve stayed true to our core principles: provide a powerful, easy to use, ad-free, teacher/student-friendly blogging solution.
Needless to say, we’re excited about this incredible new list of features. We hope you are too!
With an upgrade this substantial, there may be minor bugs that were not detected during our intensive testing process. If you notice anything that doesn’t seem right, please contact support@kidblog.org and we’ll look into it right away.
For those of you on Twitter, we encourage you to share your opinions about the new features! You can follow @KidblogDotOrg to stay in the loop, too.
Happy Blogging!
-The Kidblog Development Team
