Tech Review: WordPress for Teacher Blogging

My first experience with blogging was back in 7th grade. My initial understanding of the purpose of a blog was to post poorly written love poems and hope that the my tortured soul would be heard. To my disappointment, it didn’t actually seem like they were – although the tool I used then, Xanga, didn’t have all of the cool stat features that more recent blog creator sites have.

Recently I decided to jump on Twitter, and unsurprisingly, most of the people that I tend to want to follow have their own blog about teaching. Some use Blogger, others Weebly, but I saw many good quality blogs being posted on the platform WordPress. While I’m sure that each platform is good in it’s own right, this post is not intended to compare the different platforms, but to share some of the initial impressions I have had using WordPress to get a blog about education up and running.

Is it easy to use?

I think so. There are times where if you are not familiar with basic html – for example, how to link one page of your blog with the home screen, or how to change the title of one of your links – you may initially feel frustrated. I especially did when I was trying to put the blog together on my phone. Save yourself some energy and set up your blog using the old fashioned mouse, or like me, your laptop’s trackpad. It’s just too hard to fatfinger the thing together on a small touch screen mobile device.

Have people been reading it?

With WordPress, keeping track of who is viewing your blog is very easy. There is the option of upgrading your stats for additional functionality, but I quite like what WordPress gives bloggers for free. There is even a nifty little map that shows where your viewers are from. Seeing it for yourself gives new bloggers like me encouragement to keep going.

One of the best parts of WordPress is that it automatically Tweets and posts to Facebook after you’ve posted a new blog. This is where I imagine most of my followers are coming in contact with my blog.

Do We Recommend it?

If you’re just starting a blog, I think WordPress is a good platform. It’s easy to use, it helps you keep track of your stats, but most of all, it lets you just get to blogging. The feature of automatically posting to your social media sites makes it so that your social media is all connected, saving you time.

There are options to go “Premium, where you pay for added features such as video playback, advanced stats and your own domain, but @Sgroshell and I aren’t ready for that yet. Like you, maybe, we’re not sure where this blog will take us just yet.

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