In last Sunday’s EdTechRoundup meeting I briefly invited my fellow educators to comment about whether I should move this blog to a self hosted one or to stick where I am. In this post I just want to articulate some of my thoughts about this issue for me and hopefully act as a place for further debate.
I have been using Edublogs since the Summer of 2006, when I first got going. There have been ups and down(time)s but overall I have been really happy with the simplicity of the service. Any minor issues I had were dealt with in the forums by James and his colleagues.
My blog, this space has been fantastic for me to explore ideas and to reflect on what is happening in my classroom. I see such a space as being part and parcel of what I do now. I am very, very grateful to those of you who read what I publish and leave comments – the conversation and connections here were the start of my own personal learning network or whatever term you prefer. But…
I was disappointed about how Edublogs introduced the adverts and how intrusive they are on the very words I wrote. In my opinion I also think that some of the blog and forum objections that were posted have been responded to in an aggressive manner. This made me question whether I should roll up my tent.
However Edublogs, a hosted service, has given me the opportunity to focus on writing about learning technology, the successes and failures and not to get caught up in the tinkering behind the scenes. I want that in the future. I don’t want to be lumbered with constant maintenance and endless WP/hosting issues. I just want to go to my blog and write. But then if I move that, I am told could be easily setup.
I also have the question about the momentum that has been built regarding this space. I don’t have thousands of subscribers but it seems lots of my posts have been linked to by a few people. I value all of those connections and realise that some of the material I have written has proven valuable – I don’t want to jeopardise that. But then it is only a little blog and people would find directions to my new home.
You may have noticed that I have paid for the ads to be removed. I needed to buy a nit comb and just get rid of them. I appreciate the service Edublogs provides and whilst I figure out what to do with this space I wanted it to be free from ads for me and for those who read it.
I am still undecided and would appreciate your thoughts.
I know this has been hotly debated and I am not looking for a repeat of the “Ads or Not” debate, just whether I should move or stay put?
hi
great yaer…
Cv interview questions
I’m not sure if you’ve decided yet or not, but this is timely for me so I thought I’d throw in my two cents.
I’ve just today set up my blog on my own hosting site. I’m very pleased with how it’s turned out and even though I don’t know that much about the hosting/server side of the tech world, I managed to do it!
I use Godaddy.com for my hosting and while *their* website is a little hard to navigate, their customer service is top-notch. When I had no idea what to do with the PHP and SQL errors, they straightened it out for me in less than ten minutes and had me up and running.
I also decided to switch to WordPress after over two years with Blogger. I like how open it is and the themes that are available are plentiful.
Hope that was useful to you.
I have also just recently paid for my blog to be ad free through Edublogs. I couldn’t stand the intrusive and random graffiti on the site. Spread over a year the cost didn’t seem too bad but in one hit- out of my salary- it did.
I, like you, don’t want to have to spend hours and hours wandering the wilderness of transferring posts elsewhere else. I know clever people do it but I’m not one of them.
By paying for the blog to be ad free I am also allowing students to have their blogs ad free as well- a bit of a bonus really.
That’s what I did with an older blog that I moved to a domain (which I’ve since abandoned) I just left up one last post as a sign to my visitors. But, if you post about moving enough, most people will get the picture I would think.
You are not alone…the battle is being waged in my school as well. GoogleDocs, of all things is blocked, because people not on our network can edit it. Why have the internet at all?
Hi Tom,
I made the decision last summer to move from Edublogs to a self hosted site and I’ve never looked back. The transition was very easy, updates are automatic, and I can create my own look and feel. However, the biggest pluses have been that it always works and that it loads quickly. If you move, why not leave your “old” blog in place as it is and simply write one final post telling folks where you’ve moved to? Hopefully, they’ll quickly edit their rss feeds and follow you to your new home. Good luck to you!
Hi Tom,
I have been following your blog for the past six months and have found it extremely inspiring and having read all the positive testimonials during the ‘edublog awards’ I’m not alone. In fact a lesson that I designed and used today was generated from one of your posts on using Google Earth in your classroom. I found your blog through another edublog that was linked to another edublog that was linked to another edublog…
Mate you belong to a community of edubloggers!
I don’t doubt for a minute your ability to get to grips with the behind the scenes stuff – I’ve followed your blog and wiki posts for a long time now 🙂
I think what I meant was that if you don’t want to spend the time ‘rolling your sleeves up’ then there are people out there who’ve done that anyway and would be more than willing to help.
About the moving from Edublogs debate goes – I’m wondering if you moved to a self-hosted blog, would it load more quickly? I know that I stopped embedding google docs in my own Edublogs blog because of the amount of time that it took for the page to then load.
Recently, I was keen (on another whim!) to link to your ‘ways to use a whiteboard’ google doc. in a meeting …. it was a long, long, long time before it was available 🙂
I realise that schools have a slower connection than, but I’ve noticed that Edublogs does take a longer time to load (sometimes they undergo maintenance, and this can mean painfully slow loading … but I’m talking more generally here).
Is this an issue that you think might sway your decision – just a thought?
John – thankyou, I know you have shared that offer with me directly in the past and I appreciate it very much.
Yes Googling my name is no good, but I am the Mayor of Milwaukee you know? 🙂
Hi David – many thanks for sharing your thoughts and yes you are probably correct, I would end up exploring all sorts of aspects of self-hosting.
I appreciate your advice and its good to know that you would be willing to help.
Artur – many thanks for the feedback I am pleased to hear that some of what goes in my classroom has influenced your practice. I take your point about readers accessing the blog through a Reader and so filtering the ads.
For me also the act of expressing and recording those “words, ideas and experiences” and it is crucial for me that I maintain the current ease with which I can do that.
Again thankyou for your kind comment – I will of course keep you posted.
Linda – thankyou for your vote of confidence in a new home! Maybe in the long run a more personalised domain and address would help…
Thanks for your ideas and advice Rob it will be interesting to see how Blogger pans out with the ad situation. Do you find blogger gives you enough flexibility?
Thankyou John – your help and advice got this blog going in the first instance and I appreciate your thoughts on the issue. I know you and many others would be willing to help. Good to know.
I like the idea of pointing Blogger to a host. Not thought of that – thankyou for your comment.
You are correct about the time I have, it is short – I sometimes struggle to find time to write about what goes on in my classroom. Which is a shame/
Thankyou Margaret for taking the time to comment, I know your experiences are directly related to this issue.
It is not so much the thought of rolling my sleeves up and getting involved with the behind the scenes stuff. It is more about moving home, it has taken some time to build the momentum, links and readership of this space and I don’t want to sweep that away.
Thanks Matt – yes the freedom aspect of self hosting is quite attractive a proposition.
Thanks to John Johnston above for re-iterating my offer to disgruntled Edubloggers. A point I’d add: Your existing blog is actually quite hard to find on Google: If you can’t remember the title of the blog and you just enter your name “Tom Barrett” your blog isn’t on the first page of results, probably because you originally named it “tbarrett”. To that extent, I don’t think that moving house will be detrimental, and may even prove beneficial in the long run.
Hello again, Tom
I see that David has offered to help.
I wrote my comment on a whim, and I’m conscious of the fact that i didn’t give him a mention!
He was more than willing to share his expertise, and I really appreciate the fact that he took the time to answer my long list of email questions I had about self-hosting.
It’s great, isn’t it, that all these knowlegeable experts are so willing to share 🙂
Can I just confirm what John says above, I for one would be happy to help you in any way I can with any self-hosting issues. I have also found the WordPress community to provide a level of support better than anything I’ve experienced from commercial companies.
As long as you stay on reasonably well-worn paths, I don’t think you’ll have much trouble. You wouldn’t think twice about installing and using a mature application on your personal computer, and it isn’t all that different. For most people, there are new two concepts to learn about; installing WordPress is done by uploading files using FTP, and the content is stored in a database, so you need to create that and tell WP where to find it.
I also think, given your curious nature, that you might just end up exploring all the new possibilities that self-hosting would open up for customising your blog using template tags, for example.
On a tangent here…
Talking about schools blocking Blogger – Southwark has blocked access to Twitter! They just don’t get it *sigh*
I’ve discovered your wonderful blog and excellent educational practices whilst researching about web 2.0 pedagogical activities and tools for my master’s degree. Since then, your posts are a constant read, and highly influential in my daily practice. The issue with ads is a non-issue for readers who, like me, read your blog from an rss agregator. Ads may be intrusive, but agregators exclude them. Still, there are good reasons to have a personal host – such as creating far elaborate websites.
So, for me, it’s your words, ideas and experiences that count. If you switch hosting providers, please remember to tell us where we can find you. I’d hate to lose track of this amazing blog!
If you move, you can export what you’ve already got, but leave the current edublog as is – people can still find you, links will still find you.
Another thing to think about is educational filtering, blogger seems frequently banned, edublogs seems to be unheard of in security circles and JohnSutton’s service also seems to get through, as does wordpress itself.
I think wherever you go, your followers will find you!
Self hosting isn’t really that difficult. I used to do it – but I lost enthusiasm for having to update wordpress etc to keep it secure. Depending on your hosting this can be as easy as clicking a button in the admin panel or uploading new files (the auto-update button only worked for one of the two hosting services I used)
I use blogger for my personal/professional blogs because it is maintained for me. No updates required – although it does have some limitations (and you have to edit the html to remove the headers/change the favicon).
If you want to self host and want some help I’m happy to help – esp for Tom – my school is 10 mins away from yours (although connecting through an EMBC connection may not be possible if you need to FTP files in etc).
It will be interesting to see if Blogger and Google sites get adverts at some point – I know Google reserves the right to add them if it wants to.
Personally I like playing with the backend of a blog more than posting;-)
Once you have a blog setup it is pretty straightforward, most hosts now have auto install of wp as Margaret says.
John Sutton has offered to set up edubloggers on his WPMU system:
“if you are an edublogger and you want to just run a single-user account for your personal blog, I’l be happy to accommodate you on Creative Blogs (no ads guaranteed ;-)”
http://creativeict.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/01/the-chill-winds-of-economic-reality.html
Which is a generous offer.
If you move you could leave this blog as it is to avoid breaking links. When I move recently I edited the post template to remove the comment form and replace it with a notice, but I don’t know if you could do that on edublogs.
If you do go selfhosted I’d be happy to lend a hand as will many others.
Your time is tight – I would stick with what you know and what is simple. As you say, the words are all important. As long as the publishing process works, then I see little reason to change.
The style and feel looks great – this would be another consideration if you were to switch hosts.
Late, wasted nights trying to fix the appearance of your site online could be put to far better use!
I personally use Blogger, which although basic, it also does the job. A few tweeks here and there managed to lose the horrid Blogger navigation bar.
I’ve also got my own .com host, which I then point the Blogger content towards. This works quite well – I can publish with ease using Blogger, then have my own domain for extra pages, video, audio content etc.
I’m hopelessly bad at commenting on other blogs – I’m not sure why that is, but I know that I very much appreciate people taking the time to comment on my own blog – so here goes 🙂
I understand you saying that you don’t want a repeat of the ‘ads or no ads’ debate. I feel the same way – although it does bother me when I’m asked to help teachers set up a class blog. I tend to briefly mention the fact that they might encounter the ads problem – I’d hate to put them off before they’ve even got started 🙂
I agonised over the move to self-hosting. I’m very much a ‘non-techie’ type of person .. and I admit that I couldn’t have managed without the help from some twitter friends. With their help, however, the new blog was set up in one weekend, and all the posts, pages and comments from my edublogs blog were safely transported. Once the move was made, it became remarkably easy – just the same as posting on edublogs, except it feels more like mine (does that make sense?).
One of the things that influenced me was a comment from John Johnston. He said:
‘I’ve always set up blogs on a host myself (other than a few tests of services here and there), it is not too hard but you do have a bit of extra work especially if you want extra features/plugins. It can also be more fun. A lot of hosts have auto installs of wp now.’
John (as you probably know!) is very techie, but I thought that – if he thinks I can make the move … and if Sinclair McKenzie is willing to take some time to help via twitter – I’ll give it a go.
Sinclair’s help was indispensable 🙂
I might be taking too simplistic a view here – and something might yet go horribly wrong with the new blog – but there doesn’t seem to be any ‘downsides’ yet (and my edublogs blog is still there anyway).
For as little as £7 a year, why not give it a go? – think of it as CPD! I know there will be loads of people willing to help (although, on second thoughts it’s maybe best to just focus on one or two advisors that you trust – too much information will definitely confuse!).
My advice is to take some time and play around with self-hosting. If you don’t like it – don’t do it, if you think it’s worth the ‘moving home’ risk – go for it 😉
Money’s something to consider also. I pay ~£40 every two years for my own domain and hosting. All this money that us teachers pay soon adds up.
However, I do love having a self-hosted class blog – it gives me total freedom over my blog, and because I have domain also, I can create html pages and could potentially host student blogs etc.