Blogs provide a great platform for discovery and self-expression among persons of all ages, kids included. Blogs offer a powerful means of socializing and they are also lots of fun. Even though it’s hard to let your kids loose on the Internet with little supervision, it is healthy in some ways. Careful preparation will enable you help your kids launch their first blogging ventures. The following are the main platforms where you can make a blog for kids.
WordPress and Blogger
These are the two best known general purpose blogging sites. They both focus on long-form written content. They both have simplistic design, intuitive user interfaces, and straight forward default layouts. These are some of the reasons why they are such great platforms to make a blog for kids. WordPress is highly customizable and has a very active user support community. Blogger is owned by Google and is very simple to set up especially if you already have a Google account.
LiveJournal
This is one of the original blogging websites. It also encourages use of long-form written content. It however also allows embedding of media meaning that kids can link favorite music and videos. LiveJournal provides many customization options and uses tagging to allow for easy organization of posts. It is free to use but also offers a premium version that features no advertisements and has several additional features.
Tumblr
Tumblr is a social networking website in addition to being a blogging service. The main focus of Tumblr is resharing of videos and pictures but still allowing for the posting of long-form written content. To register on Tumblr and get started with posting is quite easy. However, Tumblr’s interface is however less intuitive than that of either LiveJournal or WordPress and Blogger. Tumblr is especially popular among teenagers but you need to be aware that it does have lots of adult content such as politics, sexuality and art which may not be suitable for younger children.
Blogging sites specifically for kids
In case you want to maintain strict parental control over the kinds of sites that kids have their blogs on, it’s best to stick with blogging sites specifically for kids. Doodlekit, Edublogs, and Kidblog are good examples of these kids’ blogging sites. Doodlekit for instance allows you to control virtually every aspect of the blogging environment from the forum moderation to the privacy settings. Kidblog and Edublog are oriented towards academics whereby teachers have administrative control while students build their writing skills. These blogs are only visible to the teacher or classmates.
When you are considering platforms to make a blog for kids it is also good to consider security. With online security being a major issue you should probably stick with the major blogging sites. The major blogging sites have better security in terms of the ability of hackers getting a hold of information that your kid has posted on his blog. The best thing is to teach your kids safe Internet practices and monitoring what they post online as well as their browsing habits.
