Edublogs Releases A New Android App

The popular blogging service Edublogs recently released a brand new Android app. The Edublogs Android app allows you and your students to write and edit blog posts from Android phones and tablets. The app also allows you to moderate comments and approve posts that are in draft status. Edublogs has a short guide to getting started with the app. The guide can be viewed online or downloaded as a PDF to distribute to students.

Now that Edublogs has an Android app, Edublogs can be used by almost all of your students just like Blogger can be used by nearly all students. Both services are excellent options for classroom blogging in a BYOD environment.

A Short Guide to Using Blogger On Android Tablets

A couple of weeks ago on Free Technology for Teachers I published an 86 page guide to using Blogger in schools. This evening I added a new section with directions for using the Blogger Android app. Those directions along with the complete guide are embedded below.

Use Weebly? Use Android? Try Weebly for Android

Last week Weebly released a new Android app. The app doesn’t allow you to create new sites or edit the look of your site, but you can use it to create new blog posts. The free app also allows you to start a new blog (provided you have already created a Weebly site). Through the app you can moderate and respond to blog posts. And if you’re interested in seeing the traffic statistics for your site, the Weebly Android app will let you do that too.

Edmodo for Android – Update Edmodo on the Go

Last week on Free Technology for Teachers I wrote a list of 15 things teachers and students can do with Edmodo. One of the items on that list was “access Edmodo through the free Android and iPhone apps.”

The Edmodo Android app allows you to manage the essential aspects of your Edmodo account. The app gives you access to your gradebook, groups, profile, and file library. You can use the app to post new messages to your group(s). My file library was accessible through the app and I was able to add new content to my file library. Students can use the Edmodo Android app to read notifications from their teachers.

The only problem I ran into with the Edmodo Android app was not being able to add new content to my gradebook. However, I was able to open and view my gradebook. I’m not sure if that’s a problem with the app or with something I was doing wrong.Â

If you’re using Edmodo with your students, consider asking your students to install the free app on their Android devices.Â

Blog on the Go With the Free Posterous Android App

Posterous is one of my favorite blogging platforms for classroom use because it is very easy for teachers to create a blog and it is very easy for students to contribute to that blog. (For step by step directions on creating a Posterous blog please read this tutorial on Free Technology for Teachers). Recently I started using the Posterous Android app on my Samsung Galaxy Tablet and discovered a couple of things that I really like about using the free app.

The first thing you’ll notice when you use the Posterous Android app is that it really cleans-up the blogging interface. There were times in the past when using the web version of Posterous that I felt like there were too many options that weren’t clear enough in theirÂ delineations between functions. The Posterous Android app clears that problem right up.

Creating new posts using the Posterous Android app is a cinch. After signing into your Posterous account just select from your dashboard the Posterous blog (or Space as they call them) to which you want to post. Then write your post and publish it. If you have images you want to add to your post you can choose from those stored on your tablet or those stored in your Google account. You can also choose to turn on your devices’s camera and instantly take a picture or video to include in your blog post.