What are some ideas to create a personal blog?

What can i use to create a blog that allows my students to have their own and I can monitor all theirs?

• I have an idea for a class project.. i want my kids to create a blog of their journey through this project. I want to be able to monitor their blogs (leave feedback, comments, ideas etc) I want all the children to be able to find and easily comment on their fellow classmates as well. Is their a FREE website i can use to do all this? I want it to be fun and them to be able to customise their own page but i want it to be easy for me to be able to see theirs and so on.

• Answer:

  First of all this is a wonderful idea. I once created a similar site using Wordpress. Wordpress is a free blog script. It has a multi user/blog function. Where you can create a blog for each student and monitor their contents, comment on them. To be able to communicate among each other there is also a plugin called 'buddypress'. But I am not sure if its suitable in your case. As not much tools to decorate and style the content are available in wordpress. It's more a content blog. You will have to learn a little on wordpress. It's easy. You can do it yourself with the help of tutorials on internet or ask someone from computer department to setup. Go for a free hosting space. It should be sufficient. Also found this site http://poster.4teachers.org/ Give them a try. Edit: Just found this site which lists some nice ways to create student blogs. Check link 1 below.