Class Blogmeister Retires After a 12-Year Run

Class Blogmeister - August 2005

I launched Class Blogmeister in 2004, realizing that there were a lot of teachers who needed a blogging platform for their students, one that was designed for the classroom.  I anticipated that the service would live for a couple of years, after which other more skillfully constructed and professionally supported services would be available.  They were available, but teachers wanted to keep using CB and I wanted to keep learning from their inventive ideas and add features as they were requested.

Now, 12 years later, I have mostly retired from speaking and writing, and my wife and I are spending much of our time in the foothills of North Carolina, helping and enjoying our aging parents.

So, sadly, I will be closing Class Blogmeister around the middle of June this year.  It’s seen a pretty good run, serving over 300,000 teachers and students from 90 countries, who have written nearly 1.5 million blog articles – and I have been the real beneficiary, learning from this amazing community.

I want to commend everyone who has used Class Blogmeister for your adventurous nature and your steadfast adherence to the idea that teaching is an art.  Student blogging requires courageous teachers – and I believe that “courage” is one of the central defining qualities of all good teachers.

I thank you for your loyalty and patience, and especially for being a good teacher.  I can think of no better compliment to pay.

7 thoughts on “Class Blogmeister Retires After a 12-Year Run”

  1. Sad to hear this news, but not surprised. The support over the years (essentially, for the love of a challenge) has been amazing! I used CB for probably the first 10 years of its existence then transitioned to Blogger as the writing on the wall began to indicate that this day might be coming.

    I’ll never forget my student reaction to getting feedback on the blog. “Hey, I got a comment from some random guy in Texas!” 🙂

    Many thanks to Dave for the commitment over the years. Thanks to Robert as a great supporter of the platform as well. It has been great to be a part of this community over the years. I’m sure every teacher that wants to continue blogging with their students will find alternatives. I’m not so sure that a community like this will ever occur again.

    I will also miss seeing Dave at conferences; I always enjoyed listening and learning. Thanks for all you have done for the ed tech community.

    Brian McLaughlin

  2. All good things come to an end I have heard. This was a GREAT blogging platform I used with many students at BCA. The tech guru behind the platform is the most gracious gentleman too! I will be sad to see it go, as I often refer people to blogs I and the students at BCA wrote over the years. But I wish you and your family the very best in all your future endeavors!

  3. David, Class Blogmeister was a wonderful tool that helped launch many teachers in my district into blogging. Thank you so much for providing this tool and service, and for all of your support of educators.

  4. This is so sad. I too started using CB in 2004 after reading David’s book on Classroom Blogging. I was hooked and have been enjoying the ride ever since. The CB community is the best and I hope we can keep our community going. Our young bloggers need a real, live audience reading and commenting on their blogs!

    I also made the switch this year to a new blogging platform. I went with blogger because we have GAFE at our school and kids already had GAFE accounts and I didn’t want to create ONE MORE ACCOUNT for my poor 6th graders! LOL

    Kidblog looks like fun but for us, blogger has been working just fine. I do miss having all their accounts in one place though.

    Thanks for everything David! I do miss CB as it was a great blogging platform for me to use as a teacher where I could easily moderate all my students’ blog posts and comments. Bon Voyage, CB!

  5. Thanks so much David – Many, really most educators still don’t realize what a powerful learning tool blogging is – and ClassBlogmeister still has tools that the new blog platforms don’t – I still use my students posts during trainings and presentations … so guess I better try to take lots of screen shots soon. You’ve made much more of an impact in the lives of students than you will ever realize. Thank you!

  6. Last year was the first year I used Blogmeister and I was sorry that I only joined in as it was ending. I used it for my freshman/sophomore English class. The most important role that Blogmeister played for my students was to help them get used to other people reading what they wrote. Before Blogmeister, many of them didn’t understand that the purpose of writing is communication. They wrote just to fulfill an assignment and get a grade but didn’t want anyone but me to read what they wrote. I haven’t found another blogging platform that I like and haven’t had time to explore the options. Thank you for being there when we needed you. Other than a few times when Blogmeister disappeared, we had a great experience with blogging.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *