Getting Things Under Control

I finally feel like I'm getting this project under control. We are getting less of the locked blogs and it seems like things are settling into a pattern.

I think we are getting less locked blogs because we are only starting up blogs with new students as they come in so there aren't as many being created from the same IP address on the same day. Because we have a wireless lab, the IP address was showing up the same for all the laptops and that made Blogger suspicious. Apparently, only spammers can create that many blogs, that quickly, all from the same address. Until us, that is. :)

Also, I have written up instructions for getting started and although they need to be modified and made more explicit, it really helps when I can just hand it to a student and let them follow the instructions. It seems to work really well. I still have to check in to make sure that they are putting in the correct username and password, but overall it works pretty well.

I chose to have them all use a specific formula for their username and password. It is based on their names, initials and birthdates and is information that they should know off the top of their head, but that everyone else would have to really look to find out about them. It is a good thing that I did because I can't tell you how often they forget this information!