The first blogging platform I ever experienced was Google's "Blogger". At the time there weren't many options so it was the only one I used for a long time. It's relatively simple to create a blog, but the overall interface isn't as user friendly as a lot of the newer options out there. It seems like Blogger is in need of a bit of an update. One of the great things it has going for it is the fact that so many other people use it, so with a little searching you're bound to find any help you need in if you run into a problem. There are also a lot of nice looking templates that you can use to add a unique look to your blog.
Much like Blogger, Weebly is meant to be extremely user friendly, to the point where pretty much everything is drag and drop from a simple menu on the left. This is great for people who are intimidated by the idea of getting into something that's over their head just to put some simple content on the internet. That same simplicity does however come with the lack of a lot of options when it comes to making things look exactly the way you might want them, but you can pay more and get a lot of those options.
I've been excited to learn about WordPress because I'm an avid blog reader (I use the Feedly app) and it seems like most of the prominent bloggers that I follow tend to use WordPress. From what I have seen, WordPress seems to have a little cleaner look to the blogs themselves, while the creating/posting process may appear a little more difficult to navigate for first time users. It would seem there is a greater business focus on this platform, and it makes sense because there are so many small businesses that use it. That doesn't mean it wouldn't work for education. In fact I think all three of these services would work for a class blog.
While I feel I could make any one of these blogging platforms work in my classroom, I would probably choose my least favorite of the three, Blogger, for one simple reason. All of my students already have Google accounts given to them by the school district, so there wouldn't be any setup or another username and password for them to forget. I can see myself using individual blogs as a way for students to create and submit a sort of portfolio of their work in class. It's a great way of keeping track of it, and dogs can't eat homework that has been saved to a blog!
While I feel I could make any one of these blogging platforms work in my classroom, I would probably choose my least favorite of the three, Blogger, for one simple reason. All of my students already have Google accounts given to them by the school district, so there wouldn't be any setup or another username and password for them to forget. I can see myself using individual blogs as a way for students to create and submit a sort of portfolio of their work in class. It's a great way of keeping track of it, and dogs can't eat homework that has been saved to a blog!