🎯 Purpose
The Blog gives teachers a flexible space for informal, conversational communication with their class — all within Otus. Whether you're sharing announcements, sparking discussion, or checking in with individual students privately, the Blog keeps classroom communication organized and accessible in one place.
💡 Who is this for? Teachers use the Blog to post updates, prompt student responses, and communicate privately with individual students. Students can create their own posts, comment on classmates' posts, and send private messages to their teacher.
💡 Why Use This Feature?
The Otus Blog brings classroom communication into one centralized, teacher-controlled space. No external tools needed.
✅ Share class updates, prompts, and resources in a conversational format that students are comfortable with.
✅ Give students a voice by allowing them to post and respond to peers.
✅ Maintain a safe environment with full teacher moderation and commenting.
✅ Support private student check-ins through locked posts and direct messaging.
✅ Keep communication organized by class, all within Otus.
✅ Connect student posts to their portfolios to document growth and engagement.
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🔑 Key Features
The Blog is built for flexible, two-way communication between teacher and students.
Feature | What it does |
Post Creation | Create posts with text, links, PDFs, images, videos, audio clips, or Google Drive docs. |
Publish Controls | Publish posts immediately, save as a draft, or schedule them to go live at a specific time. |
Commenting | Allow or restrict student commenting on individual posts or across the class feed. |
Class Feed | View all posts made by both the teacher and students in one shared, chronological feed. |
Student Posts | Students can create their own posts and engage with classmates' content (when enabled by the teacher). |
Private Posts | Students can lock a post so it is only visible to the teacher, ideal for private check-ins. |
Student/Teacher Communication | Teachers and students can communicate privately with one another through the Blog. |
Portfolio Integration | Teachers can add student blog posts directly to a student's portfolio from the class feed. |
⚙️ How It Works
Teachers can create a post from the Blog module by adding text and attaching a variety of media types — including links, PDFs, images, videos, audio clips, and Google Drive documents. Posts can be published immediately, saved as a draft to finish later, or scheduled to publish at a future date and time.
The class feed displays all posts from both the teacher and students in one place. Teachers have full moderation control, including the ability to turn commenting on/off for the entire feed, delete posts, and add posts to a student's portfolio.
When commenting is enabled, students can create their own posts, respond to classmates, and delete their own content. Students also have the option to "lock" a post, making it visible only to the teacher, giving them a private channel for sharing something they're not ready to share with the whole class.
The Blog supports one-on-one communication between teachers and students, making it easy to check in individually without leaving the Otus platform.
📌 Tip: Use the scheduling feature to plan ahead. Queue up posts for the week so your class feed stays active even on your busiest days.
🚀 Getting Started
The Blog is accessible to teachers directly from the Otus navigation menu. No additional setup is required. Simply navigate to the Blog, select your class, and create your first post.
To access your Blog:
Log in to Otus and select Blog from the left-hand navigation menu.
Select a class from the dropdown menu to view that class's feed.
Select the + icon to create a new post.
FAQ and Troubleshooting
Click to see FAQ and troubleshooting details
Click to see FAQ and troubleshooting details
Where can I find Blog drafts?
To locate Blog drafts you’ve saved, go to Blog - My Posts tab - verify the class in the drop-down menu in the top right. Any draft will say SAVED AS DRAFT.