Student Blogging Challenge – Week #3

October 23, 2016 ghoke Comments 0 Comment

This week we’re adding more skills to your blogging tool belt, specifically concerning appropriate use of images. As usual, my alterations from the original directions are noted in pink.

A few students have started to let Miss W. know when they have written a really great post for the challenge, and by leaving the URL to their actual post, not just their blog (see her notes on this in last week’s post), they have allowed her to visit their blog. If your post is flipped in the 2016 Student Challenge Magazine, you will have many new visitors thanks to the exposure. Remember, when you write a really great post, let Miss W. know by commenting with your post URL to the weekly challenge post on her blog.

I have switched things up this week, you have THREE choices of activity below, and you get to select ONE that you would like to use as you craft this week’s blog post. As usual, my edits are in PINK.

OCTOBER 16, 2016 BY MISS W.

Week 3: Images And Attribution

October 16-22 is Digital Citizenship Week in USA. CommonSenseMedia have lots of great ideas for activities.

One important aspect of being a responsible digital citizen is our topic for this challenge.

Yes, this week we deal with using images, music and sounds in your posts.

But can’t I use any image, music or sound that is on the internet?

No, you must use creative commons or in some cases the fair use rule.

But where can I find these images, music and sounds? Can’t I use anything when I google an image?

No, your blog is public so you must use creative commons images, sounds, music and videos.

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Have you read Sue Waters’ post yet?

Off you go then come back here for more information and the activities for this fortnight.

Now for the activities: Select only ONE

Activity 1. Find an image or piece of music. Add it to your post (with attribution) and write a poem relating to the image or music. Invite your readers to write their own poems. Here is Fernando’s example, Samantha is confused

See what a few students wrote about last year: Kylinn and Sarah.

Activity 2. Similar to the activity above. Find an interesting landscape image (include attribution). Write the beginning of a story relating to your image. Remember to include a conflict of some sort between your characters. Invite your readers to finish the story. How many different endings can you get? Which ending do you prefer? You might need to visit some other bloggers and invite them to finish your story. Remember to leave the URL of your post for them to click on.

Check out these stories from interesting images: McKenzie and Trinity.

Activity 3. Create your own images and add to a post of your choice. In your post add a link to the website or tool you used to create your image.

Other options for creating your own images include:

Comic Generators like MakeBeliefsComix.com,ToonDoo
Photo Editors like Befunky, fd’s Flickr Tools
Tag Cloud Creators such as Wordle

Mixing up your images using these types of tools can really spice up your posts!

Read Lydia‘s blog from last year.

Still got time left:

Visit other student and class blogs – leave some quality comments
Reply to comments on your own blog
Start using tags and categories with each post you write to make it easier for people to find posts on certain topics. Make sure you have the tags and categories widgets in your sidebar.
Have at least five other student blogs linked on your sidebar – students from other classes and schools – not your own. We will need this for a game we play in a couple of weeks. Having lots of links to student blogs from other countries will help spread the game.

Here are the instructions for adding links to your sidebars. Edublogs

Most important learning from this fortnight’s challenge is:

Use creative commons images, not just any image on the net. Always include attribution of where you found the image. Compfight plugin does this for you.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

I will only be adding posts to the flipboard magazine that:

are written in paragraphs
have been proofread
include an image, sound or video with attribution

So make sure you have taken note of this week’s learning about creative commons.

Miss W visiting your blogs

From this week onwards, I will only be visiting blogs where students or classes have left the URL to the post in a comment with an explanation. If your teacher is moderating your posts, you will need to wait until it has been published before giving me your URL. Check out the difference between a blog URL and a post URL.

Blog URL: http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org

Post URL : http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/2015/10/10/raise-your-voice/

Visit these blogs that couldn’t be flipped or were very interesting to read:

Students:

Grace finally wrote her About Me page, Palin used Thinglink,

Classes:

Mrs Arendt has three classes of students so visit them all

Mrs Kimball has five classes blogging – check them out here under 7ELA blogs

Mr Ellsworth is a new challenge class and they have their blogs here

Mrs Vazquez’s class update their Meet the class page each challenge

Ms Farley’s class in England made a great google slide presentation – the students write on their class blog rather than have their own

Mrs Beard has her student blogs in a list under the posts

These students from Portugal have a survey for you to fill in after checking out their info about their school and country.

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Other places to get images and music:

You will need to work out how to get the attribution to put on your posts. Check Sue Waters’ post to get more help and more places for images. This post from Edublogs explains how to add media in all its forms to your blog posts or pages.

Images