Student Blogging Challenge – Week #10 – Let’s Say Goodbye

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #10 – Let’s Say Goodbye

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This week’s challenge post made me feel a little sad, realizing how little time we have left together before the end of the year. I have watched so many of you blossom as emerging writers through this year of blogging, and I will miss reading your touching, powerful, and often humorous posts. Remember, this week we will begin the process of nominating excellent blogs, bloggers, and posts for the TigerBlog Awards as we move into the celebration phase of our year-long blogging journey.
Part 1, the actual post, is below, for Part 2 this week, please visit Miss W.’s site for the evaluation survey.
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Week 10: Let’s say goodbye

We have had a great 10 weeks of blogging. You have learnt so many skills to help you improve your blogs. Many of you have improved those writing skills or maybe digital skills with using a variety of tools to embed on your blog. But it is now time to evaluate your progress as well as the progress of the blogging challenge itself.

This week there are two things to do:

  1. Evaluate your own blog
  2. Evaluate the actual blogging challenge

1. This is an audit of your blog since the beginning of March 2015.

  • How many posts did you write?
  • How many were school based, your own interests or set by the challenge?
  • How many comments did you receive from classmates, teachers or overseas students?
  • Which post received the most comments? Why do you think that happened?
  • Which post did you enjoy writing the most and why?
  • Did you change blog themes at all and why?
  • How many widgets do you have? Do you think this is too many or not enough?
  • How many overseas students do you have on your blogroll?
  • Which web tools did you use to show creativity on your blog?
  • For those of you who participated in both the fall and spring challenges, share how you grew as a blogger over the course of the year. This might be about your actual written posts or blogging know-how, but it could also be about your ability to connect with other bloggers.

Now ask another student and teacher/parent from your school who might not have read your blog to do an audit.

Sit beside them while they navigate around your blog, record what you observe as they interact with your blog. When finished, ask them the following questions:

  1. What were your first impressions of this blog?
  2. What captured your attention?
  3. What distracted you on the blog?
  4. What suggestions can you give me to improve my blog?

Write a post about your blog audit.

Poetry YouTube Playlist

Poetry YouTube Playlist

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I’ve created a playlist on YouTube to share the spoken word poetry that we discuss in class, as well as a few other slam poetry performances that those of you who are so inclined might enjoy:

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #9 – Let’s Shine

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #9 – Let’s Shine

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 We’re nearing the end of the challenge, and this is your chance to shine. The topic this week is ANIMALS, and there are some very specific guidelines about what needs to be included in your post this week, but beyond that, this is your chance to show off your mad blogging skills. Don’t forget to let Miss W. know once you’ve finished this week’s post.
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Week 9: Let’s shine

Shiny, Capt.

Ken-ichi Ueda via Compfight

This is our penultimate week in the blogging challenge.

When you come to the end of a topic, what does your teacher often do?

  • That’s right! They give you a test.

This week’s challenge is a test about your blogging skills.

Having read many of your posts, I came up with the following essentials in a great post.

  1. catchy title
  2. includes at least two visuals whether photo, cartoon, video or another web 2.0 tool like padlet, glogster, wordle etc
  3. interesting topic with the passion of the author coming through, shows well researched topic
  4. well written and not copy/pasted from somewhere else
  5. shows it has been proofread and spellchecked
  6. written in paragraphs – at least three of them
  7. includes links to other websites on similar topics – at least two of these
  8. attribution for any images, video, music or clip art used – including those used in slideshows etc

Here are some examples of posts from a previous challenge:

When you have finished your post, please come back here to the blogging challenge and leave a comment on this post.

So what will the topic be for you to blog about?

ANIMALS     ANIMALS     ANIMALS     ANIMALS

Favourites

Problems like poaching, cruelty, extinction

Anything to do with animals

Make sure you check hints 2, 7 and 8 in the essentials of a great post

Still got time left this week:

  1. Visit Namitha to add some words of help for people in Nepal or write your own post sending words to Nepal.
  2. Keep visiting other student and class blogs to leave comments and continue conversations.
  3. Check out the Flipboard magazine to see if your post is mentioned there and visit some of their blogs
  4. Leave links to your posts on the student blogging challenge blog posts so Miss W can visit and leave comments or flip your posts to the magazine.
  5. Go to the Free Rice site to play games to help donate rice, some of which is going to Nepal
Student Blogging Challenge – Week #8 – Let’s Travel

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #8 – Let’s Travel

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 As I’m sure you’re aware by now, I love embarking on new adventures. I’m thrilled that many of you will be joining me for the overnight field trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland in three weeks, and that more than a few of you will be boarding an airplane bound for London with me next summer.  Travel, especially the planning that’s involved and the discovery of new places, brings me great joy, and it is with great pleasure that I share Miss W.’s challenge for you this week: Let’s Travel.
Instead of sharing the typical post choices, this week you have the opportunity to pick and choose from several ideas to decide how to create your own unique travel post. By the way, remember the following guidelines as you write:
  1. Opens with an attention grabbing title.
  2. Length of at least three paragraphs.
  3. Includes at least one image, video, or music with appropriate citation.
  4. Includes a link to build on and/or extend the conversation.

Don’t forget to share a link back to your post for Miss W. on the challenge blog when you’ve finished your post for this week.

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Week 8: Let’s travel

mother

reizenbee via Compfight

So you have just turned 18, left high school and deciding if you will go onto university. What will you do for the next year? If you are anything like me, you will travel the world, working in lots of different countries and learning about cultures that are of interest to you.

Please use one or more web tools you haven’t used before – eg glogster, storybird, flipbook, bitstrips, kizoa – there are lots of tools to use on the sidebar of this blog as well as here and Edublogs staff have put together a great list including how to embed into your blog.

Planning your trip

  • Look at passports, visas, working permits for 3 countries you would like to visit.
  • Create a map showing your proposed journey – remember this may change
  • What will you need to pack? Remember weight limits when flying.
  • How will you travel?
  • Where will you stay?
  • Create budget for part of your journey

On your way

  • International signage for toilets etc, signs on roads
  • What will my money buy?- exchange rates – how much is a cup of coffee in 3 different countries?
  • Contacting mum and dad – know your time zones, how to use skype or similar
  • Flight times – using 24 hour time – how long are flights between major cities?

Visit at least one country in each continent (include Antarctica in Oceania)

  • Make a collage of where you visited
  • Teach us some of the language of at least three countries eg How much is a cup of coffee? Where are the toilets?
  • Create a story of your journey
  • Interview some of your employers or relatives you stay with
  • Create a playlist of 9 pieces of music or dance from your journey – not in English

Home sweet home

  • How will you tell your friends about your journey?
  • What were the highlights and lowlights of each country?
  • Where would you visit again and why?

If you need to use images remember to find those that are creative commons. I have also found some at Pixabay  where you have to download the image to your computer and then upload to your blog post (just include the name of the photographer at the end of your blogpost) and photos for class where you download an image to your computer and it will automatically have a watermarked attribution included.

Here is a photo using Pixabay – I have added the caption to include the photographer’s name – the image is a jpg and you can choose the size to download. If using Edublogs, you can also choose size of image before inserting into your post.

Pixabay - photographer: Alexas_Fotos

Here is a photo using Photos for Class – it is a png image but you don’t have choice of size to download – if using Edublogs, you can choose size of image before inserting into your post

Still got time this week

Please visit Solana and give her lots of encouragement to continue the challenge. She is only student from her class still participating in the challenge.

Travel the world by leaving comments on blogs from countries other than your own. Write a post about who you visited including a link to the post you commented on.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Next week will be your chance to shine and show your teachers, fellow students, blog visitors how great you are at blogging. Make sure you know what makes a great post and how to attract people to your blog so they will leave a comment and start or continue a conversation.

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #7 – Let’s play a game

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #7 – Let’s play a game

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There is really no need to add anything to Miss W.’s challenge for the week, except to say that, due to SBAC testing, you have until Monday, May 4th, to finish this week’s game post. By the way, don’t forget to leave Miss W. a comment here after you’ve finished your game post.

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Week 7: Let’s play a game

Blogging Comments

Jabiz Raisdana via Compfight

Scotty has a blogging goal and this week’s activity could help him achieve it.

I am not sure how many of you have been out and about visiting other blogs and leaving quality comments. But that is the idea of this week’s game.

Before you start, please make sure you have at least 5 other student blogs linked on the sidebar of your blog or in a recent post that your visitors can find easily. Make sure these are blogs from other students around the world, not just those in your class or school. Perhaps have a blogroll or link category called Global students or Global classes. Here is how to add a blogroll if using Edublogs.

Game week is all about visiting other blogs.

Student and class blogs – new bloggers and old hands at the blogging – mentors as well as participants.

Remember one of  the main aims of blogging includes commenting and carrying on conversations with the author of posts and their other readers.

A good commenter will have:

  • read the post carefully,
  • checked out the links in the post
  • read the previous comments before they leave one of their own
  • added to the conversation with a quality comment – remember that video from Mrs Yollis’ class.

Game rules

This is a game we have run for many challenges and allows you to connect globally.

Those who have taken part in a challenge before know the game of  ‘Count Out Three’. Here are the instructions:

  • click on a blog on the student list or class list– count one
  • now click on a blog from their blogroll – count two
  • finally click on a blog from that blogroll – count three

Leave a comment on an interesting post at this third blog. Remember to include the URL of your blog, so that person can visit you as well.

Students: Make sure you are also replying to any comments that have been left for you.

Do this activity at least three times and finally, write your own post saying which blogs you visited and which posts you left a comment on. Why did you choose that post? Remember to include a link back to the post you left a comment on.

Get to it – start visiting and leaving quality comments that show you have read the post. 

How many quality comments could you leave this week? Can you leave 10, 20 or maybe 50?

Here are some posts from last week that couldn’t be flipped:

Maddy writes about dogs, Brooke wrote about crazy cookies, Clara has a dessert island,

Visit the students on the sidebar of Mrs Maslowski’s class blog,

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #6 – Let’s work then play

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #6 – Let’s work then play

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This week’s challenge activity asks you to consider what you do after all your work is done. I’m leaving the eight choices presented by Miss W. exactly as they are, but from here on out, I’m expecting that EVERY post you write meets these minimum requirements:
  1. Opens with an attention grabbing title.
  2. Length of at least three paragraphs.
  3. Includes at least one image, video, or music with appropriate citation.
  4. Includes a link to build on and/or extend the conversation.

After you finish writing this week’s post, please make sure you also complete the steps suggested to prepare for the upcoming game. Remember, to be featured in the challenge flipboard magazine, you must leave a comment and a link to your weekly post on Miss W.’s Week 6 post.

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Week 6: Let’s work then play

Monopoly Night 2010

Creative Commons License Jono Martin via Compfight

Once you have finished your work at school, you can often go and play with something in the room.

But let’s also think about people with unusual jobs – what did they do for play or relaxation?

I think about my great great grandfather who was a whaling captain in the 1870’s. He was stuck on a boat with thirty other men, maybe his wife and a child was also on board. What sort of things did the sailors do for relaxation out in the middle of the ocean?

Here in Australia we are thinking about the soldiers of the Great War – World War 1. If they weren’t fighting in the trenches or charging across the open ground, what could they do for relaxation? If they had been injured and were recuperating in a hospital tent, what could they be doing?

Activities to choose from (CHOOSE ONE):

1. Research board games – when, where and why were they invented?

2. Create a new game for someone to de-stress from their lifestyle.

3. Your family are stranded on a deserted island, with nothing but your clothes. How will you entertain yourselves?

4. Research ball games around the world – find out the rules and then try playing something similar at school or home. How did it go?

5. Find out the ways soldiers and sea captains used to relax over 100 years ago.

6. The electricity grid went out in your country. What would change in your lifestyle? How would you relax?

7. Survey class members about games they have at home. Are you going to include computer games? Create some interesting graphs about results.

8. Find an image that has a relaxing feel to it. Write a poem remembering to give attribution correctly.

Make sure you are ready for our game in a week or so.  To take part in this game, all classes and students will need the following:

  •  a user avatar if possible
  • an ‘about me’ PAGE if using Edublogs or a post if using other platforms
  • a clustrmap or flag counter widget – if your clustrmap is greyed out, check my post here to fix it if using Edublogs widget
  • at least four interesting posts – could be topics of your choice not necessarily from the challenge
  • your ‘Recent Comments’ widget on the sidebar with 10 comments as the choice – Edublogs
  • your ‘Recent Posts’ widget on the sidebar with 10 posts as the choice – Edublogs
  • Your ‘Pages’ widget on the sidebar or pages in the header – Edublogs
  • at least 10 student and/or classes linked on your blogroll
  • at least three overseas blogs on your blogroll
  • posts tagged or categorized to make it easier to find interesting posts on each blog
  • the more students or classes you have linked on your blog, the more fun the game will be

The most important of these are the links to other student blogs on your sidebar. Try to have a couple of different headings like

  • My Friends
  • Class Blogs
  • Overseas Blogs

Having lots of  links to student blogs from other countries will help spread the game.

Check out Kendall’s right sidebar – she has a list called Blogroll which are her classmates but she also has a list called Blogging Challenge and these are other blogs she visits regularly

Olivia, who has taken part in the challenges over three years, has some great lists of links on her blog – blogroll, class blogs, family and friends, my followers. She also has links to classmates in blogroll in the header of her blog.

Still have time left this week:

Then keep visiting other student blogs and leave great comments including your blog URL. Find some interesting bloggers then add them to your sidebar links. Write some posts about great blogs you have visited, include a link to that blog in your post.

Read the flipboard magazine to visit bloggers who are writing great posts and are then leaving comments on Miss W’s challenge posts. Students with Edublogs free blogs can’t have posts flipped into the magazine, so they are being mentioned on each week’s posts instead.

Check out these blogs

Clara has only just joined the challenge – check out the background, header image and title (all related to what Clara enjoys). She also has some great posts but unfortunately they can’t be flipped into our magazine.

The young students from Grand Atlas blog in Algeria have been visiting lots of other blogs and they would like you to visit them. They have left some great comments on many other blogs around the world.

Mr Helpern’s class have a category for each student – check out their great posts by clicking on their name.

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #5 – Favourites

Student Blogging Challenge – Week #5 – Favourites

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This week’s challenge is very straight-forward, but packed with opportunities to think creatively and to post something extraordinary. You have an extra week to get this one done, too. You’ll notice a few of your classmates have been mentioned in the flipboard magazine, and I have created our very own “Blogs Worth Reading” flipboard magazine. Check it out on the right sidebar – >
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Week 5: Favourites

This post is going to be for a three week period as schools in Australia are on Easter break soon. The next official post will be on Sunday 19th April. I will do a fun post in between with some great sites to visit.

But our topic this week is favourites.  This will give you a fantastic choice for posts.

It will also mean you might get your post(s) added to the Flipboard magazine if your post includes:

  1. at least three paragraphs if you are 11 or older; two paragraphs if younger than that
  2. an image or video or music with correct attribution
  3. a title that grabs the attention of the readers
  4. at least one link to another website so readers can build on the information you have written
  5. a question for readers to answer

Try to use some new tools mentioned in the sidebar of the challenge blog. Leave a comment on this post if there are some tools you use often that I should be adding there. Tell me if it is a web tool or an app so I can separate the lists.

Remember I only know if you have completed a post, if you come back here and leave me a comment with a link to your post. Take note of the difference here:

URL of blog: http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/

I have to search to find your post especially if I want to use as an example next set of challenges.

URL of post: http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/2015/03/22/week-4-lets-join-globally/

This takes me straight to the post – you might need to wait until your teacher has moderated your post before leaving the comment on my challenge blog.

Many older students don’t have mentors but would love some visitors. So I am highlighting some class blogs that have lists of student blogs in their sidebars. Please take the time to visit and leave comments on both the class and student blogs. This is thanks to Madeline who left me a comment about this.

15-17 year olds – Mrs Maslowski, Ms Garber, Ms Burton, Ms Pederson (Honduras-students in comments), Mr Puley‘s authors, Mr Mark from Kuwait,

12-14 year olds – Wordswork, Mrs Donofrio, Ms Hoke, Ms Chernaya from Russia, Mrs Hogg from New Zealand, Ms Little only joined this week, Ms Rauser

Great posts from previous weeks

Ms Woods class have their own flipboard magazine

Mr Helpern’s class have created some great guess the celebrations and international events and remembered to give correct attribution for the images they used

Bryce commented on some international blogs.

Jackie wrote a great post about free rice but it wont flip into the magazine, so visit from this link.

Other great posts are now being flipped into the 2015 magazine so you will need to check it out from the challenge blog sidebar.

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