Great blogging posts

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Miss W. — No Comments ↓

Here are the posts I felt deserved recognition in challenge 8.

Remember there were some rules to get your blog mentioned on this post.

This post will be ten paragraphs long, one for each of your favourite things.
In at least three of your paragraphs include a link to another website.
Include at least two images related to your favourite things.
Make sure you have tagged and categorized your post.
Use a tool other than writing to tell us about one of your favourite things eg include a video or Voki or audioboo or slideshow – the list is endless.

Classes

Merrybeau include audioboos and a photopeach slideshow – Ireland

Mrs McKelvey’s class have written about lots of different animals as part of their science program – USA

Students

Mrs Vilas’s class – USA

Isabelle included a prezi, Elijah included a Voki, Janiece has a delicious image of cheesecake, Juliana includes clip of One Direction, Angelika and I love waves crashing, Dorian used images from pics4learning, Cayla has an interesting Voki, Ghislane includes One Direction, Dayanara used images from photobucket,

Mrs Donofrio’s class – USA

Anthony included a video about flowriders,

Mrs Schmidt’s class – USA

Caitlyn included a Voki, Michael included an animoto, Marissa has a poll about animals, Andres has a voki, Max included a QR code, Braeden has a couple of polls to answer, Will is polling about candy,

Mr Hoff’s class – Vietnam

Lisa included a YouTube playlist she created,

Mrs Neidlinger’s class – USA

Sydney has a thinglink and Voki, Chelsea sorry I had to disagree with you,

Mrs Majdoub Hayfa – Tunisia

Arwa is very philosophical in this post,

Mrs Tharp’s class – USA

Mike created a voicethread, Andrew created a Voki, Makayla enjoys rock climbing, Noel loves donuts from Paulas,

Mrs Cliff – Australia

Pyper has two posts to cover her favourite things, here is the second one

Mentors recommendations

Mrs Vilas recommends 2 posts to visit,

Many thanks for everyone who took part in this the 10th student blogging challenge. Remember the next one will start in September 2013. Registration will be out by mid August and challenge start early September.

If you have any great ideas for challenge activities, please leave a comment here on this post or send me an email with your ideas.

Tagged with: best of, favourites, visit
Posted in Information, Visit these

Challenge 10 – Evaluation

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Miss W. — 3 Comments ↓

Well here we are – the final challenge for the March 2013 student blogging challenge. I think everyone who has taken part has enjoyed most of the challenges and learned some new skills. Many of you have visited lots of other students posts and I have seen some excellent comments on posts.

But like all topics you study at school, you generally have to have a test or evaluation. We do the same here at the challenge – mainly to see how you have improved in your blogging over the past three months but also to evaluate the challenge.

So there are two things we would like you to complete this week – a personal blog audit and a survey about the challenge itself.

Survey of your blog

This is an audit of your blog since the beginning of March 2013.

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?

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:

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

Write a post about your blog evaluation and audit.

Survey of the actual student blogging challenge

We want your ideas about the challenge. Most questions are tick a box or write a short answer. Please only tick ONE box in each question.

Photo Credit: Rakka via Compfight

Tagged with: audit, evaluation
Posted in Information, March 2013

Challenge 9 – Game Week

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Miss W. — 10 Comments ↓

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 and have read the previous comments before they leave one of their own. Good commenters add to the conversation with a quality comment – remember that video from Mrs Yollis’ class.

Game 1

This is one 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 – 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.

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 so that student gets a pingback or trackback.

Game 2

I got the idea for this game from Em, who is our youngest student blogger. She has taken part in many challenges and she wrote a post about her favourite posts. So thanks Em for the idea.

This is a new game for this challenge. We have many mentors helping you with your blogging. Most of them are busy teachers with their own class blog or else they are students who have taken part in many prior challenges. I have asked some mentors to write a post highlighting what they consider interesting posts for students to read. Here are the instructions for this game:

Choose at least two of these mentor posts to visit.
Read their post and visit the links they include.
Answer the question left on their post by leaving them a quality comment. This should show you have visited the posts they link to.
Now write your own post including three posts you have found interesting while taking part in this March blog challenge. Could include posts you have written or ones you have read while visiting other students.

Mrs Norton‘s class blog, Mrs Coffa as a guest post on Middle Matters blog, Ethan student mentor, Jakob student mentor, Isaiah student mentor, Astaneh who mentored the older students, Merrybeau class blog, Mrs Tharp‘s class blog

While checking out these blogs look at the layout of the sidebars as well as the layout of the posts. Compare to yours. This might help with the evaluation week activities next week.

If using Kidblog or blogger, leave a comment on this game week post with a link to the post you have written – if using Edublogs just leave a pingback in your actual post.

More time left: Continue on with your favourite things post especially if you want to be included in the list of thirty who have included the images, tags/category and using another tool.

Still more time left: Miss W is travelling around the southern states of USA during June before going to a conference in San Antonio. Recommend 10 places she should visit as she is interested in history and nature.
Photo Credit: Patrick Q via Compfight

Tagged with: comments, game
Posted in Information, March 2013, Visit these

Visit, visit, visit

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Miss W. — 1 Comment ↓

Some more great posts from the last few challenges.

Some posts from our week on digital footprints: Anthony, Jess, Clyde, Kiegan, Cristian, Jack, Danny, Estevan, Yami, Lupita, Michelle, Edith, Brisa, Berenice, Alyjah, Steph, Alma, Leslie, Yesenia, Juan, Areli, Cullen, Amanda, Cristina, Mari, Letty, Daniela, Paloma, Jewel, Chelsea, Lisa, Pateep, Romeo, Ruthy, Wiem, Matt, McDaniel, Carson, Tori, Arwa, Sophia, Christian, Alejandro, Tylor, Esmer, Weisen, Johnny, Pyper, JoshD,

Secrets hidden in the forest posts: Arwa, Wiem, Jamie, Matt, Jade, Charlotte and Cole, Molly, Aragon, Jewel, Brenna uses a new storytelling tool, Anthony, Hayley and Devon have great ideas for what is in the forest, Jessica wrote a story about the forest and its secrets,

Other interesting posts: Jessica, Caitlyn, Callie, EmilyK, Emilee, Snowfuzz on the butterfly garden at their school, Nya wrote about a field trip, Alexander asks should animals be held in captivity, Hannah‘s image post, Julia wrote about shoebills, Kali‘s image post, Merrybeau have some great audioboos, Maryem on animes, Wiem on being positive, Tylor has only just started the challenge, Tylor included an excellent poem relating to the image, Laura has just started the challenge and wrote a great diary post,

Family members writing posts: Lillian’s mum, Fatima writes about her cousin in the military,

Mentors: Jake is writing a series of posts for his secret in the forest, Helen O links to our students using Kidblog, Challenge 5 kidblog posts, Challenge 6 kidblog posts,

Educational games and apps to visit: David, Kalee, May, Lisa, Daisy,

There will be one final visit these post at the end of the challenge.

It will include those thirty posts about favourite things – remember to be included you have to have tags and /or category, 10 things in paragraphs, images with attribution and you creating something using a new tool like a collage, Voki, slideshow. Check back to challenge 8 to find the instructions.

I will also be including any posts recommended by mentors – I would like all mentors to find at least two posts they really enjoyed reading that we could include on this final post for the challenge. Teachers with class blogs might also like to recommend two posts especially if using Kidblog or blogger platform.

Posted in March 2013, Visit these

Challenge 8 – Favourites

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Miss W. — 31 Comments ↓

This week was going to be the game week but it has to be postponed until next week. So far only two mentors have replied to the email I sent about them helping out in the second game.

So really this week is going to be the last week for you to prove to your teachers what you have learnt about blogging.

The activities this week will involve you doing the following:

adding hyperlinks so your readers can find out more on the topic
adding images with correct attribution
adding categories and tags to your posts
being able to write in paragraphs about a topic
stretching your imagination by using a tool other than writing

Again the activity relates to the number 10.

Write a post about 10 of your favourite things. It can’t be ten movies or ten games, but must be about ten different things.

Some examples could be:

movie star
book to read
place to travel in the future
invention ever made
blog post you have written
etc, etc, etc

This post will be ten paragraphs long, one for each of your favourite things. In at least three of your paragraphs include a link to another website. Include at least two images related to your favourite things. Make sure you have tagged and categorized your post. Use a tool other than writing to tell us about one of your favourite things eg include a video or Voki or audioboo or slideshow – the list is endless.

As I am expecting fantastic posts for this, you will have two weeks to do this. Next week will be the two games and the final week will be an evaluation of the challenge, so really make a great effort on this post.

If you are using Kidblog or blogger, please leave a comment on this post when you have finished yours. I have been checking with Edublogs and apparently the pingbacks and trackbacks are only working for Edublog blogs not for any other platform. So the only way I will know if you have completed this activity is if you leave a comment on this post and include the URL of your post.

Just before the last challenge I will write a post highlighting the thirty bloggers and five classes I feel have done a great job with this post. They will have included links, images, other tool, tags and category as well as having left a comment on this post or if using Edublogs sent a pingback to me.

Good luck everyone on this post that will show off to your teachers what you are capable of doing using your blog!

Photo Credit: Gail Delderfield via Compfight

Tagged with: categories, favourites, links, tags, web 2.0 tools
Posted in Information, March 2013

Challenge 7 – freedom again

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Miss W. — 8 Comments ↓

Our last three challenges have been fairly serious – adding images to your blog posts, how to get comments and visitors to your blog and looking at your digital footprint.

This week your sole activity is to make sure you are ready for a game we will be playing next week – in fact there will be two games happening.

To play either game you will need:

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
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
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.

Here are the instructions for adding links to your sidebars.

Edublogs, Blogger, Kidblog – not sure if this widget goes on the class page or each student page

Have you written lots of interesting posts for your visitors to read next week?

Use this week to get some written or use some new tools to create some stories to add to your blog posts.
Photo Credit: luca nisalli via Compfight

Tagged with: Blogroll, game, links
Posted in Information, March 2013

Challenge 6 – Digital footprints

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Miss W. — 11 Comments ↓

When does your digital footprint start?

When you start putting information online in your blog?
When you join Facebook or Twitter?
When you join Animoto or YouTube?

Check out this video about your digital dossier or footprint and how information can be gathered about you.

Commonsense media has lots of videos about your digital footprint. Check out this one from Abbas.

The following activities are for middle school and high school students rather than primary/elementary grades.

Activity 1: Do you have a different personality when you are online? Think about your avatar, your status updates, music you upload, your images and your blog. Would someone who knows you in real life recognize you online? Check out this slideshow from the NY Times. Write a post about your personality online. Why do you think some people exaggerate or change their identity when they are online?

Activity 2: What can strangers learn about you online? Could your friend Google your name and find out lots of information about you? Do you have your birthdate, your email address, your home address, your cell phone number somewhere online? Google yourself or maybe your teacher will let you Google them. What do you find out? In your post, don’t give out the private information you found.

Activity 3: Are you on Facebook? Have you checked the privacy help pages? Read through them and write a post about something that surprised you about the settings? Did you change some of your settings after reading the information? Why? Here is another article on Facebook privacy settings.

Teachers:

You might like to read this post by Kathleen Morris (Australia) about teaching students about the digital footprints. She includes resources for all grades.

The following activities are for all grades.

Activity 4. Write a post about your favourite tool to embed on your blog

Many students mentioned they wanted to know about some more web2.0 tools they could use on their blog. So here is your chance to promote a favourite web2.0 tool. Remember to create a link in your post so your readers can visit the site you are recommending. A new one many students in my class like using is Storybird. Your teacher can create a class account, then when your book has been moderated by your teacher they can embed a story in your blog. Or you can do what Lauren has done and create a post with links to your storybirds.

Activity 5. What is digital citizenship?

Play this game about digital citizenship. How well did you go? Write a post telling your readers about digital citizenship – what you should do rather than what you shouldn’t do. Maybe you would prefer to create a book, poster or video about digital citizenship. Some web2.0 tools you might use with parental or teacher permission glogster, goanimate, audioboo or flipbook.

Activity relating to number 10

What 10 educational games or iPad apps should all students be able to use at school? Give reason why it is considered educational.

Activity relating to blogging

One way to find information easily on the internet is using tags. Photos, geocaches, maps and posts are all tagged in some way. For example this post has been tagged by me with ‘digital footprint’ and ‘Facebook’. This means when I want to write a post again about a digital footprint in the next blogging challenge, I can just click on the tag and up will come all my posts about footprints.

On your blog, you need to start using tags and/or categories. Here are some examples:

Category: Book Reviews Tags: names of authors, genres, name of book
Category: Special events Tags: athletic carnival, birthday, Earth Hour, Dr Seuss birthday
Category: Holidays Tags: Easter, Spring Break, ANZAC Day, Martin Luther King Day
Category: Student posts Tags: name of each student

If using Edublogs, you create post categories under your dashboard>posts>categories

If using Edublogs, tags are created the same place but dashboard>posts>tags

You can add categories and tags on the main page when you are writing your post. These are usually found on the right side under the big blue publish button.

If you have already written a post and haven’t included categories/tags, then go to dashboard>posts>all posts Under the post find the quick edit and click on that. You now have options to add categories and tags without opening the whole post.

Visiting other blogs

I hope classes and students are visiting lots of other blogs and leaving great comments. I have seen some fantastic conversations happening. Remember to add the student name and blog URL to your dashboard>links if you want to visit that person often.

Tagged with: digital footprint, Facebook
Posted in March 2013

Yet more blogs to check out

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Miss W. — 3 Comments ↓

I hadn’t checked the comments on the blogging challenge for a couple of days, but this morning there were 90 comments to check and approve. Many of the posts are included on this visit post, but a lot were from Mr Miller’s AVID students writing about their families and the forest – check them out in the sidebar of their class blog.

When reading posts, I have noticed that the students from Tunisia are responding well to their mentor and are asking questions about how to do things on their blogs. They are also helping each other to solve those questions. Remember you can always check out the ‘Get Help’ section on my sidebar to find information from your blogging platform.

If you are into anime especially Homestruck, Naruto or Ouran, then this blog is a must visit, another anime lover here,

Interesting questions from grade 2 students, top jobs in grade 2,

More sock ideas – Cristian, Jerry, Ashley, Meghan, Jamie used artpad, Lexi used toondoo, Grade 2 Smarties, Climb High, Aziz can’t think of a 10th idea, Eryn gives instructions on how to make things as well, Maria,

Image posts - longboarding, iPads, Shahnez from Tunisia, piano, favourite animals, Golden Gate, pitbull, soccer, drawing, photography, water droplets,

Earlier challenges: Jack, Ethan, Sophia, Carson, Parker,

Inspiring posts: Lily, Natalie, Aziz on parkour and free running, can you answer this riddle?, Carley on kayaking, Julia on travelling, Nick on violent games,

Blogs to visit as recommended by mentors: Nicky, Carley, Hope,

Bloggers using twitter to give me their link: many have used thinglink as part of challenge 4

Dylan, Hope, Brenna, Kevin, Corbin, Brook,

Some students from Mrs Neidlinger’s class have been reflecting on the challenge

Miss Carlson’s class wrote about their families and what was hidden in the forest.

Larkin wrote a poem about the forest’s secrets, Merry Beau children wrote a story and illustrated it for photopeach,

Forest stories: Joshua, Carson, Maria, Alexandra, Maryem, Smosh Ville owner, Shahnez,

Family members writing post: Esmer’s cousin, Caroline’s older sister, Julie’s mum,

Ruthy asks lots of questions in her family post, Lupita’s family and ‘holidays’, Letty’s fantastic family, Areli and her special sister,

Zoe needs coffee

Interviews: Sophia and her father, Cristian and his brother, Andrea and her mum,

How to get comments: Jerry,

Tagged with: family, forest, socks
Posted in Visit these

Challenge 5 – Secrets

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Miss W. — 11 Comments ↓

Sorry I am late getting this post out, but I have just spent a great time with my dad (in his 80′s). We went on a tour to the Top of the World in Maydena, Tasmania. I saw this sign in the forest so this week’s number 10 challenge relates to my image.

What could the secret be that is hidden in the forest?

You could make a list or write a story about the image, maybe use a comic strip with 10 frames or a flip book with 10 pages. Get creative.

Improving your blog:

In a couple of weeks time, we will be playing a commenting game. You need to be ready for it. Make sure the following things have been done:

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
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 – in kidblog it is a blog directory
at least three overseas blogs on your blogroll
the more students or classes you have linked on your blog, the more fun the game will be

How are you going getting comments from people other than your classmates?

Have you received comments from overseas visitors?

Has anyone in your family left a comment? Remember you might need to teach them how to leave a comment.

Activity 1: Write a post about your family – include their interests, where you might have been together as a family. Remember to include grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. Dawso wrote about her dad, Dawso wrote about her family, Alexandra wrote about her family,

Activity 2: Encourage family members to leave comments on your posts over the next few weeks. Check out Mrs Yollis and her class who celebrate family blogging month in November.

Activity 3: How can you increase the number of comments on your blog? Write a post about ways to get more comments on your blog. Be creative and think outside the square – can you find at least ten ways to get more visitors and comments? You might want to make a poster for this activity - glogster or notaland remember to get permission from parents or teacher to join.

Activity 4: Have a family member write a post for you to add to your blog. They could write it and email or post it to you. Does this post attract more visitors or family members leaving comments? One family member regularly blogs on Mrs Yollis’ blog – Where is nonno? Clarissa’s brother wrote, Matt’s dad wrote, Ryan’s dad wrote,

Activity 5: Interview a family member and write a post about them – include the interview recording. You could use audioboo online or from your phone then upload the file to your blog.

Activity 6: Write a post about the overseas blogs you have commented on – why did you choose that blog and particular post?

Remember to include a hyperlink back to this post on your blog. I am still trying to find out why Kidblog and Blogger pingbacks aren’t working on my blogs. When they do work, I will suddenly have hundreds of blogs to look at.

Tagged with: comments, family, game
Posted in March 2013

No challenge but let’s visit

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Miss W. — 5 Comments ↓

As many students are on either Spring break or Easter holidays, I have decided there will be no challenges this week. It will give you time to catch up on those you might have missed and for the classes and students who have only just registered, you might be able to get some activities done.

You might also want to visit Mrs Kreb’s class blog where her students have created surveys. They would love some input from the students and classes in the challenge.

I would like to apologise to those kidbloggers and blogspotters – apparently only pingbacks from Edublogs blogs are appearing in my comments. I do have some one at Edublogs working on the problem at the moment.

Many thanks to Helen O for co-ordinating the 7-9 year old Kidbloggers board on padlet.

Have you been visiting lots of other students and classes?

Now is the time to start finding those blogs which are interesting to you.

Some of our mentors are also taking part in the challenge posts – Dinah, Rhonda,

Year 2 Smarties have only just joined the challenge, Mrs Flowers class doesn’t have pingback options but lots of posts, 7-9 year old kidbloggers board, Challenge 1 kidbloggers board, Class 20 in Russia try out new tools,

Sock ideas from Lily, Cogan, Devon, George (great way to present), Juliana, Angelika used Goanimate, Cayla, Kahu, Joshua, Costello, Valentine, Caitlyn, Kassidy used WordFoto app, Andres, Siana used a Voki, Molly, Alexandra, Olivia, Aaron, Zach, Carley, Heidi, Saddam, Niko, Grace, Morgan, Julia, Hannah, Kristina includes an animoto, Room1 in NZ, Busy Bugs in NZ, Add sock ideas to this wallwisher (padlet), Mrs Schmidts class use Voki, Goanimate and comics for this challenge, Mrs Allen’s class are starting their sock challenge, Sasha wrote a fairy tale about socks, Amber included a comic, Georgia,

Earlier challenges (some students only just starting challenge 1)

Angela, Bryson, Johnny, Mitch, Sadie, Mercedes, Molly, Hannah, Morgan, Morgan, Andrew, Saddam, Zoe, Mrs Vilas’s class have lots of posts to read and comment on, Sabastian , Kevin, Shannon, David, Michael,

Great posts with attributed images – many about favourite sports

Anthony, Sydney, Jayen, Tyson, Louis, Nick, Donovan, Raina, Riley, Brandon, Alicia,Dia, Lillian, Heidi, Julissa, Callie, Ryan, Sarah, Room2 looking for a caption to the image, Isabelle, Juliana included a prezi, Arwa, Julia, Molly

Inspiring posts

Hannah and the gift of life, Kali on smoking, Jessica on abortion, Olivia on exercise, Jade on endangered animals, Paige on sport participation, Tosh on sleep, Carley on snow days, Cullen and Latin, Cullen’s Ancient Rome story, Saddam on failure and success, Meghan on drugs, Eryn on underage drinking, Earth Hour in Tunisia including video, Emilee on judging people, Kathlyn on iPads, Sam on wrestling, Bumblethrees checked out the Pacific Garbage Dump, David on singing,

Stories using images

Zac and Nicole from Merrybeau, Morgan wants an ending for the story, Karina used Zooburst to create her story, Rosemarie loves Potter and Dr Who, Lisa,

Mentors recommendations

Ellie on softball, Ian created a photostory, Jonathan on minecraft, Maryem from Tunisia,

Posted in Information, Visit these