Welcome to the first week of activities in the 8th student blogging challenge. As at writing this first post, we have 112 classes, 748 students and 36 mentors taking part in the challenge. We cover the following 22 countries:
- Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA – majority of students and classes from these countries.
- United Kingdom, Russia, Vietnam, South Korea, Turkey – more than one participant.
- Netherlands, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Taiwan, South Africa, Colombia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, El Salvador, Bangladesh, Uganda, Malaysia and Indonesia – only one participant or mentor.
Activities will be divided into three sections:
- Blogging – check if you have done these activities before going on to the other sections. It is here where you will learn how to improve your blog.
- Students – activities for writing posts or adding comments.
- Teachers – activities for your classes either writing posts or leaving comments.
Let’s get started!!
Blogging
With participants from so many countries coming to your blog, you will need to have a post or page all about yourself – your interests, your favourites, your family and so on. Remember to be internet safe and not mention personal information like your last name, phone number, email, school name. Check out these great examples: Mara, Colton and Reece A slightly different version from Nolan
If using Edublogs, go to your dashboard> pages>edit sample page or about page. Remember to rename the title. If your blog header doesn’t include pages, then you will also need to go to appearance> widgets> drag ‘Pages’ into your sidebar.
You will also need to make sure visitors can leave comments on your blog – you might need to create a text widget to explain how to leave a comment. Check out this blog for an example: Image a Day To know how to cheat and put this info in your sidebar, visit this post from The Edublogger and start at part 6.
If using other blogging platforms, check out the Get Help links on the sidebar of this blog. I have tried to find tutorials for improving blogs for each of the other platforms. If you know a good tutorial site leave a comment on this post and include the link. I will then add it to my sidebar.
Students
- You might need to re-visit your ‘About’ page and update it for this year.
- Otherwise check out some interesting ‘I am’ posts from students in Mrs Kelly’s class. You could write one of these for your blog.
- Find your name on the student participant list, check that the link works, then visit at least ten blogs with the same colour as yours and leave comments on one of their posts. Write a post, recommending at least three different blog posts to visit and why you think they are interesting.
- Who is your mentor? Check on the student participant list, then go to the mentor registration page and find out about your mentor. Write a post as if you are interviewing your mentor. They might visit in the next couple of weeks and leave some answers for you.
Teachers
- You might need to re-visit your class ‘About’ page and update it for this year.
- Otherwise check out some interesting ‘I am’ posts from students in Mrs Kelly’s class. You could write one of these for your blog but instead it will be ‘We are’ as a class.
- Find your class name on the class participant list, check that the link works, then visit the class on either side of you. Leave a comment on their blog and some of the student blogs if linked on the blogroll.
- Write a post posing some questions to be answered by the visiting classes which might come to your blog.
- Check out this post about commenting from Mrs Smith. What type of comments do your students leave?
Everyone:
If you have any great ideas for activities in this challenge, please leave in a comment on this post.
Remember to create a link back to this post if you have completed any of the activities where you are asked to write a post. You might copy and paste this to the bottom of the post: I got the idea for this activity from Student Challenge Blog March 2012
Image: ‘Welcome Piggies‘
PDF 
I am a middle school teacher who retired in 2012 but still loves teaching. In my spare time I enjoy tracing my family history and helping others with their genealogy as well as chatting with my friends around the world. But most of all, I enjoy travelling and visiting new places.
Miss W,
My group only has 10 people in it, including me.
Should I just visit all of their blogs?
Thanks!
G’day Jake,
If your mentor is Mrs Smith, then yes she asked for only 10 students. I think they are from a variety of classes and countries though. But visit other students as well if you want.
Hi Jake,
I left a comment on your blog. If you are looking to connect with bloggers beyond the 10 in our group, feel free to visit the students in my class by going to the sidebar of our class blog.
Cheers,
Ms. Smith
Hi Miss W,
I have updated my about me page for this weeks challenge.
Your pal,
Jarr☀d
Hi there,
I’m not in the classroom for the first half of the year- working in Science out of the classroom. However,
I’ve been putting a wiki together with info about Argo Floats. How about adopting an Argo Float as an activity?
http://waydownsouth.wikispaces.com/Adopt+an+Argo+Foat!
Hello,
maybe we could write a story and take a photo to put on our blog.
MaireadP
Hi Miss W,
I am so happy that the challenge has started again! I hope people vote on which picture I should use on my About Me page because I can’t decide which one to use.
From,
Em
Hi Miss W
Our class has updated our about us page today. I hope people enjoy reading it.
http://feps34b.global2.vic.edu.au/about-us/
3/4B
I have several students who entered in their blog address incorrectly. How do we correct it?
Miss W,
We should do what we did last time. With the avatars, and that stuff. It was really cool.
Clarissa
Hello,
My group at leasy has some people i know in it!!
Hi Sue,
One suggestion for an activity (really more of a blog maintenance task) is to have students include their class blog as link in their sidebar and make it identifiable ie Our Class Blog: Climb High! It really helps when leaving a comment on a students blog to have a sense of the classroom community too–and can lead to broader connections.
Many thanks for all you are doing,
Jan
Great idea Jan. I will add that to the instructions for next week when we also create avatars.
Gosh, I need to part of this blog maintenance… I don’t know how to create my students own blog and then add them to a blog roll. The facebook moderator sent me a link but I failed…
I think a great activity would be to create a Prezi which showcases facts and pictures about your school. Perhaps even upload a video and link it to the Prezi too.
http://sharongarvarenglish9mw.edublogs.org/
I visited and commented on the classes on either side of me, and I made a post on my site to welcome everyone. I’m not sure if I did the link back to this post correctly. I want to make sure that we are doing this correctly. Can you check it? Thanks so much
Mrs. Garvar
Miss W,
I’m a little behind when it comes to web 2.0 tools, and your suggestion of a survey or questionnaire for our visitors seems like the perfect opportunity to jump into embedding, but I don’t know which survey or questionnaire tool works best with Edublogs/WordPress. Do you have any suggestions as to what my students could use to embed surveys into their blogs? Keep in mind we are limited by the district as far as what the students can use (I had thought about Google docs Forms, but I think it’s blocked). Thanks!
Mr. M
G’day Mr M,
One that I use often is Poll Daddy. Check my squirrel blog where we are asking for students to give a name to the squirrel that is touring down under at the moment. Remember when embedding the code you need to change from visual editor to HTML editor (Tab at top of post dashboard) Or students can embed the HTML code, which they should get from the website where they have created the poll, into a text widget to put on their sidebar.
Hello everyone!
Our All About Me page is a bit rushed. I tried to create a blog for each of my students but – Failed! So I’ve posted on behalf of my students.
http://tongariroroom7.edublogs.org/2012/03/07/all-about-us/
Christina,
It might be easier to have each student as a user, author or editor on your class blog. Here is a blog post explaining how.
Dear Miss. W,
I updated my About Me Page by changing the photos, words, and added the photo attribution. Thanks for the challenge, it reminded me to update my page.
From,
Ethan
Hi Mrs W,
Thanks for the honour of using my about me post as an example. I think this student blog challenge is going to be great!
Colton
Hi my name is Sophie, from Chilliwack,BC Canada
I have about 20 kids in my class that are doing this challenge should I visit all of their blogs and leave a comment of just visit some?
Hi Sophie,
The idea is to first visit other students who are in the same part of the participant list as you are. If a lot of them are from your own class, then visit other students who have similar interests to you or are about your age. You don’t have to leave comments on every blog you visit, just when you find an interesting post.
Our ‘About us’ page is complete.
http://room2point1.edublogs.org/about-us/
my son started a blog but is not listed on the student list. We are not part of a class. Do we need to do something else to be listed? http://wutsup2day.edublogs.org/
thanks
G’day Kristen,
I couldn’t see his name on the student list so could he please re-register and where it asks teacher, he puts in my mum instead.
This is our first attempt at the student blogging challenge. The 8th grade students at Holmes Middle School have put up their “about me” entries. Looking forward to seeing visitors and blogs from around the world!
http://wiki.ccsd21.org/groups/ACLA/wiki/b2fce/Blogging_Challenge.html
I wrote a post of my 3 favorite blogs. http://devenscs17.edublogs.org/2012/03/13/blogs-to-visit/
Deven
Miss W,
I am in the blogging challenge and here is my week one post.
http://kayleescs17.edublogs.org/2012/03/16/3-great-blogs/
Miss W
I wrote a week one post and here is the link.
http://jadescs17.edublogs.org/2012/03/16/my-favorite-posts-week1/
Miss. W
I have made a post on the blogs that I like. Here they are.
http://jasonscs17.edublogs.org/2012/03/15/3-blogs-i-like/
Jason
I made a week one post for the blogging challenge.
http://dustinscs17.edublogs.org/2012/03/16/3-blogs-i-like/
Dustin
Hi Miss W!
I have done my All About Me page!
http://angie1234.edublogs.org
Hi all,
Our “all about us” pages have been waiting for your visits
Pingback: http://sibelm.edublogs.org/
http://penbank6.edublogs.org/about-penbank6/
We have been having so much fun with the challenges these past two weeks. We made avatars and even made a video of them using aminoto. The kids wrote an All About Me and we wrote a classroom one too.
Take a look!
Thanks for having us,
Mrs. Lucchesi’s Fourth Grade Class
http://lucchesip.edublogs.org
•Grade: 7
•Best Holiday: none
•Birth Month: march
•Career Goals:none
•Favorite Band(s): dont have one
•Favorite Lolly:none
•Favourite Food: hot chips with chicken salt
•Favourite Snack:chips
•Favorite soft drink: coke
•Favorite Subject: PE
•Hobbies/Sports: ripstick
•Pet Peeve:none
•Pets: 4 dogs 2 cats
•Family 3 brothers 1 mum 1 dad
Hi miss W,
What is the challenge all about anyway?
G’day Jonathan,
The challenge is all about improving your blog and making connections with students and classes around the world. Each week I set a series of activities for you to choose from around a certain topic. You write a post about your choice and link back here to the challenge. Other students might then come to visit your blog.
I think this challenge is boring
G’day someone,
If you think the challenge is boring, could you please give me some suggestions of what I could include to make it less boring?