Challenge 1 – Who am I?

2225262197_9b10c8793aChallenge about the number 10

If you could meet 10 people, alive or dead, who would they be? Make a list of the people and include one question you would ask them in an interview. You cannot repeat the same question.

Challenge to improve your blog

You are going to have a lot of new visitors coming to your blog throughout this challenge. We have students from many different countries participating, some for the first time. They are going to want to know a bit about you. As this is information that doesn’t change very often, it is included in an About Me page you create. Remember if your pages don’t appear at the top in your header, then you will need to open your dashboard and under appearance>widgets, drag the pages widget across to your sidebar.

  • In Edublogs, you have a Sample page that you can edit, change the title to About Me and introduce yourself to your readers.
  • In Blogger you also have a profile page you can change that will then appear in the sidebar of your blog.
  • In Kidblog, you will need to write a post rather than a page.
  • In Weebly, you can create a page.

Remember to be internet safe and not include personal information. Examples to check out

Students: Jacob, Morgan, Em (our youngest participant), Jake (a student mentor also check out this post he has written), Samantha, Isaiah, Ethan, Josie, Teegan (one of our student mentors), Angie (made a prezi), Raiyaan, Simon (an older student from Ireland), Elizabeth wrote a poem, Emily

Classes: Room 7 NZ, Mrs Kelly – long but beautiful, Mrs K includes an animoto, Mrs Lucchesi used a prezi, Mrs Hazzledine wrote a poem as a class, Mrs Bliss, Mrs Caudill, Mr Mac, Mr Toft,

If using Edublogs or a campus version of Edublogs, make sure you have filled in your blog profile page correctly. You should have only your first name(2), a nickname and display name(3) and a link to your own blog(5) in the URL area. This will make it easier for others to visit your blog if they are using the same blogging platform as you are. When leaving comments on other blogging platforms you might need to include your first name, a link to your blog and an email address as well as the anti-spam word. If leaving comments on kidblog, include your URL in the actual comment area as it does not normally ask for this otherwise.

Other challenges for week 1

1. Create an avatar that represents you – check out this post for websites to try. Most blogging platforms allow you to upload your avatar, so use the Get Help section on the sidebar for your type of blog.

2. So you know where your visitors are coming from have some sort of map or flag counter. Check out this post for ideas of where to get them.

3. Not all students have English as their first language, so you will need a translator widget of some sort on your blog. Find them here.

4. Part of good digital citizenship is not being a cyber bully. Have you ever been cyber-bullied? What did you do about it? Make a list of hints for students who are being cyber-bullied. Maybe make a poster about what to do and what not to do. Perhaps you could use glogster or as a class use wallwisher. Check out the list of web 2.0 tools you could use on the sidebar.

5. Are you going to have any guidelines or rules for leaving comments on your blog? Check out these from other students – now create your own and add to a new page on your blog.   Teegan (bit hard to read though) Abbey (older student)

6. Write a post about why students and classes should visit your blog.  Why is your blog going to be interesting? What will you be posting about? What could they learn from reading your blog? Make sure you hyperlink back to this challenge post  somewhere in your post. That way, I will get a trackback or pingback and I will be able to visit your blog to read your post, otherwise I won’t know if you have written anything about this challenge.

eg. This post is for Challenge 1 in the March 2013 challenge. Highlight ‘Challenge 1′  then use the Link icon  – chains joined – and copy and paste in the URL below

https://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/2013/03/03/challenge-1-who-am-i/ ‎

This is one of the most important skills to know when blogging – how to make a link – if unsure check out this post for Edublogs or this post for blogspot.

7. If you have been blogging for a while, write a post highlighting some posts you have written that you would recommend new bloggers read. Remember to give an explanation why – what will they learn from reading that post? Make sure you link to the posts you are recommending so your readers can actually visit them.

Extras for classes

Create an animoto with images of your classroom or school taken by your students. This might be included as a post or on your about page. Make sure you join the free education version where both you and your students can create longer length animotos. Ms T used an animoto

Visit your buddy classes (those on either side of your class on the ‘Classes – March 2013′ page.) Introduce yourself and get a conversation started.

Have pairs of  students in your class visit a different class blog and check it out. What did they like about it? What caught their eye? Did they find an interesting post?

Now on your class blog, write a post about visiting other class blogs. Highlight those things your students found interesting and add links back to the blogs they visited.

Let’s visit

Leave a comment on the blog of up to 10 students who have the same mentor as you. Make sure it is a quality comment – if the student has blogging or commenting guidelines, read them first. If your mentor has left a comment on your blog, perhaps visit their blog to ask some questions politely. Hopefully the mentor will have their name or avatar image linked to their blog URL.

Teachers might like to visit this post with great ideas on About pages and guidelines for blogging. Here is a list of great widgets to have on your sidebar of your blog.

Admin messages

Always remember to check your spam comments as sometimes a real comment gets stuck in there.

If using the Edublogs free version, many widgets with embed code wont be able to be added to your blog. But if your teacher is using a pro version, they can check out this post to add your blog to their blog then you will be able to include embed code on your blogs. If using a campus version of Edublogs, there is no need to do this as blogs can already use embed code .

 Photo Credit: mckaysavage via Compfight cc