Welcome to the second set of activities. But first a little bit of
ADMIN
Firstly, with over 1000 students now registered, I am sorting out mentors to be allocated to students. I don’t want one student to end up with more than one mentor but this will happen if you are on the student list more than once. So PLEASE check the student list and leave a comment on this post if you are on there more than once. I will need your name, URL, country and age to make it easier for me to find you on the list.
Secondly, we still have some classes and students who have privacy settings not allowing others to read posts and/or comment. To check if this is you, go to your blog but DON’T login. Now try reading and commenting. Are you allowed to? If not, then neither will your visitors. Please change the privacy settings. Any students or classes who still don’t allow comments by Easter will be deleted from the lists.
Thirdly, instead of filling in a Google form each week of the challenge, please come back to the post and leave a comment including the URL of your blog post. In April I will be starting a new flipboard magazine and will be adding the great posts from both students and classes to that.
Now let’s get to the challenge.
Only 220 years ago, it used to take a sailing ship about 4 or 5 months to sail from England to Australia with convicts on board. It took me 24 hours, including time zone changes, to fly from Australia to Vancouver, Canada with a short stop in Hawaii for a couple of hours. Yet it took only seconds for my class to connect in 2008 when we used Skype to make a call.
Students born in the last twenty years should be taking it for granted that they will be working collaboratively with students and teachers across the world using modern technology.
So this week’s challenge is to tell the world about the area you live in – your town, your state or province, your country in general. But hopefully you will also be having international visitors coming to your blog, so you need some way of knowing where they are coming from. There will be many options of what to do this week ranging from adding widgets, creating avatars, writing posts, leaving comments by visiting international blogs.
Activity 1 Adding widgets
- To tell people about your area – check out the widgetbox for weather, news and clocks
- Tracking your visitors – Sue Waters from Edublogs has included in the user guide lots of widgets to add.
- Translate your page in case readers do not speak your language.
When adding widgets to your sidebar, go to your dashboard>appearance>widgets> drag text box to sidebar area. Now copy and paste the embed code into your text box.
- Save then close.
- If the widget is too wide, you will have to adjust the number next to ‘width’ in the embed code.
- This might appear more than once in the code.
If using blogger rather than Edublogs, you might need to check out the instructions for adding widgets and images etc from Bling For Your Blog, written by a teacher in New Zealand. Thanks Allanah.
Activity 2. So that you are known globally, you need to have an avatar that represents you.
But can’t I use a picture from Google?
No, most pictures on Google or other search engines are copyright and belong to someone else.
Here is a post with links to lots of different avatar sites for you to create an image that looks like you and here is a post for Edublogs or wordpress explaining how to upload your avatar. Blogpost or blogger students check here to upload, Kidblog check here,
Activity 3. Being such a small world now, many classes take part in global events such as Earth Hour (coming up very soon, so register this week), Safer Internet Day (back in February), Global Read Aloud Day (ideas for books needed), Pi Day (just passed) and Clean Up Day (just passed in Australia). Write a post or posts about special global events you or your class have taken part in. What did you learn from the event? Why should it be global?
Activity 3. If I were to visit your state or province, what would be the ‘must see’ places and why?
Activity 4. Create a quiz about your state, country; this website is good for embedding a quiz. Try my quiz about Tasmania
Thanks to Celia for reminding me that this site is only for those over 13 years old.
Activity 5. Finally, just for fun, if you have completed one of the other activities perhaps you could try this activity.
When “daddysitting” my father who is just out of hospital, I asked him to give me an activity relating to the topic for this week. He said what about a story about the journey of a small animal like an ant. Remember be creative, use a different webtool and embed into your blogpost.
Still got time left this week:
- Visit other student and class blogs and read the about pages. Leave quality comments.
- Check out these maths challenges from Ms Hutchison’s class.
Remember, come back to this post and leave a comment when you have written your post or embedded your quiz. Include the URL of the actual post not just your blog in general.
http://wolfbladeraven.edublogs.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=3&action=edit
Bilal H.
My name is Dan and I live in Joliet, Illinois. Our weather is usally mild during the year. A spot that you can visit is the Bean in Chicago.
Greetings, Sue.
Week 2 activity.
I wanted to post this widget here so that you could share it with students next challenge.
As my family and I were driving around we noticed that the flags in our area were at half mast. We investigated and came across this site.
HALF STAFF AMERICAN FLAG NOTIFICATIONS
http://halfstaff.org
You can add a widget to a blog to remind you of how to fly the flag that day. It also gives you specifics for your state.
I’m passing it on to my group of students.
Dinah
Check out my post about “The Oregon Life”! http://mckennaam.edublogs.org/2014/03/24/the-oregon-life/
I Did Activity #2!
http://kpsabbeyk.global2.vic.edu.au/?p=26
I Did Activity #9!
http://kpsabbeyk.global2.vic.edu.au/?p=21
Here is my post:
http://castor8sms.edublogs.org/2014/04/02/where-to-take-someone-who-visited-california/
We are a little behind in our posts, but here is some of what we’ve done for this challenge. http://wp.me/p1MuGQ-wP
Hi!
I am capoeira9. I finished most of the challenges, here’s my URL: symba5.edublogs.org. Thank you!
http://malaikablog8.edublogs.org/2014/04/03/must-see-california-sites/
Hi Mrs. W,
I haven’t been on your blog before.
I really like it 🙂
Could you please check out mine?
http://anastasiao.global2.vic.edu.au
Anastasia
G’day Anastasia,
What is it that you like about my blog?
I just visited your blog. You have done a great job in the short time you have had the blog. I liked your post about digital footprints. It doesn’t take long to start having your name appear on the internet once you are using a blog, using twitter or instagram and other social media.
Hello Ms.W,
Here is the link to what I wrote about California and what I think people should look at if they visit.
http://kendall8sms.edublogs.org/2014/03/31/if-someone-were-to-visit-my-state/
http://claire28sms.edublogs.org/2014/03/31/the-must-see-places-of-my-state/
Check out my suggestions for places to visit in California!
Hello again all,
Any Australians like to help us?
In addition to completing our second blogging challenge (which you will find here http://firstclassroom12.weebly.com/1/post/2014/03/student-blogging-challenge-week-2.html) we also wrote a blog post on the differences between Ireland and Australia.
We would love for you to take a look. Maybe you could comment with any interesting facts we left out? Thanks!
Ms. Glynn and Room 12
http://firstclassroom12.weebly.com/1/post/2014/03/ireland-v-australia.html
^ Here is the link to the blog post.
Hi Miss W.,
Please check out my blog post, “Visit San Francisco”.
http://ben2blog8.edublogs.org/2014/03/27/visit-san-francisco/
Thanks,
Ben
We added a clock widget with Arabia Standard Time, and I wrote a post about Bahrain. I’m still working on having the children help with the blogging! http://krebs.edublogs.org/2014/03/26/about-bahrain/ Perhaps they will be drawing pictures and writing stories about Bahrain!
Denise
Dear Miss W.,
I have finished my post about the state that I live in, Oregon!
http://jessieam.edublogs.org/2014/03/26/a-day-in-oregon/
http://kidblog.org/ecpbloggers/9498d3d3-9ac5-4491-a125-26c40faac731/oakland-life/
My blog is great example of blogging. It is about Life in Oakland. It talks about places in Oakland and all the sites you can see. You should really check it out.
Our Tech Team students created a Google Form Technology Survey focused on screen time and favorite apps. http://bhsihelp.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/googleapps-domaindocs-dirformsd1vcrkrsfye9-pbb67-i8etwjkpzeslemv4ayuwh8lycqviewform-queryembeddedtrue-width760-height500-3/
Their blog has several widgets embedded in the right navigation bar and have for some time. They are able to track visitors over time on the ClustrMap.
Hi Kathy,
Are the Tech Team asking all students at the school to fill in the form to gather data and work out how to help the other students with their tech questions?
Hello, dear bloggers!
Although we are not registered as a class, we were only able to do some collective work last week, as my senior students are very busy already preparing for their final exams. Of course, we tried to do our best. Would you like to do a quiz about Russia and find out how well you know our country (http://kidblog.org/MrsFlowersNewClass/olgak/its-a-small-world/)? We also took part in World Read Aloud Day on March, 5 and made a short video we’d like to share with everybody (http://kidblog.org/MrsFlowersNewClass/olgak/world-read-aloud-day-2014/). We would be happy, if we could give our visitors some pleasant moments!
Hello Miss W.,
I am a homeschool mom, and this is my first experience with blogging. Sometimes I think that setting up a homeschool class blog is silly, but I am hoping that it will broaden our horizons and help us learn a little more about the world of technology. My children certainly love their video games and such, so my hopes are that they will learn more about how to use the technology they love to enhance their education. I am not exactly sure how to go about setting up our homeschool class blog, ❓ so it is an experiment in progress. The student blog challenge has been a great start for us to learn more about what to do. Thank you, Miss W.! You are an amazing woman! I have added the post about where we live to our class blog. Here is the link: All About Arkansas
P.S. Sorry this comment is so long; it is the first comment I have ever made on the internet. I know, sad, right? 😯 But, I am looking forward to more blogging and commenting.
Most sincerely,
Amoris Verum
G’day Amoris Verum,
Great to have you and your home schooled students taking part in the challenge. In the pages above the flags on the challenge blog, you will find an area called Class blog help. It will take you to a teacher challenge area and give you lots of ideas for setting up a great class blog. Also if you want to connect to other classes around the world, go to the Class March 2014 list above the flags.
Something I thought was very interesting about the videos is that everything you do on the internet even before your born or after you died.
Hi Miss W.,
Here is my post on my wonderful state, California!
http://vivi8sms.edublogs.org/2014/03/24/things-to-see-in-california/
Hi Miss W,
People should check out my post on California!
http://elizabeth8sms.edublogs.org/2014/03/24/california/
Hello,
Here is the link to my “must see places” of my state: http://willblog8.edublogs.org/2014/03/24/if-you-were-to-come-to-california/
I hope you find it interesting,
Will
Hi Miss W.,
This is the link to our post sharing about Must-See Michigan. http://edublogs.misd.net/techiekids/2014/03/23/michigan-must-see-places/
We think you’ll like it because we share a bunch of helpful facts with some pretty pictures. This combination will really help readers “visualize” our area. For some extra fun, I’ve shared a cool tool that new bloggers would like to know about. It’s called 360 Cities. Scroll to the bottom of the post to see a picture that allows you to click and spin around within the image 360 degrees. My students love it and we think you will too.
Thanks!
Mrs. Moore and the Techie Kids
G’day Mrs Moore and students,
It was certainly a very visual tour of your state. Loved the 360 view. Will have to look into that when we do a post on images.
Ms. W,
Here is the link to my post about California: http://justinblog8.edublogs.org/2014/03/22/must-see-spots-in-california/
Hello Miss. W,
I was really excited to write my post and share places to visit in California here it is—-http://jack18sms.edublogs.org/
Jack
Hello Miss. W,
I completed the second task!
I really enjoyed it here is the link to my blog
http://helainas.global2.vic.edu.au/
Helaina 🙂
Hello Miss W!
Here is our class post about Michigan:
http://digitalvoices.edublogs.org/2014/03/23/all-about-michigan/
Miss W.,
This is my post for week 2.
http://chessa8sms.edublogs.org/2014/03/23/where-to-take-someone-who-visited-california/
This is my post about the must-see places in Northern California! Please check it out!
http://rachelblog8.edublogs.org/2014/03/23/what-to-do-in-northern-california/
Hello Miss W. Here is my post for Week 2 about Kansas. http://adventuregirlem.com/wp/?p=184
We have nearly all completed the Week 2 challenge. Lots of reasons to visit Melbourne and special must-see sites !
http://stscholsstudentblogs.global2.vic.edu.au/
http://stlukesstudentblogs.global2.vic.edu.au/
Looking forward to Week 3!
Dear Miss W,
My students have completed this post. We were not able to use the quiz site because the children are not 13 years old. So instead we created a slide with facts about different places in our state and country and then turned them into puzzles with JigsawPlanet. Here is a link to those posts:
http://kidblog.org/SISClassof2019/tag/blogging-challenge-2/
Thanks!
Mrs. Schmidt
Miss W.,
It really is a small, small world especially when you have many cultures in your school. Check out our post about our Multicultural Fair. http://mrsmckelvey.edublogs.org/2014/03/21/its-a-small-small-world/
From,
Bloggin Frogs
Hello again everyone,
We really enjoyed writing our post about the area we live in!
Our town is Castleknock in Dublin, Ireland.
We would love you to visit our blog and have a read 🙂
http://firstclassroom12.weebly.com/1/post/2014/03/student-blogging-challenge-week-2.html
Hi Mrs. W,
I have completed Blog Challenge #2. If you wanted to know, I have completed activities 2 and 5. Here is the link to my bog post:
http://aashisblog.edublogs.org/2014/03/21/blog-challenge-week-2-its-a-small-world/
P.S. You will see my avatar that I created in activity 2 as my picture in this comment.
Enjoy!
Hello!
I have finished the challenge for this week, you can read it at http://kendallc629.edublogs.org/2014/03/17/texas-our-texas-all-hail-the-mighty-state/! I hope you enjoy!
Thanks! -Kendallc629
Hey Miss W,
I’ve posted my About Me and my Small World challenge. I’m super excited to be doing this blogging challenge!!!
G’day Riya,
To make it easier for me to visit your blog, you need to include the URL in your comment.
Dear Ms. W,
Hiya, would you take some time to checvk out my post?
http://share.sis.org.cn/21ts02/
Thank You,
Tina
Hi Ms. W,
A few of my friends and I are working on a collaborative project in which we each write a chapter of a story about a bat named Fury. You can read my post about the project at this link:
http://share.sis.org.cn/21yw01/fury-the-bat
and I’ll post a reply comment when the actual story is done.
Hi Ms. W,
You can now read the chapters at the previous link.
Sincerely,
Felix
Hello everyone! The first graders have put together a “blog hunt” for facts about Michigan! Please visit us at :
http://rautiosclass.edublogs.org/
Hi Miss W,
I just wanted to let you know that I have completed this week’s challenge. You can check it out at http://kindreeridhi.edublogs.org/ under Blog Challenges; it is the latest post (at the top). Thanks!
G’day Ridhi,
Oh dear I only got three questions correct. I need to learn more about Canada.
If you want your work put in our flipboard magazine, you will need to write them as posts instead of adding to your blog challenge page. You might need to mention this to your teacher as well as the other students in the challenge.
Dear Miss W,
It’s okay! I can use the one I have created! Thanks for
letting me know! Oh, and I have written a comment back to your comment!
Have you been to the Oregon Zoo?
From,
Anika 🙂
Hi everyone,
I’ve just completed the all about where I live post. It was a lot of hard work! 😯 I hope you ENJOY it. Here is the link to my blog: TheWarriorKat
Bye!
WarriorKat
G’day WarriorKat,
Love the way you have used thinglink in your post.
Hi Miss W,
I was wondering, if you go to the widgetbox (which I’ve been there already)
how can add the widgets? I’ve asked several teachers and some of my class-mates that are also doing it and they don’t know how to either??????
Anika 🙂
Hi Anika,
This post explains about the widgets found at Edublogs generally http://help.edublogs.org/user-guide/widgets-sidebars/
Here is a post about adding a cyber pet which is from widget box. http://eschoolblogs.org.au/students/2013/08/15/how-to-add-a-cyber-pet/
Adding other widgets is very similar to what I wrote in that post.
Dear Miss W,
I have completed the task for Week 2 challenge.
Here is the URL: http://jannatara.edublogs.org/2014/03/19/week-2/
Sincerely,
Jannat
Hello,
I have completed the task.
Please visit my blog at:
http://sarahrss.global2.vic.edu.au/
Bye Sarah
Dear Miss W,
Sorry! I forgot my URL! Here: http://anikasukumar.edublogs.org/
From,
Anika 🙂
Dear Miss W,
I have made a post on my blog about Oregon(USA) and have put up my
Voki, so has everyone else in my class. Is it okay that I don’t use a person avatar as my avatar? Let me know!
From,
Anika
G’day Anika,
Thanks for leaving great comments on the challenge blog. As an avatar is supposed to represent you, it is better to have a fun one you have created. If you have used an image for the avatar, is it a creative commons image or is it one you, your family or teacher have taken? If it is just an image you got from Google, then it might be owned by someone who doesn’t want it to be used anywhere else on the web so it is copyright to them.
Hi Everyone,
We have created a quiz on the state we live in South Australia.
http://mrbaldock.edublogs.org/2014/03/19/student-blogging-challenge-south-australian-quiz/
We hope after you complete the quiz you are tempted to come and visit our state.
We encourage you to leave a comment about what you liked about our quiz and if you have visited South Australia before, what was your favourite thing to see?
Year 3/4 Baldock
Hello everyone! Our class was able to add some widgets, a couple of posts, an “About Us” page, and a link to our student blogs at another site. We also have new post in the works about our favorite places to go in our area. We will let you know when those are finished! Happy blogging! Here is our link:
http://rautiosclass.edublogs.org/
Hi Ms. W,
I have more than one mentor. My name is gymnast3, my URL is gymnast3.edublogs.org, I live in U.S.A., and I am 10 years old.
Sincerely,
gymnast3
G’day gymnast3,
I just checked your blog. I left a welcome message (see my avatar on the comment) but Mrs Hamman is your actual mentor for the challenge.
Hi Mrs. W,
We have completed our post and we currently are working on the challenge. Have a great day! Here is the link:
http://blogs.goaj.org/bbarrett/2014/03/17/student-blogging-challenge-2/
Mrs. Barrett
Love your avatar, Mrs Barrett. What website did you use to create it?
Thanks! I used this website:
http://www.amctv.com/shows/mad-men/mad-men-yourself
It was super fun!
Just checked this site out and is for 13+ year olds – will add it to my new avatar list I will be creating over Easter.
Mrs. W,
We have added another post to go along with blogging challenge #2. Hope you enjoy.
http://blogs.goaj.org/bbarrett/2014/03/24/powerful-sentences/
Mrs. Barrett
Hi Ms. W,
I just finished a blog post about the city I live in, Shenzhen! I hope you find it interesting. Here is a link: share.sis.org.cn/21yw01/shenzhen.
Sincerely,
Felix
G’day Felix,
When leaving your URL as part of a comment, start it on a new line and add the http:// part as well then it will appear as a link.
Hi Ms. W,
Ok! I’ll do that next time.
Sincerely,
Felix
PS I’ve just finished activities 1-4, check them out at
http://share.sis.org.cn/21yw01
Hi! I began blogging with first graders last year on Kidblog and set up this year’s class on it as well. I have found, however, that it may be hard for “others” to see our posts for the student blogging challenge via Kidblog. So, I have set up a new account at edublog. Can you switch my blog URL to : http://rautiosclass.edublogs.org/
Hi Miss W,
There are 2 of my students who ended up on the list twice. You can remove both Ricky and Jessica from the 8 year olds under Mrs. Watanabe. Jessica is in there twice and Ricky is under 9’s. He accidentally wrote 8 for an age so he resubmitted it again with 9.
Ricky – http://kidblog.org/SISClassof2019/author/54d50acf-357c-4a2f-ae57-48d572d0b621/
Jessica http://kidblog.org/SISClassof2019/author/48d5c43b-b58a-44f4-ac40-ca38b6306730/
I’d be happy to be a mentor if you need more help.
Thanks,
Tina Schmidt
Dear Miss W,
We already have a map on our blog, but hopefully we’ll be able to discover some more facts about world time with our new blog clock!
http://year4btlc.edublogs.org/?p=936
Thanks,
Miss T
Hi Miss W,
I was really excited to write my post. Here it is http://blogs.goaj.org/emscanvas/2014/03/15/about-my-state/
From,
Em