Next Friday is Blog Action Day 2015.

Every year the students and classes taking part in the blogging challenge also take part in #BAD2015

Blog Action Day is one day each year when thousands of bloggers write a post on the same topic.

Read this post to learn about the history of Blog Action Day.

The theme this year is “Raise your voice”

Read this post about why that theme was chosen.

Teachers and students over 13 might want to register their blogs to show they are participating.

You can add a badge to your blog if you are writing a post for Blog Action Day. Click on the badge and save to your computer, then go to your widget dashboard and drag over an image widget – add the image then copy the link they ask you to add

Remember to publish your post on October 16 and not earlier in the week

What could you write about?

Ever been inspired by the actions of a person in your community?

They could be an unsung hero who spends their holidays working with the underprivileged, travelling overseas to help build schools, spends Christmas in a soup kitchen dishing out meals to the homeless. Might be a student who spends their holidays volunteering somewhere rather than going to the beach with friends.

Is there an issue that inspires you?

Maybe animal abuse and what you are doing about it. Think about Malala and her role in improving education for girls around the world.

In some countries, you could be put in gaol for blogging about issues that the government doesn’t agree with. Raise your voice for these bloggers and journalists.

How can technology help in times of disaster?

Often the people of a country can quickly work together in times of disaster, before government departments get organized. Think about bushfires, floods, tsunamis, cyclones and hurricanes- how could you raise your voice at this time?

Indigenous people in your country

Often the indigenous people do not have their voices heard especially when it comes to land rights, voting, the environment and multinationals on their land. Raise your voice for the indigenous peoples.

Refugees and immigration

Often the people of a country are prepared to have refugees live in their country while governments may take a more negative route. What is your opinion on how you can raise your voice for refugees?

One group of students in our challenge have a blog about pressing problems from a student perspective. Maybe you could raise your voice with them.

Remember the power of images in your post or videos or audio – maybe interview someone who has been a refugee or is an indigenous person in your community. Ask them about how their voices were suppressed and what you can do to raise their voice!

So your post is schedule to go live on Friday but you still have time for more blogging. More things to do:

Visit some of these great posts from our week 1 activities: Dinah – mentor, Mrs Black – teacher,

Check out these students from the Huzzahnians – Talia, Alinna, Kassy, Ben, Nate, Elijah, Autumn, Connor, Kalea, Morgan

Read some of the posts that got flipped to our flipboard magazine in the sidebar – Mrs Shirley’s grade 6 students are there

Visit the student or class list and start leaving some quality comments – start making connections.

Other admin for week 2

  1. Check that your name appears only once on the list of participating students. Leave a comment on that page if I need to remove your name from the list – give me your name, URL and age so I can find you easily.
  2. If all the students in your class have blogs and your teacher has a section called ‘My class’, you should have a widget called ‘Class blogs’. Make sure this is on your sidebar.
  3. Add the challenge badge to your sidebar – here is link explaining how to do that.
  4. Can visitors leave comments on your blog posts? If your country is in bright pink, then you might need to change your privacy settings or give me your correct URL. Check this post for how to do this using Edublogs, Blogger and Kidblog.

How do I know you have done your activity?

You come back here to this post and leave me a comment. Make sure you include the URL of your post so I can visit and leave comments. Tell me what you enjoyed most about the activity.

Also great posts get added to our Flipboard magazine on the sidebar of the challenge blog. Your blog must allow search engines to find you to ensure I can flip your post.

 

 

72 thoughts on “Special event: Raise your voice

  1. This is the best blog I have ever yet read. I love how it talks about raising your voice on abuse and bullying. I think this blog helps kids adults anyone about stepping up and raising your voice instead of letting it happen over and over great job! Come check our blogs out when you have the chance @cougarnewsblog.com

  2. HI Ms W.
    Many students in Mrs. Muller’s Class have been working on how to leave meaningful comments and how to add widgets to their pages.
    Paige is one example http://paigem3.edublogs.org/
    We would love some visitors from around the world!
    Thank you for all of your hard work. My students absolutely loved hearing from you!
    Mrs. Muller

  3. Dear Mrs. H,

    I am blogging about human trafficking for our blogging challenge. Human trafficking is a subject that has been going on for years and years now and it is a problem. It started with African Americans being brought over as slaves and continues today. It not only continues today, but is actually thriving. There are more human slaves today than ever before in history. It happens in lots of places around the world, including America! Today the most human trafficking in the United States occurs in Texas, New York, California, and . The average cost of a slave in 2015 is between 90 and 100 U.S. Dollars. The number of slaves on the earth today is an estimated number of 25- 30 million people. Half of those people are women, and 70% are children. 80% of people sold into slavery are 24, and some are are as young as 6 years old. The Taliban buys children as young as 7 years old to act as suicide bombers. Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises. The hotline for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center is 1(888)373-7888. What is your take on human trafficking? Please comment below.
    Sincerely, Billy

  4. Bullying

    Types of Bullying

    Bullying can take many forms but it usually includes the following types of behavior:

    • Physical – hitting, kicking, pinching, punching, scratching, spitting or any other form of physical attack. Damage to or taking someone else’s belongings may also constitute as physical bullying.

    • Verbal – name calling, insulting, making racist, sexist or homophobic jokes, remarks or teasing, using sexually suggestive or abusive language, offensive remarks

    • Indirect – spreading nasty stories about someone, exclusion from social groups, being made the subject of malicious rumours, sending abusive mail, and email and text messages (cyber bullying).

    • Cyber Bullying – any type of bullying that is carried out by electronic medium. There are 7 types including:

    You feel humiliated , sad, worried. A well known person that was bullied is Amanda Todd.
    Amanda Michelle Todd (November 27, 1996 – October 10, 2012) killed herself at the age of 15 at her home in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada. Prior to her death, Todd had posted a video on YouTube in which she used a series of flash-cards to tell her experience of being blackmailed into exposing her breasts via webcam;[3] bullied; and physically assaulted. The video went viral after her death, resulting in international media attention. The video has had more than 17 million views as of April 2014.The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and British Columbia Coroners Service launched investigations into the suicide.
    At the time of her death, Todd was a grade 10 student at CABE Secondary in Coquitlam, a school that caters to students who have experienced social and behaviour issues in previous educational settings.
    In response to the death, Christy Clark, the Premier of British Columbia, made an online statement of condolence and suggested a national discussion on criminalizing cyberbullying. Also, a motion was introduced in the Canadian House of Commons to propose a study of the scope of bullying in Canada, and for more funding and support for anti-bullying organizations. Todd’s mother Carol established the Amanda Todd Trust, receiving donations to support anti-bullying awareness education and programs for young people with mental health problems. Watch this video please.

    What This Video

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2QRbl3H0ug

    Join a worldwide fight against bullying starting now.

    STAND
    UP
    AGAINST
    BULLYING

    Start Standing Up Now!!

    Raise Your Voice!!

      1. Mary-Ellen,
        It might be an idea to change some of your pets as the dog is always barking. When a visitor arrives at your blog that is what they hear first. Also the cat is meowing. It is better for the visitor to play with the animal and that is when it barks or meows.

    1. G’day Mary Ellen,
      Any blogger can do this. Regarding age, it was only for those 13+ to actually register at that website. You can still add the participant badge even if you didn’t register.

  5. Hi Mrs. W.,

    My class and I are really excited to be participating in the blogging challenge again. This week we wrote some awesome posts about issues that are important to us. We are also really excited to have people commenting on our blog already. Looking forward to the coming challenges and getting to know some of the other bloggers.

    Sincerely,
    Mr. Helpern
    Helpern’s Helpers

  6. Hi Mrs. W,
    I have finished my post. Although I’m not sure if its only for those participating the edublogs challenge and all, but I did it anyways for like spreading the message of gender equality. Hope you like my post.
    here is the link: http://roybel308schoolgirl.edublogs.org/
    With love,
    Nikita315

  7. Dear Ms.W,
    I have finished for Blog Action Day. What I probably enjoyed most about the activity is relieving my old childhood memories (although it was only 3 years ago) and remembering my dear hero. Here’s a link to my blog (I’m not sure when it will show up because my teacher has to approve it): http://hmsotomi.edublogs.org
    Sincerely,
    Otomi

  8. In one of your blogs ive heard that you are of Australia Its the place of my dreams,id always like to go there!!

  9. Reading it,I think its something to help but please reply when you can.I always like to cooperate in things like this one.So please for know if you can,tell me all the things that I dont know and comment in some of my posts to see what do you think.I will try to post videos(images)to help you.By the way IM going to tell you some things that you didnt know about me.Im in a school on malaga(Spain)called saint georges school.IM on year 7 and like you I love blogging.If you read this comment thank you I just wanted you to know me.Im not a bad person please belive me.Im still blogging because I only could do it on year 6 with my friends.Know ive got you and the others.By the way I only wanted you to know me.

    1. Hi Luis,
      You need to write a post about something that is of concern to you especially if it relates to censorship or people not being able to voice their own opinion without getting into trouble.

  10. Hi Mrs. W-

    My classes are talking about the social issues that matter to them. Today in class, we shared out our ideas on Padlet. Tonight, the students are researching some facts about their world concerns. Next up, they’ll all be drafting a blog post for Blog Action Day. They are very excited about sharing their thoughts and opinions! Here’s a link to our class blog: http://mrsrombachreads.edublogs.org. Here’s where you’ll find links for each of my classes: https://kidblog.org/class/RombachRockstars/posts.

    Thanks for inspiring us!
    Martha Rombach
    http://mrsrombachreads.edublogs.org

  11. hi Mrs. W,
    Someone else has joined my group but didn’t fill out the form. We have done both weeks so far and we want to do this to. Please check our site and comment. No one has been able to find our site.

    Rachel & Kelly
    theblogoe.edublogs.org

    1. Hi Rachel and Kelly,
      You are there under the 10 year old list. You also have a mentor assigned to you – Mrs Mayling who might leave you some comments otherwise come to the challenge blog and leave me a comment so I can visit.

      1. Dear Miss W,
        I definitely hope that you loved my post. I am enjoying the student blogging challenges so much. Bye😃.

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