Miss W or tasteach

Whenever you see either of these avatars or images on the world wide web, you will know it is me. I am a retired teacher who began blogging with students in 2008. I still blog with teachers and students in Tasmania, Australia. I also blog about my family history and whenever I travel, Davo the Tasmanian devil keeps a blog about his adventures with me. But the event I enjoy most is running the Student Blogging Challenge twice a year, with the help of the staff at Edublogs.

Teachers – Remember you can adapt the activities to suit what is happening in your class at that time or you can cut and paste parts of it on to your class blog. Just remember to give credit where you found the ideas by linking back to the challenge post somewhere on your post.

Students – Most weeks there will be lots of activities to choose from. You don’t have to complete them all. But by Easter or mid April, your mentor or I must see your ‘About Me’ page or post as well as two other posts relating to the challenge. If they can not be found, your name will be taken off the list of students participating, especially if you have been given a mentor.

Mentors – They are there to give you some clues about blogging, reminding you of the challenge as well as carrying on conversations in your posts. Remember to read and reply to their comments politely and in a timely fashion.

This challenge we have many new students and classes taking part so let’s get some admin out of the way before we start our activities for this week. Anything written in bold and blue is a link you can click on to take you to another blog or website.

Admin for week 1

  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 – there will be a new post this week explaining how to do this.
  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. Check this post for how to do this using Edublogs, Blogger and Kidblog.
  5. Once you have done your activity for this week, remember to come back here and leave a comment on this post. Include a link to your blog post so I can try and visit in the next week. Great posts will be added to our Flipboard magazine on the sidebar.

With so many new students and teachers taking part, you might like to start with this video created by the team at Edublogs. Here is a PDF activity about blogging terms that you might want to use after watching the video.

Time now for the two activities for this week

Activity 1: Create an avatar to use on your blog.  There are many different avatar creation sites on the web. I have been to many of them and created lots of different avatars. Some you just save and download to your computer to then upload into your blog. Others you need to use the snipping tool to save a square image of your avatar. It is always best to save as a jpg format.

Here is a symbaloo of websites to use for avatar making. Feel free to add this to your blog. Along the bottom are pages where teachers have listed lots of sites as well as shown examples. The easiest to do are on the right hand side and look like my avatar.

 

To add your avatar to your blog, if using Edublogs, check here. If using blogspot, check here.  Teacher might need to change some settings in Kidblog to allow students to add own avatars.

Did you find a great avatar site not mentioned here? Write a post about your avatar and how it represents you. Include a link to the website where you created the avatar.

UPDATE UPDATE – If writing a post about your avatar, choose an interesting title not just avatar as this will cause an error on your blog.

Activity 2: Write or update your About Me page.

Whenever I visit a blog for the first time, I always check to see who the person is that is writing the blog posts. Do they have similar interests to me?

If you already have an About Me page, you might want to create an About my State or Province page as well. Be creative:

What is the difference between a page and a post?  Check out the information here.

If using Edublogs, below are instructions for creating your page. If using blogspot, check here. If using weebly, check here. If using Kidblog, you will need to write a post.

  1. Login to your blog, go to Settings> Discussion and make sure the default setting is ticked for allow people to leave comments> save the changes at the bottom
  2. Now go to the dashboard>pages>add new
  3. Change the title to About Me or something similar.
  4. If you only have one row of icons above the box, click on the last icon called the kitchen sink or toggle. This opens a second row which allows you to change font colours.
  5. In the box, write a bit about yourself remembering to be internet safe. Make sure you have checked out the pages from other students mentioned – many of them have been blogging for a while.
  6. In the area under the page writing box, you should see a Discussion box – open this and make sure you have ticked Allow comments.
  7. When you have finished click the big  button on the right side of your screen – probably says update or send for review.
  8. Once you have saved your about me page, go back and delete the sample page.
  9. If your theme doesn’t show pages in the header area, then you will need to go to dashboard> appearance> widgets and drag across the Pages one to your sidebar.

Finished the work for week 1?

Then head off to the class or student list above the blog header and start visiting other blogs. You might not want to comment this week but maybe check them out. Are there any students with interests the same as you? Do you have a mentor yet? Have they left you any comments?

178 thoughts on “Week 1: Introductions

  1. Hello Ms.W,

    I finished creating my avatar but I didn’t read carefully on what I had to do next so I came back and did the missing part that I forgot to do.

    Aloha HMS Fern,

    1. G’day Alaina,
      Thanks for leaving a comment with your blog URL. If you want me to visit your blog, you need to leave the URL for an exact post or page rather than just your blog.

    1. G’day Suri,
      Thanks for leaving a comment with your blog URL. If you want me to visit your blog, you need to leave the URL for an exact post or page rather than just your blog.

    1. Hi Ryan,
      Thanks for leaving a link to your blog. But remember, if you want me to visit you need to include the URL to an exact post or page rather than just your blog.

    1. Hi Trevor,
      Thanks for leaving a link to your blog. But remember, if you want me to visit you need to include the URL to an exact post or page rather than just your blog.

    1. Hi Blake,
      Thanks for leaving a link to your blog. But remember, if you want me to visit you need to include the URL to an exact post or page rather than just your blog.

    1. Hi Olivia,
      I couldn’t leave a reply on your about me page. You will need to edit the page> top right corner screen options> tick discussions, now below the writing area for your page> discussions and make sure comments are ticked.

  2. Hello Mrs.W,
    Thank you for giving me the chance to start a blog and learn how to further improve it with each passing day. Your instuructions on how to do everything on this blog were very helpful and we all thank you.
    http://21corbld.edublogs.org

  3. Thanks for letting us complete this blogging challenge. Also hope to do some more and cant wait to see what will happen in the future with these blogging challenges.

    1. G’day Janson,
      Thanks for leaving the link to your blog URL. But remember, I only visit when you leave the URL for an actual post or page not the general blog URL.

  4. Hi Miss. W, I made an avatar and pasted an about me post, this is my first year blogging so I would like you to give me feedback!!! Thank you for this opportunity!!

    1. G’day Samantha,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page. Hope you are enjoying the activities and learning a lot about blogging.

    1. G’day Maria,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

  5. Hi Mrs. W. Thank you for helping everyone out in this event, and thank you for creating this event and managing it for us all! I am waiting for one of my new posts to be put on my blog right now.

    Here is the link to my blog!
    http://21bendhj.edublogs.org

    1. G’day Davon,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

    1. G’day Logan,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

    1. G’day Hunter,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

    1. G’day Max,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.
      PS I was in the Girl Guides here in Australia and loved the outdoors as well.

    1. G’day Elijah,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

    1. G’day Caitlyn,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

  6. Thanks so much for a great week 1 challenge! I think it’s great that so many different countries all get to spread ideas and learn about shared interests! Can’t wait for next week!

    Check out my first post: http://21bodnal.edublogs.org

    1. G’day Abigail,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

    1. G’day Devin,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

    1. G’day Payschence,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

  7. Hello Miss.W
    I am excited to do this blogging challenge for the first time it seems like alot of fun and i cant wait.
    Sincerely,
    Nicholas

    1. G’day Savannah,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

    1. G’day Trace,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

    1. G’day Kaeleigh,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

    1. G’day Emilee,
      Thanks for the comment and leaving your blog URL. Remember I only visit if you have left me the URL to a specific post or page.

  8. Hi Miss W this will be my first time doing the Blog Challenge. I am looking forward to many good Blogs and writing my own.

  9. Hi miss w. My name is Camden I like to play outside and doing outdoor activities and playing video games

  10. Hi Miss W, I have finished my About Me page here’s the link so please have a look! Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to blog! Here’s the link:
    21smitkw.edublogs.org

    1. G’day Charlotte,
      Thanks for leaving the link to your blog. Remember if you want me to visit your blog, you need to leave the URL of the post or page you want me to read, rather than just the general blog URL.

    1. G’day Connor,
      Thanks for the link to your blog. Remember for me to actually visit your blog, you need to leave the URL of the actual post or page you want me to visit, not just your general blog URL.

    1. G’day Nancy,
      Thanks for the link to your blog. Remember for me to actually visit your blog, you need to leave the URL of the actual post or page you want me to visit, not just your general blog URL.

    1. G’day James,
      Thanks for leaving the link to your blog. Remember if you want me to visit your blog, you need to leave the URL of the post or page you want me to read, rather than just the general blog URL.

    1. Hey Lily, loved your blog but, what’s net ball? In the USA we don’t have that here. Do you think you could check out my blog? 21smitkw.edublogs.org

  11. Hi Miss W,

    MCL (my grade 3-4 class) are very excited about the Blogging Challenge. We used one of the examples given and the students paired up to create an ‘About Us’ page. Here is the link to our page:
    http://mcl2017.global2.vic.edu.au/about-us/
    We also had lots of fun creating our avatars using Otaku Avatar Maker. These will be placed on our blog soon.
    We can’t wait to begin the next few tasks!

    From Mrs Lehane’s Class

    1. G’day Mrs Lehane,
      If you want people to leave comments on your PAGE you will need to do the following:

      Go to your about me page and open it in your dashboard.
      In top right corner, click on screen options and make sure Discussions is ticked. Close screen options.
      Now below the writing area for your page you should see a dropdown labelled Discussions.
      Make sure you have ticked the boxes about leaving comments.

      1. Hi Miss W,
        Thanks for your reply. I have changed the settings as instructed and we have received our first comment which we are very excited about.
        Mrs Lehane

  12. Dear Mrs W,

    Thanks for a great Week 1 challenge. It had been a while since I updated my avatar. Your instructions were very helpful and luckily, I was able to create an avatar that has a bit more grey hair than the first image I made years ago.
    Week 1 was also a great opportunity to update my ‘About Me’ page. My students are looking forward to finishing off both tasks this week.

    I hope you’ve had a great start to the Challenge too.

    Kind Regards,
    Kylie Miller
    http://mrskyliemiller.global2.vic.edu.au/

  13. Dear Miss W.,
    My class and I would like to thank you for running the Student Blogging Challenge again this year. We are looking forward to sharing our learning with others, and to building global friendships. This has been an inspiration for me and for so many of my students over the years that we have been participating now. We are one world and when we connect through blogging, this helps reminds us of this. We hope you will visit our class blog and leave us a comment.
    http://blogs.stafps.wlwv.k12.or.us/staff/amrij/

    From, Mrs. Amri and The Crew

    1. Philip,
      Remember you might need to update your about me post each time you take part in a new set of challenges. Your interests might have changed, your style of writing may have changed and so on.

  14. G’day Miss W,
    I have created my avatar and about me blog page. The blog page for about me was really tricky because I didn’t know what to write about myself.
    From James

    1. Welcome back Teo,
      I notice you also have a page called “All about me”. You might want to edit it and just add a bit to the top each year stating March 2017 then adding a sentence or two showing how you have changed.

  15. Hello Miss. W,
    I did this challenge last year, and I still have the 2016 badge. I tried to add the 2017 badge, but I have forgotten how to get the link to add to my widgets. The link for the explanation that you posted is not working. I was wondering if you could send that link again.
    Thank you,
    Olivia

    http://oliviaglca.edublogs.org

  16. The here is link for step 3 is not working. Can you please help. In addition, I have not used blogs before and I’m having trouble setting the class blogs up as well. Will you please direct me to directions for that as well.

    Thank you.

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