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Week 5: Images and sounds

There is a lot to learn in this challenge so it will be running for a two week (fortnight) period. The next challenge will be posted on 17 April while I am away on holidays.

Admin for this challenge

  1. Thanks to all those students, teachers and mentors who have been checking the student list for students mentioned more than once. If you haven’t checked yet, please make sure you are only listed once.
  2. Also we still have some mentors not able to leave comments especially on those blogs from blogger or blogspot. Make sure you have Name/URL as an option when leaving comments.
  3. Some students (who already have a mentor) have started being deleted from the lists as they have not been participating in the challenge activities.
  4. I have visited hundreds of blogs recently leaving many comments or flipping posts to our magazine. Have you found one of your posts in there yet?
  5. We now have a few more students who have been asked to be mentors. They will be leaving comments and giving hints just like the adult mentors.

Teachers: Here is a lot of information regarding images, creative commons and copyright which you can use with your students or to refresh yourself about what is acceptable or not on public blogs. Also one of our mentors in 2014, Maria, has put together some lists with great tools when using images and audio. The Edublogger also has a post on free image sources. Above the challenge blog header is a page containing a symbaloo with many tools to use on your blog – many relate to images.

Students and teachers please read this before doing the activities

This week’s activities are going to be fun but first there are some things you need to know so please read carefully.

I have been visiting many blogs over the last few weeks. Some students new to blogging have been writing some great posts while others who have been blogging for a bit longer have started adding videos and images to their posts.

Yes, this week we deal with using images, music and sounds in your posts.

But can’t I use any image, music or sound that is on the internet?

No, you must use creative commons or in some cases the fair use rule.

But where can I find these images, music and sounds? Can’t I use anything when I google an image?

No, your blog is public so you must use creative commons images, sounds, music and videos.

Sue Waters over at the teacher challenge has written a fantastic post about images, copyright and creative commons. I would suggest you all head over there to read the post. She explains about creative commons and the licences, attribution, how to find images for your blog and how to upload images to your blog. Most of this would be appropriate whether you are using Edublogs, blogger or any other blogging platform. This might be very wordy for some students, but Sue uses lots of images and how to do sections in her posts.

……………………………………………….

Have you read Sue Waters’ post yet?

Off you go then come back here for more information and the activities for this week.

………………………………………………

Other places to find information

OK I want to use some legal creative commons images and music in my slideshow.Where can I go to get them?

Do you have compfight plugin for your blogging platform? Follow the instructions from Sue Waters’ post.

Maria, a mentor from 2014, created some lists of tools to use with images and audio.

Other places to get images and music:

You will need to work out how to get the attribution to put on your posts. Check Sue Waters’  post to get more help and more places for images. This post from Edublogs explains how to add media in all its forms to your blog posts or pages. If using blogger, check out the posts from this blog.

Images

Make sure you check out the links under creative commons in the sidebar of the challenge blog.

Music and sound effects

Jamendo, CCMixter, post with 14 websites for music, post with 20+ websites for music, post with 55+ sites with sound effects

Now for the activities for this fortnight

Activity 1 Watch this video about sharing work and write a post about what you learned. Include words such as attribution, share alike, licences and derivatives to show you understand what the video was about. Do some more research on the topic and perhaps create your own class video about using images, music and videos in class.

This video is the reaction of students in Mrs Yollis’ class when she mislabelled their artwork. How would you have felt?

Activity 2. Check out this story using remix and fair use of video. What was interesting, positive or negative about it?  Could you and your friends create a 20 second video using remix and fair use? Mrs Miller’s class left some comments on her blog about creative commons

 Activity 3. Find an image or piece of music. Add it to your post (with attribution) and write a poem relating to the image or music. Invite your readers to write their own poems. Here is Fernando’s example, Samantha is confused

Activity 4. Similar to activity 3. Find an interesting landscape image (include attribution).  Write the beginning of a story relating to your image. Remember to include a conflict of some sort between your characters. Invite your readers to finish the story. How many different endings can you get? Which ending do you prefer? You might need to visit some other bloggers and invite them to finish your story. Remember to leave the URL of your post for them to click on.

Activity 5. Write a sentence using just images – no words. You still need to include attribution for each image you have used.

Activity 6. Find 5 images that create a story – again no words only the attribution for each image.

Activity 7. Create a slideshow, photo gallery or poster about your interests to add to your about me page or as a separate post. Your final slide should include attribution for each image.

Activity 8. Create your own images and add to a post of your choice. In your post add a link to the website or tool you used to create your image.

Other options for creating your own images include:

  1. Image Generators such as ImageGenerator.org
  2. Comic Generators like MakeBeliefsComix.com,  ToonDoo
  3. Photo Editors like Befunky, fd’s Flickr Tools
  4. Tag Cloud Creators such as Wordle

Mixing up your images using these types of tools can really spice up your posts! Leave a comment on this post, if you or your class can recommend some other image sites to add to this list.

Activity 9.  Zoom out from an image

We first tried this activity in the challenge in September 2010. Choose a picture, and have your readers zoom out, so to speak, by leaving comments.  Check out the example from Huzzah who finished their story. If doing this activity, include the word ‘zoom’ in your title so I can find it easily. Remember to give attribution. Most important here is to read previous comments, so you can add to the story.

Check out these zoom pictures: Becky, Jacqueline, Abbey

Activity 10.  Go back to previous posts

If you have used images in any previous posts you have written, then you are ethically obliged to give the correct attribution or take the image out of the post if it does not have the right creative commons license. Check out where Holly found her image, Samudra also wrote a great post,

Activity 11.  Create a jigsaw from your image. Mrs Schmidt’s class has done this using Jigsaw Planet . Here is her explanation

Last week (2014) my students made some jigsaw puzzles about famous places in our area.  First each student created one Power Point Slide showing a photo and some facts about a location in our area.  They saved the slide as a JPEG and then uploaded it to Jigsaw Planet.  Once the puzzle was created, they published a link to it on their Kidblog. Click on Niamh’s puzzle link.

Activity 12. Write a post about different websites to find creative commons images. Are there any widgets you can add to your blog to make this easier?

Still got time left this fortnight (two weeks):

1. Visit other student and class blogs – leave some quality comments

2. Reply to comments on your own blog

3. Start using tags and categories with each post you write to make it easier for people to find posts on certain topics. Make sure you have the tags and categories widgets in your sidebar.

4. Have at least five other student blogs linked on your sidebar – students from other classes and schools – not your own. We will need this for a game we play in a couple of weeks.

Try to have a few different headings like

  • My Blogging Friends
  • Other Class Blogs

Having lots of  links to student blogs from other countries will help spread the game.

Here are the instructions for adding links to your sidebars.

Edublogs, Blogger, Kidblog – not sure if this widget goes on the class page or each student page

 Most important learning from this fortnight’s challenge is:

Use creative commons images, not just any image on the net. Always include attribution of where you found the image. Compfight plugin does this for you.

PS If you have done the blogging challenge before, you will find these activities are nearly the same each time. If you have ideas for different activities please leave a comment on this post.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

I will only be adding posts to the flipboard magazine that:

  • are written in paragraphs
  • have been proofread
  • include an image, sound or video with attribution

So make sure you have taken note of this week’s learning about creative commons.

Miss W visiting your blogs

From this week onwards, I will only be visiting blogs where students or classes have left the URL to the post in a comment with an explanation. If your teacher is moderating your posts, you will need to wait until it has been published before giving me your URL. Check out the difference between a blog URL and a post URL.

Blog URL: http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org

Post URL : http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/2015/10/10/raise-your-voice/

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Week 4: My World

Earlier in this set of challenges, we learnt all about you – your interests, your favourite foods, music and lots of other things when you wrote your ‘About’ page. This week we are going to learn all about the area or country in which you live.

When you write your posts or use web 2.0 tools, remember to be internet safe and not give away any personal information. Check with your teacher or parent, to find out if you can mention your school name or town.

But firstly, a few administration pointers.

  • I have started deleting students who have only a Hello world post, or have not written a post yet this year or have no avatar post or about me page.
  • Please check to make sure you have the following widgets visible on your blog’s sidebar: class blogs, pages (if not in header area), recent comments (10), recent posts (10), blogroll or links, categories. If not using Edublogs, the names of these widgets might be different.
  • Are you moderating your comments often? It can be annoying for your mentor to go to your blog and find no comments have been approved for the last month or so.
  • In your profile page, do you have your blog URL included? – this links to your name for when you leave a comment.

Categories: You will notice I mentioned having the category widget in your sidebar. This is a way to group your posts eg book reviews, history class, #16stubc for the student blogging challenge. Here is a link to a post about adding categories when using Edublogs or Blogspot where they are called labels.

Rockefeller Center, New York

Creative Commons License Sharon Mollerus via Compfight

Now let’s get to the activities.

Activity 1. Add a widget to find out where your commenters are coming from.

There are many different widgets you can use – clustrmaps, flag counter, feedjit or revolver map.  Have you seen any others while visiting blogs of other students? Maybe you could write a post about why you chose the commenter widget you have put on your blog.

Activity 2. Add one or more widgets about your area of the world

This might include a clock or weather or a translator widget in case students who don’t speak your language can translate your post.

When adding widgets to your sidebar, copy and paste the embed code into a text box on your sidebar. 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.

If your blog is an Edublogs free blog, you might not be able to put all the widgets in your sidebar. If using Kidblog or Weebly you might not be able to add widgets so put them in a post instead or a widgets page on your blog.

Activity 3. Write a post about 3 tourist attractions in your country.

Miss W and Mr Davo Devil will be visiting outback New South Wales and outback Queensland for two weeks in April then at the end of June going to Denver, Colorado USA for 10 days. They enjoy looking at historical places and nature. Suggest 3 tourist attractions in your country they would enjoy visiting. Don’t copy and paste, write about them in your own words. Try to make it a personal piece of writing if you have actually been there.

Activity 4. A year in your town

Write a post, create a glogster, make an audioboo tape, create a Storybird or add a Voki telling Miss W about the festivals held in your town throughout the year. Which festivals do you enjoy the most and why? When are the festivals held in case she can visit one while she is travelling? If under 13, check with your teacher or parent if you want to use a web 2.0 tool rather than writing a post in your blog.

Activity 5. Visit other participants and ask questions

Visit at least five other blogs from students or classes around the world and ask some questions in your comments.

Classes from Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Hong Kong, China, Ireland, England, Spain, Philippines, Serbia, Nigeria, UAE and Italy taking part in the challenge.

Students born or living in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada,  China, Ireland, England, Spain,Serbia, Italy,Mexico. Pakistan, Dubai, Bahrain, Scotland, Holland, France, Denmark, Iran, Korea, South Africa, Vietnam, Brazil, Turkey, Portugal, Zimbabwe, Burma, Puerto Rico, Russia, Thailand and Venezuela.

Activity 6. Questions in a post

Write a post asking questions about the different countries mentioned in activity 5. Have at least 6 questions in your post.

Activity 7. Where I would love to visit and why

Write a post or use a web 2.0 tool telling your readers about a place you would love to visit and why. Try to include some hyperlinks (links that are underlined in your post area and take your readers to another website)

Activity 8. Create a game or quiz about your town, state or country

A few places to do this include: Quiz Revolution, Class Tools, Scratch

Remember to check with your teacher or parent before using these web 2.0 tools. Sometimes your teacher or parent will create an account that is moderated by them and is therefore safe for students to use. Do you know any other places to create games and quizzes?

 

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Week 3: Free choice

Because we had two posts last week and I know many students from the northern hemisphere  are on Spring Break around this time, I have decided that this week will be free choice.

You might want to:

  • catch up on the posts from the last couple of weeks – about me, avatar, commenting, guidelines, visiting and commenting, earth hour
  • comment on other student or class blogs
  • write your own post about something of your choice – use #16stubc somewhere in the post so I know it relates to the challenge

 

studentlist

Students

We are coming up to nearly a month of the challenge and as I mentioned in one of the earlier posts, some students will be taken off the student list over Easter (next weekend) if they have not completed certain activities.

Why do I do this?

We have over 2500 students registered for the challenge but less than half of them get to have a mentor. So if students are not doing the challenge activities I feel they don’t deserve to have a mentor.

Which students will be taken off?

Students who already have mentors need to have completed the following to be left on the list:

  1. An about me page or post
  2. One other post related to the challenge
  3. Settings on their blog must allow comments to be left by anyone
  4. The URL of their blog must be correct on the list

Mentors

I will be asking you to check the students on your list to see that they have completed the above things. If they haven’t could you please email me the names of students I should be taking off your list.  I will add new students to your list if any are taken off. If you can take extra students please notify me as well.

Classes

I will be removing classes with incorrect URLs or those where the settings don’t allow comments – these are with pink countries. I am presently putting mauve colour on those classes where student blogs are listed on the sidebar. This makes it easier if teachers want to pair up students for commenting.

Teachers

Please contact me via email if you think your students should be left on the list even if they have only completed their about me post – maybe you have only had one computer lesson in the lab then have been on spring break. I will make allowances for other school activities that might have stopped your class participating in the challenge.

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Special: Protect the places we love

Every year, the students and classes taking part in the blogging challenge also try to join this special event held in March annually.

The event relates to Earth Hour

Here is a link explaining why we celebrate Earth Hour and how it has progressed since the first one held in Australia in 2007.

Many countries are holding different themes this year – check them out here.

As you can see, Australia is going with

Protect the places we love

So over this weekend please do some of the following:

  1. Switch off your lights for at least an hour starting at 8.30pm on Saturday night.
  2. Write a post about what you did in that hour as a family – did you keep your lights off longer than an hour?
  3. Write a post about the places you want to protect – might be a favourite beach or the Great Barrier Reef or a mountain track you use often or a picnic area you always go to on weekends
  4. What thing related to climate change would you like to see fixed by all countries around the world by the time you are 50 years old? What could you do to help make that fix?
  5. Add the Earth Hour badge to your blog – right click on my image and save to your computer. Add to your sidebar using an image widget or add to a post using Add media.

EH2016 Digital Banner- 300x250

 

 

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Week 2: I can comment …

Many thanks to Sue Waters from the Edublogs management team for creating this post last year. I have made a few changes and added some other blogs to visit in some activities.

An important part of the Student Blogging Challenge is connecting with students and other classes by reading posts and leaving comments.

Comments allow you, and your readers, to engage in discussions, share thoughts and connect with your blog.

Most new bloggers find publishing posts easy and commenting harder!  Your activity this week is to learn more about commenting and improve your commenting skills!

What makes a good comment?

Comments transform your blog from a static space to an interactive community.  Commenting is one way a blogger can create conversations.

Your readers leave a comment that hopefully asks questions (which encourage conversation), you reply back to their comments on your blog, then visit their blog to read their posts and engage with them on their blog.

The better your comment the more chance you have in creating conversations.

Start by watching either of the following two videos on Commenting.

Watch Mrs Yollis’s ‘How to Write a Quality Comment‘.  You can also watch it on Vimeo if YouTube is blocked in your School District.

Watch Nicolas Weiss’s Leaving High Quality Blog comments video  if you are a high school student.

Now visit Huzzah’s Commenting Guideline to learn some more commenting tips.

Important tips:

  • Refer to Adding a comment support documentation if you are unsure how to add a comment.
  • Comments may be moderated on your blog.   Remember to check your Comments folder, and comment spam folder,  to approve any pending comments.
  • Include the url (address) in your comment when you leave a comment on another blogger’s post so the blogger can visit your blog and comment.

Below is an example of a comment from Huzzah’s blog that shows how to include your blog URL in your comment.

Comment example

Activity 1: Leave a comment on this post. 

Each week the best posts published in the Student Blogging Challenge are featured in our Flipboard magazine.

To check your posts we need you to leave a comment with a link to your post on this blog whenever you finish a weekly activity.

So your first activity is to practice leaving a comment below with a link to your post for an activity you’ve completed this week or last week. If you have already commented last week, you don’t have to do this unless you have a new post you want Miss W to read. PS I have 95 comments to read at the moment that were posted overnight when I was asleep in Australia.

Here is an example from Ayla last week:

Hi Ms. W,
I have just finished this week’s blogging challenge by uploading my avatar and making my about me page! Here is the link: http://aylaz13.edublogs.org/about-me/
So far blogging I have enjoyed creating my blog and I hope to get lots of comments
Thanks
~Ayla
http://aylaz13.edublogs.org
http://huzzah.edublogs.org

Activity 2:  Practicing commenting on a class blog

Mrs Smith has published an excellent activity that guides you through commenting, learning to read student posts and practicing comments.

Visit Mrs Smith’s I’m New Here post to work through the tasks in her post and then leave a comment on her post. Remember to include the URL of your blog.

Activity 3: Write a post, create a video or create a poster about commenting.

Might be tips to get more visitors,  guidelines for acceptable comments on your blog, examples of good and bad comments – think outside the square. Remember you don’t have to approve all comments. It is your blog; send some to the trash and if it is a company trying to get you to visit their blog to buy something, then label it as spam.

Here are some links to commenting guidelines written by students and classes. Class in New Zealand, grade 11/12 class in USA, Huzzah class blog in Canada, Abbey has a blogging guideline page, Mrs Allen created a poster about commenting,  WarriorKat uses lots of visuals in her guidelines,  Sophie had a great post, the Blogging Frogs have some great tips, Emme created a powtoon on commenting , Darcey write about commenting,  Kyndal wrote about how to comment, Rachel wrote her own guidelines

Activity 4: Visit other student or class blogs

Visit 4 other blogs on the lists above the header area. Leave a quality comment on one post on each blog. Might be the About Me page or another post you found interesting.  Write a post on your blog mentioning who you visited, which post you left a comment on and why, then include the comment you left. Hint: make sure you copy the comment before you hit the submit button.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

There will be two posts this week so look out for the next one on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I have had some mentors mention they cannot leave comments on some blogs.

If using blogspot, make sure you have Name/URL as an option when commenting.

If using Edublogs, make sure your blog is open to the world and you don’t need to login to leave a comment. To check this, go to your computer, find your blog, DONT login but click on the title of a post – does a message come up about needing to login? This means a normal visitor won’t be able to leave a comment.

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2016 Student Blogging Challenge Badges Are Here!

Challenge Badge

Here are the new 2016 badges ready to add to your blogs.

You can right click the badge above to save it to your computer, and then follow the instructions below to add the badge to your blog.

Adding A Badge to Your Blog’s Sidebar

Using the Image Widget (Edublogs and CampusPress)

1. Save the image above to your computer.

2. Go to Appearance > Widgets.

3.  Add an Image Widget to your sidebar

Add image widget

  • On CampusPress blogs  you may need to activate the Image Widget plugin in Plugins before you’ll see it in Appearance > Widget.

4.  Click on Select Image.

Select Image

5.  Click on Select File,  locate the image and then click Open to upload the image.

Select File

6.  Click Insert into Widget.

Insert into widget

7.  Add your title.

8.  Add a link to the Student blogging challenge blog (so anyone interested in the challenge can easily click through).

9.  Click Save

Add badge title

10.  You should now see your image widget in your sidebar!

Using a Text Widget

1. Go to Appearance > Widgets.

2.  Add a Text widget to your sidebar.

3.  Give the Text Widget a title (Optional); something like “Student Blogging Challenge 2016” would work well.

4.  Copy and paste the following code into your widget:

<a href="http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/"><img src="https://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/files/2016/03/sbc2016-s76n2u.png" alt="Student challenge 2016" width="200" height="200" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2614" /></a>

It should look like this:

Text widget

5.  Click Save.

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Week 1: I am ….

I’m tasteach or Miss W when on the internet but in real life I am Sue Wyatt.

I am a retired teacher from Tasmania, Australia who loves blogging, travelling and genealogy. When I am online I am a fairly talkative person as you will notice with my posts and comments, while in real life I am quiet unless with friends. Are you a different person online than in real life? How do you change or not?

avatarbigWhen online, you are usually represented by an avatar – these are used in gaming as well as on blogs. An avatar is supposed to represent the real you. Check out mine – I am a white haired lady with reading glasses. I usually have a cup of coffee in my hand and I always wear thongs on my feet – yes that’s where we wear them in Australia.

Activity 1. Create an avatar to use on your blog when leaving comments. Here is a post including some avatar sites . 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.

Some students have mentioned the following as great avatar sites as well: Avachara, Chibimaker and Pocoyo

Activity 2. On your blog you also need a page or post telling us about yourself. Again you could use a variety of tools to embed on your blog. If you already have an About Me page, you might want to create an About my State or Province page as well. Be creative:

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 the dashboard>pages>add new
  2. Change the title to About Me or something similar.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. When you have finished click the big  button on the right side of your screen – probably says update or send for review.
  6. Once you have saved your about me page, go back and delete the sample page.
  7. 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?

Other 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 – UPDATE Once the page is written a link will be added here.
  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 once your teacher has approved your post or page. 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. A new one of these will be started next week for 2016.

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Student registration March 2016

Before filling in the registration form please read the following:

Who should register 

  • Only students who have their own personal blog can register
  • Students who are going to do the activities otherwise mentors’ time is wasted
  • Students who want to connect with other students around the world

A few days after  you have registered

  1. Check the student participants page which will appear in the header area to make sure you are there. Check very carefully under your age group as we don’t need names being doubled up – again that would be wasting time of the mentors.
  2. If you are not on the participants page, register again being careful that your blog URL is correct.
  3. If you are on the participants list, start visiting other students your age or with your interests.
  4. Fill in the subscription by email so you are notified when posts are published each week – first challenge will be March 6 or if you have Edublogs reader, click on follow then you will be able to read posts in your reader.
  5. Make sure you have some great posts written so others can leave comments.

If you have a twitter account, use the hashtag #16stubc to notify others of your posts

So you have read everything above this line, now is the time to register

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Class registration for March 2016

Before filling in the registration form please read the following:

Who should register

  • Teachers who have their own class blog can register, can be any blogging platform
  • Classes which want to connect with other classes around the world

Reminders before registering

  1. If your blog URL is very long, then use a shortener such as this one from Google  Also handy when students are registering their blogs on their form (especially if kidblog as the URL is usually long).
  2. In case I need to contact you, an email is the easiest way, so please fill that in on the last question on the form. This is not published but other teachers could contact me in case you don’t have a contact spot on your blog.

A few days after  you have registered

  1. Check the class participants page which will appear in the header area to make sure you are there.
  2. If you are not on the participants page, register again being careful that your blog URL is correct
  3. If you are on the participants list, start visiting other classes of similar grade level.
  4. Fill in the subscription by email so you are notified when posts are published each week – first challenge will be March 6 or if you have Edublogs reader, click on follow then you will be able to read posts in your reader.
  5. Make sure you have some great posts written so others can leave comments.

If publicising any posts on twitter, please use the hashtag   #16stubc

You have read everything above, now is the time to register

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Do you have time to be a mentor?

The next student and class blogging challenge starts on Sunday 6 March 2016.

Why do we need mentors in the blogging challenge?

When I first began the challenge back in 2008, there were only about 200 students taking part and I could visit each of them three times over the ten week period.

But in the last few challenges, there have been  over 1300 students and there was no way I could visit them regularly.  So in 2010 I started asking people in education to mentor a small group 20-30 students over the ten week period of October to December or March to May.

If you register to be a mentor, please keep checking back on this post as I will allocate the students to you and mention in your comment reply who you will be visiting.

Once students start registering next week, I will be allocating mentors immediately so please keep checking out the student participant’s page in the main header above to find out who you are mentoring.

Who can be a mentor?

  • classroom teacher or homeschool teacher
  • principal or senior staff or faculty members
  • trainee teachers
  • students who have taken part in at least two sets of previous challenges
  • educational coaches or trainers
  • regular blogger about educational matters

What do you do if you are a mentor?

  • Visit your allocated student blogs at least three times throughout the challenge
  • Leave comments on posts written by the students
  • Continue conversations in the comments
  • Remind them about visiting the main blogging challenge page each week
  • Contact me by email or a comment if having concerns or problems (contact is on right sidebar)

So you have read the above and have decided you have the time to visit the student blogs, now it is time to register.

In a comment below, mention the following:

  • A short bio of yourself including some interests
  • Link to your own blog, especially a class blog or your personal blog – allows me to check validity as an educator
  • Age group you would like to mentor and how many students