Welcome to the first challenge for March 2010. For the first time, all challenges will be categorised as one of the following:
- beginner student
- veteran student – means has been blogging for about 6 months or more
- commenter – doesn’t have own blog but comments or posts on a class blog
- class
Teachers – there have already been some teacher challenges on ‘The Edublogger’ so your class blog could be ready for this challenge – if you have not completed them, could you do so as soon as possible. If you have students on a blogroll, please have their RSS post feeds in some type of reader or netvibes etc with an obvious link on your class blog – check out all our posts etc. This will make it easier for comments to be left when another class visits your blog.
Blogging is all about holding conversations with people who have similar interests to you. You might have a blog about Nascar racing, your friend has one about Greening the Earth or as most of you do, one for showing the world what you are doing at school and answering questions in relevant subject areas. Here is your first challenge:
Beginner:
Make sure you have an up-to-date page telling ‘About’ you. Check out some of the following students from previous challenges: Jess, Nick, Lauren, Little Miss Room18, Marnie, Dominique, Kira, Jacob, Keely and Brad.
If using Edublogs, this is a PAGE not a POST. It will appear as a link across the top of your header or in the PAGE widget on your sidebar. Here is a link to explain how to edit the ‘About’ page which is already on your blog. If using BLOGSPOT, you also have an about me area in your profile. Remember to be internet safe in the information you put on the page.
Veteran:
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 2010 challenge. Highlight ‘Challenge 1’ then use the Link icon – chains joined – and type in the URL for this post. Check out how Abbey has created the trackback here.
Commenter:
Leave a comment on this post telling me three interesting things about you. Check out the page called “March 2010 students’ and visit two blogs there where students have similar interests to you and leave a comment on their blog.
Class:
Each week you will need to have visited the blog of the class on either side of your name on the ‘March 2010 classes’ page. This will make sure each class gets visited by at least two other classes. Then choose some other classes from the list that you would like to visit – students of similar age perhaps.
On your class blog, write a post about why students and classes should visit your blog. What will they learn from reading your posts? Are there any skills your class has that they could pass on to other classes and students?
I am new to blogging so my blog isn’t that good (YET!!) once it is done i would like you to vist, thanks.
Hi, I’m Tahlia,
3 things about me:
– I have dark brown hair,
– I enjoy listening to music,
– I blue eyes.
Enjoy reading…
Dear Sue (s),
1. Blog avatar may not be available unless pro subscriber am I right (msg: no options are available for this widget)?? I am a pro but my linked sts are not.
2.Had trouble loading a widget (fish clock, like on mine at:
http://2ycroydon.edublogs.org/
in this blog http://armin2ycroydon.edublogs.org/
actually a few strange things in this blog. Widget were connected to the ‘about’ page, not the first page..
3. thanks for advice on the refresh ctrl F5 button.
4. if students recieve comments, how do they know where to find their home page. I set up sts’ blog using the name+ gmail method, so sts do not get the email notification.
Do students need to know more about pingback, I am a little bit confused-is it just a reference to the blog concerned? In what circumstances do I need to,(or should I be) referring to the challenge??
many thanks,
Jane
Hi Jane,
Question 1.
All blogs whether pro or not allow blog avatars. Some themes though, do not have the blog avatar box. I have found only a couple.
Students have to make sure they have gone to appearance>widgets>blog avatar and dragged it across to the sidebar. Then once they have saved their avatar as a jpeg file on their computer, they can then upload their avatar. Once for dashboard> users > your avatar > browse to find where they saved their avatar then use alternative upload if they don’t have to crop the avatar. Their user or comment avatar will now be done.
They then go to dashboard> settings> blog avatar and upload the same way. They now go to their blog and refresh it. If they have the blog avatar widget on their sidebar, it should now have their avatar in it. Might need to refresh a couple of times.
Question 2.
I looked at Armin’s blog. He has added his music into a post rather than as a widget on his sidebar. Most widgets you get off the net, that give you embed code, are added by dashboard > appearance > widgets > text box dragged to sidebar, opened, paste in code, save then close. Sometimes widgets like pets are too wide, so before saving students need to find the code that is something like width 250px and change the 250 to either 180 or 200. It usually appears twice in the code, then save and close.
Question 4.
If commenters have their own blog and they have connected their nickname with their blog URL, then your students should just have to click on the commenter’s avatar or their name. This will then take them to the person’s blog. Otherwise, when approving the comments, click on comments on the left bar on the dashboard. This will open out to the whole comment, not just a couple of lines. Students, if they are administrators on their own blog, should now be able to see the commenter’s name, URL and email if you have that set up in your settings.
If students are writing posts that relate to the challenge topics, it is a good idea that they put a link in their post that links back to the challenge set by me. It is up to you how often you refer to the challenge. You check what the challenge is for the week. Is it something your students could do or one of the activities they could do? Then in your class blog, write a post about what their task is. I notice this week the environment would be a great one for your students to do as you have been looking at that in your class.
Hope this helps Jane.
Hi I am Johnson 3 interesting things about me is
1. I love sports like soccer or wreslting. those are active and fun sports.
2. I hate people woth an attitude because it just makes you annoyed.
3. I love school because i get to see my friends and hang out with them ,but i hate to do homework.
G’day Johnson,
A positive attitude makes all the difference in my eyes.
Hi,three intresting things about me the first thing is I am crazy about horses , I love the way thay look at you with thare big brown eyes .The scond intresting fact about me is I horse back ride and valt (triks on horses).The thrd intresting thing about me is I love to draw but I am not vary good at it .
G’day Rosa,
The only time I have been on a horse was doing a trail ride along a creek in Yosemite National Park when I was there on a holiday. Each horse just followed the first horse – we didn’t really have to control the horses very much.
Hi my name is Riley and I’m from Ms. Smiths class. Here are 3 interesting things about me,
1.I play lacrosse.
2.I have a retriever/husky dog named Tango.
3.My dream car is a 1966 Ford Mustang GT.
G’day Riley,
Can you take your dog Tango mushing with a sled or is he more a retriever?
We think it will be great because it will help us with our own blog. Our class knows it is going to be fun and cool. Team 17 will also learn new things by sharing blogs. We hope we’ll write fantastic comments using good punctuation and grammar.
I have Wendy Randall as a blog to visit from the list of classes. I cannot visit her blog because of the filter that is on our school computers. I hope someone else will choose her class to leave comments.
first blog challenge
I am a first time blogger so I am doing the beginner stage.
i loike you blog it is veryu kool dude or a dudet
This post is part of challenge 1 of the Blogging Challenge as of 2 March 2010.
This first challenge is for me to write a post that states why students and classes should visit my blog. I believe that students and classes should come and see my blog because of the posts and the sort of pages i will make.
[…] There is more on the website, Please Visit!
I am a First timer to this Blogging challenge and have been enjoying reading and exploring classrooms blogs. I teach 5 year olds in a small rural school here in NZ. We would love for you to come and look at our blog. I do apologise for the confusing comment links (am playing with HTML and adding extras to the platform, Tumblr). We would love to hear from you and what is happening in your part of the world. We love watching our audience grow and finding out where our new visitors are from through our Clustermaps widget. Happy blogging.
I am a student from Indiana and I am friends with many people taking the challenge from Indiana. (Abbey and many others) I was wondering if I could have you as a link on my blog? I would love it if I could! My URL is elainem2010.edublogs.org and I am also doing the challenges!