Week 1: Introducing me

  Who am I? Who is Miss W or tasteach? 

Whenever you meet someone for the first time, it is a good idea to introduce yourself. Maybe mention some interests or family. Well here is the introduction I give to my online blogging students. You will notice I haven’t mentioned where I live or the school I work for; I haven’t included any birthdates or phone numbers. I have tried not to include any really personal information.

Now it is your turn to introduce yourself to me and your readers. Some of you might need to update the information from a previous about me page.

• What are you going to include?
• What are you going to leave out?
• Does your school have any rules about what you can include on your blog like photos and maps?

Check out these students’ introductions.

• Have they been careful in what they have included?
• Should some of them change some information on their page?
• Notice they are written in a variety of styles – how are you going to write yours?
• What different web tools have they used in their introductions? Check out some of the web tools links on the sidebar of this blog.

Mackenzie Grade 4, Jacob grade 4, Annabel grade 4, Caitlin grade 4, Tatyana aged 17 writing in English from Russia, Olivia blogging for 2 years, Em only 8 years old but 4th year of blogging challenge, Isabella the bookworm, Jake one of our student mentors

Where do I write my introduction?

Edublogs or wordpress blogs have a sample page. Click on sample page and edit by deleting what is there and adding your information. Make sure you change the permalink as well. Otherwise follow these directions.

If you don’t have pages on your blog eg kidblog users, then you will need to write a post instead. Maybe you can add a widget on the sidebar of your blog and include text in there.

If using Blogger/blogspot, check out how to add a page to your blog here .

Creating your about me page in steps for Edublogs users

1. Login to your blog.
2. Go to Pages > All Pages
3. Hover your mouse over the Sample Page title and click Edit.
4. Change the title to About Me or something similar.
5. Remember to also edit the permalink to About then OK.
6. If you only have one row of icons above the box, click on the last icon called the kitchen sink. This opens a second row which allows you to change font colours and to insert from a word document.
7. 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.
8. When you have finished click the big blue button on the right side of your screen – probably says Update.

Refer to detailed step by step instructions in the Edublogs User Manual on writing your About page for more help!

Please check: Some themes do not have the pages visible in the header area.

This means you need to go to Appearance> Widgets in your dashboard and drag the pages widget across to your sidebar area if you are using an Edublogs theme.

Classes and their about pages

Some classes have a few different about pages – one for their teacher, one for the class and one for the school.

Check out these class blogs and what they have included: Mrs Donofrio explains blog title, Mrs Amri also has a text box widget about the blog, Mrs Hankinson’s class wrote poems in the comments to introduce themselves, Mr Woolley’s class created Vokis and embedded them on a page, these 3rd graders dream big, this 5/6 class created a video, this class from Ireland are great at leaving comments on student blogs around the world, Rebecca’s class has a great welcome post, this class from Serbia includes a movie about their school

To find out more about pages for your class blog, check out this section of the teacher challenge.

Still got more time left this week??

1. Start visiting other blogs in the student and class list above the flag header of the challenge blog.
2. How many different countries have students or classes participating?
3. Create another page on your blog like a guest profile – ask visitors questions for them to answer in the comments.

Finally, when you have finished your page(s) come back to this post and leave a comment. Mention the URL of your blog and why you think I should include your page as a great example in the next challenge in September.