The next student and class blogging challenge starts next week on Sunday 1 March 2015.

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 September to November 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. I will also send you an email reminding you about checking this post early in the challenge.

As students have already registered, 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

93 thoughts on “Could you be a mentor?

  1. Hi
    I would love to be a mentor. I have been involved in education for over 20 years. Two years ago I resigned as a head of school to start my own consulting business. I also started a 30 day blog challenge for educators and created a FB group to help support those new to blogging. I blog at agreenblatt.blogspot.com

    1. G’day Akevy,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have allocated some 12 year old students to you. To find them go to the page Students March 2015 above the blog header. Scroll down to the 12 year old students and find yours in a lilac colour.

  2. Hello, my name is Penny and I’ve been a teacher since 1998. I’ve taught 4th-7th grades, but the middle grades are my favorite. I like reading, math, science, and technology.
    I blog at HotLunchTray.com about education and my current role as a technology specialist in K12.
    I’d love to help out mentoring if you still need help!

    1. G’day Penny,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I checked out your blog and thanks for mentioning the blogging challenge in one of your posts. I have allocated some 13 year old students to you. If you click on the page in the header area labelled Students March 2015, scroll down to the 13 year olds and your s will be in a pinky colour. Thanks again for offering.

  3. Dear Miss W,

    I’ve been reading up quite a lot on the blogging challenge, and have to commend you on what an incredible idea it is; everyone here is so amazing and sweet, and I’ve loved participating as a student so far. However, I was going through the lists of students and noticed that many young adults such as myself don’t have mentors. Would it be possible to serve simultaneously as a student and mentor? I’d love as many people as possible to get as much out of the challenge as they can. I have not participated in previous blogging challenges, as I wasn’t aware they existed, but I do blog on educational matters (could you specify a bit, though? I’m not sure if what I write qualifies, though I think it may). Thank you so much, and continue to be amazing!

    Signed,
    Jackie

    My blog:
    http://edublogs.eanesisd.net/jb83734

    1. G’day Jackie,
      I read your great post about commenting and remember you can visit as many other student blogs as you would like, to leave as many comments as you wish. To me that is being a mentor, giving clues and tips, helping to improve someone’s blogging skills. So you go for it, visit and comment as much as you would like.

      To be an official mentor, you need to be a student who has taken part in at least two of the sets of challenges and shown that you are a great blogger with both posts and comments. Part of that is by leaving me comments on my posts and including links to your posts.

  4. G’day Hayfa,
    Thanks for being a mentor again. I have given you a group of 17 year olds as well as a smaller group of 18 year olds. Only one of your students, Aymen, is included but he is doing extremely well in the challenge and probably doesn’t need a lot of mentoring.

  5. I’m an English teacher from Tunisia. I took part as a mentor last year, and I enjoyed the experience. I’d also like to join the adventure wih edublogs this year , too. I’d appreciate if I mentor 17- 18 years old students. This is a link to my personal blog http://haymajd.blogspot.com/

  6. Would love to serve in the capacity of mentor. Hope it’s not too late. I’m an educator, curriculum developer and tech integration director for over 24 yrs. Have taught Prek-20 and familiar with Caribbean, UK and US curriculum. Look forward to a reply

    1. G’day Ms Cotter,
      Wondering if you can give me the URL of a blog or website you organize so i can just check educational credentials before I assign you some students.

    2. Thanks Ms Cotter,
      I have assigned some 12 year olds to you. They are in a green colour in the list. Thanks for offering to be a mentor for the challenge.

  7. Hello! If you still need mentors please let me know! I would be willing to help out.

    A short bio of yourself including some interests – I serve as a K-12 Technology Integration Coach for a K-12 School District in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. I am also pursuing my doctorate from Drexel University.

    Link to your own blog, especially a class blog or your personal blog – allows me to check validity as an educator- Below please find links.
    Blog: Link O’the Month & Other Thoughts! http://tparr-linkomonth.blogspot.com/
    Website: Learning with Technology https://sites.google.com/a/pvsd.org/tools/

    Age group you would like to mentor- age 6-10

    1. G’day Tara,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have given you a group of students aged 9. You will find them in the March 2015 student list above the header. Scroll down to the 9 year olds and they will be in an orangey colour.

  8. Good news! I was able to leave comments for all of the students I’m mentoring. Some look as though they’ve just opened their blogs while others have clearly been blogging for some time. Either way, though, I left comments for all of my students. 🙂 Thanks!
    Martha Rombach
    http://mrsrombachreads.edublogs.org

  9. Hi

    I am currently a secondary science and biology teacher in Melbourne, Australia and would like to be a mentor. I teach kids from Year 7 to 11.

    My blog is http://mrjaybiologyworld.edublogs.org/.

    It was created since last month to prepare my students for their VCE exam. Therefore, this blog contains strategies on how to do so.

    Preferred mentoring groups: elementary and senior levels.

    Regards

    1. G’day Mr Jay,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor for 2015. I have allocated some 14 year olds to you – they are from 4 different countries. You can find them by going to the March 2015 students above the header and scrolling down to find them in the list.

  10. A short bio of yourself including some interests:
    York, PA is where I call home. I love learning from and with others. My passions include PBL, collaboration, and connected coaching. Currently, I am a classroom teacher working with 8 and 9 year olds (3rd grade) at Roundtown Elementary School, a primary building.

    Link to your own blog, especially a class blog or your personal blog – allows me to check validity as an educator
    Class website: http://mrsmusone.weebly.com/
    Class blog: http://mrsmusone.edublogs.org/
    Personal blog: http://nodaybuttoday-musone.blogspot.com/

    Age group you would like to mentor
    I would be happy to mentor any aged learners.

    1. G’day Mrs Musone,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor this year. I have allocated some 8 year old students to you – they are in a lilac colour on the March 2015 students list above the header. All but 2 students are from New Zealand, but many of them have not got Name/URL as an option when leaving a comment. I hope this will change in the next couple of days.

      You might want to pair up one of your students with one from New Zealand with similar interests.

  11. I would love to have the opportunity to mentor and learn about this program. It seems like something that would be amazing to bring to my students and I’m excited about the chance to learn about it from the back end first. I currently teach 5th grade and have for 7 years. I do not have a blog myself, but think it’s something I/we could benefit from and would love to use this challenge as a way to possibly kick start my own blogging journey!

    In my spare time, I love to be active, running in particular. I am always looking to learn about technology and find was to use it to enhance my instruction.

    Please let me know if I can become a mentor.
    Mindy 🙂

    1. G’day Mindy,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have allocated some 10 year old students to you from a couple of different countries. You will find them in a lilac colour in the March 2015 students above the header of this blog.

    2. Hi Mindy,
      Couldn’t find you on twitter or a blog anywhere to leave you a comment. I have updated the students on your mentoring list. you have about 6 new ones at the bottom to take the place of those I took out.

      These students will be keen for comments and their teachers class blog is http://team20nest.edublogs.org

      Thanks again for mentoring.

  12. I am a coordinator of distance learning working with 60 school districts in Central Texas. I have been a classroom teacher at both the elementary and middle school levels as well an adjunct professor at the graduate level. Please check out the DL website at http://www.esc13.net/distancelearning. My blog, though I only write sporadically, is located at pedagogics.edublogs.com. I would love to mentor some students and hear their voices in word,

    1. Thanks Carol for offering to be a tutor. I have allocated some 13 year olds to you. They are all from the same class in case you want to make contact with the teacher.

  13. I would love to be a mentor! I am a high school English teacher in NJ. I am also a mommy blogger! I am very passionate about reading and writing, and helping kids find their own way to love both!
    You can check me out at http://www.leadingthedoublelife.com
    Looking forward to hearing from you!

    1. G’day Jessica,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have allocated some 15 year old students to you. If you look above the header for March 2015 students, then scroll down the list to the 15 year olds, your group will be in an orangy colour. Feel free to get back to me with any queries or problems. All except the first two are in the same class, so if you want to make contact with the teacher, I can give more details to you.

    1. G’day Mr LA,
      I allocate the mentors and it will depend upon the number of people who offer to mentor. I send out tweets asking for people to register to be a mentor, but not many have done so this year. I then allocate according to the date the students registered for the challenge. As your students have only just registered, they probably wont get a mentor.

      Another way to get comments is for you as a class to visit other class blogs of similar ages that are on the class list for the challenge. Leave comments on their blogs with your class URL and students leave comments with their own personal blog URLs.

  14. I am Mr. Lewis-Abriol. I teach 5th grade in Oxnard, CA. Students call me Mr. L-A. I am registering to be a mentor.

    1. G’day Mr L-A,
      I have given you a group of 10 year old students to look after. You might be able to pair up your 7 students to another student from New Zealand, Australia and America to make comments on each others blogs. Here is the link to find the students that have been allocated to you. http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/march-2015-students/

      Go down the list to the 10 year olds and find the green section with your name in it, your students to look after are also in green.

      At the moment you might not be able to leave comments on the NZ students blogs until they change one of their settings.

      If you have any queries or problems, please email me or leave a comment on this post.

      Good luck with the challenge.

    1. Hi Bill,
      Have given you 8 students aged 13 – 6 from USA and two from the Philippines. Thanks for offering to mentor this year.

  15. I would love to be a mentor. I am a Middle School teacher. I have my classes blogging about Hydroponic plants that we are growing in my classroom. I have 13 students.

    1. G’day Bowlins,
      Before I allocate any students, could you please include the URL of a blog you are working on with your students, just so I can check out you are actually an educator.

  16. Hi, there!
    My name is Aaron Puley and I am a secondary (high school) school teacher at Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School in Hamilton, ON, Canada. I am currently teaching grades 10, 11, and 12 but am open to mentoring any grade from 4 and up. For the past 5.5 years, prior to returning to the classroom, I have been a K-12 21st Century Learning and Engagement Consultant with the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board and am very passionate about the power of blogs and how they provide students with authentic platform for publishing, learning, and exploring beyond their notebook. My professional blog is http://bloggucation.com (I so need to catch up with my posts 🙂 and my classroom blog is http://mrpuley.ca.
    Let me know if you need any more information. Excited to be a part. I have registered my classroom blog to participate and will promote my students to do the same with their individual blogs.

    1. Hi Aaron,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have given you a group of 16 year old students. You might be able to pair them up with students from your class. They are from a wide range of countries. If you have any queries or problems with mentoring, please email me as soon as needed.

      1. Thank you very much, if you have a student or two from Turkey I have a student that would love to engage with them. Perhaps you could add to me if possible? Thanks. (she could blog in the Turkish language as well. That would be cool!

        1. G’day Aaron,
          The Turkish student could visit the other students from Turkey and leave comments on their blogs. There are quite a few in the 15 and 18 year olds on the list. Your students can engage with any students taking part in the challenge.

  17. Hi Sue,

    I’d would be happy to serve as a mentor. I had a handful of students who participated in the Student Blogging Challenge last spring and, in many cases, the first comments they received on their blog from their mentors were the catalyst they needed to really get excited about blogging. This year, I’d like to be that spark for other young writers! My students are 6th-fast-becoming-7th graders, so I’d love to mentor a group in the 12-14 year old range.

    I’ve just signed us up to participate as a class again this year and look forward to connecting with other classes!

    Best regards,

    Matt Jewell
    http://writingwithmrj.edublogs.org/

    1. Hi Matt,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have given you a group of 13 year old students. You might be able to pair them up with students from your class.

  18. Hi Sue,
    I am happy to mentor again. I have benefitted from this program in so many ways in the past. Would prefer students 9 -12 if possible as I can also connect them to my students.

    Celia Coffa @ccoffa

    1. Hi Celia,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have given you a group of 11 year old students. You might be able to pair them up with students from your class. The Aussie kids are from a new grade 5/6 blogging class in Devonport, Tasmania.

  19. HI Miss W,

    I’d be happy to serve as mentor again during this round. This is my fourth year teaching, and I love using technology to connect with other classes and participate in global projects. My students last year got a lot out of the student blogging challenge. I think I’d like to mentor year 5, 6 or 7 students, so between 10-12 years of age.
    http://madamepratt.edublogs.org/
    cheers
    Emmanuelle

    1. Hi Emmanuelle,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have given you a group of 12 year old students. You might be able to pair them up with students from your class, they are from a wide variety of countries.

  20. Sorry for turning up so late for the 2015 challenge.
    I’d love to be a mentor again, if you still need me. And I’d love to involve my university students in the challenge too, as co-mentors, if you think that might be a good idea.
    What I have in my head is that they collaborate with me, as they are future Primary CLIL teachers, when mentoring the blogs you allocate.
    Do you think that could work?
    Looking forward to hearing from you
    Best regards

      1. My university students are future Primary Education CLIL teachers, so any age from 6 to 12 will do.
        Thanks a bunch!
        As soon as you give us a group, I’ll arrange everything with them.
        Looking forward to starting asap
        Best

        1. Thanks Maria,
          I have now given you some 10 year old students to look after. They are in yellow in the header page March 2015 students. One student Isabelle might need to change the header

  21. G’day Jane,
    Made the changes for your links so they now work.

    Thanks for offering to be a mentor for the challenge. I have given you a group of 13 year old students. Feel free to email me if you have any queries or problems regarding the challenge.

  22. I would be happy to serve as a mentor. I am a teacher librarian and I have a personal blog about school librarianship called Jane Lofton’s Adventures in Libraryland, and a blog for my school library at Mira Costa High School Library.

    I have been promoting blogging with teachers and students at my school, and hope some students will participant in the current challenge. I now work with high school students, but have also worked at a middle school and enjoy both age groups.

  23. I would be happy to serve as a mentor.

    Bio and interests:
    Born in Lisbon, Portugal, always identified with education in formal and informal settings. Since childhood I wanted to be a teacher and therefore chose to graduate me in Education. I went to Kosovo as a military with the task of establishing contact with the civilian population in cooperative operations particularly with local schools. I have also been to Lichinga, Mozambique on a humanitarian mission as a teacher of the 1st cycle and guiding the teachers of kindergarten boys of 2 and 3 years. These cultural sharing experiences enriched my way of being, becoming more flexible, understanding and tolerant of various forms of being and be in life. Returned to Portugal and was placed in a school of 1 cycle and opportunity to continue to devote my life to teachingt. One of the way to which I want to guide my career, I develop my passion in different learning contexts and remain lifelong learner and sharing my experiences on my blog created in 2010 (http://educaovamosconversar.blogspot.pt/). Currently, hit one of the great I always had ambitions: boost an Educational and Training Center (https://espacocrescer2012.wordpress.com/).

    Links:
    Class blog – http://espacocrescer.edublogs.org/
    Personal blog – http://educaovamosconversar.blogspot.pt/p/curriculo-da-autora.html
    Educational and Training Center blog – https://espacocrescer2012.wordpress.com/

    Age group I would like to mentor – 6 to 14

    1. G’day Sonia,
      Took me a while to find your name by searching your various blogs.

      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have given you a group of 11 year old students from a variety of countries. I hope you enjoy the experience of mentoring.

      PS One of the original teachers taking part in the student challenge back in 2008 was Ines Pinto from Portugal. It was my students first time having to use a translate button.

      1. Hello Miss W.

        Thanks for this opportunity!

        This experience of mentoring will be personal enriching, even more because the variety of countries.

        About Inês Pinto, how can I get in touch with her?

        About the mentoring, I will explore this site, but I would like to know more about dates, where to go to meet the group and the way of working , the desired method, …

        Best regards

        Sónia Abrantes
        (here is the signature that was missing ! sorry)

        1. Hi Sonia,
          It is expected that mentors will visit each of their students’blogs 3 times over the next ten weeks. Give some clues to the students about blogging, using different tools on their blog, reminding them to visit the blogging challenge website each week and generally getting into conversations with the students through their blog posts.

          I suggest your first visit make it a common comment where you introduce yourself and mention you are their mentor, perhaps give them a blog URL where they can see your work and remind them they need to have a certain number of challenge posts finished by Easter to be left on the list.

          I will contact Ines Pinto and give her your email address in case she wants to contact you. I haven’t heard from her recently though.

      2. Hello Miss W.

        TYhank you for your enlightening answer.

        I can not find where I can see that students ‘m mentor.
        Can you help me, please?

        Thanks!

        Sónia Abrantes

    1. Hi Jodi,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have given you a group of 14 year old students. You might be able to pair them up with students from your class – wow you have a long list on your blog – they are from a wide variety of countries.

  24. Hello Miss W

    I am interested in blogged but i don’t understand about it well, so could you teach me some of the blog.

    I am from Cambodia. My name is Sytha Bunleng.

    Thanks alot

  25. We started blogging last year and it is becoming more and more woven into classroom life. I would be happy to mentor students in the challenge. My preferred group would be 8-12 year olds.

    1. Hi Tina,
      Thanks for offering to be a mentor. I have given you a group of 9 year old students from a variety of countries. Some don’t have posts yet but hopefully over the next couple of weeks that will improve.

    1. G’day Ellie,
      As a student, you need to have taken part in the blogging challenge at least twice being a student before I let you be a mentor. Glad to see you signed up as a student as well. Hope you enjoy the challenges.

  26. Greetings. I’d be honored to help out with the challenge.
    I’m a media specialist for an instructional resource center. My focus is on teaching technology skills to college students. I enjoy exploring new web tools and sharing them with others.

    1. G’day Dinah,
      I have given you a group of 15 year old students – the first in their age group. They are from a variety of countries which you will find interesting. Thanks for being a mentor again.

  27. I would love to serve again as a mentor to students grades 5-8, preferably 10-15 students in all. I’m currently a sixth grade English teacher in Virginia–and a former copywriter in the publishing business. I love to read, to write, to blog, and to explore the great outdoors, ideally in a pair of hiking boots or my top-down Jeep. Moreover, I’m a mom to five kiddos ages 12-21 and a wife of 25 years. 🙂

    Martha Rombach
    http://mrsrombachreads.edublogs.org

    1. G’day Mrs Rombach,
      I have given you a group of 11 year old students – the first in their age group. They are from a variety of countries which you will find interesting. Thanks for being a mentor again.

  28. I am truly excited to act as a mentor during the blog challenge. This will be our first experience participating even though different eighth grade classes have been blogging for several years. I have taught seventh and eighth graders for the past 16 years, now exclusively eighth, in Language Arts and Reading. Our school, a small K-8 sending district in suburban NJ, serves a fairly homogenous population of upper-middle class families on the Shore. I am eager to have them interact with others through blogging. The age group, 12-18 interests me, but I’d work with anyone! (I also am an avid reader, yoga practitioner, and cook!) You can access all my separately registered student blogs through my class blog:
    wordswork.edublogs.org
    Thanks for this opportunity.

    1. G’day 1professor,
      I have given you a group of 12 year old students – the first in their age group. They are from a variety of countries which you will find interesting. Thanks for being a mentor. I hope you enjoy the experience.

      1. I have begun visiting and commenting. I’ve encountered a few glitches, however. What do I do if the sites are password protected? I assume the settings need to be tweaked and that the teacher will take care of that before this gets going on 3/1? Let me know. I’ll probably just wait to see if they change next week.

        1. G’day Mrs Emerson,
          Yes I contact the teachers during the first week if I know they have blogs not allowing comments. If you could send me an email saying who in your group that would be handy as i then put the country name in pink and mention it in a post in the challenge.

      2. Here are the addresses:
        englishmastermind.edublogs.org
        ayushiscrazyblogs.eduvblogs.org
        kiraforenglish.edublogs.org

        These addresses do not go anywhere:
        Brandon Minin uggs11.edublogs.org
        Abby smigglecat.edublogs.org

        This leads to a college blog:

        goliath.edublogs.org

        I could have goofed up. Let me know. Thanks.

        1. G’day Mrs Emerson,
          Those that need changes are now in pink for their country. If they change before Easter they will stay on the list, otherwise they will be deleted over the Easter break.

  29. Dear Miss. W.,

    I would like to mentor in the Student Blogging Challenge. My students and I participated in the challenge in March of 2013 and we benefited greatly from all we learned.

    I teach students between the age of five and twelve and I live and work in Ireland. I have many interests including blogging, gardening, education, family, art and music.

    Our class blog is called ‘If Only The Best Birds Sang’. The link to it is here: http://merrybeau.edublogs.org/

    I am best equipped to mentor students up to the age of twelve as that is the age group that I work with.

    With every good wish,

    Merry Beau

    1. G’day Merry Beau,
      I have given you a group of 10 year old students – the first in their age group. They are from a variety of countries which you will find interesting. Thanks for being a mentor again.

      1. Dear Miss. W.,

        That sounds great … just up my street. Onwards and upwards. Good luck as you embark on organizing and co-ordinating this brave challenge again.

        With every good wish,
        Merry Beau

  30. I would be happy to serve as a mentor. My name is Scott Bley and I’m originally from Kansas where I taught middle school band for eight years. I am currently a grad student at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. In my free time I enjoy reading and riding my bike. I also direct a church handbell choir and serve with the 338th Army Band. Here is a link to my website/blog.
    mrbley.edublogs.org

    1. G’day Mr Bley,
      I have given you a group of 13 year old students, some of whom enjoy music. You can find their names and blog URLs in the student pages in the header area.

Leave a Reply to María Jesús García San Martín Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *