Week 4: Let’s join globally

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS WHO HAVE MENTORS

Remember, I will be deleting any students who have mentors already allocated over the Easter break if:

  1. there is no About Me page or post visible – make sure the pages widget is in your sidebar if your pages don’t appear up in your header area
  2. there is not at least two other posts related to the challenge activities
  3. no comments can be left – country in pink
  4. you haven’t been commenting back to your mentor

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

I have now created the flipboard magazine for this set of challenges. I will only be adding posts that:

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

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

 

The last couple of months have had many international special days or events happening. How many have you taken part in at either school or at home?

This Saturday is one I take part in each year – Earth Hour.

Check out their video for the 2015 event

  • Now add an image to a widget on your blog sidebar – you might need to change the size to 200 by 200
  • Check out the starter kit for banners, logos and posters. Teachers might get some ideas from the guides to use in class during the week.
  • Find out what is happening in your country and in other countries around the world.

Activities for this week are all to do with the globe or the world we live in.

Activity 1.

Join our Free Rice group called Student Blogging Challenge or create one for your class. Every answer you get right, means 10 grains of rice donated to the World Food Programme. Since October 2011, we have had 86 students join and donate 116, 300 grains of rice. I wonder how many we could have by the end of Easter? Can you add a widget to Free Rice on your blog?

Activity 2.

Write a list of international events you have taken part in since Christmas 2014. What were they celebrating? What did you do to celebrate?

Activity 3.

Visit at least 5 blogs from countries other than your own. Leave a comment on a post at each blog. Now write your own post including the comment you have left and linking to each post you commented on.

Activity 4.

If you could create an international event, what would it be called? What would we be celebrating? Create some of the advertising material you might use – eg logo, banner, image, flyer

Activity 5.

Think of a special celebration in one country of the world. Find three images of the event. Under each image, give a clue as to the event.

On the final line, write a bit more about the event for your visitors to read. Include a link to another website giving more information on the event. Remember to include attribution for each image and perhaps a question for your readers to answer.

Activity 6.

Write about one special event you have taken part in. It might be an educational global event or an international event from the United Nations or a special event from your country. Find an image to add to your post. Remember to use attribution correctly. Include a link to another website giving more information on the event.

Activity 7.

Add at least five international blogs to your blogroll or links ready for a game we will hold after Easter. If you can’t add links on your blog, add them in a post instead.

Activity 8.

What are some games or apps you use that relate to global studies or geography of the world? Include a link to the website or app.

Activity 9.

What could you, your class, your school, your town do to help with the climate change problem for more than the one hour on Saturday 28 March 2015?

 

Previous week’s activities: Visit and leave quality comments 

Eagle Wordsmiths have a question for students or classes in each country in the challenge. Please answer their questions.

Mr Jewell’s class would like some feedback from other bloggers re use of images.

Ms Andrews’ class wrote lots of poems and stories using images

Olivia wrote a brilliant post about copyright

Commenting: Brooke created a Prezi, Tess and Jamie created a video,

A-Z paragraph: Eagle Wordsmiths, 3/4 Coe,

Zoom Out: Brianna and her ladybird, Miss Scarrott and keyring, Lucas and Spencer made a zoom movie, Jennifer used Kizoa for a movie,

Controversy – iPhones at school, BYOT at school, School start later, New York Yankees,

Book Review: Delirium,

Poems: Danielle, AlexR, Kayla, Jazzy, Rachel, Jamie, Xander, Hank, Sophia, Isabel, Paige, Keyan,

Stories to finish: Jonah, Cassie, Andrew, Chelsea, Hannah, Penelope,

Conversations are happening: Kendall and Merry, Nelly and Merry,

About pages: Compare Hobart to your town, Riley, Cloie’s slideshow about family, Hailey, Lucas and family,

Passionate about: Flying with AlexS, elephants with Ava,

Copyright and creative commons: A video about music,

Sentences to read: Erica, Mackenzie, Andrew,

Using images in lots of activities: Renee, Aymen, Nelly, Lucas,

Jigsaw puzzle: Kendall,

 

Still got time left this week:

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

2. Reply to comments on your own blog – if your country is in pink then visitors can’t leave comments.

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.

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

57 thoughts on “Week 4: Let’s join globally”

  1. Hello Miss W!

    I’m a 6th grade Science teacher from a small, rural town in the U.S. I signed up all my 6th grade Science classes, just three, for this season’s blogging challenge. I am down to only ONE student still diligently plugging away at the challenges! I didn’t know where to leave this comment but I’m wondering where I can share her blog to get people noticing her since our class blog is not getting much traffic. Well, no traffic. My lone blogging challenge participant has a couple of friends she’s made and one of them mentioned that she couldn’t find her so I was wondering if maybe we can add her blog to the individual student section? I am still her mentor. Her blog is here:
    http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?user_id=4771&blogger_id=375411

    Thanks for any help you can give.

    Al Gonzalez
    Chimacum Middle School
    al_gonzalez@csd49.org

    Reply

  2. Hi Ms. W! I made a post about surfing a little under two weeks ago and you said that if I added some images, you could add it to the flipboard magazine. So, I added a picture of my board and also a picture of the beach that I surf at. Please come check it out at http://j14ah15.edublogs.org/2015/03/31/surfing/ , and add it to the flipboard magazine if possible. Thanks!

    Reply

  5. Dear Miss W,

    My class and I loved this week’s challenges! We actually had the opportunity to do two activities. The first one, Earth Hour. A fantastic avenue to introduce the problems our planet is having do to climate change. The next, was Activity 2. We’re not sure we did this correct, but we shared an experience we had in December, but never had the chance to write a post about it. Thanks again for making this all possible!

    Amber Moore
    class blog

    Reply

  9. Hello, Global Community!
    Eagle Wordsmiths has added the “I Riced Up Against Hunger” on our class blog, as well as adding it to many student blogs!

    We also connected with students around the world by visiting and commenting on their blogs! Mackenzie’s blog highlights student blogs from around the world. http://38mackenzieer.edublogs.org/2015/03/24/student-blogging-challenge-activity-7/ and Nellie’s blog: http://38nellieer.edublogs.org/2015/03/24/great-blogs-to-check-out/

    Students also felt compelled to join in on the Earth Hour Challenge. Check out Lauren’s blog: http://38laurener.edublogs.org/2015/03/24/save-energy-save-animals-student-blogging-challenge/ and Corey’s blog: http://26coreyer.edublogs.org/2015/03/24/helping-climate-change/

    Thanks for all the work you put into this! We are learning so much!

    jocelynrsmith.edublogs.org

    Reply

  13. Dear Miss W,

    One of my students, Will, has drawn a wacky Easter Bunny and wants to share it with the world. He’d also love to find out about other people’s wacky Easter creatures (not all countries may believe in an Easter Bunny… I happen to know for a fact that French children believe in the Easter Chicken and Bells!).

    We’ve created this Padlet (moderated) for kids to upload their wacky Easter creatures: http://padlet.com/emmanuellepratt/wackycreatures; I’m going to tweet this out, I hope we can get plenty of drawings happening!

    Thank you for all your hard work and for inspiring the children!

    🙂

    Reply

  15. Hi Miss W,

    My class set up our own Free Rice group and have a target to reach 100 000 grains of rice by the end of Term 1 in South Australia. So far, we have 32 280 grains of rice.

    Two of my students completed Activity 5. Jessica gave clues about a Vietnamese celebration and Rose wrote about a Spanish celebration.

    Rose has also been visiting student blogs around the world and has made a number of connections with these students. Her post for Activity 3 is here.

    We are still working on how we, as a school community, can help the change problem.

    Miss Andrews

    Reply

  16. Hi Miss W-

    Our class has been busy leaving comments, writing posts based on your activities, and learning more about properly crediting photographs. Plus, I spent this morning visiting five teacher blogs…and found a host of tools and ideas to put to use in my future posts. Here’s a link to the most recent post: http://mrsrombachreads.edublogs.org/2015/03/28/student-blogging-challenge-activities-3-7/

    Thanks!
    Martha Rombach
    http://mrsrombachreads.edublogs.org

    Reply

  17. Hi Miss W,
    I have recently finished writing activity #5. It would be super awesome if you could come to my blog and read my post. Try and see if you can guess what special celebration I wrote about.

    Bye,
    Erica 🙂
    http://ericadle.edublogs.org/

    Reply

  20. Hello Miss W,
    Thank you so much for putting me in the Flipboard Magazine! This week I did activities 1,4,5.
    Visit my blog at blogs.csdvt.org/jeniferm
    Bye,
    Jennifer &hearts

    Reply

  23. Hello Miss W,
    I have done Activity 9 and I’m working on Activity 6. Come check out my blog here.
    Oh, and I thought you should know that I can’t comment back to my mentor. Why, you ask? I remember reading Mr. L-A’s comment, my mentor, and then I approved it. When I saw that we had to be commenting back to them, I went back to my blog and couldn’t find the comment he sent. I don’t want to be kicked off the list, so what should I do?

    Reply

  34. Hi Miss W,

    This week my students were working on Activities 3, 4, 5, 8, and 9. Most students chose activities 4, 5, or 9. We had some really great conversations about what it means to be part of a global community. Students were passionate about the environment, cultural celebrations, and creating new experiences. Hope you enjoy our posts this week.

    Sincerely,
    Mr. Helpern
    Helpern’s Helpers

    Reply

  35. Listen I am not asking for much I am just wondering if you could mention me and my class to your students if you are a mentor I k now that you have a lot of these its just that my class and I have not been receiving any comments from anyone outside the classroom or even our mentors so if you could help my class and I that would be amazing!

    Reply

    1. Hi Madeline,
      I tried to find your class on the class list but couldn’t find your blog URL. If you could reply back to me here, with the URL of your class blog, then i will certainly visit and check out the posts. If your students have their own blogs, I will visit them if they leave a comment here each time they finish an activity. That is also how they get mentioned on the list each week.

      Sorry no one has been visiting. Have your students been going to other students on the student list, visiting blogs there and leaving comments including the URL of their blog or the class blog? By doing that you will start getting others visiting.

      Reply

  46. Question: This is my first year using EduBlogs and my first year doing the EduBlog Challenge. Since I have a class account and I’m the one who mentors my students, does that mean I’m still a part of the EduBlog challenge even if a few of my students are not participating in all the challenges? (Majority are doing them all)

    Also, none of my students have comments on their About Me pages and I keep seeing that a mentor comments on those pages. Is my class not a part of this aspect of the EduBlog challenge? I just want to make sure I understand all the components. Thanks.

    http://mrsmaslowski.edublogs.org/

    Reply

    1. G’day Mrs Maslowski,
      I try to comment on as many blogs as I can but especially those who leave me a comment on a post from the challenge just like you have here.

      Regarding mentors, I haven’t had many people offer this year to be mentors, so many students have missed out. Some might get them after Easter because any students where the country is in pink in the main list, will be deleted as they are not really taking part in the challenge. I will be replacing them with students who are doing lots of the activities. I think many of your students are next on the list to get a mentor.

      Reply

  49. Good Day, Miss W. I found the challenges for this week very interesting, and I loved the idea of all of them. In the end, I chose to work on Activity 8, because I doubted that many people play games dedicated to Geography or History, but I happen to love those games.

    If you need a person who did challenge number 8, there’s one right here;
    http://aidanlbes15.edublogs.org

    Reply

  50. I still have many on my “mentor list” who have done nothing, or nothing new. The students and I have been unsuccessful leaving comments on Blogger sites. Do you have any suggestions? Last thing…Is there a way to easily create a new page with all class blogs (rather than displaying them in the sidebar), without have to enter the addresses one-by-one?

    Thanks so much for your help. We are all learning so much from the challenge.

    Reply

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