This is the final Student Blogging Challenge post until we start again in March 2020!
It’s time to reflect and celebrate!
Week Seven Recap
Many students are enjoying sharing posts about their favourite holidays or celebrations.
You can find all the submitted tasks here (or click on the week 7 box on the sidebar).
Here’s just a handful of excellent work we spotted:
- Mrs. Smiley has recorded a few videos throughout the challenge and used different strategies to share the challenge with her students. Great work!
- Rusty and Miss W have been commenting about their interest in birds of a feathered kind. We đź’“commenting conversations!
- Lauren and Mrs Di (volunteer commenter) have been challenging each other.
- 7th grade Writing with Mrs. Lord is a new class that just created their About Me posts.
- BeautyBeatz is a student whose personality comes through in her posts. She has a really strong writing voice!
- You can look back at some of the great work on our 2019 Student Blogging Challenge Flipboard.
Reminders
- The forms for weeks 1-6 are closed. The week 7 form will close on Wednesday 27th November as normal. The week 8 form will stay open a little later until Sunday December 8. Feel free to add any tasks you’re finishing off to the week 8 form.
- If you’d like to join us again for the next challenge in March 2020, make sure you’re on our mailing list. You’ll get an email in February when registrations are open. Otherwise, check this blog in February for all the news.
- Follow The Edublogger — If you’re not already receiving the email newsletter from Edublogs, maybe you’d like to sign up? I send out an email regularly sharing the latest blog post.
Results Of Our Celebrations Poll
Last week we ran a poll to see which holidays our STUBC participants celebrate. We had 974 responses!
Here are the most popular responses in percentages. If you notice anything interesting about the data, feel free to leave a comment on this post (or blog about it!).
Other responses with lower percentages included birthdays, Eid, Holi, Kwanzaa, 4th of July, Ramadan, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Vaisakhi.
Tip: I made the chart above by entering the survey data into a free online tool called BEAM. It’s handy!
Thank You
Earlier in the year, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to commit to the Student Blogging Challenge as my daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia in May.
Despite many posts, emails, and comments written from hospital, I did it! However, it has been a team effort and I’d like to thank everyone involved.
To Sue Wyatt…
Miss W/Tasteach/Sue Wyatt works tirelessly behind the scenes to help our commenting team, support participants, and keep our spreadsheets up to date. We appreciate you, Sue!
To Marg Grosfield…
Marg is a special commenter who did a wonderful job behind the scenes helping with the spreadsheet. Marg generously volunteered her help when she heard I was having a busy time taking care of my daughter. Thank you!
To our commenters…
Another big thank you goes to our team of commenters who provided an authentic audience for our students and classes each week. Your comments really helped our students with their confidence and motivation. We hope you’ll return again as a commenter in March.
To our participants…
It has been fantastic to see such enthusiastic participation from our students and teachers across the world! I hope you’ve all learned a lot and made some connections.
The Student Blogging Challenge will start again in March, 2020. Spread the word!
Summary Of The Student Blogging Challenge
Let’s look at STUBC by the numbers…
- Number of registered individual students: 1612
- Number of registered classes: 147
- Number of countries represented: 23
Number of tasks submitted
These are the edited numbers after incorrect and duplicate URLs were removed.
⬇ These forms are still open so we don’t have a final number of posts to share.
- Week 8: Let’s Reflect!
What Makes A Quality Blog Post?
I hope you’ve learnt a lot throughout the Student Blogging Challenge! Perhaps if you look back to your posts from a few weeks ago you can see that you’ve improved.
To wrap all our learning up, I invite you take a look at this poster. It goes over some of the essential ingredients of a quality blog post. You might have your own ideas too!
You’re welcome to add this poster to your blog.
>> Download a PDF copy of the poster
Week Eight Tasks
This week there are 3 tasks to complete. If you don’t have time to write a post, please just spend 5 minutes completing our survey. We’d really appreciate it!
There is a separate survey for teachers and students.
Teachers, please help us in making sure your students fill in the correct survey (for students)
Task 1: Evaluate The Challenge
Please complete our short survey so we know what you enjoyed most about the challenge and what we could do to improve things in the future.
There is a separate survey for teachers and students.
Student survey
>> Click here to open the student survey
Add this URL to your class blog if you like https://forms.gle/mre8HcCct9ZLmi2o7
Teacher survey
>> Click here to open the teacher survey
Please don’t share the teacher survey link with students.
Thank you!
Task 2: Audit Your Blog
Option One: Write a post on your blog reflecting on your participation in the challenge.
These are the sorts of prompts you could answer in your post:
- How many weeks of the challenge did you participate in?
- How many posts did you write in the 8 week period?
- How many comments did you receive from classmates, teachers, or other visitors?
- Which post did you enjoy writing the most and why?
- Which web tools did you use to show creativity on your blog?
- What are your plans for your blog now? Will you keep posting?
Option Two: Ask a student/teacher/family member who might not have read your blog to do an audit.
Sit beside them while they navigate around your blog, record what you observe as they interact with your blog. When finished, ask them the following questions:
- What were your first impressions of my blog?
- What captured your attention?
- What distracted you on the blog?
- What suggestions can you give me to improve my blog?
If you’re working as a class on this activity, perhaps the teacher could write a post and invite the students to reflect in a comment.
Task 3: Your Blogging Plans
While the Student Blogging Challenge is coming to an end, we hope this is not the end of your blogging journey. We encourage you to keep blogging and connecting. To do this well, you might need a plan.
Write a post about how you continue to keep blogging:
- Perhaps you’d like to publish a list of ideas you have for future blog post topics.
- Or, you could ask your readers for suggestions on what they’d like you to write about on your blog. You could even run a poll.
- Write about anyone you have connected with throughout the challenge that you’d like to stay in touch with. Are there any blogs you’ll keep reading and commenting on?
Blog post ideas for students:
More advanced bloggers and teachers might enjoy these two posts on The Edublogger:
- A Plan For Writing A Weekly Blog Post In 10 Minutes A Day.
- 12 Tips For Maintaining Momentum With Blogging
If you’re working as a class on this activity, perhaps students could contribute post ideas which the teacher compiles. Readers could be invited to comment or vote.
Student Certificates
Congratulations on completing the Student Blogging Challenge!
Download a certificate to celebrate your achievement.
Note for commenters: I’ll email you about accessing your certificate during the week.
>>Click here for a PDF copy of the student certificate
Submit Your Post URL ⬇
If you want a commenter and other participants to visit your final task on your blog, remember to fill in the Google Form below.
The Google Form
Edit: The Student Blogging Challenge is now over and all Google Forms are closed.
Enter your details in the Google Form below or click here to open it in a new tab.
Teachers, feel free to put the Form URL on your class blog if it’s easier for your students to access.
https://forms.gle/Ca4aGFbFWSMscMyz5
If you have any additional comments about the Student Blogging Challenge, feel free to leave a comment below!
Thank you!
Bonjour Kathleen Morris,
My favorite week was the music because I got to create some nice peaceful music. I liked it so much I actually am playing it in my headphones while doing work.
Bonjour Elliot!
So glad to hear you enjoy making music. I really enjoyed that week too as so many students were very creative.
Thank you for your comment!
Best wishes,
Kathleen
Hello Kathleen Morris
I had so much fun making all of theses weeks. They where so much fun! I am also a little sad that this had to end but I can still keep posting! I think me and my hole class had so much fun.
My favorite week was Week 6. I liked it because I had a chance to make a slide on emojis and the best part is that I could be the one how made the quiz! I learned so many things like posting slides on my blog, how to leave links, and more fun stuff! Thank you for making the Student Blogging Challenge in the first place. Hope you have a wonderful day!
Hi Valerie,
I’m so glad to hear you are going to keep posting and I hope you can join us in March for the next challenge.
It sounds like you learnt a lot from the challenge. That makes me really happy.
Thank you for your kind comment and happy holidays!
Kathleen
Hello Kathleen,
I loved all of the post and challenges that you made. I think my favorite Week was Week 6, because I got to use emojis, and I made a guess the movies with emojis. I wonder what your favorite Week Was. Also, I hope next year you make another SBC, because I really like it so much. And not only did I like it, My whole class liked it so much as well. Anyways, If you do make another SBC, I really really really really hope that next year I get to take part of the challenge.
– Your fellow blogger, Ruby
Hi Ruby,
Thanks so much for your kind comment! I’m so glad to hear you and your class liked the challenge. We definitely plan to run another one in March. I hope you can join in.
Emojis is one of my favourite topics too. There are so many great activities you can do with them. I also liked the music challenge because some of the students were very creative!
Happy holidays!
Kathleen
Greetings
The Eight Week long Student Blogging Challenge STUBC 2019 provided a platform to connect to many students and teachers around the world which in turn will foster universal peace and harmony. We are from different cultural background and yet all of us have the same responsibility to keep this EARTH a better place to live for generations to come. We have to achieve the Global Goals ‘Sustainable Development Goal SDGs by 2030’ (Link- https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/envision2030.html ).
I personally feel STUBC is working to connect people across the world to achieve SDG 16 (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg16 ),reducing inequalities and equal opportunities for all i.e SDG 5 (https://in.one.un.org/page/sustainable-development-goals/sdg-5/) and more to be explored.
Thank You
STUBC 2019 Commentator
Assistant Professor
R.V.Institute of Management
Bangalore
INDIA
Thank you so much for your feedback, Chandran!
The SDG are so essential and I encourage everyone to explore the websites.
Best wishes,
Kathleen
Hola!