Week 6: Science

Some people think blogging is all about reading and writing but it doesn’t have to be. You can integrate any subject into blogging.

This week we’re zooming in on science and there’s something for everyone!

Week Five Recap

There were lots of great responses to our tasks about similarities and differences.

You can find all the submitted tasks here (or click on the week 5 box on the sidebar).

Many of these posts are interactive so the students would love to get a comment from you!

Let’s take a look at just some of the fantastic work we spotted last week:

• Lily was super creative getting to know her readers with a ‘Which Disney princess are you?’ quiz.
• Rhiann drew a picture and asks how you like your food.
• Morgan did a great job completing a number of different tasks that includes Google Forms.
• Wolf used a tool called Voki to share a book review.
• Cora explains the music genres she enjoys most and shared some videos.
• Loe made some images and asks what sort of person you are.
• Emily has 10 questions for her readers which she’d like you to answer in a comment.
• Lianna is surveying her readers with quizzes made with AnswerGarden and Google Forms.
• You can view more great work on our 2018 Student Blogging Challenge Flipboard.

Remember — if you use a tool to create something, it’s a good idea to provide your readers with the link to the site so they know how you did it.

Reminders

There are a few things to take note of this week:

• The forms for weeks 1-3 tasks are now closed. You’re still welcome to complete these tasks at any time but won’t be able to submit them as our commenters are busy working through the posts for the later weeks.
• Please moderate your comments as regularly as you can. Comments are a great way to connect and learn! Teachers, find out how to moderate comments on My Class here. 
• Consider adding a widget to your blog that displays your latest comments. You probably want to show around 10 of your latest comments so will need to change your settings. Here are the instructions for Edublogs/CampusPress. 
• Falling behind? Don’t worry! You can complete your tasks late, or skip some tasks. Next week will be a catch up/free choice week!
• Not getting many visitors? Make sure you submit your task in the weekly Google Form. Also, check out the tips about encouraging visitors in the week four post. Those who are commenting on others’ blogs are finding they’re getting more visitors.

Results Of Our Language Poll

Last week we invited you to take our quick language poll to see what languages our participants speak.

While English is the predominant language, there were a LOT of languages represented in our STUBC community. How wonderful!

We had nearly 800 responses! (I have now closed the poll).

Here are the top ten languages represented:

• English 94.8%
• Spanish 20.5%
• French 12.5%
• German 4.5%
• Mandarin 3.1%
• Italian 2.9%
• Russian 2.8%
• Arabic 2.2%
• Portuguese 1.8%
• Japanese 1.3%

Let’s take a look at this week’s topic…

Science

Do you have science classes at your school? Even if you’re not formally studying science, science is all around us!

Learning about science just means understanding our world better. Scientists learn about the world by describing, observing, and experimenting. Anyone can be a scientist!

Want to watch a short overview of the nature of science? This 3 minute video might help.

The Branches Of Science

The great thing about science is there are so many different fields and topics. Perhaps there are some areas of science you find very fascinating and others that aren’t really your cup of tea.

There are three main branches of science that are further divided into different categories.

The Physical Sciences: This includes things like physics, chemistry, and astronomy.

The Earth Sciences: This includes things like geology, paleontology, and meteorology.

The Life Sciences: This includes things like botany, medicine, and zoology.

What areas of science interest you? Task one involves blogging about this.

Why Learn About Science?

Here are 8 great reasons why children should enjoy science more (created by psysci.co).

Do you have any more ideas why science is important? Leave a comment or write a blog post about it!

Week Six Tasks

This week there are five science related tasks to choose from.

Our graphic summarises the tasks and I will explain each task in more detail below.

Task 1: What Are You Curious About?

For this task, consider what you’re curious about and write a blog post about it.

Are there any particular scientific fields that interest you? Perhaps you could do some research into the different areas of science. Maybe you could explain some different scientific fields.

Look around you. What do you wonder? Maybe you’re curious about how the internet works or where rain comes from or life on Mars?

Do some research and write a blog post about what you find.

Task 2: Single-Use And Plogging

This week, Collins dictionary announced their Word of the Year — “single-use”.

This was their announcement on Twitter…

BREAKING! The Collins Word of the Year 2018 is… single-use ♻️ Discover the full shortlist & find out more: https://t.co/zPFXYBvXzb #CollinsWOTY #WordOfTheYear pic.twitter.com/gojH2f4P8Z

— Collins Dictionary (@CollinsDict) November 7, 2018

There has been a rise in public awareness about plastic pollution recently and many communities are taking a stand. For example, in most parts of Australia, the major supermarkets and other stores no longer provide free plastic bags.

Continuing with the environmental theme, one of the shortlisted words was “plogging”

ICYMI: PLOGGING shortlisted for #CollinsWOTY 2018! Click here to find out more: https://t.co/zPFXYBvXzb #WordOfTheYear pic.twitter.com/ppjyBa1L67

— Collins Dictionary (@CollinsDict) November 8, 2018

You can read more about the Word of the Year here.

Your task is to write a post about “single-use”, “plogging” or any other environmental issue that interests you.

Perhaps you could:

• Write a persuasive piece about why single-use items are a good/bad idea.
• Make a poster encouraging people to recycle, re-use, or try plogging.
• Do some research into plogging and write a ‘how-to’ for others.
• Explain what initiatives operate in your community or school to help the environment. Do you have a recycling service? Do stores offer you plastic bags? Can you recycle soft plastics to be made into things like playground equipment (for example, we have the REDcycle program that does this).

Any of the above ideas could also be adapted into videos if you’re feeling especially creative!

Task 3: Video Prompts

There are lots of great science videos online.

Here are two examples:

• TED-Ed (Tip: Click on filter to find videos suitable for your age group).
• SciShow Kids YouTube Channel (under 13s should check with adults about accessing YouTube).

Find a video that interests you, then write a blog post about it. 

You might write a summary of the video and include your own thoughts or questions. Or, you can make a quiz for your readers about the video. Invite them to answer the quiz in a comment.

Remember to include the video in your blog post. Find out how to add a video from YouTube using Edublogs/CampusPress here. (Tip: If you have a free blog, use the URL method).

If you’re working as a class on this activity, the teachers could publish a video (or a selection of videos) and have the students write their responses as comments. 

Task 4: A-Z Of Science Words

Science can involve a lot of terminology or interesting words.

Your task is to make your own A-Z of words relating to science. You could even leave a few letters blank and ask for suggestions in a comment.

For example…

A is for astronomy: the study of outer space

B is for bunsen burner: a device commonly found in a science lab for heating

C is for carbon dioxide: the gas formed when humans or animals breathe out

D is for data: the facts or pieces of information a scientist uses

If you’re working as a class on this activity, perhaps all the students can be given a letter and come up with some terminology to include. 

Task 5: Two Truths And One Lie

Challenge your readers with a simple “two truths and one lie” quiz.

Your task is to write a post that includes two correct statements and one incorrect statement. Ask your readers to guess the lie!

For example, you might say:

• The smallest bone in the body is found in the middle ear.
• An archeologist studies the atmosphere and weather patterns.
• The blue whale is the largest animal in the world.

Can you guess which one is not true?

Do some research in a book or online to make sure your information is accurate. If you use a website, include the link in your post.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, perhaps each student (or pairs) could make a contribution to a Google slide presentation as I did last year. 

Submit Your Post URL ⬇

If you want a commenter and other participants to visit your week six post, remember to fill in the Google Form below.

Remember to include the URL of the actual post (copy and paste it so it’s correct).

The Google Form

Teachers, feel free to put the link to this Week 6 Google Form on your own blog if you’d like.

https://goo.gl/forms/QTuTwShLYiKb99EH2

---

Next week’s topic: Catch up or free choice.

Week 5: We’re All The Same… We’re All Different

We’re almost at the halfway mark of the Student Blogging Challenge!

Let’s get to know each other more this week and try out some fun activities.

Week Four Recap

Our emoji post proved popular and there were hundreds of great tasks submitted!

You can find them all here (or click on the orange box on the sidebar).

Let’s take a look at just some of the fantastic work we spotted last week:

• Morgan did a fabulous job of completing a number of last week’s tasks. Head over to her blog and guess the answers!
• Jacqui invites you to translate her story.
• Mikey wants you to guess the movies and maths questions.
• Rajyashori added emojis to her commenting guidelines.
• Mr Howie’s year 7 class in Serbia made stories out of emoji prompts.
• Lianna included some emoji facts and made a fabulous slideshow where you can guess the movie.
• Lucas put together an emoji extravaganza!
• Tamara presented her emoji maths questions beautifully and even made a separate post with the answers.
• You can view more great work on our 2018 Student Blogging Challenge Flipboard.

Remember — if you use a tool to create something, it’s a good idea to provide your readers with the link to the site so they know how you did it.

Special Shout Out

All teachers know how great it is to hear from former students. This weekend I was so happy to hear from not one of my students but one of Linda Yollis’ former students!

Back in 2011, Miriam was a role model 3rd grade blogger. She’s now a college student who is running a creative writing club for children at her local library.

Miriam is back blogging after all this time!

This is my second year with the writers club at my library and I decided to try to add blogging so that the children both in the club and anywhere in the world could contribute to the conversation.

Would you take a moment this week to drop by Miriam’s blog and say hi? If you leave your blog URL she will no doubt be happy to visit your blog as well!

Tip: She introduces herself in this post.

Reminders

There are a number of important reminders this week:

• We are now going to close off the forms for week one and two tasks. You’re still welcome to complete these tasks at any time but won’t be able to submit them as our commenters are busy working through the posts for the later weeks.
• Some people have put a link to a Google Doc/Slide presentation in their post BUT it can’t be viewed without logging in. If you share a link to a Google Doc, you need to change the settings so anyone can view it without logging in.
• Please moderate your comments as quickly as you can. Some blogs have comments that haven’t been approved in over a week. Comments are a great way to connect and learn! Teachers, find out how to moderate comments on My Class here. 
• Consider adding a widget to your blog that displays your latest comments. You probably want to show around 10 of your latest comments so will need to change your settings. Here are the instructions for Edublogs/CampusPress. 
• Do you have Spanish speaking students? Michelle has a 13 year old student who’d like to connect with other Spanish speakers. If you can help, please get in touch with Michelle by leaving a comment here.
• Falling behind? Don’t worry! You can complete your tasks late, or skip some tasks. Week seven will be a catch up/free choice week too which will offer you some breathing room.
• Not getting many visitors? Make sure you submit your task in the weekly Google Form. Also, check out the tips about encouraging visitors in the week four post. Those who are commenting on others’ blogs are finding they’re getting more visitors.

Let’s dive into this week’s topic…

Similarities And Differences

We have a diverse group taking part in the Student Blogging Challenge. Even though we live in all different parts of the world, we have many similarities as well as differences.

Blogging is a great way to connect with people that we might otherwise never meet!

At last count, we had students and classes from 27 countries and 6 continents registered for the challenge.

Why Learn About Similarities And Differences?

• It’s important for all children and adults to understand that everyone around the world is different and that’s okay. We need to be respectful and accepting of everyone, whether they’re the same as us or very different.
• Even though we might look different, live differently, and enjoy different things, we’re all the same on the inside. We’re all humans!
• It’s super fun to hear about how other people live and what sort of things they enjoy or their everyday routines.
• If everyone was the same, the world would be pretty boring. Differences in beliefs, cultures, skills, and interests can enrich our lives and bring new ideas to our world.
• If you respect and get along with all sorts of people, there are many benefits. You’ll have more friends and enjoy living in peace. The world will become a better place.
• As students grow older, they can enjoy working in a global workforce. At Edublogs, we have people from all over the world on staff. More and more companies are working this way. Geography is no barrier.

Any other ideas? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Quick Language Poll

We know we have students from all over the world taking part in the challenge. Most (not all) are writing their blog posts in English, however, there are lots of participants who can speak another language.

We’d love to know what languages you speak! Take our quick poll below.

Edit: This poll is now closed. The results will be shared in the week 6 post.

Week Five Tasks

This week there are four tasks to choose from that are all about similarities and differences. 

Our graphic summarises the tasks and I will explain each task in more detail below.

As this topic hasn’t been used as part of STUBC before, we don’t have actual student examples to show you this week. 

Task 1: Two Types Of People…

I recently came across a fun website called 2 Types of People. It shows a series of illustrations that categorise people into two broad groups.

I reached out to the creator João Rocha who kindly said we could use his images for the challenge.

Here are some of the images.

 

Now make your own image or series of images!

Come up with something that you think categorises two types of people and make an image. Add the image to your post and ask your readers to comment.

How will you make your image?

• You could try a tool like Google Drawings, Google Slides, PowerPoint, Adobe Spark, or Canva. Just save your creation as a PNG or JPEG and upload it to your blog like any other image.
• Or you might have software on your computer (like 3D Paint in Windows) or a drawing app.
• You could also use some of the websites we mentioned in week three to find free images.
• You can even draw your own images, take a photo, and upload it to your blog.

Here’s a very quick example of an image I made using Canva. (Canva can be used by under 13s with supervision).

If you’re working as a class on this activity, perhaps each student could make an image and the teacher could add them to a series of blog posts or a Google Slide presentation. Readers could be invited to comment and tell the class what ‘sort of person’ they are. 

• Remember, Alethea Vazquez has a tutorial on how to put a Google Slides presentation together. 

Task 2: Get To Know Your Readers

Sometimes blogging can be a little ‘one way’ — the blogger writes the posts and the readers read them. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

You can get to know your readers and learn more about your similarities and differences!

There are a few ways you can do this. Here are some ideas:

• Make a poll for your readers like the ‘What Language Do You Speak?‘ poll I added above. I used Google Forms to create this.
• Interview a Student Blogging Challenge participant, a classmate, or a family member and record some of your similarities and differences in a blog post. You could make a Venn diagram using a tool like this one from ReadWriteThink (see the example below).
• Write a post with one or more questions that you’d like your readers to respond to in a comment (remember to reply to your comments). Your questions could be things like:
  • What are your favourite sports?
  • What fruits or vegetables do you like best?
  • What do you like to do when you get home from school?
  • What makes you happy/sad?
  • What activities do you like doing with your family?
  • Where is one place in the world you’d like to visit?
  • Anything else! 
  • You could also visit some other participants’ blogs and ask them questions in a comment.

Note: You can save your Venn diagram as a PDF but I took a screenshot instead. (This article shows how to take a screenshot on any device).

Task 3: Books

One of the great things about reading is you can feel like you’re “walking in someone else’s shoes”.

Fiction can play an important role in helping you learn about different types of people and different perspectives.

There are some great books out there that encourage young people to think about similarities and differences.

This task involves writing a book review or book response.

Activity for classes

Read a book together that explores similarities and differences and then write a response.

The teacher could write the post and the students could comment. Or, the students could write their own reflections which could be shared in a post (or series of posts).

You could use any book but here are just two suggestions:

This is one of my favourite books by Mem Fox which could be a handy prompt for younger students (under around 10). It’s called Whoever You Are.

Click here if you can’t see the video above.

Another great prompt might be Mirror by Jeannie Baker (thank you to the fabulous teacher librarian Kim Yeomans for this recommendation. Check out her blog, Wild About Books).

This book is actually wordless but tells a powerful story for all ages nonetheless.

Click here if you can’t see the video above.

Activity for students

Write about a book you’ve read where the character was very different from you. Maybe they lived in a different place, had different interests, had a different family structure or so on.

Don’t forget to include the important details like the author and full title.

Invite your readers to leave a comment. Make your questions “open ended”. So instead of just, “Have you read this book?” You could invite readers to tell you about their favourite book or author.

Task 4: Music

Music can bring people together! You might find you a have a similar taste in music to someone else. It can be a good conversation starter. 

Or perhaps your taste in music is very different from someone. That’s okay too!

This task involves writing a post about your favourite type of music. You can add a video clip of a favourite song if your teacher agrees.

Find out how to add a video from YouTube using Edublogs/CampusPress here. (Tip: If you have a free blog, use the URL method).

Example of an embedded YouTube clip

I’ve been teaching music to prep (kindergarten) students so we’ve been finding some lots of fun songs. I really like this one because we all enjoy doing the actions.

It is called The Silly Song and is by an Australian group called The Fairies.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, perhaps you could have a class vote about your favourite types of music and share some information in a collaborative post. Or students could write their own piece about their favourite type of music and the teacher could publish these in a series of posts. 

Submit Your Post URL ⬇

If you want a commenter and other participants to visit your blog, remember to fill in the Google Form below with the URL of the post you published for this week’s task.

If you complete more than one task, please choose your favourite one to submit.

Remember to include the URL of the actual post (copy and paste it so it’s correct).

The Google Form

Teachers, feel free to put the link to this Week 5 Google Form on your own blog if you’d like.

Edit: This form is now closed. You’re still welcome to complete these tasks at any time but won’t be able to submit them as our commenters are busy working through later tasks.

---

Next week’s topic: Get ready for some fun with science!

Week 4: Emojis

You’ve been working hard to learn about some important topics for the first three weeks. Well done!

Let’s have some fun with emojis!

Week Three Recap

There were so many great posts submitted again by classes and students.

You can find them all here (or click on the red box on the sidebar).

Let’s take a look at just some of the fantastic work we spotted last week:

• Georgia summarized the places you can find images and included a slideshow.
• Mrs. Kimball made a Halloween themed slideshow for her class that included some information and tasks. There’s also the beginning of a story that others can complete.
• Eshaan invites you to complete the story of when dolls come alive!
• There’s a great farewell to summer poem on Frog’s blog.
• Emily asks you to guess her sentence.
• Nightshadebloom shared her own artwork.
• Chris explains why you can’t take images off Google.
• Emmitt shares some favourite images in a slideshow.

Flipboard

Remember, you can view more great work on our 2018 Student Blogging Challenge Flipboard.

View my Flipboard Magazine.

Reminders

Here are a few general challenge reminders:

• Please remember to keep approving the comments on your blog quickly — it keeps the conversations going!
• Haven’t caught up on the first three weeks? Don’t worry! You can complete your tasks late, or skip some tasks. Please submit your task in the correct form (e.g. if you complete a task from week one, go back to the week one post and add it to the form).
• Posts that are proofread and written in short paragraphs are much easier to read! Need help with proofreading? Try a free tool like Grammarly. Note: Grammarly is 18+ but if you’re aged between 13-17, you can use it with permission.

Let’s dive into this week’s topic…

Emojis

Do you like emojis? 😎😁😍

Emojis were first used on mobile phones in Japan in 1999 and become popular worldwide about ten years later.

Before emojis were emoticons (or smileys). Emojis are different to emoticons. Emojis are pictures, whereas emoticons are the punctuation you use to symbolise emotion.

Emojis look different depending on what sort of platform or device you’re using. As Emojipedia tells us,

Emoji is a standardised set of characters that is available on iOS, Android, Windows and macOS. While the artwork for each emoji character varies by platform, the meaning of each symbol remains the same.

Two years ago, a report stated that 92% of internet users use emojis. No doubt this number has grown now.

The great thing about emojis is that they’re a universal language! They can help people communicate, even if they don’t speak the same language!

More Emoji Fun Facts!

• The original 176 emoji are on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
• There are now 2,823 emojis.
• New batches of emojis are added every year.
• Oxford Dictionary named the Face with Tears of Joy Emoji 😂 as the 2015 Word of the Year.
• The Face with Tears of Joy is the most popular emoji. Twitter tracks the most popular emojis here.
• Emoji or emojis? In Japanese the plural is emoji but both are accepted in English.

Sources

• https://emojipedia.org/faq/
• https://www.lifewire.com/amazing-facts-about-emoji-3486026

Help With Emojis

If you’re using Windows 10 or a Mac computer, there is a simple way to choose an emoji as Tony Vincent demonstrates in the graphic below.

Call up an emoji keyboard in Windows 10 by holding down the Windows key and pressing period (full stop). Holding down the Windows key and the ; key also works.

On macOS, hold down Control and Command and press the space bar to make an emoji picker appear.

Both of these keyboard shortcuts require the cursor to be in a text box.

Not sure how to use emojis on your iPad? Check out this article. 

Week Four Tasks

This week there are four fun tasks to choose from to get creative with emojis. 

Our graphic summarises the tasks and I will explain each task in more detail below. I’ve included some examples and ideas for how classes can approach each task.

As this topic hasn’t been used as part of STUBC before, we don’t have actual student examples to show you this week. 

Task 1: Emoji Story Prompt

Thank you to Tony Vincent for this great idea about using emojis to help you create a story.

• Go to byrdseed.com/emoji. You’ll see one random emoji on the screen.
• Press “And then…” to add some more inspiration for your story with new emojis.
• If you don’t like the emojis, just press “Start over”.
• Write your story in a blog post. If you prefer, you could make an audio recording or even a video.
• You could ask your visitors to finish your story in a blog comment if you like.

Don’t forget a screenshot:

Take a screenshot of your emojis to add to your blog post so your visitors can check out your inspiration.

• This article shows how to take a screenshot on any device.
• Click here to find out how to add an image to an Edublogs or CampusPress blog.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, perhaps students could make individual stories and the teacher could add them to a series of blog posts or a Google Slide presentation. 

• Check out Alethea Vazquez’s tutorial on how to put a Google Slides presentation together. 
• If you need more help with making a collaborative Google Slide presentation, check out this video from Matt Miller.

Task 2: Emoji Guessing Game

There are lots of ways you can use emojis to make fun guessing games for your readers

Emoji Quiz

Make a quiz for your readers using only emojis.

Have them guess something like:

• Book title
• Movie title
• Book/movie character
• Food
• Word
• Phrase
• Country
• Idiom

You could present this however you like — as a simple blog post, a video, a Google Slide presentation. Or you might have other ideas.

Here’s an example of a video where viewers are asked to guess the Disney movie.

If you add emojis to a blog post like I’ve done below, they’ll be quite small.

🐟 + 🍟 = ?

Quick tutorial: Make an image

If you want a simple way to present your emojis so they’re larger, try making an image in Google Drawings or Google Slides. Google Drawings has a transparent background by default and Google Slides has a white background by default.

1. Go to Google Drawings or Google Slides and open a blank presentation.
2. Add a title (press on T in the toolbar in Google Drawings).
3. Add the emojis you want. If you’re on a computer, try going to Emojipedia or EmojiCool and copying/pasting the emojis into your Slide/Drawing.
4. When your Slide/Drawing is done, go to File > Download as > PNG image (or JPEG image). Save the image to your computer.
5. You can then upload the image to your blog post (here are the instructions for Edublogs/CampusPress users).

Here is an example I made:

Guess The Word

Tony Vincent demonstrates how to make a Guess The Word emoji puzzle in this graphic.

Want to make something like this? You could try a tool like Google Drawings, Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Canva. Just save your creation as a PNG or JPEG and upload it to your blog like any other image.

EmojiTranslate

Here’s yet another idea from Tony Vincent.

• Write out a blog post as you normally would. This could be about anything — a pet, a school event, a favourite sport. The choice is yours.
• Copy your blog post text. Go to emojitranslate.com and paste your text in the box.
• Some words will be replaced with pictures. If you don’t want to use some of the emojis, just re-type the word.
• Take a screenshot of your result and add it to a blog post.
• Ask your readers to guess what it says in a comment.

You don’t have to use EmojiTranslate. You can always just make your own post and substitute some words for emojis.

If you’re working as a class on these activities, all the students could make their own image and the teacher could compile them into a Google Slide presentation or simply add them to a blog post (or series of posts). Or students could work together to make videos. 

Remember, last week Alethea Vazquez made a tutorial on how to put a Google Slides presentation together if you need help with that.

Task 3: Emoji Maths

Emojis aren’t just about writing. They can be fun to use in maths too!

There’s a popular site called Solvemoji.com where emojis are used in maths puzzles.

• You could try making your own puzzles using a tool like Google Drawings, Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Canva. Just save your creation as a PNG or JPEG and upload it to your blog like any other image.
• You could draw you puzzles on paper, take a photo of them and add them to your blog post.
• Instead of making puzzles, you could solve some of the puzzles on Solvemoji.com and write your solutions and reflections in a blog post.

Here are some examples from the Solvemoji.com website.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, all the students could make their own puzzles and the teacher could compile them into a Google Slide presentation or simply add them to a blog post (or series of posts). The students could solve the puzzles in a blog comment. 

Task 4: Emoji Art

Do you enjoy creating and making artwork?

There are a few ways you can make your own emoji:

• You could draw a picture of an emoji and take a photo of it then upload it to your blog post.
• There are lots of places online where you can find ‘how to draw’ emoji tutorials. For example, how to draw a peace sign hand on YouTube or how to draw heart eyes emoji on the How to Draw website. Under 13s should check with an adult.
• If you have an iPad, you could use an app like Emoji Me Kids to make an animated emoji of yourself.
• You could design an emoji in a program like Google Drawing or Google Slides. See the instructions listed in task two.
• You could try Google’s Made With Code Emoji Project. This is lots of fun!
• You could use emoji.ink to create an artwork using emojis. Tip: Use the slider in the bottom right corner to change the size of your emojis. Take a screenshot when you’re done.
• You might have other ideas!

Add your artwork to a blog post with a description. Don’t forget to include an explanation of how you made it and a link to a tool if you used one.

Final Tips

Add a visitor tracking widget to your sidebar

You will notice on the sidebar of the Student Blogging Challenge blog we have some visitor tracking widgets to see which countries our visitors are from.

You can add these to your sidebar too. Find the instructions for Edublogs and CampusPress users here.

Because you need to use embed code, you’ll only be able to add these visitor tracking widgets with an Edublogs Pro or CampusPress blog. Embed code isn’t enabled on free blogs to prevent misuse by spammers.  

Using a different blogging platform?

• You’ll find the instructions to add Clustrmaps here and there are instructions to add RevolverMaps here.

Not getting many visitors?

Try visiting other people and inviting them to visit your blog.

If you look on the sidebar of the Student Blogging Challenge blog, you will see the links to the tasks that participants completed for the first three weeks.

• Week one tasks
• Week two tasks
• Week three tasks

Choose some people to visit. Make your comment a high quality one — proofread it, ask a question, and show a genuine interest in the blogger. Then leave the URL of a post you’d like them to check out.

Which approach do you think would come across better?

Comment one

Comment two

Check back to see if the blogger replied to you too (if possible, tick the box to be notified of follow-up comments).

If you keep visiting a few of the same people over the coming weeks, you could really get to know each other!

Submit Your Post URL ⬇

If you want a commenter and other participants to visit your blog, remember to fill in the Google Form below with the URL of the post you published for this week’s task.

If you complete more than one task, please choose your favourite one to submit.

Remember to include the URL of the actual post. This graphic below should help you understand what a post URL looks like if you’re using Edublogs/CampusPress/WordPress.

The Google Form

Edit: This form is now closed but feel free to still complete the tasks!

---

Next week’s topic: Similarities and differences around the world 🌏

Week 3: Images And Creative Commons

This week’s topic is an important and useful one to know about. We’re going to explore how to use images easily, legally, and safely.

Some people find this topic confusing but don’t worry. I’ll break it down for you in this week’s post!

Week Two Recap

There were hundreds of great posts submitted by classes and students.

Let’s take a look at just some of the fantastic work we spotted last week:

• The McDowell Media students have made some great how-to videos to let everyone know how to comment on their blog. Also checked out the graphic they positioned on their sidebar as a handy commenting reminder.
• Ms Blessings’ grade two/three students have started visiting other blogs and shared some examples of the comments they left.
• Mrs. Yollis added some comment starters to the end of her post. Is this something you could try this week?
• 12th grader Rheinhard reflects on commenting in this well-written post. 
• Rajyashori from India shared some of the great comments she left on various blogs in this reflective post. 
• Sling’s class in Canada has completed some more fabulous work including this must-watch video on commenting.

Flipboard

Remember, you can view more great work on our 2018 Student Blogging Challenge Flipboard. Our commenters will be adding some notable posts and pages to the magazine over the coming weeks.

View my Flipboard Magazine.

A Special Tutorial

A big thank you goes to Alethea Vazquez for creating a special tutorial this week.

Alethea has participated with her classes in previous challenges and is now a volunteer commenter.

Her tutorial demonstrates how to create and embed a Google Slide presentation into your blog post. 

Click here to find it.

You may remember, we shared Alethea’s slideshow in week one as a way of sharing the avatars and blurbs of all students in the class.

Many classes did a fabulous job of creating their own slideshows but if you were scratching your head as to how they achieved this, this tutorial is for you.

Google Slide presentations in blog posts are SO handy — you can share all sorts of student work or information.

Reminders

Here are a few general challenge reminders:

• Are you on our mailing list? Sign up here and make sure you add support@edublogs.org to your email contacts so it doesn’t end up in junk/spam. I send an email every Sunday.
• Edublogs/CampusPress users with student blogs — If all the students in your class have blogs and your teacher uses ‘My Class’, you should have a widget called ‘Class blogs’. Make sure this is on your sidebar. This video shows you how.
• Are you writing in a language other than English? Please add a Google Translate widget to your blog by following these instructions. 
• Haven’t caught up on week one and two? Don’t worry! You can complete your tasks late, or skip some tasks. Please submit your task in the correct form (e.g. if you complete a task from week one, go back to the week one post and add it to the form).
• Posts that are proofread and written in short paragraphs are much easier to read! Need help with proofreading? Try a free tool like Grammarly. Note: Grammarly is 18+ but if you’re aged between 13-17, you can use it with permission.

Let’s Learn About Images

A blog without images would be pretty boring, wouldn’t it?

Images can really jazz up our posts, pages, headers, and widgets. Students and teachers also need images when they’re making a presentation, video, or other digital creations.

But where do we get those images?

Can’t we just use Google Images?

Do you know how to find pictures using Google? It’s so easy. You just type in the word you want, find the image you like, and save it to your computer.

But stop right there!

Should we be doing this? Should we be getting any image we like from Google and using it in our own work?

The answer is no.

As Ronnie Burt’s cat has told our community before…

Most images on Google are protected by copyright. This means, they are not free to use and you can get into trouble if you do use them without permission.

You can use Google Images advanced search filter to find images that you are allowed to use but this isn’t as simple as it seems. You need to know what the usage rights mean and how to attribute correctly.

We have some easier options to share with you this week.

Including the source is not enough…

A situation we commonly see on blogs is where someone uses an image they found online and then include a link to the site they got it from.

For example,

Just because you link to the source of an image, does not mean you can use it. You would need to ask the image creator for permission.

Unless stated otherwise, everything on the web is protected by copyright.

Let’s take a look at some options for finding images…

Where Can You Find Images?

I’ve recently updated a post on my own blog that goes through the 5 main ways to find images for blog posts or other digital work.

Here is a summary. Feel free to use this poster on your blog or in your classroom if it’s helpful.

Let’s take a closer look at each option:

1) Making your own images is an excellent option

This can be done either by drawing, taking your own photos, using computer software, or using online tools.

Just be mindful of two things:

• This can take a long time and leave you with less time for your writing or other work.
• Many online tools have age restrictions (often over 13).

2) Many businesses purchase stock photography

We often do this for our posts on The Edublogger.

We pay a hairdresser when we get a haircut, pay a baker for a loaf of bread, so why not pay a photographer for their work?

This is good to know about as an option but isn’t something schools or students would usually do.

3) Using Google Images is not usually a good idea

We talked about this above.

Most images that you find on Google are protected by copyright. Find out more about copyright by watching this short video.

4) Creative Commons is worth knowing about!

Everyone’s work is protected by copyright unless stated otherwise.

Many people are happy for others to use their work (as long as they give them credit etc.). They give their work a Creative Commons license to tell everyone what they can or cannot do with their image (or text, videos, music etc).

• Copyright means the person who took the photo (or created the work) does not allow anyone to use it.
• Creative Commons means the person who took the photo (or created the work) does allow people to use it IF they follow certain rules.
  • Usually, these rules mean saying who created the image/work and where it’s from.
  • Sometimes the rules state that you can use the image/work only if you don’t change it or don’t use it as part of something you’re selling.
  • These rules are called licenses.
  • There are a number of Creative Commons licenses creators can choose from.
  • No matter what license is used, you must always attribute the creator of the image/work (unless it’s a Creative Commons Zero license — see point 5). Attributing means crediting the author. In a blog post, this usually means putting the attribution under an image as I’ve done below.

Here’s a short video by Nancy Minicozzi that explains Creative Commons.

• Learn more about Creative Commons licenses.
• How to attribute Creative Commons images.
• Find Creative Commons images with this search engine.

Plugins to make attribution easy

The trickiest part of using Creative Commons images is often the attribution (crediting the creator: saying who the creator is, where it’s from, what the license is etc).

If you’re using Edublogs or CampusPress, there are two plugins you can use to find and insert Creative Commons images without worrying about attribution.

• Find out how to use the Compfight plugin in this user guide.
• Find out how to use the Pixabay plugin in this guide.

Note: While these plugins provide safe filtered options, nothing is foolproof. Younger students should be supervised or use Photos For Class for the safest option.

5) Creative Commons Zero or royalty free images are the easiest choices

If your mind is spinning with all that talk of Creative Commons licenses and attribution, don’t worry!

Creative Commons Zero (CC0) or royalty free images are easy to use.

These are the least restrictive licenses so anyone can use the images freely and attribution is optional.

There are an increasing number of sites where you can find CC0 or royalty free images but remember:

• Many sites contain inappropriate content if you search for it
• Many sites have age restrictions

I made this comparison chart to show you about some of the best options to find images that you can use freely without attributing.

You can read a detailed description of each one in my blog post if you’re interested.

• Unsplash
• Pixabay
• Pexels
• Photos For Class
• Openclipart
• Pics4Learning

In the activity section below, you’ll also find some task cards to help you easily source images.

Help With Images

Adding an image to a post or page on your blog is quite straightforward.

If you haven’t figured out how to do this yet, check out these help guides:

• If you’re using Edublogs or CampusPress, check out this step-by-step guide. Or, I show you how to do it in this video. 
• If you’re using Blogger, check out these instructions.  
• If you’re using Kidblog, you’ll see where to add an image in this guide. 
• If you’re using Weebly, these instructions will help.

Week Three Tasks

This week there are five tasks to choose from to help you learn more about using images. The third task links with doing either task four or five.

Here is a summary. I will explain each task in more detail below with some examples and ideas for how classes can approach each task.

Task 1: Educate Others

Many teachers and students around the world know very little about using images legally, Creative Commons, attributing Creative Commons images etc. You can help them learn while learning more about this topic yourself.

Do some more research into any of the topics discussed this week and make a blog post, poster, video, slideshow etc.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, perhaps students could work in small groups to create a poster or video to share in a post (or a series of posts). Or, all the students could make a slide for a slideshow. 

Example:

This video is the reaction of students in Mrs. Yollis’ class when she mislabelled their artwork. It helps people learn about the importance of correct attribution.

Task 2: Make An Image

Creating your own images for your blog posts is a great idea! You don’t have to worry about copyright and Creative Commons.

You can:

• Draw something and take a photo of it.
• Take a photo of something in your surroundings (don’t use photos of other people without permission and remember not to include personal details like the front of your house).
• Use an app on your iPad or tablet. Here are some recommended apps for different ages from Common Sense Media.
• Use an online tool to make an image like Canva, Adobe Spark, Google Drawings, Pablo (good for making quotes), Wordclouds.com (for word clouds), Toondoo or MakeBeliefsComix (both good for making comics), Piktochart (good for making infographics).

Remember, some online tools have age restrictions.

Leave a comment on this post if you know any other good tools for making your own images.

Add your image(s) to a blog post and tell us a bit about the images and how you made them. If you used an online tool, include the link so others can try it.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, all the students could make their own image and the teacher could compile them into a Google Slide presentation or simply add them to a blog post (or series of posts). 

Example:

• Blewett’s Crew made a photo collage with Be Funky
• Alicia used MakeBelifsComix to share a message about the environment
• Jena made a word cloud

Task 3: Image Task Cards

This connects with task 4 and 5. 

In the blog post I wrote about images for teachers and students, I prepared two task cards.

Depending on your age, use one of these task cards to find an image or a series of images to add to your post.

You could add a slideshow with some of your favourite images you found and write about why you like them. Or, you could use your images to complete task 4 or 5 below.

Tip: If you’re using Edublogs Pro or CampusPress, you can use the slider feature in the Live Shortcodes plugin to quickly add a slideshow to a post, page, or sidebar. Instructions are here. (Another option is the Metaslider Plugin) Find the instructions here.

Examples:

• Check out Brooke’s slideshow about her interests
• Here’s a simple slideshow I made with some images I liked on Unsplash. I used the slider in the Live Shortcodes plugin. 

 

Task card for over 13s

Task card for under 13s

You’re welcome to print these task cards, or add them to your blog. To do this, you’ll need to click on the download button under the task card. Find out how to add a PDF file to your blog using Edublogs or CampusPress here.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, perhaps all students could use the task card to find an image. They could create a story, poem, or description for the image and these could be placed in a blog post (or series of blog posts). Or, the teacher could add some images to a post and ask the students to write an imaginative response in a comment. 

Task 4: Write A Poem

Find an image using one of the task cards above. Or you can try one of the plugins we mentioned earlier if you’re an Edublogs/CampusPress user.

Now write a poem about your image.

Need some inspiration or advice? Check out Ken Nesbitt’s site which has lots of poetry resources.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, you could write a poem as a class, or have students write their own poetry and publish them as a series of posts. Alternatively, the teacher could publish a photo and have the students write a poem in a comment. 

Examples:

• Naho wrote a poem called Because Of What We All Have Done
• Sarah was inspired by a purple flower 
• Madison wrote a poem about eyes
• Class example — last year I did haiku poems with students and collated them in a Google slide presentation. I used the instructions from Erintegration to combine multiple slides into one large slideshow.

Task 5: Picture Prompts

First, find an image or series of images using one of the task cards above. Or you can try one of the plugins we mentioned earlier if you’re an Edublogs/CampusPress user.

Next, you have two choices:

1) Add an image with the start of a story and ask your readers to complete the story.

Examples:

• Ines wrote about a statue
• Christian’s story was called A Flight Throughout The Night
• Seo Yeon’s story included a dog

2) Or, come up with a sentence and find a series of images to illustrate your sentence. Ask your readers to tell you what the sentence is in a comment.

Examples:

• Caleigh’s pictures were about football
• Lucas’ pictures were about drawing
• Alicia shared something she doesn’t like 

Tip: You might need to visit some other bloggers and invite them to look at your post and complete your story or guess your word. Remember to leave the URL of your post for them to click on.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, you could publish a series of posts with the students’ picture prompts. Perhaps students could work in small groups. Or the teacher could publish the picture prompts and invite the students to respond in a comment. 

Final Tips

Beware of advertisements

Remember, some of the free image sites have advertisements for paid image sites. We don’t want to click on those ads.

For example, on Pixabay, I typed ‘dolphin’ into the search box. The top row of results has a Shutterstock watermark on it. Clicking on this takes me to the Shutterstock website which is a site where you can pay for images.

Note: You won’t see advertisements when using the Pixabay plugin.

Do you need to go back and fix images in old posts?

Have you been using images from Google on your blog so far? Whoops. You might want to go back and fix these up when you have time. Remove the image or replace with a Creative Commons image.

Have you tried using categories, tags, or labels yet?

Categories, tags, or labels are all ways to organise your posts. It’s a good idea to set up a category (or label in Blogger) called Student Blogging Challenge or STUBC. You can assign this category to all the posts you write for the challenge.

• If you use Edublogs or CampusPress, maybe you need to start using categories? You can also use tags once you get the hang of it.
• If you use Blogger, try using labels.
• Weebly blogs use categories. 
• Kidblog blogs also use categories and tags.

Submit Your Post URL ⬇

If you want a commenter and other participants to visit your blog, remember to fill in the Google Form below with the URL of the post or page you published for this week’s task.

Did you complete more than one task? Awesome! Please choose your favourite one to submit.

You need to submit the URL of your post/page

• Click on the title of your post/page and then copy the URL from your address bar.
• Don’t submit the URL of your blog or your dashboard.
• Don’t include anything that includes the word ‘preview’. Others won’t be able to see the post.

This graphic below should help you understand what a post URL looks like if you’re using Edublogs/CampusPress/WordPress.

The Google Form

Edit: This form is now closed.

---

Next week’s topic: We’ve been working hard … let’s have some fun with emojis! 😁 😎

Week 2: Quality Comments

Great work on your first week of the challenge!

We now have 1550+ students and 135 classes taking part in the challenge. Can you tell which new countries have been added to our participant list?

This week we are talking about commenting. And not just any old commenting, quality commenting.

Remember, the menu on the right sidebar will help you navigate this post.

Week One Recap

Before we begin, let’s recap our first week…

Our commenting team was SUPER busy! There were 720+ tasks submitted by students and classes.

A big thanks goes out to our lead commenter Miss W and her team of around 50 commenters!

For this week, we’re asking you just submit one task in our Google Form (if you complete more than one). This will make things more manageable for our commenters.

You’ll also notice some changes in the Google Form this week to make it clearer to distinguish between students/classes. Country name has also been added.

Some notable posts and comments

With so many amazing posts and pages written last week, it was hard to choose just a handful to showcase.

Let’s take a look at just some of the great work we spotted last week:

• Musings From Mack is a sixth grade class from the US with a class blog and student blogs. They published a Google Slide presentation to introduce themselves on their class blog. They then created a“fun facts” list that links to the students’ blogs. Creative!
• Ash Eryn from the Philippines is doing a great job of replying to her comments and engaging in conversations. Check it out. 
• Zaprina from the US has made a creative About post that’s an acronym of her own name. It includes paragraphs and coloured text.
• Sling’s Class is a year 7/8 class from Canada with a class blog and student blogs. They published a Google Slide presentation to introduce themselves on their class blog. Their teacher Amanda also had the great idea of choosing a few global students and classes to visit. She placed these links on a page for the students to reference.
• Mrs. Holliday’s second grade class is from the US. They created some great avatars which they put in a slideshow. Their post ended with questions which is an excellent way to encourage comments. They have also received some comments from families. Fantastic!
• Madison is a very talented writer in the fifth grade. She has done a great job of proofreading her About page and writing in paragraphs to make it easy to read.
• Cashton is a seventh grader who has been busy visiting a few other student blogs. He wrote about the blogs he visited in a post and included the links.

Flipboard — Sharing more great work!

Flipboard is a digital magazine that brings together stories and articles from the web.

You can use Flipboard on your computer, or via the app on your phone or tablet.

iOS | Android | Window

Click here to view the new 2018 Student Blogging Challenge Flipboard. Our commenters will be adding some notable posts and pages to the magazine over the coming weeks.

View my Flipboard Magazine.

Reminders

If you didn’t read the week one reminder post, please check it out here. 

The two most important reminders this week are making sure people can view your blog and comment.

Is your blog password protected?

To take part in the challenge you need to make sure that visitors can view your blog without signing in.

• To check this, open your blog in a browser you’re not logged into (or something like Chrome Incognito). Does your blog appear? Or is there a prompt for a password?
• If your blog is password protected (and you use Edublogs or CampusPress), go to your dashboard > settings > reading. Please select “Discourage search engines from indexing site but allows normal visitors to view” OR if you have a pro/CampusPress blog you can select “Allow search engines to index this site”

Teachers, if you have student blogs, you don’t need to do this individually. In your blog dashboard, go to My Class > Settings and choose one of the public options as per the image above.

Using a different blogging platform? Check out this reminder post which has links to the help guides you need to change your settings.

Can people comment on your blog?

Some blogs don’t allow comments on posts or pages or they need visitors to log in before commenting.

If you’re using Edublogs/CampusPress, go to settings > discussion and ensure you don’t have “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” selected.

• Pages on Edublogs/CampusPress blogs are turned off by default. Some people don’t like comments on pages but you will need comments enabled if you’re submitting a page as a task. Find out how to enable comments on pages here.
• If you’re using Blogger, make sure anyone can comment using the Name/URL option (so they don’t need a Google Account). Blogger commenting instructions are here.

Reminders over, let’s get on with our topic… 🙂

A Commenting Story

You never know where a single comment might lead you.

I’ve made so many connections, just through commenting.

Here’s one story…

I first began blogging with my grade three class back in 2008.

During our first year of our blogging journey, we received a comment from Mrs Yollis’ class on the other side of the world in California, USA.

We replied back and forth and even shared a simple song with each other.

The commenting conversations continued throughout the following years with different groups of students. We had lots of Skype calls and worked together on projects.

I even had two different students visit Mrs. Yollis’ class on family holidays!

In 2012, my husband and I visited Mrs. and Mr. Yollis. Mrs. Yollis and I presented at a big conference for teachers called ISTE.

Even though I’m not teaching full time currently, our classes still connect — nearly 10 years later. For example, this year we made landmark videos together and collaborated for International Dot Day.

I have learnt a lot from Linda and enjoyed the friendship.

This all started with a simple comment. Who will you meet through a comment?

About Quality Commenting

Let’s dive deeper into this week’s topic.

The benefits of commenting

What’s so special about commenting? Why not just publish blog posts?

Here are ten reasons why I believe comments are important:

1. Comments turn your blog from a static space to an interactive space. This means it’s not just you talking. There is interaction.
2. Back and forth conversations are fun and you can learn a lot.
3. Because comments are not instantaneous (like online chat or text messaging), you can have more time to reflect, research, or think about your response.
4. When someone leaves a comment, they can leave feedback, constructive criticism, or give you new ideas. This can help you grow and learn.
5. A commenter might suggest something that you didn’t include in your post. You can learn new perspectives.
6. When you have an authentic (real) audience, it’s more motivating! You know someone will read your post, so you will probably put more effort into it than if you were just writing something in a notebook.
7. Commenting can be an ideal way for busy parents to get involved in the classroom.
8. You can learn how to interact politely and how to have conversations.
9. You can meet new people and form friendships.
10. Students who don’t have their own blogs can enjoy the benefits of blogging by being a participant in the comment section.

Could you add anything to this list? Tell us in a comment!

What is quality commenting?

Which of these comments do you think is better?

Comment one

Comment two

Some students are young, learning a language, or just starting out and no one expects students to be perfect.

However, when we aim to do certain things in our comment, we will learn more and develop skills that we can use in all areas of our life. We’ll also have a better chance of forming strong connections with others.

So what makes a quality comment? Here are some ideas. You might have your own ideas.

Elements of quality comments:

• Written like a letter with a greeting, body, and sometimes a closing.
• Correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and spacing.
• Questions, compliments, and/or relevant new information.
• Making connections without revealing personal information like surnames, addresses, birthdays etc.

You won’t always include all of the above in your comments but these are the sorts of things you might aim for.

Quality commenting videos

This is a video about quality commenting that Linda Yollis made with her third-grade students back in 2010! Many classes still enjoying viewing it.

For older students, this video by Nicolas Weiss is popular.

Commenting Help

When someone leaves a comment on your blog, it won’t show up straight away (unless you have turned off moderation in your settings which is not recommended).

Whoever has permission (teacher/student) will need to approve the comment first. Try to approve comments quickly, especially during the Student Blogging Challenge.

If you need help with managing your comments, take a look at these guides:

• If you’re using Edublogs or CampusPress, check out Comments Overview and Managing Comments.
• If you’re using Blogger, check out Manage Your Blog Comments. 
• If you’re using Kidblog, check out Approving Comments. 

Week Two Tasks

This week there are four tasks to choose from to help you learn more about commenting. 

If you complete more than one, just choose your favourite to submit in the Google Form.

Here is a summary. I will explain each task in more detail below with some examples and ideas for how classes can approach each task.

Task 1: Commenting Guidelines

Come up with your own commenting guidelines. How would you like people to write their comment on your blog? You can put your commenting guidelines in a post, but they might be better suited to a page.

You can just write them down as text or make some sort of poster, graphic, or slideshow.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, you could come up with your guidelines together and all the students could make a graphic or poster to share on a page (or a series of posts). Perhaps a small group of students could illustrate one step each. Or the teacher can make the page and the students can comment on it. 

Examples

You might make a How To Write A Quality Comment poster like I did. Teachers, if you want to use this poster for your own class blog, feel free. You can grab a PDF copy here.

If you want to make your own poster, try a tool like Canva, Adobe Spark, Google Drawings, or even PowerPoint.

Of course, if you make your own poster, please personalise it and don’t copy my exact wording.

Check out the creative way Mrs. Vazquez made a commenting poster using Thinglink. If you hover over the blue circles you’ll find more information.

More examples:

• Student Aubrey shared some examples on her page to explain what sort of things make a quality comment.
• Caleigh made a mind map to share key ideas.

Task 2: How To Comment

Many themes and blogging platforms have different ways to leave a comment.

You might need to click on the title of the post, or click on a number in a circle, or click on the words ‘Leave a comment’.

Write a page for your blog explaining how to leave a comment. (Remember, if you change themes in future, you might need to change your instructions).

You could write it as a set of steps or perhaps create a video showing what to do.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, you could come up with your instructions together and all the students could make a graphic, poster, or video to share on a page (or a series of posts). Or the teacher can make the page and the students can work on other activities. 

I made a video last year for my colleague’s class blog.

How to make your own video

• I used a free Chrome extension called Screencastify to make the video above.
• Loom is another good tool for making screencast videos if you use the Chrome browser.
• If you use an iPad you can make a screencast without any special app. Tony Vincent shows us how to do that in this graphic…

Tip: Find out how to add a video to an Edublogs or CampusPress blog here. If you have a free Edublogs blog, you won’t be able to embed the video into your post or page. This is to prevent misuse by spammers.

Example pages:

• Cassidy made a great screencast video for her post on how to comment.
• Jena made a commenting information page that includes how to comment instructions and guidelines.
• Sophie combined commenting instructions with tips on leaving a meaningful comment.

Task 3: Comment With HTML

This is a task for bloggers who are after a challenge!

HTML is a computing language for making blogs and websites.

If you’re using Edublogs/CampusPress and you switch from Visual to Text in your post editor, you’ll see the HTML code that makes up your post. We’ll learn more about code later in the Student Blogging Challenge.

You can use some code in your comments to make your words bold, italic, or to add a link or symbol. ♥

Check out these tutorials to add HTML code to a comment:

• Mrs. Yollis includes a page on her blog with some HTML code you can use when commenting.
• Here is another post explaining how to use HTML by Tech Superpowers.
• If you want to leave a link to your blog that looks neat and tidy, check out this post.

Now try leaving a comment on this blog post, or another blog with some HTML. Then, write a post telling everyone about the HTML you used. You might make your own tutorial for others.

Tip: If you want to include a demonstration of HTML code in a blog post, it can be best to write it in another program like Word, Google Docs etc. and take a screenshot of the code. Then insert the screenshot into your post like any other image.

• This article shows how to take a screenshot on any device.
• Click here to find out how to add an image to an Edublogs or CampusPress blog.

See this example below from Mrs. Yollis: she didn’t write it straight in the post. She made it into an image…

If you’re working as a class on this activity, you could try leaving some comments with HTML as a whole class activity. Or perhaps the teacher can publish a post with instructions for HTML and the students can leave a comment trying out some codes. 

Task 4: Comment On Other Blogs

We know the benefits of commenting, so let’s leave some comments!

1. Find around four blogs you’d like to leave a comment on. Check out the pink week one list or purple week two list on the sidebar. These are the lists of students and classes who have submitted a task so far.
2. Leave a quality comment on one post on each blog.
3. Write a post on your blog mentioning who you visited, which post you left a comment on and why, then include the comment you left. Include a link to the blogs you commented on too. Hint: make sure you copy the comment before you hit the submit button.

Example posts:

• Figgy wrote a post telling us about the comments she left on other blogs.
• Allegra wrote about the four blogs she commented on.
• Sally wrote about her commenting conversations and included links.

If you’re working as a class on this activity, you could try leaving some comments as a whole class activity. Or perhaps each student can leave a comment on a different blog and write about the experience. The students’ writing could be compiled into one post or multiple blog posts.  

Final Tips

Encourage comments

A great way to encourage your visitors to comment on your post is to ask a couple of questions at the end of the post. You might make these bold or coloured so they really stand out.

Try using open-ended questions. So, instead of saying, “Do you have a dog?”, you might say, “Please comment and tell me about your favourite animals”.

Tip for more advanced bloggers: organise your posts

Will visitors to your blog find it easy to search for a post they might be interested in commenting on?

• If you use Edublogs or CampusPress, maybe you need to start using categories? You can also use tags once you get the hang of it. Start with categories.
• If you use Blogger, try using labels.
• Weebly blogs use categories. 
• Kidblog blogs also use categories and tags.

Categories, tags, or labels are all ways to organise your posts.

It’s a good idea to set up a category (or label in Blogger) called Student Blogging Challenge or STUBC. You can assign this category to all the posts you write for the challenge.

Safety first!

Remember when you’re commenting or writing posts, don’t yap about your YAPPY! 

Submit Your Post URL ⬇

Note: I have made the Google Form a little clearer this week to distinguish between classes and students. Classes and students are welcome to submit their URLs in the same Google Form below.

If you want a commenter and other participants to visit your blog, remember to fill in the Google Form below with the URL of the post or page you published for this week’s task.

Did you complete more than one task? Awesome! Please choose your favourite one to submit.

You need to submit the URL of your post/page

• Click on the title of your post/page and then copy the URL from your address bar.
• Don’t submit the URL of your blog or your dashboard.
• Don’t include anything that includes the word ‘preview’. Others won’t be able to see the post.

This graphic below should help you understand what a post URL looks like if you’re using Edublogs/CampusPress/WordPress.

The Google Form

Edit: This form as now been closed as our commenting team are busy working on tasks from later weeks.

---

Next week’s topic: Images and Creative Commons