The Student Blogging Challenge has well and truly begun and well done to those of you who have made a good start. And very well done to Grace Crogan for taking part in the SPECIAL: BLOG ACTION DAY.
Unfortunately Student Bloggers who do not complete the activities this week will be disqualified by the Blogging Team (not by me!) so make sure you get up to date in class or – if needbe – at home.
Class Bloggers will also be taken off this activity if they are not up to date by the end of this week.
THIS IS A CLASS AND HOME WORK TASK. (If you do not have a computer with wifi, make sure you do it in homework class). Remember we are already a week behind the others because it works on USA time and they started their school year a week before our Term 4.
I can’t remember how to find the activities
I have put the Student Blogging Challenge badge on the blog. Click onto it and it will take you directly to the tasks you should be completing.
Where should I be up to now?
You should have completed all tasks for Weeks 1 and 2 and ready to start Week 3 activities on Thursday of Week 3. So you should have completed already the following –
Week 1 Tasks –
Activity 1: Create an avatar to use on your blog. There are many different avatar creation sites on the web. I have been to many of them and created lots of different avatars. Some you just save and download to your computer to then upload into your blog. Others you need to use the snipping tool to save a square image of your avatar. It is always best to save as a jpg format.
Check out the Week 1 Challenge page for a symbaloo of websites to use for avatars such as lego figures, comics etc.
Did you find a great avatar site not mentioned here? Write a post about your avatar and how it represents you. Include a link to the website where you created the avatar.
Activity 2: Write or update your About Me page.
Whenever I visit a blog for the first time, I always check to see who the person is that is writing the blog posts. Do they have similar interests to me?
Student Bloggers should make an ABOUT ME PAGE and other students write an ABOUT ME POST.
Be creative on your About Me page. Here are some ideas and links.
- Write a poem
- Write an A-Z paragraph eg I am an athletic, yet brainy child who decided that saving the environment is one of my future goals. Check out how one of the mentors created her about me page especially for the student blogging challenge
- Create a tellegami like our mentor Dinah has done
- Create a list of things people might not know about you like Ms Herring has done
- Write a Who am I like Mrs Keane or Mrs Lyttle
- Students in Ireland paired up to create their about us page, Ms Seitz’ class did the same,Mrs Moore’s class are new bloggers
- Penelope, Warrior Kat, Harry, Daniela, Mikaila,
- Brianna (a student mentor) has a great favourites about me page, as well as an A-Z post
- Anna, a new student mentor this year, has a continually updated About Me page
Student Bloggers, here are instructions for creating your page
- Login to your blog, go to Settings> Discussion and make sure the default setting is ticked for allow people to leave comments> save the changes at the bottom
- Now go to the dashboard>pages>add new
- Change the title to About Me or something similar.
- If you only have one row of icons above the box, click on the last icon called the kitchen sink or toggle. This opens a second row which allows you to change font colours.
- In the box, write a bit about yourself remembering to be internet safe. Make sure you have checked out the pages from other students mentioned – many of them have been blogging for a while.
- In the area under the page writing box, you should see a Discussion box – open this and make sure you have ticked Allow comments.
- When you have finished click the big button on the right side of your screen – probably says update or send for review.
- Once you have saved your about me page, go back and delete the sample page.
- If your theme doesn’t show pages in the header area, then you will need to go to dashboard> appearance> widgets and drag across the Pages one to your sidebar.
Finished the work for week 1?
Then head off to the class or student list above the blog header and start visiting other blogs. You might not want to comment this week but maybe check them out. Are there any students with interests the same as you? Do you have a mentor yet? Have they left you any comments?
Week 2 Tasks –
If you haven’t already done this, check out the second video on commenting on the Week 2 Blog Challenge page which will really help you with your activities and your comments.
Activity 1: Create a ‘How to comment’ page on your blog
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. You could write it as a set of steps or perhaps create a video showing what to do. Be creative. Check out the examples on the Challenge page
Activity 2: Make a set of commenting guidelines
Explain what you expect when someone leaves a comment on your blog.
- What type of comment is acceptable?
- Which type of comment will you put in the bin?
Check out the examples from the Challenge page:
Activity 3: Leave a comment on this post – you might be able to combine this with activity 4
Each week the best posts published in the Student Blogging Challenge are featured in the Flipboard magazine. Check it out.
To check your posts we need you to leave a comment with a link to your post on this blog whenever you finish a weekly activity.
So your activity is to practise leaving a comment below with a link to your post for an activity you’ve completed this week or last week.
But first you need to know the difference between your BLOG link and your POST link
- Blog link: http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org
- Post link: http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/2016/10/02/gday-my-name-is/
If your teacher is moderating and approving your posts, you will need to wait until this has been done before leaving me a link in a comment. (I do this as quickly as I can each evening)
Activity 4: Use some HTML in a comment
Did you check out Mrs Yollis’ blog? She includes a page with some HTML (code) you can use when commenting especially on blogspot blogs. If leaving a comment on an Edublogs blog, there is a post explaining the HTML to use on the Challenge page. If you want to leave a link to your blog that looks neat and tidy, check out this post on the same page.
Activity 5: Visit other student or class blogs
Visit 4 other blogs on the lists above the header area. Leave a quality comment on one post on each blog. Might be the About Me page or another post you found interesting. 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. Hint: make sure you copy the comment before you hit the submit button. Check out some examples from previous students in the challenge: Allegra but try to include a link to the actual post you left a comment on, Meghana who has linked to both the student’s blog and their blog post where she left the comment.
Will visitors to your blog find it easy to search for a post they might be interested in commenting on? Maybe you need to start using Categories and Tags or make sure you have an archive section.