Category Archives: Student Blogging Challenge

Students on the Blogging Challenge

Posted on by
Reply

Readers from the Student Blogging Challenge, here are your possible choices this week:

Activity #1
Readers, what natural disasters or emergencies are factors where you live? How have you prepared? If you have faced a large-scale emergency, how did you deal with it? Do you have any advice for us? Please let us know in a comment (and please leave your blog URL!).

Activity #2
Write a list post of items that a student can put in an emergency bedside kit. If you had to leave in a hurry, what could you have ready to grab-and-go? (Come back when you are done and leave your URL so we can read your post).

Activity #3
Write a post describing a natural or human-caused emergency that has happened in your community. What were the consequences? How did you, your family, or emergency responders deal with it? (Come back when you are done and leave your URL so we can read your post).

Activity #4
Please take our Emergency Preparedness Survey. We will share the results and our conclusions by mid-November. Thanks!

How to comment

Posted on by
3

To be entirely honest. I don’t know really know how to exactly and correctly make a comment. There shouldn’t necessarily be a certain way that you should comment. Its your own opinion, you can say whatever you want. If you wanna say something extremely negative. Than say it. Just be aware of the consequences that come from the things you say. No matter what you say there is going to be some kind of back lash. Your going to anger someone somewhere no matter what. If you do get a negative comment on anything you post, just ignore it. Or even better, just mess with them. Say something to confuse them or trick them because the people who usually write those comments are complete idiots and easy to trick. But whatever. Ill just talk about my little guide on how to comment.

The first thing I would say is that while that you definitely shouldn’t be negative on your commenting, you don’t necessarily have to be positive. Someone’s work might be an absolute pile of rubbish. Don’t tell them that its good then they’ll just continue to make the same mistakes. Just tell them that it needs work and how they could improve their writing. Constructive feedback and being honest can help someone with improving themselves but it doesn’t mean its okay to be negative.

You should also at least make your comment somewhat relevant and have some significance. You don’t care and the people who say it don’t care if you say good job, or nice work. If your not being constructive at least add something to the topic. Your input really isn’t needed if it doesn’t mean anything. If its not going to be relevant or helpful don’t even bother writing it, no one cares.

And please just spell correctly. I’m sick of seeing the most illogical and poorly spelt comment ever imaginable. Read over it and try to rephrase it if it doesn’t make sense. What is the point of something that nobody can make sense of. I’m just sick of it all.

But what’s the point of even writing this. Everyone whos going to read will likely already know all of these things and applied to their commenting a long time ago. They’ve also probably already heard these things over and over again on literally everyone else’s blogs. And the people who do need to read this. most certainly won’t. I don’t even know why we bother. Those people who do the exact opposite of everything me and just about everyone else has said will continue to do those things across the interwebs.

I think you get the point, so ill just stop there and call an end.

STUDENT BLOGGING CHALLENGE – Update for students

Posted on by
4

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.

Student Bloggers, here are instructions for creating your page

  1. 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
  2. Now go to the dashboard>pages>add new
  3. Change the title to About Me or something similar.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. In the area under the page writing box, you should see a Discussion box – open this and make sure you have ticked Allow comments.
  7. When you have finished click the big  button on the right side of your screen – probably says update or send for review.
  8. Once you have saved your about me page, go back and delete the sample page.
  9. 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.

 

Making New Friends from Around the World

Posted on by
Reply

The Student Blogging Challenge has begun and students from around the world have started reading and commenting on your posts. Week 1 activities are already up ready for you to start!

One of the reasons we are blogging is to connect with other student writers. Take some time to visit classrooms from other parts of the world. Introduce yourself as a student from Western Australia (remember, no last names) and ask a question or share a thought in response to what the student you are visiting has to say.

Remember to leave the link to your blog so that you can receive a visit in return!

Mrs Kriese’s class in Texas, USA

Mrs Carvalho’s class in Portugal

Ms Smith’s class from Canada

A multicultural blog

All the way from Texas

Posted on by
Reply

It is terrific to see that, during the holidays, students from Texas in America have been reading our blog and commenting on students’ posts. This is the beginning of our Student Blogging Challenge where students (and myself) will learn more about blogging and meet students online from around the world.

Happy blogging year 8 and 9 students and please make sure you visit the Texas students’ blogs and comment on their posts too.

Student Blogging Challenge

Posted on by
Reply

During Term 4, the Year 9 (and a couple of year 8) Student Bloggers will be connecting with other student bloggers around the world in a Blogging Challenge. This challenge is designed to increase blogging and writing skills and is a good opportunity for these students. The challenge is controlled through an education platform and completely safe and secure. Students will be able to complete some of the activities in class.

At the same time, the rest of the students in years 8 and 9 will be taking part in a Class Blogging Challenge which operates in a very similar way.

I will be overseeing both these challenges.