Student Blogging Challenge Week 4: Free Choice

Week 4: Free Choice

Cabra hispanica Montserrat

Pedro Luna Guillen via Compfight

The first three weeks of the challenge were mainly learning lots about blogging skills you need when working on public sites on the internet. You should have learned the following so far:

  • Avatars – what they are, how they are used, how to create one and upload to your blog
  • About me pages – difference between page and post, what is private information and what you can say on your blog, being a good digital citizen
  • Commenting – what makes a great comment, what you expect from a comment on your blog, guidelines for blogging and commenting in your class
  • Images, sounds, video – what is creative commons, how to find safe and usable images, what is an attribution and how to write it, websites with great images, creating your own images, using images for puzzles and games, an image paints a thousand words when writing a story or poem

In a couple of weeks, we will be playing a commenting game. But you need to get prepared for this.

Make sure you have at least 5 other student/class blogs linked on the sidebar of your blog.  Make sure these are blogs from other students/classes around the world, not just those in your class or school. Perhaps have a blogroll or link category called Global students and/or Global classes. Here is how to add a blogroll if using Edublogs.

Remember, only one visitor in 30 will actually leave a comment.

Make sure your blog looks interesting:

  • Maybe change your header to suit what you are writing about.
  • Do your pets make a noise as soon as your blog is opened in a tab? That can be annoying so make sure the visitor can click on the sound button if they want to hear your animal pet.
  • Have you changed the tagline under the title of your blog?
  • Have you included some tags or categories to help your readers find a great post?
  • Does your background image make it hard for your visitors to read your posts?
  • Have you written some interesting posts for your visitors to comment on?

This week’s activity is free choice

Publish at least one interesting post for your visitors to read when they get to your blog.  Remember the following, especially if you want a post flipped to our magazine. Also, take note of the ‘Post ideas’ page.

Having read many student posts, I came up with the following essentials in a great post.

  1. catchy title
  2. includes at least one visual (with attribution) whether photo, cartoon, video or another web 2.0 tool like padlet or glogster
  3. interesting topic with the passion of the author coming through
  4. well written and not copy/pasted from somewhere else
  5. shows it has been proofread and spellchecked
  6. written in paragraphs – at least three of them
  7. includes links to other websites on similar topics – at least two of these

When you have finished your post(s), please go back to the blogging challenge and leave one comment on Miss W’s post. Mention what topic(s) you wrote about and leave a link to your post(s)Check out how Roman left one comment for all posts completed.

Those posts covering the seven things mentioned above will be added to the Flipboard magazine. Many students are forgetting to add links to other websites relating to the topic they have written about. Help here from Edublogs and Blogger.

 

Still more time left this week?

  • Read some of the posts in the Flipboard magazine – your teacher might want to create a class Flipboard magazine to add to your class blog
  • Visit other classes this time in the lists above the header of the challenge blog.
  • Reply to any comments left on your blog especially if from a mentor.

Find student blogs on the sidebar

Work using images

Some great stories to finish are found here: FionaRomanAnushaChristianLeonIdylTristanQuincyNateCalebLaylaIsabellaEmmaKaitStefanPhakamon,

Some jigsaw puzzles to try are found here: Mai ThaoVinceVan AnhBrandonIsma3elJoriAnusha,

If using free Pixabay images, check here to see how Mai Thao wrote the attribution links

Caleb used a different comic strip creator

Remember YOU have to visit other blogs, leave comments and the URL of your blog before you will get any comments on your blog. This is how the conversations and connections get made – by visiting and commenting on other student and class blogs.

Student Blogging Challenge Week 3: Using Images

Week 3: Using images

10/21 EDIT: PLEASE READ MISS W’S POST TO ENSURE THE BEST EXPERIENCE FOR EVERYONE DURING THE STUDENT BLOGGING CHALLENGE.  See Ms. Kojima if you have any questions as to what her post says.

There is a lot to learn in this challenge so it will be running for a two week (fortnight) period. The next challenge will be posted on 29 October. These activities also relate to Digital Citizenship week 2017 which runs in USA and Canada over this first week. Ideas from Edmodo as well.

This week’s activities are going to be fun but first, there are some things you need to know so please read carefully.

Yes, this week we deal with using images, music, and sounds in your posts.

But can’t I use any image, music or sound that is on the internet?

No, you must use creative commons or in some cases the fair use rule.

But where can I find these images, music and sounds? Can’t I use anything when I google an image?

No, your blog is public so you must use creative commons images, sounds, music and videos.

Sue Waters over at Edublogs has created a student blogging bootcamp with lots of interesting posts. Check these out!

Other places to find information on creative commons

Images

Make sure you check out the links in the Tools to Use symbaloo above the header

Music and sound effects

JamendoCCMixter, post with 14 websites for music, post with 20+ websites for music, post with 55+ sites with sound effects

This video is the reaction of students in Mrs. Yollis’ class when she mislabelled their artwork. How would you have felt?

 

Now for the activities for this fortnight: Do Activites 2 OR 3, 4 OR 5, 6 OR 7, 8, and 9 OR 10

Activity 2. Find an image or piece of music. Add it to your post (with attribution) and write a poem relating to the image or music. Invite your readers to write their own poems. Here is Fernando’s example, Samantha is confused

Activity 3. Similar to activity 2. Find an interesting landscape image (include attribution).  Write the beginning of a story relating to your image. Remember to include a conflict of some sort between your characters. Invite your readers to finish the story. How many different endings can you get? Which ending do you prefer? You might need to visit some other bloggers and invite them to finish your story. Remember to leave the URL of your post for them to click on.

Activity 4. Write a sentence using just images – no words OR find 5 images that create a story – again no words only the attribution for each image.

Activity 5. Create a slideshow, photo gallery or poster about your interests to add to your about me page or as a separate post. Your final slide should include attribution for each image. Noah created a great gallery with captions

Activity 6. Create your own images and add to a post of your choice. In your post add a link to the website or tool you used to create your image.

Other options for creating your own images include:

  1. Comic Generators like MakeBeliefsComix.com,  ToonDoo
  2. Photo Editors like Befunkyfd’s Flickr Tools
  3. Tag Cloud Creators such as Wordle

Mixing up your images using these types of tools can really spice up your posts! Leave a comment on this post, if you or your class can recommend some other image sites to add to this list.

Activity 7.  Zoom out from an image

We first tried this activity in the challenge in September 2010. Choose a picture, and have your readers zoom out, so to speak, by leaving comments.  Check out the example from Huzzah who finished their story. If doing this activity, include the word ‘zoom’ in your title so I can find it easily. Remember to give attribution. Most important here is to read previous comments so you can add to the story.

Check out these zoom pictures: BeckyJacquelineAbbey

Activity 8.  Go back to previous posts

If you have used images in any previous posts you have written, then you are ethically obliged to give the correct attribution or take the image out of the post if it does not have the right creative commons license.

Activity 9.  Create a jigsaw from your image. Mrs Schmidt’s class has done this using Jigsaw Planet . Here is her explanation

Last week (2014) my students made some jigsaw puzzles about famous places in our area.  First each student created one Power Point Slide showing a photo and some facts about a location in our area.  They saved the slide as a JPEG and then uploaded it to Jigsaw Planet.  Once the puzzle was created, they published a link to it on their Kidblog. Click on Niamh’s puzzle link. Maggie created a tough jigsaw. Anishacreated a jigsaw from her avatar.

Activity 10. Make a game using images. This class in Australia based their game on 4pics 1 word app.

Still got time left this fortnight (two weeks)?

  1. Visit other student and class blogs – leave some quality comments
  2. Reply to comments on your own blog
  3. Start using tags and categories with each post you write to make it easier for people to find posts on certain topics. Make sure you have the tags and categories widgets in your sidebar.
  4. Have at least five other student blogs linked on your sidebar – students from other classes and schools – not your own. We will need this for a game we play in a couple of weeks.

Try to have a few different headings like:

My Blogging Friends

Other Class Blogs

Having lots of links to student blogs from other countries will help spread the game.  Here are the instructions for adding links to your sidebars.

 

Still got time to read more posts?

Mrs Caudill’s class wrote great introductions then wrote about their avatars

Check out all the interesting links, including student blogs, on the sidebar of the Tech Kids blog

Phakamon created a commenting recipe

Make sure you leave a blog link on Summer’s blog when you comment or it might go in the trash

 Most important learning from this fortnight’s challenge is:

Use creative commons images, not just any image on the net. Always include attribution of where you found the image. Compfight plugin does this for you.

PS If you have done the blogging challenge before, you will find these activities are nearly the same each time. If you have ideas for different activities please leave a comment on Miss W’s page.

Flipboard magazine

Miss W will only be adding posts to the Flipboard magazine that:

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

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

Miss W visiting your blogs

From this week onwards, Miss  W will only be visiting blogs where students or classes have left the URL to the post in a comment with an explanation. If your teacher is moderating your posts, you will need to wait until it has been published before giving me your URL. Check out the difference between a blog URL and a post URL.

Blog URL: http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org

Post URL : http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/2015/10/10/raise-your-voice/

 

Great game to play about being internet awesome from Google – found this in a comment on Edmodo

Student Blogging Challenge Week 2: Visitor Widgets

Week 2: Visitor widgets

As this week’s challenge is all about commenting, it would be a great time to add some visitor widgets on your blog sidebar.

Sue Waters, from Edublogs, has a demo blog for widgets you can use. Check out her post but don’t go overboard putting hundreds of widgets on your blog. To get a widget, click on the widget or the link underneath it in Sue’s sidebars.

  • Perhaps choose a revolver map, clustr map or flag counter.
  • Maybe include a weather widget for the area where you live and a clock widget.

Visiting a few blogs over the weekend, Miss W noticed some fantastic conversations starting particularly with the students from Louisianna who are mentoring groups of 5 younger students. Keep up the great work!

SBC Week 1: Introductions!

Week 1: Let’s introduce ourselves

Miss W or tasteach

Whenever you see either of these avatars or images on the world wide web, you will know it is me (Miss W). I am a retired teacher who began blogging with students in 2008. I still blog with teachers and students in Tasmania, Australia. I also blog about my family history and whenever I travel overseas, Davo the Tasmanian devil keeps a blog about his adventures with me. I also blog about my travels around Australia.

But the event I enjoy most is running the Student Blogging Challenge twice a year, with the help of the staff at Edublogs.

When you meet a new person or join a group, there are three things you will most likely do.

  1. Look at the outside view of the person – do they look like the type of person you would enjoy being with?
  2. Then you would go deeper by asking some basic questions about the person and their interests.
  3. Finally, you would connect through shared interests.

We are going to cover those three things this week by creating an avatar to represent our outside view, create an about me page to show your visitors the type of person you are and your interests then you are going searching for other students your age who also have similar interests.

Most weeks there will be lots of activities to choose from. You don’t have to complete them all.  Remember to read and reply to their comments politely and in a timely fashion.

This challenge, we have many new students and classes taking part so let’s get some admin out of the way before we start our activities for this week. Anything written in bold and blue is a link you can click on to take you to another blog or website.

Admin for week 1

  1. Add the challenge badge to your sidebar.
  2. Once you have done your activity for this week, remember to GO BACK TO MISS W’S POST and leave a comment there. Include a link to your blog post so I can try and visit in the next week. Great posts will be added to our Flipboard magazine on the sidebar.

With so many new students and teachers taking part, you might like to start with this video created by the team at Edublogs. Here is a PDF activity about blogging terms that you might want to use after watching the video.

Time now for the two topics for this week

Looking at avatars

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.

Here is a symbaloo of websites to use for avatar making. Feel free to add this to your blog. Along the bottom are pages where teachers have listed lots of sites as well as shown examples. The easiest to do are on the right-hand side and look like my avatar.

 

To add your avatar to your blog, if using Edublogscheck here.

This was my very first Animoto created back in 2009. Look at the tools page above the header for other slideshow creators.

Did you find a great avatar site not mentioned here? Leave me a comment mentioning the site so I can add it to the Symbaloo.

Activity 2: Write a post about your avatar and how it represents you.

  • Include a link to the website where you created the avatar.
  • Remember to include your avatar as an image in your post.
  • Choose an interesting title, not just avatar as this will cause an error on your blog.

Activity 3: Create a series of avatars to represent your family members. Use different avatar websites depending upon the person’s interests. Write a post about your family and include the avatar for each person.

Remember – be internet safe, no personal information.

Activity 4: For classes – As a class create a slideshow of your user avatars or add them to your header area. Above is an old example using animoto. Or check out how to customize your header – here is a post by Mrs Smith about creating avatars – using shapes

About me page

Activity 5: 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?

If you already have an About Me page, you might want to create an About my State or Province page as well. Be creative:

What is the difference between a page and a post?  Check out the information here.

If using Edublogs, below 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 colors.
  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 top navigation area is Screen options – open the drop-down arrow and make sure comments is ticked.
  7. In the area under the page writing box, you should see a Discussion box – open this and make sure you have ticked Allow comments.
  8. When you have finished, click the big button on the right side of your screen – probably says update or send for review.
  9. Once you have saved your about me page, go back and delete the sample page.
  10. 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.

Activity 6:  What are some apps or websites you could use to create something interesting to add to your About me page? Tell me about them, costs, age to use etc Perhaps a word cloud or glogster – brainstorm as a class.

Finished the work for week 1?

Visiting other blogs

One important aspect of blogging is commenting on other blogs. Classes and student participants are grouped according to similar ages. Visit some other blogs, read posts, get ideas from them, leave a comment. Make sure you include your blog URL (use this: <a href=”YOUR URL”>Check out my blog!</a>) so they can come to visit your blog.  Are there any students with interests the same as you?

HMS Posts From the Week to Check Out!