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

• The grade 6 explorers used images in their writing about International Day of the Girl Child.
• The Huzzahnians from Canada have just joined the challenge.
• The Venusers from Egypt are just learning to blog and have started introducing themselves
• The students in Mrs Beard’s class are considering life after high school
• Here are some up and coming journalists writing about events in their life
• Check out student posts by Mrs Koudelka’s class – bottom of sidebar for list of students
• The cougars are catching up on challenge activities
• The bobcat bloggers are having a blog of the month
• The Bader bunch have been doing lots of interesting activities and writing

Work using images

Some great stories to finish are found here: Fiona, Roman, Anusha, Christian, Leon, Idyl, Tristan, Quincy, Nate, Caleb, Layla, Isabella, Emma, Kait, Stefan, Phakamon,

Some jigsaw puzzles to try are found here: Mai Thao, Vince, Van Anh, Brandon, Isma3el, Jori, Anusha,

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.