SBC Week 7: Footprints

This week we are talking about our digital footprint.

Being connected with all this technology means everyone is leaving a digital footprint.

You need to complete at least one of the green activities. 

Activity 1. Watch the following 2 videos then leave a comment on Miss W’s post about something that you found very interesting in one of the videos. Write a post explaining the differences between the videos. Which did you prefer and why? These show how easily a footprint can be created. It is not only you but your relatives, friends, newspapers etc also add to your footprint.

 

 

Activity 2. After watching the two videos, write a post about your digital footprint. Is it positive or negative? Would you be proud to have your grandparents or your future grandchildren look at everything you have included in your digital footprint? Why or why not? Maybe Google your name to see what is online about you, that you might not have put there. Remember to Google your nickname used in online games etc as information might be included there.

Activity 3. Imagine you are debating this topic: It is better to have a negative digital footprint than no footprint at all. Write a post, giving three reasons with supporting details, to support each side of the debate. You may also create a comic strip showing each side as the one below does.

Security

Activity 4.  Watch the video below to see how easy it is to find out information about you. Jenny Luca, director of ICT and eLearning at a college in Australia used this with her grade 7-12 students. Read her post to find out their reactions. Jenny then directed Miss W to another tweet from Doug Peterson in Canada linking to this post from lifehacker. Then, write a post that addresses the following questions:

With so many students now involved in social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter, how much information are they leaving by not checking their privacy settings but leaving things on default? Why is it important to check out the settings whenever you buy a new device? Default settings often allow the manufacturer to gain information about you without you realizing it.

 

Activity 5.  During 2017, Miss W is going to be adding to our list of web tools to use in the challenge. She will be sorting them according to how old you have to be to use them, whether they are free or you have to sign up, whether there is an education version or not and whether that is free or paid and finally what is the tool/app used for.

She would like your help to get the list organized. Write a post about 5 of your favourite web tools or apps. In your post mention how old you need to be to use it, whether you had to sign up to use it and what type of tool or app it is eg mindmapping, poll/survey, slideshow. Also, tell why you enjoy using the tool or app.

Activity 6. Here are some websites to visit related to cybersafety and digital footprints. Visit some of them and write a post that may include a poster, Glogster, or cartoon about what you found out.

Activity 7. There are 9 elements to being a good digital citizen. Read the linked post then write your own post about what you consider are the most important parts of the nine elements. Are there certain areas you need to improve on? Why?


Here are some links to  sites relating to digital footprints and internet safety:

Still time left?

Check your widgets. Do you have one called Class blogs? If yes, then add it to your sidebar. Use the drop down arrow and make sure the number is 30 or so to cover all the students in your class.

Visit other student and class blogs, read our new flip magazines, add links to your blogroll of blogs you visit often. Try to categorize these eg class blogs, overseas students, my friends etc.

Before playing the games next week, make sure your blog is ready for visitors.

  1. You have lots of interesting posts for visitors to read and comment on.
  2. Visitors can find posts by using tags or categories on your sidebar.
  3. You have a visitor widget to see where your visitors are coming from.
  4. You have at least five student blogs from other places around the world on your sidebar.

 

SBC Week 6: What to Write About

Week 6: What To Write About??

Cabra hispanica Montserrat

Pedro Luna Guillen via Compfight

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 blogs linked on the sidebar of your blog, in a page near your header area or in a recent post that your visitors can find easily. Make sure these are blogs from other students around the world, not just those in your class or school. Perhaps have a blogroll or link category called Global students or Global classes. Here is how to add a blogroll if using Edublogs.

Have some visitor widgets on your blog sidebar – maybe a revolver map or a flag counter – this way you can see where your visitors are coming from. 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

Have some interesting posts for your visitors to read when they get to your blog.  I am not going to give any clues as to what to put in your posts but remember the following, especially if you want a post flipped to our magazine.

Having read many of your 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, please go back to the blogging challenge and leave a comment on Miss W’s post. Mention what topic you wrote about and leave a link to your post. 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.

Still more time left this week?

  • Read some of the posts in the Flipboard magazine
  • 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.

SBC Week 5: Culture and Family

Week 5: Culture and family

How are you going getting comments from people other than your classmates?

Have you received comments from overseas visitors?

Has anyone in your family left a comment? Remember you might need to teach them how to leave a comment.

Be sure to do at least four activities this week: the three red activities and at least one green activity.

Activity 1: Write a post about your family – include their interests, where you might have been together as a family. Remember to include grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles.

Activity 2: Encourage family members to leave comments on your posts over the next few weeks. Check out Mrs. Yollis and her class who celebrate family blogging month in November.

Activity 3: How can you increase the number of comments on your blog? Write a post about ways to get more comments on your blog. Be creative and think outside the square – can you find at least ten ways to get more visitors and comments?

Activity 4: Have a family member write a post for you to add to your blog – They could write it and email or post it to you. Does this post attract more visitors or family members leaving comments? One family member regularly blogs on Mrs. Yollis’ blog – Where is nonno?

Activity 5: Interview a family member and write a post about them – include the interview recording. You could use audioboom online or from your phone then upload the file to your blog. Make sure you ask permission first before putting it on your blog.

Activity 6: As a family, are there any cultural activities you do together?  Write a post about these activities. This might relate to food, celebrations, festivals. Your post should be about at least one of them and explain what you do and what you like.

Activity 7: Add a widget to find out where your commenters are coming from.

There are many different widgets you can use – clustrmaps, flag counter, feedjit, or revolver map.  Have you seen any others while visiting blogs of other students? Maybe you could write a post about why you chose the commenter widget you have put on your blog.

Activity 8: Add one or more widgets about your area of the world

This might include a clock or weather or a translator widget in case students who don’t speak your language can translate your post.

When adding widgets to your sidebar, copy and paste the embed code into a text box on your sidebar. Save then close.  If the widget is too wide, you will have to adjust the number next to ‘width’ in the embed code.  This might appear more than once in the code.

Activity 9: Visit other participants and ask questions

Visit at least five other blogs from students or classes around the world and ask some questions in your comments. How many countries are represented in the challenge participants? Have you been to a blog from each of these countries?  Write a post with the comments you left and a link to the posts you commented on.

Image: ‘Connecting Communities‘

Don’t forget to leave Miss W a comment
with a link to your recent post!

Still got time left?

Check out these posts from previous weeks

Global issues: Emily, Lauren, Angel, Claudia, Isabella, Logan, Mohamed, Iqra,

Series of posts on one topic: Shahreen on HIV/Aids,

Odds and ends: Molly using scratch, Thunyama , Chloe and Ella want you to finish the story, Chloe on idioms,

UPDATE   UPDATE

As next week is Easter here in Australia, there will be no post on the 16th April. The next post will be Sunday 23rd April.

Maybe you could use this time to visit other blogs, have a go at some activities you haven’t finished or just write some interesting posts.

Have you been checking out the class blogs as well? Many of these have student blogs attached on the sidebar.

SBC Week 4: Global Issues

Week 4: Let’s look globally

Earth Hour 2010

Creative Commons License Alice Popkorn via Compfight

What do you think are some of the worst global issues at the moment?

There might be some that are more specific to your area of the world. But this week research one of the following topics:

  • hunger
  • water
  • racism
  • use of resources
  • global warming
  • specific aspects of the environment
  • unemployment
  • war and unrest
  • use of land
  • terrorism
  • HIV/Aids
  • child labour
  • women’s rights
  • education and literacy
  • another global issue of your choice

Activity 1: For this challenge, we are looking at research skills, attribution, links, and creativity in how you have presented the work.

For the topic you have chosen you might want to create two or three shorter posts rather than one very long one.

In your posts, include links to where you researched and some images with attribution. You might also want to include a poll or survey, a collage of images, a slideshow you have created. You may have found a great video you could also include.

Here are some links to where you might get some ideas –  Global Concerns Impact, educating for global citizenship, ACEE – student voices,

Activity 2: Global issues in your classroom

Have you or your class taken part in some work associated with a global issue? Create a post about what you were involved in. Check out what some classes did a few years ago relating to Uganda. Here is a wonderful newish website about projects students and classes can join in.

Activity 3: Visit other blogs

Visit at least six other blogs not from your country. Ask questions about some of the issues they might have in their country. Create a post with your comments and links to the posts your commented on.  Make some comparisons between the countries taking part in the challenge. Here are some classes from Turkey who are working on global issues – 5B Plewes, 5C Plewes, 5A Ecosite, and 5B Ecosite.

Activity 4: Be creative

Use a web 2.0 tool to be creative about global issues. This might be a poll or survey, a quiz, write a poem, create a poster, draw a picture, write a story or cartoon about a superhero saving the world – just be creative.

Activity 5: Do something

Do something about a global issue. Here are links to games and activities for kids about global issues. What did you choose to look at? Write a review in your post (don’t forget to include a link to the website!).

Still have more time to spare?

Visit students and classes from the other countries involved in the challenge. Leave a comment or question relating to a global issue that might be affecting them.

Leave a comment on this blog telling Miss W. the global issue you think is most important to be solved. It might not be one of those mentioned in the post. Give reasons why it should be the first issue solved.

Great posts from images week

Zoom out – Claudia, Angela,

Jigsaw puzzles – Emily, Natacha, Thunyama, Ella, Summer, Thanumi, Anisha, Maddison,

Poems from image – Summer,

Finish the story – Allegra, FluffyWhiskers, Lauren, Sophie, Shahreen,

Slideshow – Anisha (includes punctuation),

Idioms from images – Madison,

Fluffy Whiskers completed at least 7 of the image activities – check it out

Devi sets out a challenge for a meme you have created.

Devi has created a fantastic explanation of how to comment on her blog.