Month: March 2018

Student Blogging Challenge Week 3: Images, Videos And Music

March 18, 2018 created by  and edited by Ms. Kojima

 

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

Miss W has been visiting many blogs over the last few weeks. Some students new to blogging have been writing some great posts while others who have been blogging for a bit longer have started adding videos and images to their posts.

Yes, this week we deal with using images, videos, 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, public domain 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 boot camp with lots of interesting posts. Check these out!

Other places to find information on creative commons

Images

Video

Check out Sue Water’s post from the student blogging boot camp where she shows how to create and upload your own videos as well as where to find videos and how to embed on your blog posts.

Music and sound effects

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

 

Now for the activities for this week:
Do one activity for each color (2/3, 4/5, 6/7/9/10).

Activity 1. Do some more research on the topic of attribution and licenses and perhaps create your own class video about using images, music, and videos in class.

View the first video on Miss W’s page about the reaction of students in Mrs. Yollis’ class when she mislabelled their artwork. How would you have felt?

Activity 2. Take a photo or find an image or piece of music. Add it to a new 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, and Samantha‘s example is confused

Activity 3. Similar to activity 2. Take a photo or find an interesting landscape image (include attribution) or create the beginning of a video.  Write the beginning of a story relating to your image or video (at least two paragraphs). 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 new post. In your post, add a link to the website or tool you used to create your image and describe your image.

Other options for creating your own images include:

  1. MakeBeliefsComix.com
  2. ToonDoo
  3. Befunky
  4. Big HugeLabs
  5. PhotoFunia
  6. 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: Becky, Jacqueline, Abbey

Activity 8.  Go back to previous posts (classwork)

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’spuzzle link. Maggie created a tough jigsaw. Anisha created a jigsaw from her avatar.

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

 

Still got time left this week:

  1. Check out some good avatar posts I found in the list and I mention below
  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.

Student posts: Rajyashoril, Hailee, Yasha17, Kofi, Nicholas, Claire Louise, Jude, Jordan,

Some class posts: Mrs. Scales, Windy Woods Farm homeschool, Mrs. Vazquez,

 

Flipboard magazine – are you in there yet?

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.

Most important learning from this week’s challenge is:

Use creative commons images or public domain, 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 post.

Student Blogging Challenge Week 2: Comments

March 11, 2018  and edited by Ms. Kojima

Admin for week 2:

When visiting many blogs last week, Miss W noticed your pages in Edublogs often didn’t allow for comments to be written. You might need to do the following:

  1. Go to your about me page and open it in your dashboard.
  2. In the top right corner, click on screen options and make sure Discussions and/or comments are ticked. Close screen options.
  3. Now below the writing area for your page, you should see a drop-down labeled Discussions.
  4. Make sure you have ticked the boxes about leaving comments.
  5. If your About Me page isn’t visible as a link on your blog, you will need to add the widget called Pages to your sidebar.

 

About week 2: Commenting skills

This is another important week in the challenge. Blogging is all about having your voice heard and connecting with others who might like to read and comment on what you have written. But, as in many things we humans do, there are some protocols bloggers in schools like to follow.

Check out these videos about leaving quality comments. The first video was created for one of the very first blogging challenges back in 2009 by Mrs. Yollis’ grade 3 students and it has been seen by thousands of students who have taken part in the blogging challenges since then. This video is suitable for all ages but specifically primary/elementary school or lower. But those in middle/high school or older might like to check out the second video which is more suited to an older age group. Click here to view the two videos.

 

Complete the activities in Red.

Activity 1: Create a ‘How to comment’ page on your blog with Commenting Guidelines.

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. Here is an example on my family history blog. Mrs. Yollis created a video showing how to comment on her blogspot blog. You might prefer to add the instructions in a text widget on your sidebar instead of a page.

Remember, though, if you change themes you might also need to change these instructions. *If you made a page like this in the past, you don’t need to make a new one, but you should ask to have it turned into a draft to update it to 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 trash?

Here are some examples:

Huzzah commenting guidelines,  a Glogster poster about commenting, WarriorKat used a variety of tools for her guidelines, notice how Sophie included a link back to Mrs. Yollis’ blog where she got her information from, Hunter created a PowToon,  Alane has some commenting guidelines,  Sophie included extra info about commenting, Alicia has written in a great format for easy reading, Kate has used two web tools to create her commenting post, Pinky created a commenting recipe, Summer was very creative, Fiona explained her tips in detail.

Activity 3: Leave a comment with HTML on Miss W’s post

Each week the best posts published in the Student Blogging Challenge are featured in our Flipboard magazine.

So your activity is to practice 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/2018/01/19/looking-back/

If leaving a comment on an Edublogs blog, here is a post explaining the HTML to use.  If you want to leave a link to your blog that looks neat and tidy, check out this post.

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. Here are some examples from other students: Allegra, Izzy, Callie, Sally but try to include a link to the actual post you left a comment on.

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.

Got more time to fill this week?

Miss W has started adding posts to our Flipboard magazine for #stubc – check in the sidebar.

Check out other student and class blogs located in the participant tabs in the header area on Miss W’s page.

Check out the page above Miss W’s header called Post Ideas. Lots of topics and special days to write about on your blog.

SBC Week 1: Let’s Introduce Ourselves

 (Leave a comment) and edited by Ms. Kojima


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

But the event she enjoys 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 our 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.

The two topics for this week: Looking at avatars and creating your About Me page.  Do all of the activities in RED.

Activity 1: Create an avatar to use on your blog.  There are many different avatar creation sites on the web. Miss W has been to many of them and created lots of different avatars. Some you just save and download to your computer to then upload to 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 collection of websites to use for avatar making.

Activity 3: 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. If writing a post about your avatar, choose an interesting title, not just Avatar as this will cause an error on your blog.

Activity 4: Create a series of avatars to represent your family members. Use different avatar websites depending on the person’s interests. Write a post about your family and include the avatar for each person and explain how it represents that person.

Remember – be internet safe, no personal information.

Activity 5: Write or update your About Me page. Whenever Miss W visits a blog for the first time, she always checks to see who the person is that is writing the blog posts. She ponders,”Do they have similar interests to me?” You should practice this, too!

If you already have an About Me page, you might want to create an About my State (see Naho’s)or City page as well. Be creative:

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

If using Edublogs, here are instructions for creating your page.

  1. Login to your blog, go to Settings> Discussion and make sure the default settings are ticked to 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 writing 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.

Once you have done your activity for this week, remember to go back to Miss W’s post and fill in the Google form at the bottom of the post.  OR you can leave a comment on Miss W’ post. Include a link to your blog post so she can try to visit in the next week. Great posts will be added to SBC’s Flipboard magazine. 

Finished the work for week 1? Visit 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 so they can come to visit your blog.  Are there any students with interests the same as you?

Comment example:
Aloha Miss W,

My name is hmsela and I really appreciate the effort you put into setting up and running the Student Blogging Challenge twice a year.  It’s always so fun to meet other students and I learn a lot!  <a href=”BLOG URL”>Visit my blog</a> to see what I’ve learned so far!

Mahalo,
hmsela