This week’s challenge is a test about your blogging skills. (Yes I will be grading this!!!)

Essentials of a great post:

1. catchy title
2. includes at least two visuals whether photo, cartoon, video or another web 2.0 tool like padlet, glogster, wordle etc
3. interesting topic with the passion of the author coming through, shows well researched topic
4. well written and not copy/pasted from somewhere else
5. shows it has been proofread and spell checked
6. written in paragraphs – at least three of them
7. includes links to other websites on similar topics – at least two of these
8. attribution for any images, video, music or clip art used – including those used in slideshows etc

Here are some examples of posts from a previous challenge:

• Mark wrote about what family means
• Nathan wrote about global issues in general
• Kaitlyn wrote about education around the world
• Pranav wrote about travelling overseas
• Jannat wrote about my future
• Jennifer wrote about plastic pollution

So what will the topic be for you to blog about?

ANIMALS     ANIMALS     ANIMALS     ANIMALS

Possible writing ideas:

Your favorite animal

Problems like poaching, cruelty, extinction

Anything to do with animals

Make sure you check hints 2, 7 and 8 in the essentials of a great post (at the beginning of this post)

Many of you have already written posts about animals. Please do not just re-post your old work. You need to write a new, original post this week.

This week’s student blogging challenge will focus on play. Earlier this year we participated in Global School Play Day and we are going to look at play again.

Challenges (Choose One):

1. Research board games – when, where and why were they invented?

2. Create a new game for someone to de-stress from their lifestyle.

4. Research ball games around the world – find out the rules and then try playing something similar at school or home. How did it go? (Do not choose American games like baseball!)

6. The electricity grid went out in your country. That means no electricity, no TV, no video games. What would change in your lifestyle? How would you relax?

7. Survey class members about games they have at home. Are you going to include computer games? Create some interesting graphs about results.

Remember, when you are doing research you need to give credit to where you found your information. Cite the resources you use!

Great job on last week’s Student Blogging Challenge. This week will be a longer task. Due to Spring Break you will have two and a half weeks to work on your post. The post will be due April 15th.

The topic this week is Favorites.

Post Requirements:

1. At least three paragraphs
2. An image, video, or music with correct attribution
3. A title that grabs the attention of the readers
4. At least one link to another website so readers can build on the information you have written
5. A question for readers to answer

OK, so what is the post supposed to be about? Pick something that is your favorite (food, book, movie, author, sport, hobby, etc.) and tell the world about it. You need to make sure your post focuses on only one thing, not multiple favorites. Please plan and organize your writing, especially since this is a multi-paragraph writing assignment.

Bonus:

This week’s challenge allows for a great deal of creativity. Please check out the Student Blogging Challenge sidebar titled “Web tools to use.” These are great creation tools and I would love to see you try creating some sort of media to add to your favorites post. Explore, experiment, have fun!

We are continuing our Student Blogging Challenge. This week will be focusing on expanding our views to become global citizens.

Photo Credit: geralt via pixabay

Please complete at least one of the following activities:

Activity 3:

Visit at least 5 blogs from countries other than your own. Leave a comment on a post at each blog. Now write your own post including the comment you have left and linking to each post you commented on.

Activity 4:

If you could create an international event, what would it be called? What would we be celebrating? Create some of the advertising material you might use – eg logo, banner, image, flyer

Activity 5:

Think of a special celebration in one country of the world. Find three images of the event. Under each image, give a clue as to the event.

On the final line, write a bit more about the event for your visitors to read. Include a link to another website giving more information on the event. Remember to include attribution for each image and perhaps a question for your readers to answer.

Activity 8:

What are some games or apps you use that relate to global studies or geography of the world? Include a link to the website or app.

Activity 9:

What could you, your class, your school, your town do to help with the climate change problem for more than the one hour on Saturday 28 March 2015?

We have been having a great time with the student blogging challenge. We created avatars and learned about quality commenting. This week is going to be about creating posts that contain media (photos, audio, video).

The most important thing that we need to learn about this week is creative commons and copyright. Below are some resources to teach us about these important ideas:

Picture sources:

| Unsplash | Morguefile | Open ClipArt | Pics4Learning | Compfight | Multicolr Search Lab | Wikimedia Commons | Getty Open Content Images | Getty Images | Pixabay |

Music and sound effects sources:

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

Read Sue Waters’ post for instructions on how to add images and attribution to a post.

 Activity 3: 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.

Examples: Fernando and Samantha

Activity 4: 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.

Activity 5: Write a sentence using just images – no words. You still need to include attribution for each image you have used.

Activity 8: Find an image (make sure it is creative commons or public domain) and add it to your post (with attribution). Using a digital camera or your iPad, take an original photo related to the first image and add it to your post. Give yourself credit for the original photograph. Write about how your original photo was inspired by the image you found on the internet.

This week of the student blogging challenge is all about learning to write quality comments. We want to be able to read other people’s work and add positive constructive feedback. We also want to be able to keep a conversation going through quality posts and comments.

Commenting Tips:

Check out Mrs. Yollis and her students’ blog for tips on how to compose a quality comment.

Please refer to our Blogging Guidelines page for other helpful tips on commenting.

Which of the following comments would you prefer to find on your blog?

wassup

this is a great blog. i like Katy Perry too. plz visit my blog at ……………..

G’day John, I enjoyed reading your post about Talk like a Pirate Day. We also did that in our class. We dressed as pirates, spoke using pirate terms, but also found out there are still pirates roaming the seas even in modern times. Do you know how they are different to the old time pirates? Visit our class blog to read what we found out. …………….  Miss Wyatt

Activity 1: Write a post, create a video, or create a poster about commenting.

Activity 4: Write a post about the overseas blogs that you have commented on.

Last week you were encouraged to visit class and student blogs and read about topics that interested you. You were also asked to leave comments on their blogs to start or contribute to a conversation. Which blogs did you visit? What countries? What topics?

Activity 9: Questions in a post.

Write a post asking questions about one country mentioned in activity 4. Have at least 6 questions in your post. If your questions are interesting you might get lots of comments.