Week 6/7/8 Prompt!

This week (Nov. 26th) you can create a post on whichever topic interests you from SBC Week 6, 7, or 8. Week 7 was free choice – so the sky really is the limit (or is it really?)! I can’t wait to read what you create!

SBC Week 2

WEEK 2: Comments & Connections

Written expression is just one way that we can share our thoughts, feelings, and creativity with others. The Student Blogging Challenge allows us to share our work not only with our class but with our peers around the world!
Week 2 of the SBC encourages us to make connections with the other participants of the challenge by using the comment section.

Task 1: Quality Comment Expectations Video or Poster

This week our first task we will:

  1. create a video or poster to add to our blogs about how visitors should leave quality comments on your blog
  2. turn in your video or poster to #013
  3. (once approved) add your video or poster as both a post & page about how you’d like visitors to leave quality comments on your blog
  4. Optional: Submit your task using this Week 2 Google Form.

Be sure to give credit to the Student Blogging Challenge and Mrs. Yollis’ class for where we learned how to write quality comments.

Task 2: Leaving Quality Comments

Visit and leave quality comments on at least 4 blogs this week from SBC Challenge!

Looking for a blog to comment on? Use these links to help:

  1. Check out the SBC 2018 Student Participant list to find students with similar interests.
  2. Check out the Week 1 Tasks Google Sheet. All these students have started the challenge.
  3. Check out the SBC 2018 Class Blog List. These are classes who are participating in the challenge. Some students will have their own blogs, some won’t.
  4. Mrs. Yollis has visited and commented on our class blog, maybe visit the blog of her third graders.
  5. The classes of Mrs. Calhoun and Ms. Warnick have also visited our class blog. Check out their class and student blogs.

Task 3: Sharing Interesting Blogs

In the comment section of this post, give a SHOUT OUT to one or two students whose blogs you visited and left comments on. Sharing these blogs will encourage your classmates to build connections with these students/classes as well.

Your comment on THIS POST should:

  • follow quality comment guidelines
  • include a shout out to the specific student’s blog you visited
  • include one reason why your classmates should visit this blog
  • The URL to the blog, post, or page you commented on

OPTIONAL TASK

Check out the rest of the SBC Week 2 post for other cool ideas for tasks to complete this week.

Celebrating Week 7 of SBC!

Week 7 of the SBC focused on Visting and Commenting on the blogs of others. Students received sage advice to write from the heart and to comment to get comments. But where did this advice lead the students this week? What types of posts did they create?

One student wrote about the power of comments, while another student wrote about the reality of writing comments.

Some students found inspiration in the posts of others, particularly from the photo week challenge from a few weeks ago. Check out these photo-centric posts on water and cacti.

Other students chose to write about topics they were interested in, finding that writing about topics they are passionate about is more enjoyable for them as a blogger and for their readers. Check out some of their posts:

From: Pixabay

Celebrating 6 Weeks of SBC!

Our class of 6th grade Language Arts students started the Spring Student Blogging Challenge (SBC) six weeks ago. Throughout the challenge, some blog posts written by students around the world have been featured in the SBC Flipboard magazine. As of today, our class has had 17 blog posts from 12 different student bloggers featured in the magazine – check them out but clicking on the link below! While there, check out some other blog posts and leave comments.

View the Student Blogging Challenge Flipboard Magazine.

Adding Links to Other Blogs!

This is directly from the Week 3 Challenge Post by Miss M:

Here are the instructions for adding links to your sidebars.

Have at least five other student and/or class 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 link categories like

  • Global Students
  • Global Classes
  • My Overseas Friends
  • Other Class Blogs
  • Blog Buddies
  • Blogs of the World
  • SBC Friends
  • SBC Student Blogs

Having lots of links to student blogs from other countries will help spread the game.

Edublogs – Learn more about blogroll using this link.

Celebrating Week 3 of the Challenge!

Each day, we, as humans, are bombarded by media. Week 3 of the Student Blogging Challenge encouraged us to slow down and think about the creators of the media that fills our lives. Our class discussed Creative Commons, the importance of attributing our sources of media (and how to write those attributions), and reviewed a selection of Creative Commons image websites.

Our posts this week are as varied as the media we explored. Despite their variety, they had one common thread – include an image, video, or music in the post and properly attribute the source!

Where did our creativity take us?

Lily stopped to share about the Little Things in Life She Notices. 

Ava Rose started a Zoom post story – add your comment to continue to story she started with a picture!

Do you know how to turn a picture into a puzzle? Check out Allison’s post to learn how!

Ben reviewed some Creative Commons websites, do you agree or disagree with his assessments?

Jude and Quin wrote sentences using only pictures, add a comment if you think you know the meaning!

Learn more about our class. Who likes basketball? Who has the perfect ideas for a holiday from school? Which student loves to listen to music?

Ready for Week 3?

Which activity will YOU CHOOSE for the third week of the blogging challenge? Pick ONE!

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.

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

Activity 2Take a photo or 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. 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. 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. 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: 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. Anisha created a jigsaw from her avatar.

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

Student Blogging Challenge

For the first time, our Language Arts class will be participating in the Student Blogging Challenge through EduBlogs! Why the challenge? The goal of the challenge is to connect student bloggers with a GLOBAL AUDIENCE! This challenge has run twice each year since its start in 2008. The last challenge in October connected 2,452 students in 74 countries! Our LA class will be participating in the next exchange that starts March 4th and will last for 10 weeks.

Learn more about the challenge on the Student Challenge Blog.

Students will sign up for the challenge by clicking on the Student Blogging Badge in the side menu!

Globe

Photo Credit: tsbl2000 Flickr via Compfight cc