We continue with our Student Blogging Challenge, with students working on completing their fourth task (week 4 was a recap week and week 5 was not entirely relevant so we took a week off).  I have pasted below the challenge each student is expected to partake in; which is really just a way for them to be more connected to others around the world, as well as build their level of blogging/internet proficiency.  This sixth challenge is based on getting students to see the similarities and differences with other classrooms around the world.  In addition to this activity, each student will be in contact with their “blogging buddy” from a school in Malaysia

Feel free to check out your child’s blog to see how they did their sixth task.

We continue with our Student Blogging Challenge, with students working on completing their third task.  I have pasted below the challenge each student is expected to partake in; which is really just a way for them to be more connected to others around the world, as well as build their level of blogging/internet proficiency.  This third challenge is based on getting students to understand how to appropriately use photos when publishing work, as well as how to create images on their own.

Feel free to check out your child’s blog to see how they did their third task.

We continue with our Student Blogging Challenge, with students working on completing their second task.  I have pasted below the challenge each student is expected to partake in; which is really just a way for them to be more connected to others around the world, as well as build their level of blogging/internet proficiency.  This second challenge is based on getting students to understand how to successfully and appropriately comment on other blogs.

Feel free to check out your child’s blog to see how they did their second task.

One of the real interesting parts of the student blogging challenge was the direction it seemed to provide some of the students as it relates to blogging.  One of those directions was introducing what is a quality blog post.  Hopefully this becomes the benchmark of what a quality blog post is and we can eliminate the 1 word answers to posts…who knows?

We are nearing the end.  Just one more week left after this!  On our journey to complete our student blogging challenge, we have our second to last challenge: celebrations.  Since the holidays are fast approaching for many of us, our focus this week is detailing some of the ways in which we celebrate (as well as the holidays in which we celebrate).

Students have a wide variety of options in which to complete their task this week.  They can write about their family holidays, share a photo that represents their favorite celebration, or make some sort of holiday craft.  Check out your child’s blog post to see which option they chose.

This is a week of learning to use (effectively and appropriately) emojis when blogging.  To see the kids light up when doing this assignment (mainly because they made their own emoji for themselves) was pretty neat.

For this challenge, the students had two responsibilities.  First, because we all love a good math challenge, students had to create their own math puzzle.  They went on this neat website called solvemoji to create their own emoji math problem.  Try to take a stab at their puzzle on their blogs.  Second, they had to choose a different task to complete on their own.  Some of them did the emoji guessing game (don’t ask me what half of these ones are; I struggled) whereas others did their own emoji art.  Either way, be sure to check out their blogs (and don’t be afraid to comment…they really like that).

First, I want to give a shout out to one of our 7th grade bloggers.  Every week on the Student Blogging Challenge (an event that has about 500 students from around the world blogging weekly, with an additional 75 adults checking blogs), there is a shout-out board of blogs that wowed from the previous week.  One of our students made it all the way to the big board for their posts in week 4.  Feel free to check out their blog at the link right here (by the way, this blog was linked onto the main web page and is going viral (well, Edublogs version of viral which means about 10 hits a day).

This week is all about music and our blogs.  What we can do and what we cannot do and how to do it all legally.  There is some really good information for the students as it relates to music (who does not like adding music to their presentation or slides?).  There is a really good list of things we should do and not do, which I have included below.

Getting to this week’s post though, it is all about music.  Feel free to look at the task card copied below to see what our students will be working on.  More importantly though, feel free to look at any of their blogs, leave a comment, and tell your child just how amazing they are!

Our fourth week of the Student Blogging Challenge was a catch-up week for many other schools, but not our students.  We forged ahead and went searching for other people’s blogs.  Many of our students spent the week looking at other blogs from around the world, making comments on blogs of students in countries they have never been to.  It was really neat to see the students realize just how similar many of the kids are that are also blogging, even if they are from Australia or Nigeria or even Canada.  In addition, many of our student added globe or map widgets to their blogs, which documents how many people and from where visit their blog.  It has become a challenge to get the most visitors from around the world to look at your blog.

Do us all a favor and help your child out.  When you are somewhere far away, check into their blog (or have a long lost relative to do it).  Ask them to show you from where people looked at their blog and their face will instantly light up!  Help us continue to make an authentic global audience for our students.

Week 3 of our student blogging challenge!  We are nearly half way there.  Once we are back in school full time, it will be easier to get this done during the week.  Week 3 focuses on the use images on one’s blog and why we need to be careful about where we get photos from.  We have a tendency to type into Google an image request, disregarding any copyrights that may exist.  We want our students to do things the right way and that is what this challenge is focused on.  Educating students on how to get access to photos and to use them appropriately so we are not violating copyright.  Check out the challenge at the link here.

week 1 challenge

We are 1/4 of the way done in our student blogging challenge. Every week, hundreds of students from around the world participate in this weekly challenge, put on by Edublogs.  Below is challenge number 1; where students are introducing themselves to others.  Many of our students participated by creating their own Avatar; as well as writing a little about themselves.  Blog checkers, adults from around the world, check student blogs and comment on the students.  It is really something special to see a visitor to one’s blog; a visitor not from MJDS.

Week 2 is up and posted and we have finished completing our challenge thus far.  Students have started working on improving and implementing their skills of commenting on other blogs.  We are reaching out to people outside of our community; hoping to expand our audience.

week 2 challenge