Here is an easy way to connect with students in other countries of the world.
Join the student blogging challenge .
Just read the information on this post, then fill in the student section of the form, scroll down to the end of the form and hit the submit button. Keep checking the pages on that same blog to find out what the challenges are, who the participants are, and what the participants have been posting. Maybe adding a link to that blog on your sidebar blogroll would make it easy for you to join in.
This is a safe and easy way to be assessed for items 5, 8, 13, 15, 16 and 18 on the grade 6 checklist. Or if you are in grade 7, get marked off on the grade 10 checklist with items 5, 7, 13, 15 and 16.
Attribution: Original image: ‘Ioni’s world DSC01433‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99037763@N00/346630496
by: Dimitris Papazimouris
Some students are doing a great job in organizing their blog. They have added widgets like:
clustrmaps – to show where their visitors are coming from
Mixpods – to allow their readers to listen to music while reading their blog posts – looking at the terms of service, you should be 18 or have parental permission to sign up for a mixpod – check with mum and dad and if they say “NO” then take your mixpod off. Next term I will be checking with parents.
pets – so their readers can feed the animals while reading
Remember, if you want help with your blog, Miss Wyatt is in the grade 6/7 computer lab during lunchtime on Fridays, or ask her when you see her at other times at school.
Congratulations to those students in 6/7D who over the last two weeks have learnt how to insert images into their posts correctly. They used this link to read the instructions and when stumped they asked other students who had already added images.
If you have saved an image on your computer then it is best to use the ‘Browser uploader”. If you want to use an image from the web, you will need to go to one of the websites below as these have creative commons images. Remember, Miss Wyatt is in the 6/7 computer lab during lunchtime on Friday if you want some help with your blogging.
You can now get into our school intranet at home. You will need to log in first by using schools\then your username and password that you normally use when logging in at school. The only people who should know your password are yourself and perhaps a parent or teacher.
Then head to classes>specialist classes> computer IT to find the links section on the right. Here you can get to activities set by Mrs Barnes that will help you achieve your grade 6 or 10 checklist.
We will be using some of these over the next few weeks in IT class time.
I logged on this week and couldn’t work out how to add a post? I wanted to add a clustrmap and it came out wrong. Now I see the grade 8 students have added a wordle. How do I do that on mine?
Well here is your answer.
You will need to check out the Edublogs help pages. Sue Waters from Western Australia is writing a new manual to use with the upgraded Edublogs blogs. There are pages about how to put in an image on a post or page; how to input HTML code from Vokis and polls etc. If you find the information helpful on Sue Waters’ posts make sure you mention that in your blog with a link back to her post. This is just good manners or blogging etiquette.
Remember your best way to learn is to ask questions, read information then have-a-go yourself. Even better, if you know how to do something, write a post about it so other students can also learn. In this digital age you need to be able to
If you look on the right sidebar, you will see a map of the world with lots of red dots on it. This is called a Clustrmap and shows us where people live who are coming to our blog to read our posts. So far we have people from USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, England and Portugal. I wonder if any of these people have also been to your blog?
Do you want to add one of these to your sidebar in a text box?
Well follow the instructions at Sue Waters very helpful blog called “The Edublogger.” If you get stuck, there are some students in my class who have added one to their blog or come to the grade 6/7 computer lab on the days Miss Wyatt is running lunchtime blogging sessions and she will help you.
Every year, a new map is started, but your old map will be archived. Here is the archive map for Miss Wyatt’s class blog from last year. Notice they had over 19,000 visitors. How can you get more people to visit your blog?
One way to start is to have a blogroll on your sidebar with the links to your favourite blogs. Include more than just the people in our grade 6/7 classes. If you have had visitors from other schools leave comments on your blog, add a link to their blog on your blogroll.
After you have played these games, you should be able to tell your teacher what it is. Play two of these games at least twice each and write a post in your blog about what happened in the game. Completing this activity helps with the checklists for Inquiring 4 and 6
I often see students writing a post asking their readers to state their preference for a favourite food or favourite football team. This can look very messy especially when your readers leave a comment giving their answer. Wouldn’t it be easier if they just clicked an answer then a program somewhere out there in cyberspace did all the collating of answers? Well, here is how you can do that.
Sue Waters from Western Australia posts the blog called The Edublogger. She always has posts about lots of questions students might have and here is her post about using PollDaddy. She also tells you how to put the poll into your blog post so make sure you read the whole post.
Create your own poll by logging in at Polldaddy. Remember to try and keep same name and password that you use for other sites on the web where you have to log in. Once you have created your poll, add it to your blog and wait for the results to come in. Once you have your poll published, come back here and answer the question on my poll.
Oops, I forgot to mention, you must be at least 13 years old to use this website.
Completing this activity helps with checklists Creating 2 and 4
One of our responsibilities as a teacher, is to make sure you are safe while using the internet, both at school and at home, by teaching you certain skills and knowledge. But you also have a responsibility. That is to be internet savvy and protect your online identity. This is part of your checklist number 15.
Most schools do not allow students to have pictures of themselves on their blogs and websites. If they do, parental permission has to have been granted from all students in the picture. Instead, most teachers create an avatar with their students.
Avatars can come from a website on the internet or you can use an image editor or paint program to change a photo you have that represents you.
1. Create an appropriate avatar to represent yourself. Save the picture as either a .gif or .jpeg or .png . I noticed many of the challenge participants last year don’t have a blog avatar, but do have a user avatar.
If using Edublogs, when you log-in to your blog dashboard, there is a link under the section “Getting started with Edublogs” that allows you to upload your blog avatar and user avatar in one easy step. If you are a user like author or editor under your class blog, you should be able to upload to user avatar but not blog avatar.
When trying to upload your avatar, you need to browse first and find your avatar that you have saved on your H Drive or USB flash drive. Then you need to use the alternative upload button.
Once you have uploaded a user avatar this will appear wherever you make a comment. Make sure you have your blog URL correctly written in your settings and profile. So from now on, people will be able to click on your avatar and go straight to your blog. But if your URL is wrong, you will miss out on some interesting visitors.
2. Now create a post to explain why this avatar represents you. If you are using a class blog, work with your teacher to create a post or page about your avatars. If you have saved the avatars on a drive at school, then your teacher could upload each of them as images with an explanation under each avatar. Make sure your teacher also creates an avatar.
3. If you created a Voki, then it can’t be added like an avatar. Check out this site if you want to add it to your sidebar and check out here if you want to add a Voki to a post or page. In both these posts, the most important thing is have everything ready in the post or page, including tags and categories before you insert the code under HTML and finally hit publish.
You have just created your blog. You have completed the instructions in the post dated May 7, 2009. But you still have some questions you want answered.
How do I put my avatar on my blog?
What is a widget and how do I add them?
How can I add a clustrmap?
How do I add names on my blogroll?
What are categories and tags?
Well if you have any questions like these, Miss Wyatt and other staff members will try to answer them but you need to write them as a comment in the PAGE up in the header called “Blogging???”
Remember, creating a blog is all about showing the world what you can do. This is called creating a digital footprint and you can add to your blog from any subject at school as well as interesting things you do out of school.
Are there any rules you think we should have when blogging in the middle school?
Here is an easy way to connect with students in other countries of the world. 
Every year, a new map is started, but your old map will be archived. Here is the archive map for Miss Wyatt’s class blog from last year. Notice they had over 19,000 visitors. How can you get more people to visit your blog?
What is a simulation? 
