G’day students at Kids in the Mid. Thanks very much for promoting my blog while I am travelling around Canada/USA with Miss W.

We have already visited some classes. Check out the posts they wrote about us with Ms Thordarson, Mrs Hembree and Mrs Smith .

Since we visited all those classes, they have been asking lots of questions especially about Australia here on my blog. I was wondering, if any of you had time, if you could research the questions and leave some answers for the students.

If you have any questions about Canada or USA then add your questions on those pages.

Also one student from Mrs Hembree’s school has only just started his blog – perhaps you could visit him especially if you like star wars.

Breaking News Breaking News Breaking News

Miss W bought another little Tasmanian Devil that she is going to give away to the student at her school who participates the most in leaving comments, asking questions and answering questions on my blog. In the lead so far is Chloe aka Clem.

Your first seven activities included:

• creating an email signature
• learning how to create folders and documents on your school computer hard drive
• looking at student about pages and creating yours on Word
• attaching your Word document to an email asking for a blog to be created for you to use and sending it to your ICT teacher
• looking at class about pages and recommending in a comment what we should include on our ‘Kids in the Mid’ about page or for Mr Devil’s about page

Your next six activities included:

• learning to log into your blog
• changing settings such as password, appearance and widgets
• editing your about page
• writing a post
• leaving a comment

Now someone else is going to help you this week to create an avatar.

Once you are starting to create online, you often need to have a special identity. This is usually in the form of an avatar. You created them for World Maths Day, you have them in Facebook and, of course, you have them when leaving comments on blogs. So, this week’s activities relate to avatars and online identities including creating a positive digital footprint.

Activity 1 – make an avatar

Step 1. Create an avatar for your blog and for you to use when leaving comments.

Avatars are a representation of yourself. Check out this post about avatars.  Create your avatar using one of the websites below. Sue Waters from ‘The Edublogger‘ has written a great post about avatars, including giving instructions on how to save them and then upload to an ‘Edublogs’ blog. Many of the sites mentioned below are included in her post.

Most important is remember to save as a jpeg file if using Edublogs.

Any age can use these avatar sites:

• Build your wild self – middle left
• DoppelMe
• Mini-mizer – middle right
• The Hero Factory – far left
• Adventurer Maker – girls only
• Wimp yourself - relates to ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’
• Mess Dudes
• Hogwarts student – girls only
• Mii character
• Harry Potter and others saves as GIF
• Caracature
• Block head – like Lego

From abi-station:

• Iconmaker
• Illustrationmaker
• Avatarmaker
• Moeruavatar -  far right

But over 13, need parental or guardian permission for these.

• Meez
• Tizme
• Wee World
• Voki
• Bless this chick
• Hero Machine
• Marvel Hero
• Doll Maker
• Grabba Beast
• Sega Sonic
• Manga face maker
• Make your avatar

14 or older with parental permission

• Face your Manga

Step 2. Using printscreen to save your avatar or use the snipping tool

So you decided to create an avatar like “Hero Factory” or “Build your wildself” or “Mini Mizer” where you can’t save it easily. You need to take a picture of the screen first. Most computers have a printscreen button on the keyboard or if using Windows 7 you have an icon called “snipping tool”.

When you press printscreen or use the snipping tool an image of your screen or part of it  is now copied to your clipboard. You will still need to crop and resize to get an avatar that fits well on your blog.

Open MS Paint and click control V to paste your image from the clipboard. To save, you need to go to File>Save As> change the name of the file to yourname with ava eg  sueava then underneath change the file type to JPEG. Make sure you save your avatar to your drive.

Go to your drive, right click on the icon for your avatar image and choose “Open with” choose MS Picture Manager. This might be in Microsoft office tools.

In the icons at the top, go to View> task pane.  On the right go to edit pictures > crop.  Now move the black bars on the side of your image in, to crop your picture to what you want in your avatar.

Click OK, then back to edit pictures. Now click on resize. In the box “custom width and height” put  97 in both boxes. These numbers might be slightly different but one has to be 97 and the other smaller than 97. Click OK.

Back up to file>save as> call it sueava2 or similar> make sure it is still JPEG. Make sure you have saved it to your drive again.

Step 3. Upload avatar to your Edublogs blog

Now to upload to your blog.  Go to your dashboard> users>your avatar> browse to find your image on your school H drive>alternate upload.  This is your comment avatar.

Now for your blog avatar. Dashboard>appearance>widget> blog avatar drag to your sidebar.  To upload the avatar, dashboard>settings>blog avatar> browse to find your image on your school H drive>alternate upload. Go to your blog page and refresh. Your blog avatar should appear on your blog now.

If it now looks like a black coloured square then you haven’t cropped the image to the correct size in step 2 using printscreen. Or maybe you didn’t save the image as a JPEG in step 2 using printscreen.

Activity 2 – Write a post describing your avatar.

How much does it look like you? What sort of personality does your avatar have? What makes it typically you? Remember to include your avatar as an image in your post.

Activity 3 – Register for the student blogging challenge

The first set of activities will soon be published for the blogging challenge. There could be over 1000 students from 16 countries taking part, most of them your age. Make sure you get ready to complete the first activities.

Activity 4 – Visit 10 student blogs in the challenge where you have the same interests.

Write a post telling me who you visited and what post you commented on in their blog. Why did you comment on that post?

Extra activity – Create 9 different avatars and save them to your H drive.

Now create an animoto with your images to embed in your blog – remember to get a special code from Miss W. if you create lots of avatars.

If you don’t want to create an animoto, then add the avatars in a gallery to your blog post. Check out how Max created his animoto.

During the first week of the new semester, you will need to check if you have completed the following things.

Activity 1: Change your email signature.

Log onto your computer. Then from the school intranet page, right click, open email in a new tab. Change your signature by click on options> edit your signature> make it look like this

John Doe – your name

6/7H Mrs Stag – your class and home group teacher’s name

2011

then save and close twice.

Activity 2: Create an ICT folder on your home drive.

Click on start icon on bottom left corner> click on computer> double click on your own network drive> right click then open ‘New’> Folder>name folder as ICT2011

Activity 3: How to open a new document

From inside your ICT2011 folder> right click on new>choose now which type of document you will be using eg Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, Excel

To rename actually open the document, now go to top left Office button>save as whatever you will call your document.

Activity 4: Create an ‘about page’ that will be put in your blog later.

Check out these student about pages. Notice they have been aware of  internet safety – not mentioned surname, school, town they live in, email address

• Teegan from New Zealand age 10
• Katy from USA age 12
• Anna from Australia age 11
• Daniel from Australia age 11
• Alanna from Australia age 11
• Georgia from Australia age 11

Open a Word document, rename as an “About Page” for you to use in your blog when you have one. Remember every three or so minutes to save your work. When you have completely finished your ‘About’ page activity, save your document.

Write your own ‘About’ page or if you already have one, update your ‘About’ page in your blog.

Activity 5: Email your document to your ICT teacher

• Open a new email.
• In To box, put in your ICT teacher’s email address. Students in 6/7A or 6/7B, please add Miss Wyatt’s email address too.
•  In Subject box, put my about page.
• In the body of the email, mention what you are sending your teacher. Also include a sentence asking for a blog to be created or telling your ICT teacher that you already have a blog. eg
  • Hi Miss W, I am sending you my about page. Could you please create me a blog to start using next week? Thank you.
• In icons, find the paperclip and click, choose your file to attach by clicking on browse, (go to folder and find your document), click attach, then close.
• On your email, you should now see an attachment underlined, click send.

Activity 6: Change our ‘Kids in the Mid’ about page

Look at these class blogs ‘About’ pages. What do you think would need to be included in our ‘About’ page for ‘Kids in the Mid’ to represent us in 2011?

• LMS Eagles – grade 6 social studies
• Mr Miller - grade 6 class
• Mr Carson – Canada
• Mr Carmichael - Canada
• Miss T  - New Zealand

Activity 7 :  ‘Students check here’

In the pages linked at the top of the header, click on ‘Students check here’.  Find your class and name; are there any activities Mr C or Miss W  could mark off already? Leave a comment on that page.

Still got time left this week? Check out the links under challenges on the left sidebar.

• Visit the student blogging challenge from March this year and visit some students who took part.
• Leave a comment at the Blogger’s Cafe.
• Visit Mr ‘Davo’ Devil’s blog and create an avatar using paint or something similar. Attach to an email and send to Miss W.
• Visit the blogs of some of your friends in other classes. Leave them a comment on a post you found interesting.

Leave a comment at the end of this post telling us three things we should include in our ‘About’ page for Kids in the Mid. Or leave a comment about what needs to be added at Mr Davo Devil’s blog.

A blog is a way for you to communicate with other people via the internet. You could be embedding cartoons you create,  videos you have made or found, photos you have taken or posters you have made. We will be using blogs for the rest of the year and it will be up to you to add posts that are of interest to you.

You might also like to take part in the global student blogging challenge which begins mid September. 

 While Miss W. is away she will be writing a blog according to a Tasmanian Devil named Mr Davo Devil. His blog is also linked on the side under challenges.

There is also the Blogger’s Cafe where you could leave some comments.

G’day mates. My name is Sarcophilus harrisii. Who or what is that, you ask. What a funny name!

Well, I am a very lucky Tasmanian Devil and I am going to be travelling around parts of the USA and Canada during September, October and November this year. But if I drop into your school, you will need a much easier name to call me, so I have decided to run a competition for a suitable name.

In the comments below, tell me what name you think I should have as a Tasmanian Devil. Once there are a few great names, I will run a poll for two weeks and that will be my new name.

What’s my name? on PhotoPeach

In week 1 you:

• created an email signature
• learnt how to create folders and documents on your school computer hard drive
• looked at student about pages and created yours on Word
• attached your Word document to an email asking for a blog to be created for you to use and sent it to your ICT teacher
• looked at class about pages and recommended in a comment what we should include on our ‘Kids in the Mid’ about page

In week 2 you:

• learned to log into your dashboard
• changed your settings
• copy and pasted your about page from word onto your blog
• wrote your first post – 8 random facts about me
• left a comment telling me what you think a good comment will look like
• looked at the page ‘Students check here’ to see what you have already had marked off

In week 3 you:

• created an avatar
• learned how to use printscreen, Paint and Microsoft Office or Snipit
• uploaded a comment user avatar and a blog avatar
• wrote a post describing your avatar
• if blogging for the second year, registered for student blogging challenge
• started visiting other student blogs from around the world

Now let’s head into week 4 of our 15 weeks worth of activities.

It is great to see so many students with their own blogs participating in the March 2011 student blogging challenge.  Remember though, there are also some students on class blogrolls. Visit them to read their posts and leave comments as well.

Activity 1 – Create your blogroll categories

What is a blogroll, you ask? Now that you have started visiting other student blogs, you might start finding some blogs that you really like.  You might visit these every day, but how do you remember their URL?  This is where a blogroll comes in handy.

If you look  on the left sidebar of this blog, you will notice I have certain subheadings such as:

• Blogs in Tasmania
• challenges
• check these passions
• get help
• Grade 6
• Grade 7

These are part of my blogroll.  Notice the subheadings or link categories are alphabetical beginning with numbers.  So you will need to think about what the names are for your categories.

To create the link category headings, go to your dashboard>  links > link category You must include  friends, overseas (if taking part in the blogging challenge), class blogs, get help and websites.

Activity 2 – Add some links to your blogroll

To add some links such as this blog and your friends’  blogs, go to your dashboard> links> add new.  Remember to say what category you put the link under and also use http:// in front of the URL.

You must include at least 10 friends, Kids in the Mid, Beyond the Shores of Tasmania, Student Challenge, Bloggers Cafe, The Edublogger, Help from Edublogs, Our school intranet and three websites you often visit.

Remember, to copy and paste the URL accurately, right click on name of blog in my blogroll> copy link or URL, then go to the blogroll area and paste.  Here is a post by Sue Waters about creating a blogroll. Follow the instructions for Step 2 in her post.

Activity 3 – Creating at least 4 post categories

Just to confuse you, there is also another heading called ‘categories’. This though, relates to the posts you write about.  These categories appear in the header area or at the footer section of your post. My post categories for this blog are under the clustrmap on the right sidebar.

What are your posts mainly about?

• family and friends
• my interests
• BTN reports
• book reviews
• literacy
• checklist activities    ** must be one on your blog
• game reviews
• skills for life
• challenge 2011  ** must be one if taking part in the student blogging challenge

You might use these as post categories.  To  set them up from your dashboard>  posts> categories. Why are categories and tags important when writing your posts?  Categories are like the chapter headings in books while tags are like the index words at the back of a book.

You will notice the categories I have used for this blog include:

• Information
• beginning blogging
• leave an answer
• visit these
• checklist activities
• creating online
• playing online

Activity 4 – watch video about commenting and write post

Make sure you have watched the video about commenting linked here before you leave any comments on other student or class blogs.

What are you going to accept as a comment on your blog? Write a post about expectations on your blog with regard to commenting.

Activity 5 – visit other blogs and add to your blogroll

Visit the March 2011 student blogging challenge student and class lists.  Leave some comments on at least ten posts from five different countries  and perhaps you will also find some other links for your blogroll.

Activity 6 – recommended blogs for a blogroll

Write a post recommending at least 5 blogs you think students and classes should add to their blogroll.  Remember to give reasons why that blog should be added. Use some of those you visited for activity 5.

Next week we start adding widgets to your blogs. If you still have ads on the top of your posts, then some widgets won’t work. To get the ads taken off, you need to have written at least 7 decent posts and sent an email to Miss W. asking for the ads to be taken off your blog.

A few weeks ago, another Australian teacher suggested I put forward a presentation about the Student Blogging challenge to this Global Conference.

This week I received notice that my presentation had been accepted. So on Tuesday 16 November at 4pm I will be presenting via my home computer and an Elluminate room which allows video conferencing around the world.

Those students taking part in the blogging challenge:

• Are there any things you think I should mention in my presentation?
• What are you enjoying about the challenge?
• How could it be improved?
• How have you been connecting in a global world?

Here is the link for the conference information.

“Oh, no! How will that affect us in IT lessons?” the students ask.

Well, for those students who have chosen to create a passion blog, it means you can share one blog for the same topic. If anyone wants to work with a partner or group eg the girls wanting to do netball or the boys wanting to do nerf guns, you only need one blog now to share your passion.

The student who creates the blog will then have to invite the other students to be administrators by following these instructions especially 1, 2, 4 and 7.

Check out the list on the sidebar under ‘Check these passions’ and see if the owner who has already created the blog wants you to join them in writing the posts to make your blog

THE BEST IN THE WORLD!!

PS: I will take off the ads once there are at least 8 informative posts on the blog. Create a post category or use a tag for each person in the group, so I will know who has written the posts.

Original image: ‘The Perfect Nature‘

by: Jose Roberto V Moraes

September holidays are nearly over (hooray say the parents …..  oh no say the students).

Third term you need to start thinking about individualising your learning in ICT lessons.

• Do you want to be taking risks and having a go at something totally new?
• Do you want to be collaborating with students around the world and organizing Skype sessions with your new friends?
• Do you want to just use the basics of Word, Publisher and Powerpoint?

Remember to look at the grade 6 and grade 10 checklists to see what you can do to cover some of those areas particularly how a computer works etc in the last coloured group of criteria.

Which of these are you going to do?

1. Take part in the student blogging challenge and blogger’s cafe
2. Research a topic negotiated with Miss W – eg Who are my ancestors?
3. The basics – using Word, Publisher and Powerpoint to create three fold brochure or powerpoint on computer functions and devices,  glossary of technology terms in Word, poster about an activity at school eg sports carnival
4. Take risks – use glogster for a poster about your interests, create a dance animation for Christmas, publish your own storybook online, try stop motion, create a blog about your passion, create a video about internet safety for younger students, use Scratch to create a game, negotiate something else with Miss W

Please fill in the form below by the end of this lesson so you can start the activities next week.

Here is an easy way to connect with students in other countries of the world.

Join the student blogging challenge that will be starting next September .

Just read the information on this blog to find out what the challenge is about.   Keep checking the pages on that same blog to find out when to register. Check out the activities that were in the March 2010 challenge. They might give you some ideas for posts during term 2. 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‘

by: Dimitris Papazimouris

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License