Technology in our classroom

Challenge participants whether classes or individual students. 

Sorry to say this is the last challenge for this half of the year.  Students from the northern hemisphere are finishing their school year, some heading off to middle school or high school in September and needing their summer holidays to relax and take a deep breath before starting again on the roller coaster of education. Those of us in the southern hemisphere wish you all luck in your future endeavours but remember, to keep on blogging and tell us about your adventures.

If you wish to keep blogging with your friends from this challenge then make sure you visit the blog set up from last year ‘Bringing us together”.  I will be adding your names to the 2009 writers page on that blog. We have students from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Argentina, Portugal, England, South Africa writing posts on this international student writers blog.

Sue Waters from The Edublogger and I have been having some thoughts about running two challenges in September – one for writing posts like this challenge has been and a new one about improving your commenting skills.  So keep an eye on my class blog so you can register for these challenges.

Challenge for the last week

• How has this challenge improved your communication skills?
• How could blogging become an integral part of your school’s curriculum?
• Would you take part in another challenge and why?

Original image: ‘Goodbye, Sammy. (With Flickr notes)‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61787893@N00/280538938
by: Earl

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

One of the classes taking part in our 2009 student blogging challenge have been nominated in a primary blogging competition and they need votes to win.  The grade 2 class from Chorlton Park Primary are enjoying taking part in our challenge and the students have been telling us jokes and writing about many of their favourite things.  So help them win the competition and vote for them at this website.

Also students who took part in Sue Waters’ blogging competition in the Edublogger – well the results are in.  Make sure you add your badge to your sidebar if you are a winner. If you can’t work out how, ask Sue and she will tell you how or do it for you.

Original image: ‘The highly political pig‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19074862@N00/49234577
by: Kerry

Released under an Attribution License

Next week will be the last challenge for this part of the year.  Students from the northern hemisphere will be having their summer holidays so we will not be having any specific challenges set but I will start again in September for those who wish to take part.  You will not have to register again as I will just add to the list I have from this part of the year. 

So here is the challenge for this week.

Here in Australia this week has three celebrations:  Tuesday 12 May is International Nurses Day, Friday 15 May is International Day of Families and throughout this week we are looking at people who volunteer for various jobs.  Your task is to research one of these special events and write a post about how one of these relates to you.

You might want to be a nurse in the future – tell us why and what you have to do to achieve that goal

You might want to write about an ideal family – what they do, how they work as a group, the good and the bad of being in an ideal family

Finally, you might want to tell your readers about a volunteering job you have or would like to do in the future.

Please make sure you link back to this blogpost and also makes some links to other websites for your readers to extend their knowledge on the topic you have chosen.

Original image: ‘BEACH CLEANUP‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57557325@N00/416826937
by: Gary

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

How do you like my great animation dancer?

Well it’s getting close to the end of the challenge.  Here in Tasmania we have about three more weeks until our end of term then we have a two week holiday.  Those students in Canada and USA are heading towards the end of the year and their summer vacation time.

Are you going to be writing posts over your holiday break?  What topics are you going to write about? Maybe you are going to be away from computers for the break.  But you still want your readers to come back after the break to read your posts.

You have your blogroll organized; you’ve visited everyone on the blog to wish them a great holiday or good luck when they finish middle school and go onto high school. But how are you going to keep them as readers and entice new readers in over your break?

Challenge this week

Begin writing a series of at least three posts on a favourite topic. 

For example, if you are like Braiden in my class last year, your topic would be motor sport.  Perhaps he could write a post about:

• famous motorcar drivers – one post per driver with links and photos to other websites
• famous races – again lots of links and images with correct attribution

At the end of each article ask a question.  Also mention what you will be writing about in your next post. To make it easy for your readers to know when you have written your post, do you have an email subscription on your blog?  Check out this post from The Edublogger to see how to add it.

But, I’m not going to be near a computer over the holidays, you say!!

Easy done!  Instead of publishing the post immediately, tell your computer when you want it published.  In Edublogs above the save/publish buttons in your write post dashboard is a ‘publish immediately edit’ button.  Use this to tell edublogs when you want your post to be published. This will make it look like you are still writing during your holidays.

Original image: ‘Late night‘  by: eden politte
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35237096015@N01/24604141
Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial License