Here are some great posts, polls and comics from students and teachers who took part in BAD  2009.  Remember to take part in any polls you find on student blogs.  This will help them write another post about the results in a month or so.

Ashley linked correctly to the BAD website with her going green post

Changing weather comic

Viandematrix took a global look about this topic

Danny  completed more than one activity

Make sure you check out Kira’s poll on her sidebar

Take this poll from Room10 

Chevy  quickly made changes after a comment about linking

Kylie did three activities including a comic and poll

Even a bookworm has great ideas to help control climate change

Members of the Eagle’s Nest want to survive – Eagle4   Eagle2  Eagle13  Eagle5

Hallie - great research – two sources linked

Freddo – tips for what we can do

Hannah has family arguments about this topic

Lisa versus the scientists – remember to be polite if arguing against Lisa’s post

Even musicians worry about climate change

Fantastic presentation of the topic by Jessica.

Jade used and linked to lots of sources for her information.

Abbey and how climate change relates to her blog theme.

Unusual writing style from Fred and George

Even the teachers wrote some great posts – Doris included a video, Miss B. linked cigarette butts to climate change, Miss W. looked at power creation in her state

I hope every participant in the student blogging challenge is going to be a BAD writer on Thursday 15 October. 

 ”Why be a BAD writer on just that day?” you ask.  “Isn’t Miss W shouting when she uses capital letters in blogging?”

No, she isn’t. She is using an acronym.  BAD stands for Blog Action Day.  Visit their website to find out more about the origins of this day in the blogging calendar.  On this one day in October thousands of bloggers around the world will be speaking as one voice on the topic of climate change. If you register your blog, you can add a badge to your sidebar to prove you are taking part in this world wide event.

What can I write about climate change?

Perhaps you can visit these websites and get some ideas:

• Check out world CO2 emissions here at breathing earth. Which countries have decreased their emissions over the last two years?  How did they do it?
• An index of great sites to visit about climate change.
• Visit Canadian eco-kids site.
• Excellent climate change games to play and learn from.
• Visit the BAD partners’ websites to get ideas.

 

Week 6 challenge:  Theme is climate change

1. Write a post about climate change – how it affects you personally; what you can do about it at school, home or local community;  how it is affecting certain parts of the world etc.  Remember to show you have researched the topic by linking words to other websites where you found some great information that you mentioned in your post.
2. Create a series of comic strips about climate change.  Look at the sidebar on this linked blog to find some great comic websites. Maybe create a superhero relating to climate change and tell his/her story.
3. Create a climate change story using images. Remember to give attribution as many other bloggers might visit your blog over the next few weeks.
4. Create your own quiz about climate change using MyStudiyo or another quiz site you know. Make sure the questions and answers relate to climate change and show you have researched well.
5. Maybe you would rather find out what people consider are the important aspects of climate change – create a poll or survey about the topic.  PollDaddy or SurveyMonkey are good sites to do this.

Whatever you do as an activity, remember to make a link back to the BAD site, so they can come and visit your blog.  You might word it something like this:

As part of the student blogging challenge, I wrote a post for BAD 2009 on the topic of climate change.

One of the participants in this blogging challenge has also organized her own ‘green’ challenge. I know we have many students and classes interested in our environment and how we can help improve it for future generations.  Please read her blurb below, and join in her challenge as well.

Hi! I am needing more bloggers for my blogging challenge, “The Big Green Help.” If you could help me “advertise,” or get bloggers, that would be great. Any ideas, posts, or comments will work.

For those of you looking for more information about this challenge, here it is:
“The Big Green Help” blogging challenge is to help students and teachers all around the world discover what they can do to help our planet Earth. Students and teachers will also get the chance to become better bloggers through posts and comments. Challenge participants will complete a series of challenges to try to help Earth. There will be a few different categories that you can become a winner in (there will be 1-3 winners per category). Winners will receive a cool banner that they can add to the side of their blog. They will also receive more visitors to their blog, more comments, and a mention in the winner list post. The first challenge will be posted on September 25, and after that, new challenges will be posted about once a week. Sign up at the link below (To participate completely, please sign up before September 25, although later admissions are welcome):

Here’s the link to sign up:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEpfaUp2ZlJMU1p3S3pOWjNvSk5ZbFE6MA..

Here’s the link that challenges will be posted at:
http://laurenc604.edublogs.org/

Thanks!
~laurenc604

So please visit Lauren and her blog where you can register for her ‘green’ challenge.

I have just checked out the information sent to teachers about websites and contests and found a few that some of you might be interested in looking at.

Name a road

With the Hobart International Airport expanding they are needing four roads to be given appropriate names.  You might need to check out this website for the correct way to name roads – this is called nomenclature.  This website also has information about giving geographical names in Australia.

You must be in primary school, so sorry Grade 7 students, you won’t be able to enter.  If either of your parents work at the airport, you also won’t be able to enter.  This closes 5pm on 10th July, 2009.  Check with your teacher by the end of June,  if you are interested in submitting 4 names as there is an official entry form for you to fill in and send off.

Image: ‘747 Over Airport Road‘
www.flickr.com/photos/67952341@N00/512716303

 Grow a crystal

This competition runs from July to September and involves participants in growing a crystal.  Check out the information at this website and also mention it to your science teachers.  They might do this as part of the science course over term 2.

In the Smithsonian kits, these are called ‘frosty diamonds’.

Anne Helmenstine

http://chemistry.about.com/od/growingcrystals/ig/Crystal-Photo-Gallery/Alum-Crystals.-LUM.htm

Most answers to this quiz can be found in Wikipedia, but you might have to visit a couple of pages to find the answers.  This could be used as an example of Activity 1 in the Edublogger Student Competition.

Note you must be 13 or older to be able to create your own quiz in MyStudyio.

All the images in this quiz were either from flickrcc or wikipedia pages.  There was nowhere in the quiz allowing me to attribute the images.

Did you read my previous post about Sue Waters and the birthday celebrations at the Edublogger?

You didn’t?

Maybe you would like to have ago at this activity as a pre run for the student blogging challenge this year.

Well you still have a few days until the end of February to get your post completed and linked back to the Edublogger.  These are the topics to choose from:

1. Advice for doing blog makeovers i.e. improving your blog
2. Tips for using blogs with students
3. Using tools like VoiceThread, Voki, mystudiyo, Animoto, SlideShows, Google Documents with students and embedding in blogs posts
4. Advice for writing better blog posts
5. What makes good comments or commenting tips
6. Images in blog posts
7. Tips for building blog audience
8. Ideas for getting educators involved with using web technology
9. Favorite blog widgets
10. Images generators (e.g. sign generators, newspaper generators), avatars, online graph tools etc that you can use with students
11. Advice on setting up or using class blogs
12. Tips for connecting with other classrooms

Check out the posts written by these students.

Nicholas , Mallorie , Cammie , Julie ,Karen , Ashley, Kris, Hayden and  Catie

Remember to make a pingback or trackback to the edublogger post about the birthday celebrations.

Teachers, it is your turn now.

  As I mentioned at the beginning of the competition, I would include on my blogroll the winners from each school. I know it is going to be extremely hard to make a decision, so I am prepared to include 4 students from each class who you think have improved the most in either posting or commenting.

Their names will stay on the blogroll until the end of the next challenge or until we find a blog to carry the challenge on over the holiday breaks. As most of you know me from twitter, either send me a DM or gmail.

Original image: ‘OLD SKOOL‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/85966598@N00/98179665
by:

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial License

Our blog has been nominated by Sue Waters for the Best New Blog for 2008 in the Edublogs Awards. If you want to vote for us, please go to this website and cast your vote.

Parents, students, teachers, grandparents, neighbours – anyone can vote for our blog.

I’m not sure how long voting will be open for, so get in quick to vote for our blog.

UPDATE: Just found out the last day for voting is Sunday, December 21st at 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time.  Awards will then be presented in Second Life at 10am.

THANKS: Many thanks to Sue Waters, other teachers and students who have visited this blog and found something useful from it.  It has been a joy working with blogs this year and I know I will continue it with my new classes next year.

Since writing your post about poverty, have you or anybody at your school done something about it? 

Did your school take part in the STAND UP 2008 against poverty campaign?  I know my school did, even the grade 6/7 students who were on a bush walk and barbecue for the day.  I was in a meeting organizing next year’s timetable with the senior staff at my school and we all stood up when one of the students read a message about povery over our P.A. system at midday on Friday.

Please make sure you visit some of these blogs where students have written some excellent work about poverty both locally and globally.

 Amanda,  Lauren,  Kevin,  Megan,  Diogo,  Julya,  Bigfoot,  Edw002,  Hailey,  Norma,  Nadine

In the last two weeks, you have been introducing yourself and your class.  Now it is time to tell your readers about the area you live in and your daily routines. For this activity, you will need to use links to take your readers off to other websites eg a map of your state or a tourist destination in your state or province.

To make a link, find the website or page you want to send your reader to and copy the URL.  Come back to where you are writing your post and highlight the words you want your reader to click on to go to the website.  Now in the icons above your post you will see a link or chain appear.  Click on this, and paste in the URL you have copied.  Make sure you set the target link to open a new window.

Activities for week 3

1. Tell your readers about your state or province.  Include links to map, tourist website.

2. Talk about your typical school day – how big your school is, what type of school, subjects you do.  Remember high school in Australia is different to high school in USA.

3.  If I were to visit your state, province or town, where would you recommend I visit and why?

4. Make sure you have a clustrmap or if 13 and older, you can also have a feedjit map on the sidebar of your blog. This will help you find out where in the world your visitors are coming from.  Clustrmap is part of the widget pack in Edublogs.

Map Image:

Google maps