Student blogging challenge
Miss Wyatt began blogging in January 2008. She began with her own personal blog and developed a class blog in March. By the end of April, most of her students had their own blogs and the class blog was getting less use.
In September that same year, Sue Waters (editor of “The Edublogger”) and Miss W. ran a very successful international student blogging competition. They had classes from 9 countries taking part involving about 500 students.
It was so successful, that they ran another beginning March 2009. This was a challenge though, not a competition. This time 15 countries were involved and a total of over 1000 students ranging from grade 2 classes through to students in senior school.
The majority of individual students with their own blog were aged 12-14 while many primary or elementary classes participated using a class blog.
All the information for the blog was found on Miss W.’s class blog pages. There was one page giving links to all the challenges, another page giving links to all the participants and the final page gave a link via a google reader, to all the posts written by the participants.
Challenges were set out once a week on Miss W.’s class blog with the category ‘challenge09′ to make it easy for searching.
Because many students had already taken part in the blogging challenge, it was decided in September 2009 to extend to two challenges – one for better bloggers and another for better commenters.
I wonder how these challenges will go?
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August 23, 2009 @ 7:20 pm
I’m about to start a class blog this week. What is this challenge about and how can my class and I be involved?
[Reply]
Miss W. Reply:
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Hi stm4,
To register for the challenge just fill in the form on the post “It’s about to start”. Each week starting the 6th September, I will be posting a challenge.
As you are beginner bloggers you will be doing the better blogger challenge. This will involve creating avatars which your students can then use when writing posts or making comments, looking at widgets to put on the sidebar of your blog, how to add links to your blogroll and so on.
Above my avatar, you will find the pages relating to the challenges:
September participants will give you a link to every class and student with their own blog who are taking part in the challenge; you and your students can visit them at any time during the challenge if you want to make connections with other classes.
September challenges will give you links to the challenges each week so you don’t have to search through my class blog because I might write other posts as well that are not part of the challenge;
September posts will be a link to every post written by the classes and students taking part in the challenge – these are gathered through Google reader and in a folder I will make public.
If you have any other questions please leave a comment here as I check for comments every day and will reply as soon as possible.
Miss W.
[Reply]
September 6, 2009 @ 3:06 pm
umm where do we find the information about the challenges?
[Reply]
Miss W. Reply:
September 6th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
On my sidebar, above my avatar, is a brown link to ‘September challenges’ All the challenges will be linked to this page – you will just need to click on the words next to the challenge number and it will take you to the post telling you about the challenge that week.
If you want to visit other challenge bloggers, click on ‘September participants’ .
If you want to read what other challenge bloggers have written about, click on ‘posts from classes and students’
Hope this helps you Harriet.
Just remember, clicking on a brown/orange word will take you to another page or post.
[Reply]
September 6, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
how do u create an avatar? i have put the avatar side bar on but it says i can do nothing with it. what should i do?
[Reply]
Miss W. Reply:
September 6th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I have visited your blog, Harriet, and left you a link for a good website to create an avatar like mine.
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September 14, 2009 @ 11:26 am
I have just started my students blogging. They are 6th graders, ages 11 & 12. May they participate in your challenge?
[Reply]
Miss W. Reply:
September 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am
G’day Sheryl,
Any students or classes can participate in the challenge. They just have to register first – click on the page September Challenges on the right above my avatar. The registration link is in there.
[Reply]
September 15, 2009 @ 12:50 am
Ms. Wyatt,
First I would like to say thanks for taking on these challenges. OMG when I think about the fact that school has been in session for less than a month and already I am behind in paperwork I don’t know how you do it.
I did a PBWorks Camp this summer and loved it, so I am thrilled to be a part of this Blogging Challenge. We are going to be late yet speedy starters. We do not have our computers yet so we are unable to earnestly begin the challenge. But I am having them to do a little bit at at time when we can get use of the computer lab.
Sorry I digress because I was writing you to tell you that I have changed our blogging site. We will be using an EduBlog site http://msvrburton.edublogs.org/ instead and not the other site, http://wjsfreshmenacademy.blogspot.com/ you have me listed as. I am listed towards the end of the link list of teachers Class blogs with student blogs on sidebar or linked in a page. I am •Mrs Burton – U.S.A. – freshmen English I. Sorry to add anything else onto your plate.
I am also volunteering to comment on pages. I saw that shout out on another page and will put my name there. Thanks again for all of your hard work and HAPPY BLOGGING.
[Reply]
Miss W. Reply:
September 17th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Glad to have you and your class on board Ms Burton. Thanks for helping out also. I am sure the students will get a lot from the challenges and they will still be on my blog until the end of December, so you can do them at any time till then.
[Reply]
September 17, 2009 @ 8:59 am
[...] I signed up for Miss Wyatt’s 2009 blogging challenge. I signed up for the one last Spring and it was lots of fun! For [...]
September 18, 2009 @ 8:02 pm
Ms. Wyatt,
I just signed up for the BC blogging challenge, but realized I didn’t specify my students grade level. We are a 3rd grade class.
Thanks for this opportunity, we are excited to grow our blogging community!
Mr. Salsich
[Reply]
Miss W. Reply:
September 24th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Welcome to the challenge. I hope you all enjoy the activities and they will be on my blog until the end of December. Choose which ones you want to do and feel free to copy them onto your class blog.
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September 24, 2009 @ 4:27 am
I asked my students to register on 9-22-09 & 9-23-09. How long after registration will their names show up in the participant list, and if it does not, should we register again?
Thanks
[Reply]
Miss W. Reply:
September 24th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Mrs Hugghins,
I think they are all there now, but some had registered on the form for the last challenge rather than this one. Luckily they were both in my google docs so realised the older form had been used recently.
[Reply]
September 25, 2009 @ 4:28 am
Miss W.
I am trying to post the avatars in a comment and it doesn’t seem to take the entire picture. I have tried cropping in several different programs. Can you help me?
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October 5, 2009 @ 1:45 am
Hi,
Just to let you know that I am in the competition and my class is down as Grade 7? We are called Primary 7 in Scotland. Not sure what Grade that relates to, but the children are 11-12 years old.
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October 5, 2009 @ 9:27 pm
[...] of writing a blog post using text, a wordle or a toondoo cartoon. Some of the girls had joined the blogging challenge. As they had missed three weeks due to the school holidays, I worked with them to ensure they at [...]
October 9, 2009 @ 4:36 am
[...] actually found the site by accident when I was looking at blogs for the Edublogs challenge. I was looking a Doris Molero’s blog trying to connect with some of her students so that [...]
October 16, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
Heyyyyyy guyss im new hehe
[Reply]
October 17, 2009 @ 8:42 am
[...] Participate in a student blogging/comment challenge. For a set period of time, challenge your students to post or comment on another student’s blog. Sample at: http://wyatt67.edublogs.org/student-blogging-challenge/ [...]
October 18, 2009 @ 8:00 am
people from everywhere,
i am amazed by the amount of people that are interested and participating!! 
it’s a great way to communicate and share information!
wow….. there sure are a lot of people from around the world on this blog!!
beena
[Reply]
Miss W. Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 10:05 am
G’day Beena,
Taking part in the challenge is a great way to make friends around the world. But for them to visit you and your class, you have to get out there and visit their blogs. Leave comments like you have here and they will probably visit your blog to leave a comment.
[Reply]
Miss W. Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Beena, Also make sure your class blog URL is linked to your name. Or when asked for the URL put in your class URL.
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October 20, 2009 @ 11:20 pm
Hello Miss W,
I am now trying to figure out how to add my students to my blog roll! They have not created a blog page yet, because I wasn’t sure how to set them up. Can you give me the link that lists the instructions for a new bird like myself?
Thanks!
[Reply]
November 7, 2009 @ 12:51 am
I have a pretty good blog but i was going to ask how to make my blog more popular and better
Jacob
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November 17, 2009 @ 10:27 pm
[...] student bloggers: Check here to connect with other students like yourselves! This is a great way to share blogging experiences [...]