Join The Student Blogging Challenge Now – Starts Mid September!

It is now time to join in on the bi-annual student blogging challenge!

studentbloggingThis challenge is all about having fun, improving blogging and reflective writing skills, and building readership and connections with a global audience.

Last year, the two challenges included thousands of students from over 15 countries around the world!

What is  the Student Blogging Challenge?

  • The Student Blogging Challenge runs twice yearly.  A new Challenge starts March and September, each year.
  • It is made up of a series of 10 weekly tasks all designed to improve blogging and commenting skills while connecting students with a global audience.
  • Starts mid-September – but registration is happening now
  • The Challenge is open to both class blogs and to individual student bloggers from all over the world and of all ages – blogs doesn’t need to be hosted by Edublogs to participate!
  • Participants can complete as many of the tasks as they like and in any order
  • The Student Blogging Challenge is coordinated by Sue Wyatt,  Sue Waters and Ronnie Burt.

Past challenges have included adding comics and widgets, writing creative posts, discussing travelling, comment etiquette, and more.

How do I start?

We’ve now opened registration for students and teachers who would like to participate in the challenge which starts in mid September.

Here’s the links you need to visit to register:

Who’s registered so far?

You can check who has registered so far here:

How do I get the latest news from the Student Blogging Challenge?

All weekly tasks and upcoming events will be published on Challenge Yourself to Blog (the Student Blogging Challenge blog).

We recomend you either subscribe to:

  1. The Challenge Yourself to Blog RSS feed using a feed reader like Google Reader – here’s how to set up Google Reader
  2. The Challenge Yourself to Blog email – just add your email address to the form below
Enter your email address:

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Do you have any ideas for challenge tasks?

This is the fifth challenge Sue Wyatt have organized.  She would love  ideas for cool challenge activities.

Please help with ideas for challenge activities by sharing your ideas here!Please note

And for extra incentive to share your ideas — we’ve decided to give away ten Edublogs Pro 12 month subscriptions (formerly known as Edublogs Supporters) to the 10 best challenge ideas!

Can you help us?

Every challenge, Sue Wyatt tries to visit each individual student blog at least 3 times over the period of the challenge.

This is becoming harder to visit all the student blogs — due to the numbers of students participating!

We are looking for volunteers who are willing to leave least one, preferably two, comments on student blogs such as:

  1. A few clues about how to set up their blogs would be great for the newer students who have only had their blogs less than a week or so .
  2. Alternatively choose a post they have written or look at their about page to leave a comment for them.

We would like to do is allocate about 20-30 student blogs to each volunteer.

This is excellent for teachers and preservice teachers (student teachers) who are:

  • Wanting to increase their understanding of how blogs can be used with students.
  • Unable to participate with their students in our current Challenge but who want to learn more about the Student Blogging Challenge.

Also excellent for students who have participated in previous Student Blogging Challenges and who would love to support other student bloggers!

Please noteAnd off course, we appreciate how busy everyone is so we’ve decided to give away twenty free Edublogs Pro 12 month subscriptions (formerly known as Edublogs Supporters) to our twenty best helpers!

Please leave a comment on this post if you would like to become a Student Blogging Helper!  Can you also tell which age group of students you would like to work with!

And here’s your badges

We thought some of you might like to add badges to your blogs to let your readers know you’re participating in the Student Blogging Challenge.

So here they are!

For Better Bloggers

Better Blogger participant

For Better Commenters

Better Commenter participant

For Student Blogger Helper

Student Blogger Helper

Adding your badge(s) to your blog is as easy as:

1.  Download this Student Challenge Zip file – contains the HTML code for all badges with links back to the Student Blogging Challenge blog
2.  Unzip the downloaded file to a folder on your hard drive.
3.  Open up badgecode.txt (contained inside the zip file)
4.  Copy the HTML code for the required badge(s)

Copy the HTML code

5.  Go to Appearance > Widgets in your Dashboard
6.  Drag and drop a Text Widget from the Available Widgets or Inactive Widgets areas on the left into the Sidebar area on the right
7.  Now just paste your HTML code into the text widget, then click Save and Close

Setting up your class-blog

You may be just getting started with your class blog or are looking for ways to make improvements.

The following 9 steps will help ensure that your blog is ready to go for the challenge:

  1. Set up your class blog
  2. Set Up Your Blogging Rules and Guidelines
  3. Teaching Commenting Skills and Etiquette – Guest post byKathleen McGeady
  4. Help Parents Connect With Your Class Blog
  5. Add Students To Your Class Blog So They Can Write Posts
  6. Add A Visitor Tracking Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
  7. Setting Up Student blogs
  8. Add your student blogs to your blogroll
  9. Add Your Student Blogs To A Folder In Google Reader

FINAL THOUGHTS

The thousands of students that have participated in the past have found it a great way to improve their blogging and commenting skills and love the global interaction among the community that it builds.

For more information on the student blogging challenge, visit the Challenge F.A.Q. here.

Please leave a comment on this post if you would like to become a Student Blogging Helper!
If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider feed-icon32x32 Finding and Adding Creative Commons Images To Your  Blog PostsSubscribing For Free!

39 thoughts on “Join The Student Blogging Challenge Now – Starts Mid September!

  1. I’d be happy to help out again this year!

    I teach third grade and the students are 8 and 9 years old. I’d love to be placed with that age group as a first choice.

    However, put me where you need people!

    🙂 Linda

  2. Yes please, sign me up!
    I would love to be a Student Blogging Helper 🙂
    I would prefer to work with secondary or senior secondary students (15-18 yo).

  3. I would love to be a student blogger helper so I can learn more about the Student Blogging Challenge. I would like to help with 8 -10 year olds if you need me.

    Kim 🙂

  4. Hi again!

    I’m just dropping in to let you know that I’d love to get back into helping out with the Student Blogging Challenge. Sign me up! 🙂

    I’d love to work with students around 12 or 13 years old.

    Thanks!

    Julianne

  5. I’d be glad to help – so excited for this opportunity to have students blog in the challenge. Let me know if & how you’d like me to help. Thanks 🙂

  6. Hi,
    I would love to be a student blogging helper. I’d prefer this age group: 11-12.
    Looking forward to hearing from you,
    Daniela Bunea.

  7. @Miss Wyatt – done I’ve added the change to the wording! Do we want to get Ronnie to set up a form so that people can submitt it there? Would that make it easier for you?

    Thanks Sarah, Myles, and Kim We really appreciate it and Sue Wyatt will allocate your students about mid-September. If you can let us know what age groups you prefer that would be excellent!

  8. Thanks Sue, Ronnie and Edublogs in general for promoting the challenge again. Could it be mentioned though, that helpers will need to tell us what age group they would like to help comment on as this would make it easier for me during my September holidays when I allocate students for them to visit.

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