Want to learn more about blogging with your students while connecting with classes around the world?
The Student Blogging Challenge is run twice a year beginning in March and October.
It is made up of a series of ten weekly tasks which you can customize for your class.
The next Challenge starts on October 1. It is a great way to connect your students with a global audience while helping to develop their blogging skills.
It is organized by Sue Wyatt (@tasteach) with help from Sue Waters, and the team at Edublogs.
The Student Blogging Challenge is open to both class blogs and individual student bloggers from all over the world. All age groups can participate. Blogs don’t need to be hosted by Edublogs, but your blog must be public.
The Weekly Activities
Each week a post is published on the Student Blogging Challenge blog with a list of activities for your class or students to choose from. The students only need to complete one activity each week, but if they want to do more they can.
During The Challenge students learn about:
- Creating pages and posts
- Creating avatars
- Digital citizenship
- Commenting skills
- Connecting with students globally
- Using tools and embedding on their blog
Some weekly topics are similar every time The Challenge is run because they are important skills for both teachers and students to have.
Some examples include:
- About me – creating avatars and an About page. This includes digital citizenship and cyber safety.
- Let’s comment – teaching what makes a quality comment, how to connect through commenting and again, cyber safety and digital citizenship.
- Using images – using Creative Commons images, giving attribution, and tools for using images in posts.
The other weeks of The Challenge are based around a topic such as food, games, government, history, maths or nature.
Registration
There are three registration forms:
- Educators who would like to mentor a group of students
- Teachers who have a class blog who want to connect with other classes globally
- Individual students who have their own personal blog and want to connect globally with other students
Mentors Needed
There have been over 2000 students in the last few challenges and it isn’t possible for organizer Sue Wyatt to visit them all regularly.
Can you help?
You might be a teacher, principal, educational coach, parent, retired teacher or a trainee teacher. If you would like to get involved with student blogging, you can register as a mentor. You will be asked to help by reading and commenting on posts from 20-30 students during the ten week challenge.
Perhaps you even know someone you could you could ask to help?
Register Now!
Think you might be interested in joining the October 2017 Student Blogging Challenge?
Register here now! Remember, The Challenge begins on October 1.
Please comment if you have any questions about The Student Blogging Challenge.
i would like to be a mentor
That’s a kind offer! Maybe comment on this post and see if Sue (@TasTeach) needs any more help with mentoring this challenge. Otherwise, the next challenge will start in March and I’m sure she’d be happy to take up your offer then. 🙂
Kathleen
I learned this week that when you leave a comment you need to include factual information.
Hope you’re enjoying the challenge!
I am wondering if there are French blogs? Considering this for a gr. 7 French Immersion class.
Hi Pamela,
No French blogs as such yet, however, there are a number of students born in Senegal and attending an international school there. So hopefully there would be some French speakers to collaborate with!
Kathleen
Kathleen, Can you let me know the major differences between a class blog and student blogs?
Hi Amber,
Class blogs and student blogs look the same, but it’s how they’re used that is the difference.
Many teachers who are new to blogging opt to set up one blog (a class blog) to begin with. Often the teacher will write the posts on the blog, and the students will leave comments. That way, the teacher maintains control while learning about blogging with their students.
As you and your students become more familiar with blogging, you might have students starting to write guest posts on your class blog while continuing to comment.
When teachers get to this point, they often decide to start blogs for all their students.
Of course, there are many teachers who decide to set up student blogs right from the start. They usually would still have a class blog though to post class news, lesson information etc. The students might use to their blog to just post about their own work. You can have links on the sidebar of your class blog to all the student blogs. This is called the My Class widget.
If you want some examples of student and class blogs, have a look at the Student Blogging Challenge website. There are tabs at the tops that say ‘October 2017 classes’ and ‘October 2017 students’.
Let’s know if you need more clarification.
Kathleen
I’d like my fifth-grade students to blog. None of them have blogs at this point. Should I have them register for an edublog, and then register as a student with a personal blog?
Hi Cheryl,
The best way to do it would to be:
1. Set up a class blog, then
2. Set up student blogs via our My Class feature.
If you’re new to blogging, another option is to join the challenge this round with just your class blog. Then do the challenge again in March with your student blogs. That way, you and your students could all have a few months to get familiar.
Think about what would work best for you and let us know if you have any more questions.
Kathleen