Powerpoint used at #ISTE12 conference

1. Student Blogging Challenge
Presented by
Sue Wyatt: @tasteach
with help from
Tracy Watanabe: @tracywatanabe
Linda Yollis: @lindayollis
Kathleen Morris: @kathleen_morris
Thanks also to Sue Waters and Ronnie Burt from Edublogs for all their help today
and with running the student challenge.

2. My blogging history
• Met Sue Waters online – can’t remember
how January 2008
• Began reading blogs recommended by Sue
• End of January – began a personal blog
• Early February – began a class blog
• March – joined Twitter

3. Why start with a class blog?
• Had started visiting other class blogs
• Introduce internet safety in a practical way
• Teach students about basic blogging
• Students leave comments on teacher posts
• Students write posts for class blog
• Students earn the right to have their own
individual blog by end of May

4. Why create a challenge?
• By late July, I realised I was connecting
globally with teachers through Twitter,
why couldn’t my students also do the
same through their blogs

5. Value of a PLN
• Realised why I had joined Twitter 6 months earlier
• Mentored and supported by Sue Waters
• Only teacher in my school (and state of Tasmania)
attempting blogging at that stage
• In regular contact with Jan Smith (Huzzah) from
Canada, Inez Pinto (Inpi) from Portugal and Paul
Bogush from CT, USA
• Have a competition in our classes to find the most
improved blogger and the most global blogger

6. The challenge is off and running
Date Classes Students Countries
Sept ‘08 26 250 10
March ‘09 79 240 13
Many on class blogrolls
Sept ‘09 101 513 15
March ‘10 74 735 13
Sept ‘10 136 943 17
March ’11 108 1440 19
Sept ’11 124 1128 20
March ‘12 150 1331 25

8. Activities in the challenges
• Welcome – activities include ‘About me’ page, avatar and post
about why join the challenge
• Week 1 – includes commenting guidelines, writing comments,
clustrmap and global audience widgets
• Week 2 - includes blogroll and post categories
• Week 3 – includes comparing comments, are you responding?
• Week 4 – translator and widgets about your area, international
blogs
• Week 5 – adding links and images to posts
• Week 6 – BAD 2009, climate change
• Week 7 – holidays and vacations
• Week 8 – positive digital footprint, count out three for
comments
• Week 9 – write a challenge, look at international blog
• Week 10 - topics and questions for next year

13. Final challenge
Students were asked to complete an audit of their
blog and then ask other teachers, parents or
students to comment.
• What do you people think of my blog?
• What were your first impressions of this blog?
• What captured your attention?
• What distracted you on the blog?
• What suggestions can you give me to improve my blog?

20. Not everyone enjoys all aspects of blogging, though.

21. Badges etc
• For all participants and helpers,
Edublogs (thanks, Sue Waters)
creates badges for sidebars
each year

22. Where to find the challenge
• The first three challenges have been on
my class blog (wyatt67.edublogs.org)
under categories stubc08 and challenge09
• Starting March 2010, the challenge began
with its own blog
(studentchallenge.edublogs.org)

23. The makeover of the new blog
This year Edublogs (Sue Waters, Ronnie and Tammy) did a
makeover of the student challenge blog
Feel free to visit and leave comments or ask questions.
http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org