It has been interesting reading posts from students in different countries of the world. I wonder how similar or different your school day is! So this week’s theme is all about school. I am going to give you some suggestions but what you post about is up to you. Use one of my ideas or think of something for yourself. Check out what these three students have done:

Kaiya – lunch time choices

Brooke – interview a staff member – make sure they know beforehand you will be putting it on your blog for the world to see

Maraya – report on an event at school

I have included a few videos and links  you might like to check to give you ideas for posts.

So what could you do for a post this week?

• Create polls about how people get to school or work, or favourite school subject or …..
• What is your weekly timetable like, compare with other students – time you start and finish school, number of lessons each day, breaks during the day, days in year you go to school
• Choices of subjects at school – remember to explain abbreviations you might use eg LOTE , ELA
• Your dream of what you will be doing once you leave school
• If you were principal for a week, what would you do? If you were a teacher for a week, what would you do?
• Research the history of your school and create an about my school page
• Research a famous person who attended your school
• Technology in your school
• What do you do at break times?
• School bell has gone – what do you do now?
• Food you eat at school – what is in your lunchbox or your school meal – good activity for taking photos
• If you could improve your school, what would you do?
• Your ideal school – maybe include a map of what it would look like
• How has schooling changed over the last 100 years? Maybe interview parents, grandparents and ask questions about schooling – use an audio app then embed in blog
• The view outside your classroom window – maybe explain plants that might be seen, the weather, seasons etc
• Hold a debate about uniforms or school starting times or subjects or …..
• Anything else that relates to schooling around the world

If you create polls or surveys, make sure you contact me so I can publicize on Twitter to get other classes around the world to join in. Use #16stubc or #globalclassroom if you are doing it yourself.

Check out this gallery of classrooms around the world

Martha Payne’s blog turned viral overnight – check out this interview and her blog about school lunches  Make sure you read her very first posts on her blog.

Collaborate with some other schools to create a video like these global classrooms did – Dancing around the world

Teachers:

Check out how you can connect with other schools using Skype in the classroom – Here is link to Hello Little World Skypers  Perhaps join in some of their projects.

Make more global connections by listening to the archives of recordings from the Global Ed Conference that has just been held. Maybe join the Global Education Network that has over 24000 members around the world.

Remember to leave a comment here including a post URL telling me which activity you have done. If your post is great, it will be added to the Flipboard Magazine.

From http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/

Hurca! via Compfight

There are two activities this week and they are in the form of a game. They involve visiting other blogs, leaving quality comments and writing a post about the comments you left.

Admin this week

I have asked mentors to get back to me with those students who have not been doing the activities relating to the challenge. I have coloured their country pink on the student participant list. I will be deleting these students from the list over the next week if I feel they have not really been participating in the challenge.

Out of 106 comments left on the challenge blog over the last couple of days only 61 included the URL of the actual post I needed to visit. Many students are still leaving just the URL of their blog rather than the post. I only visit and flip to the magazine when a post URL is left here.

Before playing the games, make sure your blog is ready for visitors.

1. You have lots of interesting posts for visitors to read and comment on.
2. Visitors can find posts by using tags or categories on your sidebar.
3. You have a visitor widget to see where your visitors are coming from.
4. You have at least five student blogs from other places around the world on your sidebar.

Game week is all about visiting other blogs.

Remember one of  the main aims of blogging includes commenting and carrying on conversations with the author of posts and their other readers.

A good commenter will have:

• read the post carefully,
• checked out the links in the post
• read the previous comments before they leave one of their own
• added to the conversation with a quality comment – remember that video from Mrs Yollis’ class.
• included a link to their own blog or a similar post on their own blog

Game 1: 

This is a game we have run for many challenges and allows you to connect globally.  Those who have taken part in a challenge before know the game of  ‘Count Out Three’. Here are the instructions:

1. click on a blog on the student list or class list– count one
2. now click on a blog from the new student’s blogroll – count two
3. finally click on a blog from that new blogroll – count three
4. leave a comment on an interesting post at this third blog.

Teachers: If you are moderating student comments, please make sure you are up-to-date with that this week as students can be very disappointed when they think they have no comments, yet many are in the moderation queue ready to be published.

Students: Make sure you are also replying to any comments that have been left for you.

Do this activity at least three times and finally, write your own post saying which blogs you visited and which posts you left a comment on. Why did you choose that post? Remember to include a link back to the post you left a comment on.

Game 2:

This is a new one I have thought of for this challenge. Many great student posts are being flipped to the #16stubc Flipboard magazine, but I am not sure how many of you have actually checked them out. So here are the instructions for this game.

1. Click on the flipboard magazine link here
2. Click on the title of the post of what looks like an interesting image or a catchy title
3. You should now be taken to the actual blog post, read it and leave a comment
4. Come back to the magazine again and repeat two more times

Write a blog post mentioning the blog posts you read and the comment you left.

Get to it – start visiting and leaving quality comments that show you have read the post. 

How many quality comments could you leave this week? Can you leave 10, 20 or maybe 50?

Write a post about the commenting you have done this week or throughout the challenge so far.

• What have you enjoyed about commenting?
• What is annoying about commenting?
• How have you found interesting posts to comment on?
• Are your posts getting lots of quality comments? Why or why not?

Create a list of great comment starters to help new students to blogging. There are some lists on the web but try to create your own. Here are a couple of examples from Anne Davis:

•  Another thing to consider is…….
• I can relate to this…….
• This makes me think of…….

Write a quick post then include 5 great examples of comments as part of the post – use some interesting comment starters for each comment.

Aikawa Ke via Compfight

Different activities this week but first some posts worth visiting. These students and classes have been leaving the URL of their POST so I could visit easily. Many of you are only leaving URL of your blog rather than the actual post, so I only approve those comments but don’t visit.

Students:

• Kate created a Powtoon for her comment tips
• Danika created a series of posts for her #BAD2016 as well as a badge for her blog
• Love the conversation happening here in the comments on Andrea’s blog
• Can you finish these stories- Emily , Kemi,  Fatima,  Ibrahima,  Nicholas,  Keller?, Lea, Jagga, Jennifer, Rosane
• Zoom out on this posts – Alice, Angela,
• Some great videos –Mafalda and Margarida, Jose and Paulo, Thanumi,

Classes:

• Mrs Gadzala has three classes she is blogging with – check them all out
• Students from Portugal learning English – check blogs on sidebar.
• Visit the Tech Kids – blogs down bottom of sidebar.
• Check out the Huzzahnians and their BreakoutEDU for Global read aloud
• Excellent image posts from students at McDowell Media
• Teachers check out using a padlet each week for great posts in your class
• Mr Ellsworth adapts a challenge post to suit his students (sometimes I can get very wordy – Miss W.)

Lots of posts have been added to the #16stubc Flipboard magazine – is one of your posts in there yet? Over 500 posts are there from the two sets of challenges in 2016.

Now to this week’s activities

Instead of me writing a post, I invited some other teachers, educators and mentors to create posts on their blogs. So you will need to choose where to go. You can visit one or as many as you like.

Remember if you leave a comment on the post, make sure it is a quality comment. If you include a link in your comment make sure it goes to your blog or the post you have written on your blog.

Mike Farmer

A retired science teacher (living in Spain) and mentor in the challenge invites you to discuss the Gaia hypothesis. Visit here if under 12 years old, here if 12 and older.

Mrs Yollis

Grade 3 teacher (from California) who creates videos for the challenge, invites students to talk about playing outside at school. PS Make sure you leave excellent comments here – maybe include some HTML code to impress Mrs Yollis and her students. Leaving a comment here will be different to your normal Edublogs blog.

Mrs Smith

Grade 6/7 teacher (from Vancouver Island, Canada) invites you to discuss how prepared you are for emergencies where you live. This includes a survey she would like you to fill out.

Eugene

Member of staff at Edublogs, invites you to visit, virtually, his country South Africa – lots of activities to choose from here

Still got time left this week?

• Visit other classes and students taking part in the challenge.
• Read the #16stubc Flipboard magazine – link on sidebar
• If you have some favourite blogs you visit, make sure you have them linked on your sidebar or in a page on your blog or in a special post. You will need these links in a couple of week’s time when we play a game.