Updating our Voki and Adopting Virtual Pets

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For our March 23 meeting of blogging club, we first need to finish our “About Me” pages. We’ll talk again about the difference between a blog post (listed from newest to oldest on the blog, for updated information) and a blog page (stays in the same place all the time, for information that stays the same).

Next, we’ll update the Voki avatar widget in our sidebar. I created one Voki account for all of our club members to use, with my email address and a generic password. We created our Voki in winter, and we need to update them for the change in seasons.

If we have time left, we’ll add the virtual pet widget to our sidebar, too!

Virtual Pet Blog Widget

Blog Signature

 


Adding an “About Me” Page

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At our blogging club meeting on February 23, we added an About Me page to our blogs.

We started by taking a walk around the school with iPads in hand. I had loaded the Edublogs app on the iPads, so that we could create our “About Me” pages directly on the iPad where the photos were stored.

We took photos of our classrooms, hallway murals, and other important parts of the school.

Then we went to the computer lab and talked about what an “About Me” page would look like.

We chose the “About” page from the Balsamic Camel blog as our model. It looks like this.

About Me blog pageThe page starts by explaining the name of the blog.

Then a bulleted list tells us facts about the blogger.

For our pages, we also added the photos we took around the school.

We didn’t quite finish our “About Me” pages in the hour that we meet. We’ll work on them some more next time!

Blog Signature

 


Good Examples of Student Blogs

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Everyone knows what a blog is, right?

Dog with a blog TV show

Maybe we should take time to look at some examples of excellent student blogs.

Balsamic Camel

balsamic camel blog

Explore With Spunk

Explore With Spunk blog

One Kid’s Life

One Kid's Life blogCome Somersault with Sarah!

Great Student Blog

 

Mateo’s Blog

Best Student Blogs

We’ll take a look at each blog example. We’ll talk about what we like and want to adopt in our own blogs. We’ll talk about what changes we would suggest. We’ll talk about digital citizenship–are these students blogging safely? And we’ll leave a comment to encourage these awesome student bloggers!

You can see more great student blogs here, at Edublog Awards for Best Student Blogs!

Blog Signature


Blog Comments

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At our next meeting of our blogging club, we will add a comment to at least one other blog.

This will give us the opportunity to review a couple of points.

No One Commented on Blog Post

One, every blog post should end with a question or call to action. The blogger is responsible for encouraging comments.

Call to ActionTwo, comments should show or inspire learning, respect digital safety, respect others and their opinions, and show quality, with grammar and spelling in mind.

Comment on All Blogs

This might take some practice.

 


Widgets

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At our meeting on December 8, we’ll add widgets to our blogs. A widget is a tool or some content that you add to the sidebar of your blog.

This Edublogs Teacher Challenge has some great widgets for student blogs! It also tells us step by step how to add a widget to our Edublog.

I think we’ll like adding the Brain Pop joke of the day, the virtual pet, a Voki avatar, a flag counter and a cluster map. You can see all of these widgets here on this demo blog.

I think our blogging club will have fun creating their own Voki avatar here.

Voki website


Choosing our Blog Themes

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At our first meeting of Blogging Club, we reviewed our expectations for our club, logged in, and chose a title and theme for our blogs.

We are using Edublogs, and we have many choices for our blog themes in our dashboard.

Edublog Themes

Once we chose a theme, we had different options, like colors, to choose from.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure the students choose a theme with 2 columns. Their pages and posts will appear in one column, and their widgets will appear in another. When your mouse hovers over a theme, a “Theme Details” button will appear.

Theme Details

Click on “Theme Details.” Make sure the details include the words “two column.”

Two Column Blog Theme

This is what our blogs looked like after our first meeting. (We still need to change to 2-column format for some of the blogs!)

Punky Princess Blog

Maggie's Learning blog

Miranda the Panda blog

Nikki's Learning blog

Sophia's Learning blogNo posts yet, just a theme and a header. Next time, we’ll add some widgets!


National School Lunch Week

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National School Lunch Week Texas

(photo from the Texas Dept. of Agriculture, http://www.squaremeals.org/Programs/NationalSchoolLunchProgram/NSLW.aspx)

October 14-18 is National School Lunch Week. In our cafeteria, we are celebrating with the theme, “Take a Texas-Size Tour.”

What is YOUR favorite lunch to buy in our Fox Run cafeteria?