The first few weeks of the challenge were mainly learning about blogging skills you need when working on public sites on the internet. You should have learnt the following so far:
- Avatars – what they are, how they are used, how to create one and upload to your blog
- About me pages – difference between page and post, what is private information and what you can say on your blog, being a good digital citizen
- Commenting – what makes a great comment, what you expect from a comment on your blog, guidelines for blogging and commenting in your class
- Images, sounds, video – what is creative commons, how to find safe and usable images, what is an attribution and how to write it, websites with great images, creating your own images, using images for puzzles and games, an image paints a thousand words when writing a story or poem
- URLS – difference between BLOG URL when leaving a comment on someone’s blog you are visiting and POST URL when filling in weekly form or commenting on the challenge blog
In a couple of weeks, we will be playing a commenting game. But you need to get prepared for this.
Make sure you have at least 5 other student/class blogs linked on the sidebar of your blog, in a page near your header area or in a recent post that your visitors can find easily. Make sure these are blogs from other students/classes around the world, not just those in your class or school. Perhaps have a blogroll or link category called Global students and/or Global classes. Here is how to add a blogroll if using Edublogs or Blogger. If using Kidblog write a post mentioning at least 5 great blogs you enjoy visiting. Your teacher may be able to add links on the class part of the Kidblog.
Have some visitor widgets on your blog sidebar – maybe a revolver map or a flag counter – this way you can see where your visitors are coming from. Remember only one visitor in 30 will actually leave a comment.
Make sure your blog looks interesting:
- Maybe change your header to suit what you are writing about.
- Do your pets make a noise as soon as your blog is opened in a tab? That can be annoying so make sure the visitor can click on the sound button if they want to hear your animal pet.
- Have you changed the tagline under the title of your blog?
- Have you included some tags or categories to help your readers find a great post?
- Does your background image make it hard for your visitors to read your posts?
- Have you written some interesting posts for your visitors to comment on?
