.:Audit Time:.

Did you visit the actual challenge on the blog each week or did your teacher have a post on your class blog?

Yes, I visited the actual challenge on the blog each week, but my teacher Mr Pepper also put the challenges on his blog weekly, telling us what activities he would like us to preform each week.

Which challenges were the most useful?

The challenges that were the most useful for me were the ones that were helping to develop my blog further. e.g. “putting certain widgets on my blog (translator, recent posts)

Which challenges were the most interesting?

The challenges that were most interesting were the ones that left links to interactive sites.

What would be some other topics you would like included in future challenges?

I think that everything is basically covered already.

Are more tutorial type challenges needed? eg how to make a link in your post.

 I think something that needs to be covered is how to put pictures on your sidebar. I struggled with this last year.

Were the ‘Visit these’ posts useful?

These posts were useful because it was interesting to see what other people did with the task (how they used their creativity and made the post unique.)

Were the challenges where you had to embed ie polls, cartoons, wallwisher etc interesting or could you not embed due to being a free Edublogs blog or a blogging platform that didn’t allow embedding?

I didn’t like these challenges because I had a very hard time accessing some of these sites.

Were there enough chances to visit blogs from overseas and make links with other students/classes?

With the student blogging listing names of registered student I felt that there were plenty of oppertunities to visit other people’s blogs.

Did you make global connections?

I had the oppertunity to visit many blogs from all around the globe.

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How many posts did you write?

 I have written 24 posts this year starting in September when the new school year started.

How many were school based, your own interests or set by the challenge?

18 of those posts were set by the challenge, 3 were for school and 2 were for my pleasure. Since my blog theme is Harry Potter though I tried to make many of my challenge posts Harry Potter oriented, so some of the challenge posts felt like  misscellaneuos posts.

How many comments did you receive from classmates, teachers or overseas students?

I received 33 comments since the beginning of the year. This included classmates, overseas and teachers. This is just  for my posts though, I did not include the comments I received on my pages. 

Which post received the most comments? Why do you think that happened?

The post that I received most comments on was my .:You know your a basketball player When:. I believe this is because it has an added interactive activity that shows slides of what is happening in the story. You are able to read the story and then see my interpretation in pictures.

Which post did you enjoy writing the most and why?

I enjoyed writing all of my Harry Potter oriented posts the most because it is something I am interested in and know a lot about. When you like something, it is easier to talk about.

Did you change blog themes at all and why?

I changed my blog theme once to get it to the Harry Potter theme. Before this theme I wrote about many different things but never settled on one subject. I decided to make my blog one theme, and that was what I was going to talk about through my posts.

How many widgets do you have? Do you think this is too many or not enough?

I have a total of 18 widgets. I feel like this is a good amount, and I also have a pretty good variety. One widget I would add though is maybe an “interesting Harry Potter facts” widget.

How many overseas students do you have on your blog roll?

I have 51 students on my blog roll but 25 of those students are part of my class, so I have approximitly 25 students from Canada and overseas.

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Student Blogging 2011: Challenge 10

.:Favourites:.

Everyone has their favourite things, and for me it’s really hard to choose but here are a few.

Swimming: In the summer I am on a swim team. A swim team helps you build endurance and we get to compete against other local teams. The races that you can compete in are the Butterfly, Back stroke, breast stroke, front stroke and IM (all 3 stokes in one race.) In the winter I do master swim, which is a way of keeping you on top of your swimming skills and it builds your endurance, and now that I am finished all of my swimming levels I can take courses to become a lifeguard. So far I have completed the first course, 3 more to go.

The Arts: I’m the arts kinda gal. I love to sing, act, dance and I love art! I also take piano and voice lessons. I am currently in Grade 5 Royal Conservatory in Piano. This year I am going to try and go for an exam. For your exam you must also take a test for basic theory. I have just recently started taking voice lessons. In addition to my musical life, I have been cast as the role of the Mad Hatter for the play Alice in Wonderland along with my good friends Alexandra, Jacqueline and my brother Alex. The plays profits are going towards our church, I am so excited to see the final product.

Harry Potter: After being introduced to this series by my friend Jacqueline I can’t get enough Harry Potter! I have read all the books and seen all the movies. As you can tell by my blog theme I am obsessed! You can check out my Harry potter page at the top of my sidebar for some fun facts and biographies.

So what are some of your favourites?

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2011 Student Blogging: Challenge 9

.:Zero to Hundreds:.

There are many components to increasing the comments of your blog and the first is…

Create High Quality posts that will spark your readers interests.

Creating a good interesting post can be hard, but try and follow this outline

1. Try to have about 3 paragraphs of writing
2. Include links to other people’s sites or to informational sites
3. Include a picture that connects back to the post. *Don’t forget to add attribution!

Add  Interactive Activities to Your Blog.

Whether it be in a post or on your sidebar, try things such as polls, translators or the odd game. This will get your audience to interact. Also try asking questions in your post. Perhaps you can ask your readers to answer the question.

Put Yourself Out There!

Make sure you visit other people’s blog and write a comment. When leaving that comment make sure you put a return address back to your blog! Once the person reads your comment, they are obliged to comment back on your blog. This is adding one more comment. And who knows it could create a new blogging friendship!

Check out my Commenting Guidlines for how to create a Quality Comment!

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2011 Student Blogging: Challenge 8

.:Count Out Three:.

Count Out Three is a game that connects people from around the world. It also gives you a chance to appreciate other peoples blogs. It’s as simple as 1,2,3. The first step is to click on someone’s blogroll, and then continue clicking on that person’s blogroll and so on.

1. Julia: Julia and I have a lot in common! We both love Harry Potter! And we both have a love for the arts! Julia is also taking part in the 2011 Student Blogging Challenge.
2. Cole: Cole’s blog has a variety of posts ranging from his favourite sports to the Terry Fox run that happens every year around Canada.
3. Madison: Madison also has many of the same interets as me. She also has some great summaries of the books from the Twilight Saga.

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Student Blogging 2011: Challenge 8

.:My Family and Me:.

Those people you love to death, but they sometimes drive you CRAZY! That”s right your family. They are there for you through the ups and downs and love you no matter what.

.:My family members and their interests:.

BARB (MOM): My mother works at a hospital fundraising money so that the hospital can buy new types of technology that will help create better quality of life (for example: MRI) I have also recently got her hooked on the Harry Potter book series.

GARY (DAD) My dad is a farmer.

ALEX (BROTHER): My brother is also a blogger. Some of his interests are hockey, volleyball, golf, and he is also very good at annoying me.

 ADAM (BROTHER #2): Adam is my youngest sibling, and he LOVES animals! Particularly farm animals.

On my mom’s side of the family there are 7 grandchildren. My mother’s father came to Canada from Holland when he was a young boy with his brothers. And my grandma was a born Canadian. My mom’s oldest brother is my Uncle Dave  his wife Aunt Jenn; Uncle Dave works on a carrot farm and my aunt is a teacher. They have two children my cousins Josh and Ben. My mom’s sister, Aunt Janet works for the municipality. And her husband, my uncle Jason, is an architect.

On my dad’s side of the family there are only 5 of us grandkids. Both of my Grandparents came to Canada from Belgium in the mid 60′s. My father’s only brother, my Uncle Ron, works at Gas company. His wife, Aunt Cathy works at a hospital as a nurse. They have two children, Jenna and Tim.

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Student Blogging 2011: Challenge 8

.:Be Creative:.

Challenge 7 is motivating us to show our talents off by using websites, uploading any pictures we may have drawn or took a photo of…anything that shows off our artistic abilities. She also gave us a few websites to browse. Since I am big into the arts I decided to look through the art catergory, some of these include…

Art

• Art games including jigsaws from getty art
• Sketching with odopod
• art from around the world in a mosaic
• Colour in motion needs flash player
• Interactive ideas at the National Gallery of Art, USA
• Create a sand picture by clicking on the little grey square in the top corner to get instructions
• Create your own art work at artpad
• Site on how to draw it
• A school art teacher’s blog with lots of excellent ideas

Here is a sample (*note…there are way better examples on the website!) that I made using odopod. It gives you many different options for drawing on the computer with a pencil effect. Another of my favourites was artpad.
 

Student Blogging 2011: Challenge 7

.:And Then it Happened:.

In class we have started reading books called “And then it Happened” by M & L Wade. These are some short stories that all have the sentence “and then it happened” throughout them to make the story more enhancing to the reader. In class we had to do a cold write (off the top of your head writing piece) using the “and then it happened” sentence. For mine I used J.K. Rowling’s character’s from her popular book series Harry Potter. I had the setting be on Halloween since the holiday is closely nearing. Enjoy!

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It was a cold Halloween night and Harry, Ron and Hermione were walking down a short  crowded street in London, England, tricker treating from house to house. All was normal- a big change from their everyday lives. They were blending in with the other children, dressed in costumes (Barbie, Ken and Darth Vader) enjoying the candy and the best part about it was that Draco Malfoy was no where in sight.

But there was no way they could hide from their big secret, it would always be with them…there secret was that they actually were wizards, they did have wands, they did fly on broomsticks and they could do magic.

But so far all was fine, no one in the street knew their secret…

AND THEN IT HAPPENED…

Ron dropped his bag of candy.

“Blimey,” Ron exclaimed.

“Dont worry Ron, I’ll take care of this,” Harry replied

Harry took out his wand and said  in a loud clear voice “Wingardrium Leviosa.”

Just as harry bellowed out the spell Hermione yelled “NOOOOOOOOOOO HARRY!”

Just as Harry realized his mistake a group of muggles  (non- magical children) turned around at the sound of Harry’s voice, just in time to see candy floating in the air at Harry’s command. They screamed out in terror.

The group of children had just seen Harry do magic. That is a big NO, NO in the wizarding world.

“Oh no,” Harry and Ron whispered at the same time.

The muggle children pointed and screamed and then they started running full force wanting to escape as fast as they could from Harry, Ron and Hermione.

“Oh, no you don’t…CONFUNDUS!” Hermione yelled.

The children stopped, and looked uttely dumbfounded. (Hermione had just tempered with their memories.) They no longer remembered what happened. They just stood there looking confused at each other.

Harry, Ron and Hermione turned away walking quickly out of the street. They pretended as if nothing had happened…all was fine, or so they thought…

When the three friends got back to their school “Hogwarts” punishment was awaiting them in the Great Hall, in the form of Snape, Dumbledore and Professer McGonagal. They were looking grim standing sid by side.

Three scoldings, three, detentions and 100 points off Gryffindor later Harry, Ron and Hermione had learned their lesson.

The three friends left the Great Hall deciding to be more careful, but who knows how long that decision will last?

Some other AMAZING stories in the form of “And then it Happened”

Dawson, Laura, Jared, Alexandra, Brooke

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.:pov-er-ty:.

Did you know that half the world is living on less than $2.50 a day? That according to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty? And that in 2005, 72 million children (primary ages) were not enrolled in school?And that over a billion people can not read a book or sign their names. Poverty is an issue that is happening world-wide, and their are many organizations helping people who live in poverty, but we need to take it up a step…let’s help end world poverty. 

Poverty affects people all around the world, from North America to Australia. Poverty is an issue in which many families and children go days without eating. It is the lack of meaterial possesions and money.

.:Global Charities That Help Poverty:.

• Lumos (also known as the Children’s High Level Group) Lumos is an organization that helps children with disabilities that  are institutionalized beacuse of poverty, disability and ethnicity. Co- Founder happens to be J.K. Rowling
• Canadian Food For Children (CFFC) helps suffering and starving children by raising money to buy food for people in developing or disaster striken counrties.
• The United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) Works for child rights throughout 191 countries.

.:How You Can Help:.

1. DONATE! Whether it be money, food or material items, it is going to go to a good cause.
2. VOLUNTEER! There are various groups such as JAAGO. This is a group started in Bangladesh which is a youth organization which encourages young volunteers to help others living beneath the poverty line. 

“Once poverty is gone, we’ll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They’ll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society – how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair.”
― Muhammad Yunus, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism

Definition of poverty from: Marriam Webster

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Student Blogging 2011: Challenge 6

.:No Words, Just Photos:.

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.:London, England:.

London, England. Home of the Royal Family, Big Ben and my favourite author J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.

London, England is one place that I would love to visit. While in London you cannot go away without having seen Big Ben or Buckingham Palace. Big Ben is the nickname of the great bell clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster. Big Ben is the Largest four faced chiming clock as well as the third tallest free-standing clock tower in the world. On May 31 2009 it celebrated it’s 150th anniversary. The clock tower has become a famous symbol of both London and England.

Buckingham Palace on the other hand is the primary residence of the British monarch. It has 775 rooms; including 19 state rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms. It is the location for great Royal ceremonies and State visits, which are organized by the Royal Household.

But aside from seeing all the main sights, I would love to tour some of the things mentioned in Harry Potter, and tour the Harry Potter sets. Kings Cross is one of those places: J.K. Rowling’s parent’s met in Kings Cross station and it eventually became part of her books, as the place to catch the train to Hogwarts. But another attraction that has recently opened is the tour of the Harry Potter sets. Starting in the spring of 2012 London will be home of the three hour walking tour of the sets (as well as the costumes, props, effects and animatronics) from all the movies.

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Student Blogging 2011: Challenge 2