Welcome to the spring 2017 Blogging Challenge. Blogging is a great way to share your voice, connect to the world, and communicate with others. As an educator blogging enables you to extend your teaching beyond the confines of a school building and bell schedule. As a student blogging allows the student to write with a real audience, and find their voice in a big world. Often a student will write better and open up more in a blog because they know someone is reading. It is a powerful tool. The goal of this challenge is to get you blogging and discover ways to incorporate blogging into your classroom culture. Each challenge is designed to take 10-15 minutes and will include a mixture of teacher and student activities. You do not have to start from scratch if you already have a blog–use what you got. You do not have to have all your students complete the student activities, so feel free to get creative on how you accomplish those tasks. Also, if a student is doing the blogging activities with another teacher as well you they do not have to blog twice. The one entry will count for all their teachers. There will be more details when the student challenges begin in part 6. If you complete all 10 parts of this challenge you will receive three hours of PD credit and a special edition Blogging Challenge badge. The blogging challenge will begin on March 1st and all parts of the challenge must be completed by March 31st. Good luck and have fun!

Part 1: Create a Blog

Welcome to Part 1 of the C4L Blogging Challenge. Today’s challenge is for teachers only. As the title suggests, your goal today is to create a blog. For simplicity sake use one of the following blogging platforms: blogger.com, edublogs.org, or wordpress.com. You do not have to post anything to the blog for today, just create the blog and customize as you like. All three are easy to use, but I have included resources to help you along.

Creating a Blogger blog

Creating a Edublog blog

Creating a WordPress blog

Part 2: Introduce Yourself

For part two of this challenge you are going to create your first blog post and we are going to keep it simple. I want you to write a post about yourself. Who are you, where are you from, what are your hobbies, etc.? Also include a picture of yourself. You can check out this short article about blogging about yourself.

Part 3: Why do You Teach?

The blogs that people tend to be drawn to are the ones that are honest, helpful, encouraging, and inspiring. Today your audience is your peers–educators. I want you to write a blog post talking about why you teach and what do you enjoy about the profession.

Part 4: Letter to Your Younger Self

Today I want you to write a letter to your younger self. What are the lessons you wish you knew when you started teaching?

Part 5: Best Day Ever

Okay, so this one isn’t going to be like those uber-cheesy warm ups we give students. Instead, I want you to write about the best lesson you have created (or borrowed) and delivered. Remember to not just talk about the lesson, but the students and learning as well. Feel free to even share links/pictures/videos of the lesson or the end product.

Part 6: Student Created Blog

By this point you should be getting more comfortable with blogging, so now it is time to get your students involved. You can do this in one of three ways:

Have them be “Guest Writers” on your blog
Create a class blog
Have the students create their own blog

Have the students write about is themselves (similar to the Part 2 challenge). Keep in mind that the student’s should share too much about themselves so the following guidelines are helpful:

Don’t post a picture of yourself
Use only first names
Don’t reveal personal information like contact info, where you live, etc.

To set your heart at ease let me explain a few things about the student challenges.

You do not have to include every student in this activity. You can do this with a single class, a group of students, or as optional “extra credit” types of assignments.
You do not have to require the students to work on the blogs in class, but you can as a warm up if you would like.
Although the student and teacher prompts are thematically linked you may assign different topics (maybe content or lesson specific) for students if you would like.
You will notice that I have included age appropriate prompts for those that want to utilized the given prompts.
Parts 7-10 do not need to be completed in order. You may complete in any order you would like.
You do not have to complete the teacher part of the challenge on the same day or at the same time as the student portion of the challenge.

Part 7: If I Could Improve Education

For today’s part I would like you and your students to blog on the following topic.

Teacher Prompt: What is needed to change/improve education?

Student Prompt: (Elementary) What is your favorite thing about your school? (Secondary) What do you want from your education?

Part 8: Those that Change You

For today’s part I would like you and your students to blog on the following topic.

Teachers: Talk about that student that “changed” you.

Students: (Elementary) What is one thing you would change about school and why would you change it? (Secondary) Write a letter to your “younger self” giving advice on those things you know now that you wish you knew then.

Part 9: It is About the Choice

Today I would like you and your students to write about the following topics.

Teachers: You have a choice today. Pick one of the following prompts and go for it.

What do you hate to see in a school (building and culture)?
What do the contents of your desk drawer say about you?

Students: You have a choice today. Pick one of the following prompts and go for it.

Elementary

Write about your favorite story, book, or movie.
Pick your favorite toy and describe it.

Secondary

Who is the teacher that impacted you the most and how did they impact you?
Who has helped you in life and what does that mean to you?

Part 10: Looking to the Future