We have also had one of our students’ blogs nominated, Jessica, so the same applies. Only one vote from school so we need lots of votes from home computers, community computers, work computers and iPhones.  Here is the link to vote for Jess.

Voting closes at 12pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday 16 December and the awards are announced shortly thereafter.  Both winners and those who were nominated will receive badges to display proudly on their blog.

My nominations are included here:

• Best individual blog – Sue Waters
  
• Best individual tweeter – ShellTerrell
• Best class blog – Mrs Yollis’ grade 3 class
• Best student blog – Jess Jessica is a student in my class who only began blogging in March this year and has certainly extended her global connections through this new technology.
• Best resource sharing blog – Larry Ferlazzo
  
• Best teacher blog – Kim Cofino
  
• Best educational tech support blog – Edublogger
• Best educational use of audio – Get Smart podcasts
  
• Best educational use of video / visual – Tom Barrett – interesting ways
  
• Best educational wiki – EdOrigami

Add a banner or logo from here.

Why do people squat when going to the toilet?  Check it out here.

Lots of links about ‘World Toilet Day’.

Our class squatted for one minute.  Some comments were:

• Legs went numb after a while.
• Hard not to put your hands down for balance.
• Started hurting your thighs.
• Difficult because we are not used to squatting.
• Strained your muscles.

Write blog posts:

• why did you  join the challenge
• write a post for BAD on climate change
• favourite interests
• favourite holidays or countries to visit
• storytelling using images
• how to write a post that invites comments
• favourite blogs you visit
• Edublogger competition post
• what did you learn from other bloggers
• about a positive digital footprint
• a challenge post for the international student blog

Commenting:

• count three out activity
• own commenting guidelines
• comparing comments
• replying to comments
• commenting habits after eight weeks of the challenge
• visit posts from overseas students and classes to leave comments
• visit Lonely Planet blog to leave comments on a post

Non written posts:

• comic
• quiz
• poll
• images only
• using embed code for links in comments and widgets

Blog presentation:

• create avatar
• about page
• translation widget
• weather widget
• create blogroll
• add badges
• clustrmap
• using tags and categories

WHEW!! That is a lot of learning in just ten weeks, yet some of you want more.  Well here is this week’s challenge.

Week 10 challenge

1. What topics would you want to write about if you take part in another challenge next year?
2. What questions would you ask overseas students that they could then answer in a post?

Even though the official challenge is now over, I will be posting a review survey next week.  I would appreciate as many students and teachers taking part in this survey to help me plan for next year when I begin the challenge again in February/March.

Then check out this website. 

Notice the closing date is 30th November, so you dont have long to get it done.

The challenge is to design the 2010 edna schools calendar.

Original image: ‘2008 Calendar‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80812899@N00/2180397669
by: Dier

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial License

The penultimate challenge! 

Time is running out for you.

 What do you need to do?

Visit this blog written by students and teachers who have taken part in previous blogging challenges.  Checkout the posts written by students.  Then come back here to read about your challenge for this week.

Challenge week 9

Write a post you think would be suitable to add to this international student blog.  It will need writing, a question at the end, images, perhaps other media like a poll or slideshare.  What topic will you choose?

If you would like to be an author on the international blog, leave a comment here on this post.  Also remember to hyperlink to this post when you write your challenge so I can visit.  The best challenges will be added to the international blog.

Teachers - if you would be interested in having your class join the international blog, please leave a comment on the international blog under the page heading “Join us”. I will start organizing the calendar again so each class has about two weeks or a fortnight in which to have control of the blog.

Original image: ‘Time‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24742305@N00/2331754875
by: John Morgan

Released under an Attribution License

Just a warning though about our last two challenges. 

 The second last (penultimate) one is going to involve lots of research on a topic of interest to you – in other words free choice.  So start getting organized for this post that will need at least 4 paragraphs of writing.  But don’t publish it  until you see what else you need to include with the writing.

The last challenge will be filling in a survey about the blogging challenge.  There will be one survey for teachers and a separate one for students. So put on the thinking caps – good and bad points about the blogging challenge, ways to improve etc.

Remember we are looking at the following:

• stone age man and how humans developed since leaving Africa
• early towns around Mesopotamia region or the Middle East and the Tigris/Euphrates Rivers
• Ancient Egypt along the Nile River
• Ancient Greece and the city states
• Ancient Rome

Have a look at the headings in the wikipedia articles.  Jot these down as they might be helpful for when you are planning your research and final presentation. Create a mindmap or use bubbl.us which will then allow you to embed your mindmap in your blog. Add any more interesting information you find while searching the web during today’s computer blocks.

Can you find any great websites, videos or audio visuals that I could add as a link?  This could include activities to help with your presentation as a team. I have already linked this post to sections in wikipedia so don’t include those in your comments.