October '18: Student Blogging Challenge #1: Introductions, online safety and avatars

I have joined two classes to this year's free Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge. It is the 21st Student Blogging Challenge - two a year for the last ten years http://bit.ly/2Abv09v. You can join your students individually which is what I have done or you can join as a class. It is a great way to learn about Internet safety along with 1550 other students from 27 countries and six continents around the world. My two classes are very excited about it.

Introductions
This week's post is all about Introductions. We will be creating poems about ourselves using our online names. I gave my two classes this poem outline to complete:

Online Name

Three descriptive traits
Who lives in Cape Town

Who enjoys…… (at school)

Whose hobbies are….

Who likes... (food)

Who thinks….

Who loves…
Online name

Instead of adding a photo we use an avatar. An avatar is an image that you use to represent yourself on the internet. It’s like a character that represents your online identity. In the past we have made different avatars - I rather like the way www.cartoonify.de does their avatars so we will use that site to create ours. 

The other things we learn about this week is online safety. We are introducing ourselves online in a safe way - not revealing too much about ourselves. I like the poster that Kathleen Morris from Australia (who is running the Blogging Challenge) has added to the post.

This week's tasks for my classes

1. Register for the Blogging Challenge
2. Add the Blogging Challenge badge to your blog
3. Create an avatar using www.Cartoonify.de and add it to your blog.
4. Make sure you have an introductory poem about yourself on the blog
5. Add your avatar and poem to a collaborative slide show.