Student Blogging Challenge ~ Quality Commenting!

Mrs. Yollis' class is participating in the International Student Blogging Challenge!

The focus of week 2 is composing QUALITY comments!

Parts of a Blog

Blogging has many parts: the post, the comments, and the sidebar. If you do a good job with all of the parts, your blog will be more interesting. Today we will focus on quality comments! The comment section is where the blog comes to life and a learning community is built. 

Content is key!

In our class, we evaluate our blog comments. A one-point comment is a general comment that doesn't add very much to the post.   Example: I like your blog. Please visit mine! 

A two-point comment adds something to the comment conversation. A commenter might compliment the writer in a specific way or add new information. Another idea is to make a connection. Maybe the post reminds you of an experience that you've had. Share that connection!  Try to end your comment with a relevant question. That way, an interesting conversation can develop.

What should I say in my comment?

Here is a video made by Mrs. Yollis' students called How to Compose a Quality Comment!  It offers FIVE tips to help you take your comments to the next level!

Mrs. Yollis made a poster using the five-steps to writing a quality comment. You are free to use this infographic, but please give credit and link back to this blog.

Comment by Linda Yollis

We like to open our comments with a greeting and end with a closing. We choose to do this as it makes it easier for us to follow the conversation within a comment section.

How do you get comments typed and published?

-For Advanced Bloggers-

Some bloggers like to use HTML code to make their comments better.  Learning to write HTML code, or HTML tags, is a somewhat simple way to take your comment to the next level.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is a language.

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To write HTML code, use the following symbols:

Important: Do not add a space between the HTML tag and the word or sentence.

                                                                                                     

1.  To put text in italics, place this HTML code around the text:

 

 

The sentence will look like this when published:

  

Bloggers should always proofread a comment before publishing.

                                                                                                     

2.  To make text bold, place this HTML code around the text:

                           

The sentence will look like this when published:  

Bloggers should always proofread a comment before publishing.

                                                                                                     

 
3.  To make a hyperlink, it gets a little tricky.

Use the following HTML code around the URL and add your own link word/words:

  [The URL is the address of the web page. It starts with http://www…]

The HTML code below:

Will become this hyperlink when published:

                                                                 Mrs. Yollis’ Website

Sometimes it is hard to remember the HTML codes. I keep an HTML word document on my desktop with all the common codes, especially the one to create a hyperlink. Here is a video demonstrating how easy it is to a create a hyperlink if you have the code set up in a Word doc.

If you like to add fun shapes...here are those codes!

My class, DO NOT sign into anything. Instead, choose NAME/URL

Use FIRST NAMES ONLY. 

What did you learn about quality commenting? 

 Why is it important to proofread a comment before pressing publish? 

Here are some comment starters:

What do you use to learn typing?

What are some famous landmarks in your country and have you visited them? 

What are some traditional foods from your area? 

What are some professional teams in your area? 

What languages do you speak? 

Student Blogging Challenge & NatGeo's Giant Map of North America

This is the first week of the Student Blogging Challenge. 

One of the tasks is to introduce yourself to the other bloggers participating in the challenge. 

As luck would have it, it is also the week our school rolled out our National Geographic's Giant Map of North America! Let's use the giant map to tell you about ourselves! 

Order your own Giant Map here. 

Here are some geographic facts about 

Mrs. Yollis' third-grade students.

1. We live on the CONTINENT of North America.

2. Our COUNTRY is the United States of America.

3. Out of the fifty STATES, we live in California.

4. We live in a SUBURB of Los Angeles. 

Did you know that North America is the third-largest continent? 

It is! Asia is the largest, then Africa, and then North America.

North America is more than 9, 300, 000 square miles (24, 100, 000 square kilometers). North America is made up of 23 countries, and the largest ones are Canada, the United States, and Mexico. 

We live in the United States. 

According to Countries of the World, 

here are North America's 23 countries. 

The giant map is just that...GIANT! We took off our shoes and walked around and explored our continent! Let's tell you about North America!

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

Ivy and Julia: There are two major mountain ranges in North America, the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. The Rocky Mountains are in the west and are bigger. We represented the Rocky Mountains with red cones. The "Rockies" extend from western Canada down to the state of New Mexico. The highest peak in the Rockies is Mount Elbert in Colorado. The Appalachians are in the eastern United States, and we represented them with yellow cones.

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

Emily F., Tali, Elijah: We used blue chains to follow the flow of rivers. Rivers follow gravity and flow downhill. The often flow out to large bodies of water. 

Cade and Evan: The blue cones show where the river starts (headwaters) and where the river ends (mouth or another river.) 

We used Britannica, classroom maps, and an atlas (a book of maps) to gather facts about North America and our country, the United States. 

Emily E. and Mia: We live in a suburb (a community outside of a city) of Los Angeles, so we are very close to the Pacific Ocean. In fact, we could drive to the beach in about 30 minutes. To the east of North America is the Atlantic Ocean. It would take us about 42 hours to drive to the Atlantic Ocean from where we live.

Eden and Emma: Did you know that there are 24 time zones. The earth spins around every 24 hours. We are in the Pacific Time Zone. 

Mr. and Mrs. Yollis visited the Grand Canyon during winter.
This photo was taken in December.

Daniel: The Grand Canyon is found in the United States in Arizona. There are bobcats, rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks who live in the Grand Canyon. Many tourists visit the Grand Canyon every year. 

Diagram by Aashi

Ivy, Archie, and Ben: The Great Lakes are very large and they are found between the United States and Canada. They are freshwater, not saltwater, and take up the largest area of freshwater in the world.  To remember the Great Lakes, think HOMES: Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, Lake Superior. 

A geyser in Yellowstone National Park. (Photo by Mrs. Yollis)

Emily F.: Yellowstone National Park is in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. There you can see Old Faithful and other geysers!

Isla: Central America is also part of North America. It is in the southern part of North America. The Central American countries are: Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. 

Kevin, Tali, and Kasra: Canada is the country exactly north of the United States. The national capital of Canada is Ottawa. Canada is the second-largest country in the world. 

Sammy: The United States has mountains, prairies, rain forests, and deserts. We are the fourth largest country in the world. 

Paul: North America has a population of more than 490 million people! 

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Tell us about you! What's your continent, country, state/province, and city?

Do you have any questions for us? We are happy to research and comment back to you!

The Student Blogging Challenge Starts on October 6, 2019

We are excited to start Edublog's Student Blogging Challenge on Monday! 

It runs for eight weeks, is free, and is a wonderful way to begin blogging with your students.  

Here are the weekly challenges! 

In the hopes that other teachers will consider blogging with their students, I recently talked about the benefits of blogging on a TLC Ninja podcast with my good friends @CoffeeNancy and @NowaTechie. 

Click on the red circle and give a listen! 

Here is a link to the TLC site.

We are joining the Student Blogging Challenge as a class, and we will join as individual student bloggers in the spring.

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What do you like about blogging?

Share some good digital citizenship tips you've learned!