Educational technology blogging platform, Edublogs, has a new challenge to inspire students to write. Challenge Yourself To Blog is a series of 10 blogging tasks that EduBlogs has designed to “improve blogging and commenting skills while connecting students with a global audience,” and runs twice a year, once in March and again in September. For more information on how to get your class involved in the challenge, visit the EduBlogs Challenge Yourself To Blog page and get inspired.
“The Challenge is open to both class blogs and to individual student bloggers from all over the world and of all ages – blogs don’t need to be hosted by Edublogs to participate! Participants can complete as many of the tasks as they like and in any order.”
Blogging is a great resource for students to get excited about writing and while there are many reasons, here are some of our favorites:
- Blogging encourages students to write using a more creative medium than the typical research paper or book report. It’s more personal and fun.
- Blogs are a great place to talk about specific passions and to meet others who share the same interests.
- In order to become a better writer, it takes practice. Writing skills are a benefit of regular blogging, which help students in class and later in life.
- Blogging helps to develop 21st century skills.
- One of the objectives for using technology in the classroom is to teach students how to use digital tools for communication purposes (see Do’s and Don’ts of Online Student Communication for more) and to collaborate with their peers.
- Many businesses have a blog that is dedicated to their industry so getting students started blogging early can help with future job opportunities.
- Having a blog (that isn’t private) can establish a student’s digital footprint and be the base as they develop their online reputation.
For more inspiration to get your students writing, check out 12 ways to come up with ideas of what to write from Kim Phillips on “12 Most” or Help Students Say Something Substantial from the Collaborize Classroom Resources section at CollaborizeClassroom.com.
