T-minus two days until Thanksgiving! Soon I’ll be riding in the car going to South Carolina!! I know for one thing I will be eating lots of pumpkin pie! So excited for Thursday! On a less happy note, this is the last week of the Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge and this is the last post to write :(. This last post is a reflection of what being a student blogger is like and what I enjoyed and liked about this challenge. I’ll be answering a few questions, sort of like a Q&A!
1. How many posts did you write and publish during the SBC? In your opinion, which post demonstrates your best writing?
I wrote 7 blog posts (including this one) in the Student Blogging Challenge. My class and I skipped week 7 of the SBC because we had so much stuff going on in communications! In my opinion, my best writing was put into my SBC #3 post where I made a free-verse poem about fall. I think that I used strong vocabulary in my poem and created good imagery to the viewer.
2. Which SBC challenge was your favorite and why?
My favorite post that I wrote was probably my music post because I loved talking about all the memories and attachments I have with the songs of my life. A close second would probably be the Holiday and Festivities post where I wrote about Thanksgiving! I think that the Music and Holidays posts were the most enjoyable and interesting to write. I also liked the “5 Tips to Leave a Quality Comment” because it was different and very informative to the people who view my blog. Making the infographic for this post was fun, too!
3. How many comments did you receive overall? Which post received the most comments? Why is commenting important to student bloggers?
I received a total 22 comments from other bloggers around the world in the Student Blogging Challenge. I have a little more if I include my “A-Z About My Name” and “All About Anna Claire” posts. I received 15 comments from my music post, which is the most I’ve ever gotten for the Student Blogging Challenge. Commenting is very important in blogging because it lets bloggers know that their posts are appreciated and looked at from other people from all over the globe. They also provide suggestions, constructive criticism, and praise for a blogger. Also, if you leave comments on someone’s blog, chances are that you will get a reply back and a visit from the blog you commented on!
4. What new web tools did you discover during the challenge? What new skills have you learned through blogging?
I learned how to make a collage from https://www.befunky.com/, find royalty-free images from a variety of websites, make an infographic on https://venngage.com/, create a Google Form, and I learned how to insert embed codes into my posts. Whenever my class and I were doing the SBC Week 1 task, we were required to make a Google Slides presentation on how we to make avatars and how we customize them to make them look like us. I inserted the slides into my blog post by putting in an embed code that I found on the Google Slides presentation. Before I started my blog, I had no idea about how any of these web tools worked. Now that I am a ~blogger~, I know how to create many things that can be found on my computer. Just like a lot of things, it’s not as complicated as it seems!
I also learned that writing blog posts and blogging in general takes a lot of time and effort. During this blogging challenge, every week we had something we had to complete, so it was sometimes overwhelming and stressful to make sure I got it in on time. Despite all of this, the SBC was so fun and a great start for a new blogger like me!
5. What are your plans for your future blogging?
Some plans that I have for my blog in the future are writing about things I hope to do in the future, events I’m looking forward to, lessons I learned in middle school, book reviews, and much more! I’m excited for what topics I will be writing about in my blog soon! I think that my class and I are also going to be doing the next Student Blogging Challenge in March of 2020.
It’s crazy to think that this is last week of the Student Blogging Challenge! These past few weeks have flown by so fast. Thanks to everyone who has commented and viewed my blog weekly for the new posts. If you participated in the SBC with me, what has been your favorite part about it? If you’re not a blogger, tell me if you would ever start a blog of your own. Like I’ve said a million times before, leave your blog URL so that I can see yours too. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family, fun, and food! Bye!
–Anna Claire
E X T R A R E S O U R C E S // L I N K S
How to make a collage (pictured above)- https://www.befunky.com/
Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge website- https://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/