Celebrating 10 Years of Student Blogging Challenges

mapa mundi que era o símbolo do primeiro desafio de blogging de estudantes

Image: Tecnology in the Classroom

This was our badge for the first Stubc competition

Better Blogguing with Students Course – Week Six #edublogs

    I had started blogging during the Blogging Comment Challenge;   shortly after that adventure, I participated in the first Student Blogging Challenge, back in 2008.

    It  has been an unforgettable experience to me and some of my young students, a handful of them with their own blogs set up, with my help, during breaks or in the evening, asking for support through messenger.

    I tried to come back in later years, even if blogging was still not considered as a school activity, and some Portuguese students have been participants, or have shared the common subjects posted in “Student Friends” or in “Bringing Us Together”(now both archived) between the Challenges, but I’ve been mostly present as a mentor.

alunos d o 6A os primeiros participantes no desafio de alunos

 

These three boys of 6A would lead the lesson by themselves

   Today, I’m celebrating the #Stubc: it has been created by Sue Wyatt, a Tasmanian teacher – almost on the antipode of Portugal – who excels in the art of bringing  students together from all parts of the world.

    In fact, Sue  creates a safe and challenging environment where students may engage in cordial and thoughtful conversations. 

 Twice a year, along ten weeks, each student participant is followed along by an adult, as a commenter.  Each week, an inspiring task with multiple suggestions is posted, so that students write about a common subject or share the same activity.

alunos de 2008 blurred

6B Participants in Carnival Celebration

     Thus, a true web of meaningful communications is weaved among the participants. Students improve their digital literacy as well as their technological skills; but above all, they become deeply aware of their Global Citizenship, and  subtle links of genuine friendship find a  fertile soil to be born and grow.

     I don’t know if there is an Edublogs Award for this admirable effort in which mostly young Students give the best of themselves, but I remember the words of Sue Wyatt about it: 

comentário de Sue Wyatt pedindo que os alunos possam ter um prémio no desafio

Image: Edublogs Awards

     The Twentieth Stubc is about to begin: please, register here, for our Students

“are the bloggers of the future we should be helping to grow”.

Ines

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7 thoughts on “Celebrating 10 Years of Student Blogging Challenges

  1. Hi Ines,

    What a lovely post! Happy 10 year anniversary to you and Sue. How great you even have a photo to remember your class in 2008.

    Was 2008 your first year of blogging? This was my first year of blogging. I should have got my class involved in the challenge too! 🙂

    Kathleen

    • Thank you Kathleen for your encouraging words! In fact, this has been a crazy adventure in my school and for some weeks we felt what could be a twenty one century School! Some students, like Filipa and Madalena, gave their best. I keep all their blogs nested in my main blog. They are all in Faculty now, that’s why I could post their photos.
      Ines

  2. G’day Ines,
    What a fantastic post and to have found some of the old images and twitter feed is amazing!

    We have had a great time with the challenge over the last 10 years. I have appreciated your help as a mentor and in transcribing to Portuguese.

    • Thank you, Sue!
      I learned a lot from you in these days and I will be forever grateful for having made possible for my students and so many hundreds of them, to communicate in safety , to express themselves freely and even to become real friends across the world.
      I admire the fact that, along these ten years, you cope so well with this huge and generous task of keeping all your thousands of conversations with students full of life and purpose.
      Ines

  3. Wow, Inês, what a landmark!!! And what a fantastic teacher you are and what amazing pupils you have had. I’m flabbergasted, I really am! I wish you all the best in blogging and as a commenter, a challenge I am about to start for the first time, too.
    Congrats, Inês, to you and your pupils 🙂
    Best wishes,
    Alexandra

    • Hi Alexandra! Thank you for your so generous words. (I just lost my comment)
      I feel that all these participations along the years have been as life lessons. In the first time , I had even to face suspicious parents, kids had to give up their “playground time” and as for the most complex tasks, I had to do them myself.
      But I’ll never forget their faces, each time they would receive a comment from abroad or when they came to me to check their English or to post an image. They discovered a new and rich horizon that increased the quality of their communications and enlarged their vision of reality.
      I know you will love it too!
      Ines

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