This year, for our Student Blogging Challenge, I’m adapting some of the Edublogs challenges. I found last year that while there were some that worked really well for our class, there were others that didn’t align well with what we were doing in class.

However, the first challenge is a crucial one for any blogger, and that is to introduce yourself to your audience. There are, therefore, three things you’re going to do this week: first, create an avatar; second, write an About Me page or intro blog post; and third, read and comment on your classmates’ pages or posts.

Step One

An avatar, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, is a photographic representation of you that is used in games or other online venues. Mine, as you can see in any of the comments I’ve posted, is this headshot:

You might want to choose an image that represents you and your interests or adapt a photo into a cartoon-like image that represents you – there are a number of avatar creation sites linked below. Note: You cannot use a copyrighted image in your blog post. (More about that later.)

Step Two

Your second step is to create an About page that gives your audience some idea of who you are and what they can expect to read about on your blog. I include a brief bio in the Biography section of my profile, which shows at the bottom of my blog, but I also have a more detailed About Me page on my professional blog.

Make sure that you are not YAPPY in your post:

Step Three

Use the Blogrolls – Current Year page to find and comment on your classmates’ intro posts. Blogging is largely meant to prompt conversation between you and your audience, so being a good commenter is as important as being a good blogger. See Continue the Conversation for how to write engaging and useful comments (and you can check out I’m a Blogger! for more information about writing interesting blog posts or Coding for Bloggeeks to learn how to use HTML coding in your posts, if that interests you).

As we move forward, we’ll talk more about how to write engaging posts and what blogging is all about. For now, though, think about what you want your blog to be about. Sports focused? Are you interested in writing reviews? Do you want to have a cooking blog, or a history one? Consider these options – and anything else in which you’re interested – for future weeks.