I have written nine posts since March. All my posts were set by the challenge. I didn’t write any that were school based or my own interests. I received two comments on my posts, overall.

https://natalieg7.edublogs.org/2014/05/15/week-9-what-makes-a-great-family/

I think this happened because the people that commented probably had a connection to my post and thought it was interesting. I enjoyed writing “My Passion” the most because it was an activity that I liked to do. I didn’t change my blog theme because I thought the one I originally chose was easy for users to navigate. I have eleven widgets. I think that it’s enough because I don’t want to have to many widgets on my blog because it would distract the user from reading my posts. I don’t have a blog roll.

In class today we interviewed a classmate and asked questions about each other’s blogs, and gave tips to one another on how to improve our blog. I interviewed my friend, Giselle. Here are a few things Giselle said would help improve my blog. Giselle’s first impression of my blog is that my articles are very well written. My background caught her attention. The green font on my blog made it hard for her to read. Giselle suggested to change the color of my font.

Happy Blogging! 🙂

For the Edublog’s Awards this year I’m nominating, Cristina. She’s 13 years old and likes to play volleyball and go shopping. I’m nominating Cristina because I thought her blog was creative. I liked the way how everything was organized and well written. You can tell she spent time writing each of her blog posts. I could easily read everything without any distractions in the background. I also, liked her widgets on the sidebar, I thought it fit in with her blog. She even, had links to music which, I thought was really cool! Lastly, I liked the theme of her blog, I thought it was very creative.

Here’s a link to Cristina’s blog:

http://cristinag423.edublogs.org/

Happy Blogging! 🙂

What makes a great family is communication. I think that communication is the most important thing to become a great family. I think this because, if you don’t communicate people won’t know what’s wrong with you and they can’t help you because you’re not communicating. If you do communicate, it helps you bring your family closer together. And, helps you have a stronger bond with each other.

Another thing that makes a great family is, trust. If you don’t trust your family, there would be a lot of arguments and fighting all the time. We all need somebody in our lives to rely on and talk to, and in order to do that you need to trust that person. Trusting someone to me is very hard to do because you never know what that person will say to others behind you back. One thing for sure is, I know I can always trust my family no matter what and so can you.

Respect is also a key to make a great family. If you respect someone, they will treat you the same. Respecting your parents is especially important. If you respect your family you will show them how much you appreciate them. You also will take care of there belongings and leave there personal stuff alone, and they will do the same for you.

Happy Blogging! 🙂

21 ways to make a great family: http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/2010/10/21-Ways-to-Be-a-Great-Family.aspx

15 ways to make a great family with pictures:

http://www.wikihow.com/Have-a-Good-Family-Life

When I look at images of schools from around the world, I see that everything is very different than my school. For example, the classrooms are different, there are a lot of kids in just one class, and they learn different stuff than we do. When I look at these pictures, I feel sad because they don’t have all the stuff that we have. And on some pictures I feel like they are lucky. For example, in Taiwan they get to have nap time for thirty minutes. I would like to go to school in Taiwan because they get to sleep for thirty minutes every day and then go outside for ten minutes. The statistics at the bottom of the each picture informed  me about the country and the school. For example, in Nigeria the classrooms are filled with a lot of kids, that are all different ages. And then in Germany, the classrooms seemed nice and the kids looked happy.

Happy Blogging! 🙂

Some leadership roles at my school are student council. For instance, there are the four main officers who are the head of the school. There is the president, vice president, secretary, and, treasure. The president handles all of the student council meetings and helps with the school functions. The vice president handles at least one of the student council meetings and takes the presidents job if the president is unable to attend anything. The secretary takes care of the school scrapbook and takes attendance at the student council meetings. Lastly, the treasure counts the money that the school earns at fundraisers. I would try to take one of these roles because it seems to me like a challenge, and I like to take challenges. I actually am running for vice president at my school.

Happy Blogging! 🙂

One of my passions is dancing. I started dancing when I was 9 years old. When I first started dancing I took ballet. Then, I started taking jazz and I just kept on adding classes every week, and at the end of the year I ended up taking almost 8 classes each week. I basically spent all my time at my dance studio, which was fine with me. I don’t know why but, when I first started dancing I felt liked I belonged there. It was a place where I could be stress free and calm. And to top everything off, I made a lot of amazing friends that supported me when I danced.

Happy Blogging! 🙂

Last week my class went to Catalina (CIMI) for 3 days to learn about marine biology. My favorite memory from Catalina was when I went kayaking with my friend, Isabel. It was really fun because I told Isabel that we should jump into the water because we were already wet and why not jump in for fun. Isabel then said ok, lets do it together. Then, I went in first and Isabel tricked me and decided not to jump in. Isabel then started laughing at me because I was struggling to get on the kayak and I was wet. After, I tried to get on the kayak but I “accidentally” made it flip over which then made Isabel fall into the water too. It was also really fun because, Jacob and Justin started laughing at us when we fell in the water so Isabel and I decided to kayak near them and I “accidentally” flipped their kayak over and Jacob fell in the water which was really funny.

Happy Blogging! 🙂

My favorite childhood memory is when I was 9 years old and I helped my grandma make her famous salad dressing for dinner. I was really surprised when she asked me because, she would never tell anybody what was in the dressing and she never let anybody make the dressing with her. She didn’t even tell my mom, which was her own daughter! It was really fun making the dressing, because I found out that there were a lot of odd ingredients that she put in the dressing that I wouldn’t expect her to put in. Some of the ingredients were ketchup, ginger, etc. I learned a lot of new things that day like how to cut vegetables. When we finally finished the dressing, I let my grandma try it first. She said, “out of all the times I made this dressing this is the best time I’ve made it.”

Happy Blogging! 🙂

In literature class I’ve been learning about Creative Commons and copyright and I thought you guys might want to know about it too. We watched two videos in class, in the first video I learned about copyright. Copyright is when you take somebody’s work that isn’t yours and say that you did it, and not give any credit to the other person. In case you don’t know, copyright is legal. Another thing I learned is about fair use. Fair use is the law of copyright in the United States.

Some other things I learned in the first video is, because of copyright people are not allowed to use your work without your permission. But, if you want to allow people to use your work, get a Creative Commons license. A Creative Commons license is a document that states the freedoms and limitations that you apply to your work. In case you want to know more about what Creative Commons, it is an organization which provides a collection of free content license that you can apply to your work. And to top it off Creative Commons offers six different license so you can share your work however you want. But, Creative Commons does require you to give attribution which means, you must give credit to the owner.

Happy Blogging! 🙂

In class this week we’ve been learning about cybersafety and digital footprints, and I thought you guys might want to learn about this too. Here are some tips on cybersafety and digital footprints, so that you can be safe on the internet:

1.) DO NOT put your personal information online. Here are some examples of information you should protect:  date of birth , where you were born, your address, full name, what school you go to, etc. Basically, it’s any information that you wouldn’t want to give to strangers.

2.) If you have an Amazon, eBay, or any type of account where you can purchase products, don’t provide your parent’s credit information or any of their private information without their permission.

3.) DO NOT open emails from strangers or from usernames that sound fishy to you.

4.) BE CAREFUL about what you post on the internet, because even if you delete something, it will still be there in internet archives.

Happy Blogging! 🙂