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Wonderopolis | Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease | Wonderopolis

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Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease

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Digital Writing Mentor: The Kid Should See This

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Digital Writing Mentor: The Kid Should See This

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The Kid Should See This: Educational videos for curious kids of all ages, a free resource for parents & teachers. Science, art, nature, animals, & more.

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DOGO News - Kids news articles! Kids current events; plus kids news on science, sports, and more!

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DOGO News has fun articles for kids on current events, science, sports, and more! There are also lots of stories, pictures, videos, games and the DOGO news map for kids! Add your comments, read reviews of cool websites, and more!

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Digital Writing Mentor: Wow in the World (Podcast)

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Digital Writing Mentor: Wow in the World (Podcast)

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Wow in the World is the hilarious, award-winning podcast for curious kids and their grown ups hosted by Guy Raz and Mindy Thomas.

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Digital Writing Mentor: National Geographic for Kids

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Digital Writing Mentor: National Geographic for Kids

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Free Images for Kids (Safe for all ages)

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Free Images for Kids (Safe for all ages)

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Thousands of copyright free and copyright friendly images and photos for teachers and students.

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Digital Writing Prompts from Pictures:  NYT What's Going on in this Picture (Teachers need to filter for younger students)

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Digital Writing Prompts from Pictures:  NYT What's Going on in this Picture (Teachers need to filter for younger students)

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Intriguing Times images stripped of their captions — and an invitation to students to discuss them live.

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Digital Writing Prompts from Edublogger (all ages)

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Digital Writing Prompts from Edublogger (all ages)

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If your students have their own blog, digital portfolio, or website, you may have found that their enthusiasm for writing was initially high. Students typically can't wait to unleash their creativity and publish on their own online space, often for an authentic audience.

Sometimes when the initial excitement wears off, students start facing "bloggers' block" or get in a rut of writing the same style of post over and over.

Our interesting collecting of writing prompts will help your students maintain momentum with their blog, website, or digital portfolio. The prompts allow your students to explore various genres, tools, and mediums. If you have students who are reluctant writers or perhaps you're just looking for fresh and authentic ideas to get your students publishing, you're in the right place.

Scroll down to dive straight into the 150 prompts, or read on to find out more about the types of posts you could see on a blog, personal website, or digital portfolio.

📌 Download the PDF eBook version of the prompts.

Blogging isn't like traditional writing - it's a unique genre and it's worth exploring what's possible.

Here are 10 types of blog posts you commonly see on the web. This might give you inspiration to mix up the posts on your students' blogs, websites, or portfolios.

2. How-to/Helpful: Everyone loves using the web to find out how to do something. This classic style of post can be enhanced with pictures, videos, and other media. In this example, Steph made a tutorial on how to add a pet to her blog.

3. Journal/Diary/Recount: This is a versatile style of post that's great for reading logs, field trips, science labs, special events, study abroad, and so on. Here's an example from Evelyn who published a recount of her field study to Oregon.

4. News/Announcement: These posts aim to keep readers up-to-date with important information. In this example, educator George Couros announces a book study.

5. Marketing/Sales: Typically these are commercial style posts. Students could use blogs to advertise things like school events and fundraisers. For example, the students at Auroa School made a video to promote their school.

7. Reviews: Many people love to take to the web to share their reviews (sites like Amazon and TripAdvisor may offer inspiration!). Here's an example of a book review from teacher Kevin Hodgson.

8. Listicle: This is another name for a list post. We know how popular articles are that start with something like "10 ways to...". These sorts of posts often offer the reader quick wins. In this example, Mrs. Yollis and her students list their top 12 quarantine essentials.

9. Curation Posts: Sometimes a blog post or page is used to curate a list of resources on a particular topic. This page of live events and virtual field trips is an example of a curated list from Mrs. Hamman.

10. Ongoing Series: Choose any of the above, but split it up into several shorter posts that get published over a set period of time. The posts could connect sequentially, or just fall under the same umbrella topic. For example, Sheri Edwards did a series of posts using the Slice of Life writing prompts.

We've divided the prompts up into 8 broad topics to make navigation easier. Of course, some prompts could fit into more than one category.

These topics are ideal for getting students used to publishing online.

1) Introductions: Who are you? Share your hobbies, interests, family background, and anything else you want others to know while remembering to protect your personal information if your site is public. This information might be best on a static About page so it's easy for new visitors to refer to. Here's a great example of an About page from Steph.

2) Personal A to Z: Create an A-Z of yourself or one of your interests (e.g. an A-Z of basketball or gardening).

3) Avatar: Create an avatar (online character) to use on your blog and write a post to explain how it represents you. This post on the Student Blogging Challenge demonstrates some different ways you can make an avatar using online tools.

4) Commenting Guidelines: Write a post to explain what you expect when someone leaves a comment on your blog. There is some information and examples on the Student Blogging Challenge site on how to write commenting guidelines.

5) Goals: Share some goals that you have set for yourself. For example, you could publish one goal for this week, one goal for this month, and one goal for this school year. Describe how you plan to accomplish your goals.

6) Holiday: Share what you did on a recent holiday or vacation. Include photos or videos if you have permission. Alternatively, you could write about your dream vacation. Where would you go and what would you do?

7) Hero/Mentor: Write about someone who inspires you. It could be someone you know in real life or someone famous from the past or present. What is it about this person that makes them so special?

8) My Country or Culture: Publish facts about your country or a culture that you're interested in. You could write a post focusing on food, festivals, songs, stories, clothing, geography, or anything else.

9) School History: Write some information about your school's history. You could focus on the buildings, write about someone who used to go to the school, or reflect on how the curriculum or rules have changed.

10) Classrooms: Explain what the classrooms and buildings are like in your school or describe what your perfect classroom would look like. Use your imagination; your dream classroom could be indoors, outdoors, in a school, or somewhere else!

11) Favorite...anything: Publish a post that discusses topics you're passionate about. You could write about your favorite animal, TV show, movie, holiday, sports, or hobbies.

12) Reader Quiz: Your quiz could be about anything - Disney movies, chemistry, capital cities, football... you choose! Readers could answer in a comment or in Google Forms. This could be a great way to get to know your audience. You might like to do a follow-up post that goes over the results, including graphs, charts, and analysis. BEAM is a simple tool for making basic charts.

13) Guest Post: Ask a friend or family member if they'd like to write a guest post on your blog. Make sure you approve it before publishing.

14) Top 10: Make a top 10 list of anything. For example, you could rank your favorite songs, actors, sports, or foods.

15) Interview: Interview someone in your family or community. There might be interesting people at your school you could interview too like your principal, cleaner, librarian, or crossing supervisor.

16) Three Wishes: If you had three wishes, what would they be? Invite your readers to share their own wishes in a comment.

18) Pobble 365: Every day there is a new photo prompt and literacy starters posted on the Pobble 365 website. These are ideal to respond to when you're stuck for ideas.

20) What's Going on in this Graph? Another initiative from The New York Times, a graph, map, or chart is published regularly as an invitation for students to discuss. Find a graph that fascinates you and share your interpretation.

21) 1,000 Writing Prompts: The New York Times has also compiled 1,000 Writing Prompts For Students. There's sure to be something that interests you amongst that collection!

23) Practice Your English: MMG's English blog has been created by a teacher with prompts for students to practice their English. You will find jokes, quotes, recipes, videos, and more. Find one that interests you and share a response on your blog.

24) Visual Writing Prompts: Teach Starter has created a collection of visual writing prompts. The images are Creative Commons Zero which means you're free to upload them to your blog.

25) Creative Writing Prompts: Writer's Digest offers regular written prompts that are ideal for older students. Have a browse and see if there is a prompt to inspire a new post.

26) Scholastic Story Starters: If you're in K-2, you might enjoy this a fun interactive site where you can create your own prompts for a variety of writing genres.

28) Secondary Blogging Prompts: Check out these 20 blogging prompts from educator Randy Rodgers. They're designed for teens but some could be used by younger students. There may be a prompt to get your creative juices flowing.

29) Writer Igniter: Get inspiration from Writer Igniter which provides you with a character, situation, prop, and setting. This is best for middle school or high school students.

30) Printable Comic Prompts: MakeBeliefsComix has a huge collection of writing prompts divided into categories. There's something for everyone!

31) Random Emoji Generator: Create a story based on emoji prompts. Go to the byrdseed site to generate your prompts. You can then copy the emojis into a post and write a story based on them.

32) Siri Conversation Tool: Generate your own Siri conversation via ifakesiri. Embed the conversation on your blog or take a screenshot. What's something creative you could ask Siri about?

33) 100 Word Challenge: If you're under 16, you might enjoy this weekly creative writing challenge. You'll find more details and registration information on the 100 Word Challenge website.

34) The Student Blogging Challenge: Every March and October we run a free 8 week supported blogging challenge where students aged 8-16 are given weekly prompts. Student and class posts are visited by a global audience. Maybe you can join us for the next challenge?

35) Expert FAQs: Are you an expert on something? LEGO? Minecraft? Pokemon? Ballet? Write "Frequently Asked Questions" and answers about your topic.

36) Test Review "Cheat Sheet": Use images, videos, and text to create a post that your classmates can use as a study guide to prepare for an upcoming assessment.

37) Exit Ticket: Write a short summary of what you learned in class before leaving. Include any questions you still have and a list of any assignments or tasks you still need to complete.

38) Quotes: Choose a quote that inspires you or is relevant to what you're learning. Explain why you chose the quote and what it means to you. We have a post all about using quotes that will give you some tips.

39) Video Comparison: Embed two or more videos on a topic from YouTube, Vimeo, or TED and then compare and contrast the videos. If you're unsure how to embed videos, we have a help guide to walk you through it.

40) Would You Rather? Create some "would you rather..?" questions for your audience such as, "Would you rather live 100 years in the past or future?" or "Would you rather be able to fly or swim underwater without breathing?" Share your own thoughts too!

41) Future Me: Write an email to yourself when you are one, five, or ten years older. This could be a blog post in itself, or for 13+ students, the FutureMe website could be used to actually send the email.

42) Jokes: Who doesn't like jokes? Find some online or share your own favorite jokes to give your readers a laugh. The TLC Tutoring Updates blog used images and scrolling space to format their joke post. Alternatively, you could reveal the answers in the comments section.

43) Gratitude Journal: Use your blog or portfolio to reflect on what you're grateful for. Perhaps this could become a weekly practice.

45) Principal for the Day: What would you do if you were principal for the day? Don't hold back in sharing your ideas!

46) Video Game Review: Write a review for an online game. Share the pros, cons, and a star rating. Don't forget to include the link to the game so others can try it.

47) Kindness: List some random acts of kindness that you'd like to see other students try. You might get some ideas from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation.

48) Recipes: Pretend you're a food blogger! Share a recipe that you enjoy eating or making. Spice up your post with a photo of the end result.

49) World Records: Browse the kids' Guinness World Records website and write about an impressive record. Or tell your readers what sort of world record you'd like to attempt.

50) Secret Code: Come up with a secret code and share a message on your blog or portfolio. Perhaps a number could represent each letter of the alphabet or you could write each word backwards. Ask readers to guess what the post says in a comment.

51) Curious Minds: Publish a list of questions you have about the world or about a certain topic. You don't have to answer the questions. It can sometimes just be good to explore the things you're curious about.

52) Memes: These are fun messages that are spread widely online. Maybe you could make a meme that relates to a topic you're studying at school. Meredith Akers has shared a Google Drawings meme generator that's safe for students.

53) Sports Report: Provide an overview of a sports competition your school, community, or professional team has been involved in. If you choose a local sport, perhaps you could interview some participants or coaches.

54) Life in the Future: Make some predictions about what life will be like in 5, 10, 50, or even 100 years from now. You could even interview others to find out their thoughts on the future.

55) Trends: Discuss the latest trends in the schoolyard. Games, fashion, toys ... what's hot and what's not? Maybe you could ask someone older than you what the trends were when they were at school.

56) Playground Fun: Offer activity suggestions that other students could try out at recess and lunchtime if they're bored. You could even sort your suggestions into age groups.

57) Productivity Tips: Help your fellow students learn to manage their time better with some useful tips and tricks. Maybe you have tips for managing homework or chores at home, using a diary or calendar, or making lists.

58) Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use: These are important topics for any publisher to know about. Check out our Guide to Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use on The Edublogger. Write a post, create a video, or design a poster to teach others about these topics.

59) Digital Citizenship: What tips do you have to stay safe online? Share these with others in a post, a video, comics, memes, or posters. Check out these internet safety tips for students for ideas.

61) Photo Blog: Have you heard of 365 photography or "a photo a day" type blogs? This is something Linda Yollis has been doing since 2010 with her Yollis' 365 Project. Students and the community are invited to send in photos and captions. You could create a similar style blog or post series.

62) Picture Prompt: Add a copyright-free image from Photos For Class to a post and write about it. Create a poem, story, information report, or any other style of writing based on your image.

63) Image or Artwork: There are many free web tools where you can create digital artwork. Some examples are Google Drawings, emoji.ink, Toy Theatre Art Tools, Bomomo abstract art, Tate Kids street art, Draw Island, and Auto Draw. If you want to be blown away with what's possible, check out the Fugle Blog where K-5 teacher, Tricia Fuglestad, combines art and technology in truly creative ways.

64) Emoji Artwork: Make some emoji artwork using emoji.ink. Add your image to a post and tell your readers about it.

65) Infographic: Use a tool like Canva, Piktochart, Venngage, or Infogram to create an infographic and then write a post describing your graphic. Alternatively, create infographics using several of these different tools then write a review of the tools you used. Which one was best and why?

66) Get Crafty: Try a craft activity with paper or other materials you have on hand and write a tutorial. You could include written instructions, photos, or videos. Not sure what craft to try? There's lots of inspiration online. Education.com has a comprehensive collection of ideas.

67) Make a Song: Create your own original song in Chrome Music Lab. Click on "Save" to get the link or embed code to publish your song in a post.

68) Favorite Instrument: Do you have a favorite instrument or is there an instrument that fascinates you? Do some research and write a post about it. Add an image or video to your post if you can too.

69) Make a Playlist: Write a post that includes a playlist of your favorite songs. Don't forget to explain why you like each song and why it's part of your playlist. Your playlist might even be for a specific occasion like a birthday party, wedding, or school graduation. You could even make a soundtrack of your life!

70) Guess the Artist, Song, or Instrument: Give your readers some clues as they scroll down the page and have them guess the artist, song, or instrument. Invite your readers to put their guesses in a comment.

71) Share Your Talents: Can you sing or play an instrument? Film yourself and add your video to a post. If you don't have musical talents yourself, find someone else you can record and interview them.

72) Guess That Sound: Embed some sounds from the free collection on the BBC website. Have your readers guess the sounds in a comment. Don't forget to reply to your comments to tell your readers if they were correct. (Tip: To use the BBC sound effects, you need to link back to their site and include the word "copyright" and the year).

73) Book Review: You can include a summary of the plot without spoilers, your favorite quotes, a star rating, and a photo of the book. Or maybe you could create some BookSnaps (annotated photos of text from a book).

74) Book Recommendations: Create a recommended reading list for others to enjoy. Check out this list from the OJCS Library blog for inspiration.

77) Change a Story Ending: Choose a well-known story (perhaps a fairytale or another classic) and publish a different ending. You can ask for feedback from readers in the comments.

78) Interactive Endings: Write the beginning of a short story and invite your readers to finish it in a comment. Alternatively, you could write two different endings and have readers vote for their favorite.

79) Words From Your Birth Year: Write a post about some of the words that were introduced in the year you were born according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. Include your thoughts or research on why these words were introduced in that year.

80) News Report: Read information on children's news sites like Newsela, Scholastic Kids, Time for Kids, or DOGO News. Then summarize a news story for your readers with your own reflections or opinions included. Tip: There is even a DOGO News plugin.

81) Wordless videos: Speech pathologist Sarah has compiled a list of wordless videos. You could embed one in a blog post and write a script, recount, or reflection on the meaning behind the video.

83) Spelling/Vocabulary: Share your spelling words or a set of interesting words you have recently come across. Define the words or create interesting sentences to share with readers. You could even use a site like Spelling City and screenshot some of your activities.

84) Grammar and Punctuation: Share your understanding of a concept you're learning to help others understand an aspect of grammar or punctuation. You could make a comic, a poster, a video, a quiz, a song, or anything else!

87) Six Word Story: Stories don't have to be long, they can even have just six words! Melissa Pilakowski has some examples on her teacher blog of six word stories if you'd like some inspiration.

88) Persuasive Writing: Make your case for an argument, for example, why dogs are better than cats, why the school cafeteria should offer a different menu, or why school uniforms are a good idea. You could write a persuasive piece about any light-hearted or serious topic you're interested in.

89) Emoji Rebus Story: Have you heard of a rebus story? It's where some words are replaced with an image. There's a tool called Emoji Translate that will automatically replace some of your words with emojis (you can copy your translated text/emojis back into your post).

90) Language Learning: Do you speak or learn another language? Share some basic words and phrases with your audience. You could even add a voice recording or video. If you don't have a second language, do some research and pass on what you learned. Or, write about the language you'd like to learn if you had the chance and why.

91) Virtual Field Trips: It's now possible to visit faraway places without even leaving the classroom. The We Are Teachers website lists 25 of the best virtual field trips to explore. Once you've been on your "field trip", it's time to review the experience.

93) Global Issue: Select a global issue that you're passionate about or interested in and write a post to share your concerns. You might want to base your issue on The Sustainable Development Goals. The 17 goals focus on things like poverty, hunger, health, education, and climate action.

95) List of Items: Create a list of items that would be used in a certain time in history, by a historical figure, or in a particular location around the world.

96) A to Z: Create an A to Z list of something you're studying, for example, a certain historical event or geographical location.

100) Who Am I? Share some clues about a historical figure, for example - where and when they were born, their education, their personal life, and what they're famous for. See if your readers can make an accurate guess in a comment.

101) Guess This Place: Share some clues about a geographical location for example - the continent it's on, the climate, famous citizens, landmarks, well-known events, the latitude and longitude. Ask your readers to share their guess in a comment.

102) Historical Artifacts: Share an image of a historical object or artifact. For example, you might want to look at the public domain collection from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It includes more than 400,000 images from The Met collection that are free to use. Share some images in a post and write your own description. Or ask your readers to guess what they think the images are.

103) Color History: #ColorOurCollections is a website where various institutions add historical images that can be printed and colored in. Find a page that interests you to print and color. Then add a photo of your completed work to your blog and write a description.

104) Make A Timeline: Timelines can be about people's lives, places, or historical events. Traditionally, you could make a timeline on paper but there are now lots of online tools that help you make your timeline with multimedia. Richard Byrne compares the best tools to use in this post. Try out one of the tools and add your timeline to a post.

105) SMS Generator: Using a free tool called SMS Generator you can make fake text message conversations between two historical figures. When you're done you can screenshot or embed your conversation.

106) Old Newspaper Articles: Did you know Google has a collection of archived newspaper articles? Find an interesting article from a time or place you're studying. Link to the article in your post and write an analysis.

107) Flags: Do some research into a flag of the world or another important flags and summarise the key information. Alternatively, you might like to design your own flag. Include the image in a post with a description of your flag.

108) Historical Report or Guest Author: Write a traditional report profiling a historical figure, or pretend you are a famous historical figure that is blogging about a significant event.

109) Historical Stories: Authors often use a historical event as the basis of a fictional story. Create a story based on a certain time and location in history. You would keep the main historical information accurate while coming up with fictional characters and perhaps storylines.

110) Personal History: Interview someone to share a little about their own personal history. Or you could even share some of your own history. Everyone has a story!

111) Maps Comparison: Find two maps from different time periods that show the same location. What are the similarities and differences in the maps? Maybe some things have been added, removed, replaced, or extended. A useful website to find old maps might be Old Maps Online or The Library of Congress. If you want to take it a step further, Richard Byrne demonstrates how to overlay an old map over a current Google Map.

112) Time Travel: If you could live in any other place and/or time, what would you choose and why?

113) Vocabulary: Choose a vocabulary word that you're learning about and write a post that describes this word in different ways such as: a definition, in a sentence, in an example/image, in a table/graph, in symbols/equations. Check out this vocabulary slide deck template by Meagan Kelly which you could fill out and embed in your blog.

114) Image Hunt: Look around you for examples of concepts you're studying in class. Take photos and add them to a post. Maybe you could look for mathematical arrays, 3 digit numbers, fractions, or patterns.

117) NRICH: The NRICH project by the University of Cambridge publishes weekly maths problem-solving tasks for students. Students can submit answers on the website, but you can also publish your response on your blog or portfolio. Problems are broken up into age groups.

118) Estimations: Make some mathematical estimations such as the length of your hallway, the weight of your lunchbox, or the number of shirts hanging in your closet. Share your estimations on your blog and then measure or count to find out the actual answer. How far off were you? How did you make your estimates and how did you find out the actual answers?

119) Math Journals: Use your blog or portfolio as a journal to reflect on your math learning. Here is some math journal prompts from ReadWriteThink that you could base your reflections on.

120) Problem Solve: Publish a problem-solving task in a post and invite readers to provide the solution in the comments. You might get ideas for problems from a site like NRICH. Tip: choose a problem where there are multiple solutions, or hold off on moderating comments until a few readers have had the chance to respond. Maybe you could explain the answer in a follow-up post.

124) Money: Learn about the currency in another part of the world and share what you learned with your readers. Don't forget to include some images. You might be able to find some images using the Creative Commons search engine.

125) Math Game Review: There are lots of interactive math games available on the web or on mobile devices. Try out a game and then share a review. Include details like how to access the game, what it helps you learn, pros and cons, and an age recommendation.

127) Science Experiment: Find a science experiment in a book, online, or in a video. For example, Try This! is a series of science experiments from National Geographic Kids. With permission from an adult, replicate the experiment and then blog about it. Alternatively, you might want to make up your own experiment to learn more about something you're curious about.

129) Two Truths and One Lie: Challenge your readers with a simple "two truths and one lie" quiz. Your task is to write a post that includes two correct statements and one incorrect statement. Ask your readers to guess the lie! Your statements could be about a certain math or science topic or a mix of topics.

130) NASA Space Place: Check out NASA Space Place to learn more about Earth and Space. There are games, activities, articles, videos, and more. Write a post about something you learned from the website.

131) Science News: There is interesting science news being reported all the time. Check out Science News for Students and find an article you're interested in. Share a summary in your own words on your blog. You might include some follow up questions you'd like to research.

132) Coding: Learning to code can be fun. There are lots of sites and apps you can use to learn to code. Code.org is a good starting place. Try out one of the activities and then write a post about it. Explain what you learned and what challenges you had to overcome to complete the activity.

134) Science Careers: Research a science related career and tell your readers about it. Perhaps you could even interview someone in the profession. Is this a career you'd be interested in? Alternatively, you could choose two careers and compare them in a post.

135) Looking After the Environment: Share tips on how to reduce, reuse, recycle, or look after our planet. Maybe you can share some changes you're making in your own life to be more environmentally conscious.

💡 Teacher Tip: There are countless free online tools that can be used to create, publish, collaborate, and present. If you're working with younger students, it's important to check the terms and conditions on the site as some tools are only suitable for students over the age of 13.

138) Prezi: Prezi is an online presentation and storytelling tool that uses a single canvas instead of traditional series of slides. The images, text, videos, and other objects are placed on the canvas and users can zoom in and out. Create a Prezi about something you're interested in and add it to a post.

139) Google Slides: Slides presentations are great to add to posts. The simplest way to use Google Slides is to create a slide deck. That is, a collection of slides put together to form a presentation. Learn more about how to use and embed Google Slides in this beginner's guide.

141) Talking Avatars: Create a speaking character using Voki to read your post or to interact with your blog's visitors. Voki characters can be customized to look like historical figures, cartoons, animals, or yourself! Voki characters can be embedded on your site on a post, page, or sidebar.

142) Word Cloud: Make a word cloud using one of these online tools or iPad apps. Add your word cloud to your blog. You could even invite readers to guess the topic.

147) Podcasts: These are simply audio files that are published online. You might like to make a series of podcasts to coincide with a subject you're studying or a project you're working on. Anchor.fm is a popular free service for recording, hosting, and distributing podcasts. Check out The Edublogger's Guide To Podcasting to learn more.

149) Animoto: This free tool lets you make videos that combine photos and/or video footage with music and interesting transitions. You can make an Animoto about an event or something you're learning and embed it on your site.

150) Mindmap: Create a mindmap for brainstorming, collating notes, demonstrating your learning, or presenting your findings. You might like to try a free online tool like Bubbl.us which doesn't require an account.

As you think about using these prompts in the classroom, try to vary it up. Helping students to get out of their comfort zones and try something new might spark a new talent or passion.

It's always worth considering how you can give some students choice in the type of posts they create. Choice can lead to ownership and higher levels of motivation. You never know what your students might produce!

One tip to keep in mind is that when you're creating work or images using online tools, you can sometimes save your work as an image (e.g. JPEG or PNG), or embed your work, but at other times you'll need to take a screenshot. This article by PC Mag explains how to take a screenshot on almost any device.

From a safety perspective, if you have public blogs or websites, ensure students are aware of what information should be kept private before they begin blogging. Edublogs and CampusPress users can use My Class to easily moderate students' posts and comments before they're live on the web.

The acronym YAPPY might help your students develop their understandings about privacy. Learn more about digital footprints in this post.

When using writing prompts, it can also be helpful to keep the SAMR model in mind as Silvia Tolisano explained in one of her classic posts.

Sometimes, you might simply be substituting traditional pen and paper tasks for an online task. As you and your students become more comfortable with publishing online, consider ways you can redefine tasks to achieve something that would not be possible without a blog, website, or online tools.

Lefflerd / CC BY-SA

Hopefully this list will ensure you or your students are never scrambling for blogging ideas again, however, it is far from exhaustive.

Another idea is to recycle posts. This is what we're doing right here! This post of prompts was first published many years ago and we've updated it a couple of times. You might have an old post that you enjoyed or that struck a chord with readers. Why not do an update or follow up post in a similar style? Reflect on your best content and re-purpose or repeat it.

If you have a class blog, you could create a page with writing ideas for your student bloggers. Room 6 in New Zealand have done this on their blog.

This post is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of getting students to write online so we want to hear from you in the comments.
Do you have any additional ideas to share with fellow bloggers? Have you tried any of these ideas? How did they go? Please leave your comments and links below.
Happy blogging!

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150 Student Writing Prompts For Blogs, Digital Portfolios, Or Websites

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Want your students to write more in your class? Looking for prompts or ideas for student blogs, digital portfolios, or websites? We've got 150 prompts and ideas for students of all ages in all subject areas. Printable PDF eBook included.

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EdTech Blog, Tools and Resources for Educators - Class Tech Tips

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Engergize your lessons with classroom technology. Tons of free EdTech resources and tools for educators to use in the classrooom.

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" Today we ground ourselves in pedagogy as we rethink literacy, adapt and adopt our practices to meet the needs of today's learner, and embrace the relationships and social connections that develop along the journey to understanding. Together, we strive to redefine what it means to read and find our humanity in doing so."

Read the World:Rethinking Literacy for Empathy and Action in a Digital Age.

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Ziemke - Become Literate to Empathize and Act

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" Today we ground ourselves in pedagogy as we rethink literacy, adapt and adopt our practices to meet the needs of today's learner, and embrace the relationships and social connections that develop along the journey to understanding. Together, we strive to redefine what it means to read and find our humanity in doing so."

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Rarely, do you see me without a notebook. I have kept a journal for the past 20 years and have filled hundreds of notebooks with handwriting expressing my successes, failures, hopes, dreams, and even mundane daily tasks. There is no replacement for the feeling I get when my favorite pen glides across a new page in my journal!

Keeping a journal provides a safe spot for expressing ideas, wrestling with questions, and writing yourself into history. It is both therapeutic and creative. Journaling is inexpensive and accessible; the writing that occurs is self-regulated and shares patterns, behaviors, and experiences that have defined us.

Journaling also provides a unique primary source during historical moments in time for future generations to read and understand. Journals become a collection of thoughts and experiences from the people who lived through it. Currently, we are all living in another one of these historical moments and a Pandemic Journal is a perfect place to record how we are living through these uncommon times, as well as a creative and meaningful way to encourage our students to write.

Here are 5 Must-Have Entries for Your Pandemic Journals:

Pandemic Picture - Inspired by the work of photographer, Gregg Segal, Pandemic Pictures depict a person surrounded by the items that are most important to them during this pandemic (and can be photographed). For instance, I told my daughter to collect 15 things that she couldn't live without, were important to her, that she loved, or that brought her joy while sheltering in place. Her collection was filled with creativity, art supplies, music, technology, as well as TP, hand sanitizer, and a mask. This one photo represents her 12-year-old life during COVID-19 and will ignite memories to be shared with others in the future.

2. T-chart - Create a t-chart somewhere in the journal that will allow you to add to it throughout the pandemic. On one side list "Things I Love Right Now" and the other "Things I Miss Right Now". Bike rides with my children, exploring nature, and the growing bond between siblings are a few things listed on my "Love" side. Flying and travel, extended family and friends, enjoying appetizers and drinks at a restaurant are just a few of the things I miss greatly. Having this space in my journal will allow me a dynamic spot to add to as time goes on.

3. Letter to Future Self - Letter writing has seen an increase during the pandemic. In your journal, write a letter to your future self explaining your current reality. How would you explain what you are experiencing? What would be important to remember? What hopes do you have for the future? Writing to your future will provide a time to not only grapple with current conditions but provide hope to what things will be like in the future.

4. Listicle - A listicle is a piece of writing that is wholly or partly created by a list. This is another entry that can be ongoing, a place to record, in list form, things you want to remember. For instance, the price of gas (wow, is it low), what is missing from the grocery store, what people are hoarding, when businesses and recreation are closed and opened, how social distancing looks in the stores with the plastic guards and dots on the ground. There are many small things that have shifted in our daily lives, it will be important to note these differences.

5. Interview - By our very nature, humans are social. And during these times, sheltering-in-place and social and physical distancing have become the norm, and in some places the mandate. Connecting with others is important for our physical and emotional health, and although we may not be able to meet for dinner or attend a celebration in person, talking with those we care about can be another entry to document in our pandemic journal. Interview a relative or friend and write down the conversation. What does their daily life look like now? What do they miss doing? What have they learned about their neighborhood, family, city, etc.? What sort of social norms are developing? What is closed? What is open? These interviews become part of a living history and help to stay connected to others.

Journaling is not new, what is new is the current reality people across the globe are living through. Everyone's life has been impacted by COVID-19 and it is important for us, and our students to capture our experiences and feelings to write ourselves into history. I encourage you to begin your own Pandemic Journal if you have not already done so, it is not too late. I would also encourage you to have your students and children write their thoughts in a journal during this time. It is not only therapeutic but a creative outlet that will benefit future generations to come.
Have any other Must-Have Pandemic Journal ideas to share? Drop me a comment below!

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Rarely, do you see me without a notebook. I have kept a journal for the past 20 years and have filled hundreds of notebooks with handwriting expressing my successes, failures, hopes, dreams, and even mundane daily tasks. There is no replacement for the feeling I get when my favorite pen glides across a new page in my journal!

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Blogs and Authors Variety of Resources for Literacy All Ages (scroll down to bottom of page)

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Blogs and Authors Variety of Resources for Literacy All Ages (scroll down to bottom of page)

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Read the World Distance & Digital Learning Support

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Troy Hicks

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Integrating New Literacies into the Teaching of Writing