Interest badges
Blogging
Express myself
Blog your way.
Blogging is like an online journal or website where you can share your thoughts and experiences and let your creativity shine through.
Getting a Rangers interest badge
There are 36 interest badges for you to earn at Rangers, and 3 fun challenges to do for each badge.
You can do these badges at any time, anywhere and in any way you’d like. You can do them on your own or with units, during unit meetings, at home or even on holiday.
How to complete this badge
1. Growing community
Choose a blogger, writer or newsletter creator who writes about something you’re interested in and jot down some examples of how they grow their community.
They might:
- Respond to comments.
- Engage with their audience by asking questions.
- Handle off-topic comments in their own way.
- Have community guidelines.
- Offer helpful replies.
- Share links to other blogs and websites.
2. Prepare your platform
There are lots of blogging platforms you can use to create your own blog, newsletter or website to showcase your own writing! Some have pre-made templates and features you can use to start off with and customise to make your own.
Find a blogging platform and customise your site to how you like it. Think about who your audience is, the personality and image you want to get across and the content you’re going to display.
Not wanting to go online? Give offline blogging a go... prepare a blogging journal or share with people in person using posters.
3. Get blogging
You can blog about anything you want - but being unique is good. It’s important to blog on a topic you’re interested in. Taking the tips below into consideration, choose a topic and create 5 blog posts. If you don’t want to post the blogs online, you don’t have to.
- Introduce yourself in your first post.
- Share your unique perspective.
- Post consistently.
- Use visuals such as images, video and infographics.
- Ask questions in your posts.
- Thank your readers for coming back and reading your posts.
- Share links to your favourite blogs, newsletters or sites.
Including others
- Make sure your parent/carer knows you are talking to other people and who they are.
- Never talk to strangers on your own.
- If you feel worried or confused by any of the answers given, talk to an adult you trust straight away.
Internet safety
To keep safe online, I'll…
- Not share any personal information on the internet (my full name, my home or school address, my phone number or my email address).
- Only download files on to my devices with permission from my parent or carer.
- Always ask permission before uploading photos or videos online. If I send pictures, I'm aware that these can be forwarded onto others.
- Tell my parent or carer, teacher or leader if something online worries or upsets me.
- Only add people online that I know in the real world.
- Be wary of emails that contain unknown links. I know clicking links can download viruses or other harmful files onto my devices.
- Treat people online with the same respect as I would in the real world. I'll never write anything that might hurt or upset someone.
- Not meet up with someone that I've met online and if someone asks me to do so, I'll tell a parent or carer.
- Think carefully about what I read, hear and see online, and not trust information unless I've checked it on other websites or in books, or have asked an adult about it.
Personal details
- You should never share your personal information with strangers.
- Don’t include identifiable information (like your full name or where you live) on the things you make.
- Check what you've made with your parent or carer before sharing it with other people.
