Time to Get Testing!

You did it!  We researched, designed, planned, created and finished our final blogs!  As you look at your finished product, you should be proud of your accomplishments.

Now, in this phase, you will take a step back to reflect on the outcome of your product.

Your task is to create a post that includes and addresses the following: 

Introductory Paragraph (to help readers understand the need and process of evaluating a final product and our selves through this process.)

Product Evaluation (potential questions)

• What are your feelings about your final product? (Positive and/or negative)
• What aspect of your final product are you most proud of and why?
• How does your final product meet your design specifications i.e. your personal criteria, functional blog requirements, design elements and your personality/theme?
• What features or functions on your blog would you change to make a better product?

Personal Reflection   (potential questions)

• Moving forward, what steps can you take to grow your blog and use it as a tool to have a positive effect on yourself and your community?
• How effective do you feel you were in this unit?  What actions or behaviors will you carry over or change for our next unit? 
• What learner profile do you think you best exhibited in this unit and which profile do you feel you would like to work on and strengthen for the next unit?
• How can sharing our thought and ideas online (in a safe and responsible manner) have a positive effect on our community and ourselves (our unit question.)

Conclusion paragraph (that sums up the success of your final product.)

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You may either do this in written or video format.  If you opt for the video option, note the following:

• Suggested web tool to create video:  http://screencast-o-matic.com/
• Or Photobooth/Quicktime recording
• Video length should be no more than 7 minutes.
• Video must be uploaded to your school YouTube channel and then embedded in your blog post.
• An Outline should be written first so you have a clear sense of what you plan on talking about.
 

 

 

Due Dates:

• All 6th Grade Students  Dec. 18th (W)

Looks like a Million Bucks!

Together we've begun to take take the first steps toward designing our blogs functional and aesthetic features.  We know that the first step toward creating a good design is to draw out or sketch on paper the various ideas we have of what we want our blog to look like.

We are using our design specifications (the successful blog criteria we reflected on in our first blog post) as a resources to help guide us in our designs.  Additionally, we will use the knowledge we gained from our research and experience with blogs to help us focus on what features our necessary for our blogs.  Finally, we will also use our own personality as a source for what themes might represent us.

We will be demonstrating our understanding of these concepts by sketching and coloring rough drafts of a few various blog templates.  Each of the templates should be drawn on the provided sheets of A4 paper and will communicate what the "home" page of your blog will look like.

Your Task:
You can look to the examples in this blog post for inspiration.  Each of these were made by a previous 6th grader.  Please note that your template sketches should include the following qualities:

• clean and neat drawings
• lots of color
• clean space on the page
• bold black outlines
• all details included (widgets, header, post area, titles, etc)

Additionally, your sketches should also take into account the quality blog criteria that we researched and decided upon in class together.  Your individual sections created these criteria as seen below:

• MYP 1 - Blue Quality Blog Criteria
• MYP 1 - Red Quality Blog Criteria
• MYP 1 - Green Quality Blog Criteria

Due Dates:

Remember, you should have at least 3 complete and detailed rough drafts that will be due on:

• Blue Section: November 8th
• Red Section: November 8th
• Green Section: November 8th

How to earn a 5 or 6:

Finally, if you would like to earn a 5-6, please be sure to pay close attention to our task specific rubric including:

• You generate 3 or more thought fully created template mock-up sketches.
• All of your templates include the minimum functional requirements of a blog.
• All of your templates incorporate good design concepts using the basic design elements and principles.
• All of your templates clearly reflect your personality, theme and design specifications of your blog.

Paper Chair Challenge

Imagine being asked by your instructor to build a chair out of paper that would be able to support your weight?  Impossible you might say?  Well that's exactly the challenge our 6th Grade Design Technology students were posed with just the other day.

The students were given large stacks of newspaper and a few rolls of masking tape to build their structures.  Pretty quickly they were able to come up with a few ideas on how to strengthen the newspaper by changing the shape of the pages.  Additionally, after a few attempts there even realized that to hold the weight they were placing on the chairs, they would need to build in some additional support.

Finally, it was time to test out our structures and the students took turns sitting on them one-by-one.  Some of the best looking chairs crumpled easily and quickly... while others amazingly stood up to the repeated weight placed on them.

Afterward, students participated in two learning labs where they learned about different types of loads and the forces they cause that act against the structures.  Using the Paper Chair Challenge Worksheet, students were able to reflect on a few of the things they learned including:

• "The newspaper and tape we used to construct our chair is the dead load because it doesn't change, but when someone sits on the chair they become the live load."
• "Each time someone would get on and off the chair, the loads would change causing major vibrations that could eventually damage the chair."
• "When we put weight on the chair we noticed that the legs or columns began to crunch, bend and twist being affected by compression, tension and torsion."
• "We used lots of triangles in our chair as a way to strengthen the legs and make the chair more stable."

Don't miss out on the exciting action of our testing.  Check out the following playlist of videos that show each of the groups in action testing out their sitting structures!



Thanks to PBS Kids Zoom for this great challenge idea and PBS and PBS Hawaii for the learning resources.

Image Appreciation:
Paper Chair by Xiaoli Dai