What Makes You Special?

Blogs allow us to share our ideas, perspectives and the things we love with the world!  Each of us is unique and our blogs should reflect what makes us who we are.  Chances are, there are others out there in the world who share your interests and would benefit from your knowledge and participation in the global conversation. Blogging helps us to grow by strengthening our collaboration and communication skills through the connections we make with others.

Your blog is an opportunity to share your take on the world, however, as we've learned in class there's certain information that's not appropriate to share online, especially in a space when anyone in the world can see it.  When posting to our blog or giving feedback on someone's comments we should remember the messages we learned from the videos we discussed in class.

Your job is to determine what information is interesting and appropriate to share with your global audience.  Before we begin blogging, we'll focus on following a set of blogging guidelines developed by our blogging partners at YIS in Yokohama, Japan.  These guidelines will ensure that we don't end up like the students in the videos linked above.

To help us generate ideas for what topics we'll be posting on, we will be creating idea maps using Google Draw.  These idea maps should be well organized and easy to understand as we'll be posting them to our blog in the near future!

To complete your brainstorm for your mission:

Continue to finish the mind map we started in class to demonstrate you thoughts on what your blog will be about.  You can include ideas on what your hobbies are, what sports and activities you participating in, what you like learning about and what you're experiencing in your classes.

Be sure to make your idea map match the rubric by drawing out clear, well-organized and detailed idea branches.  You should use a variety of formatting and grouping techniques to ensure that the map is easy to read and understand.  The more detail you provide on your ideas, the better.

Organizing your ideas in a theme related to your blogging ideas is a great idea too! 

To earn a 7-8 on the rubric, make sure:

• You have created a complex and detailed map.
• Your map is exceptionally well organized.
• Your map utilizes a variety of formatting tools to make it clear and easy to understand.

If you're looking for some inspiration, check out these amazing examples at work:

Tiana (Here use of color and balance makes her information easy to read and understand.)
Chris (Do you notice he's beginning to create a theme that matches his interests?)
Claire (Her idea map is very balanced and makes a good use of color and organization.)
Mahea (Her idea map is very complex and detailed!  She has a technique with color too!)

If you need help understanding how to use the tools in Google Draw, you can watch this youtube video I made a while back called: Concept Mapping with Google Draw

And so it Begins!

Everyone ready to get started with their first blog post?!?!

This is the final task of the investigation phase of this portion of the project.  On your blog, you'll be completing a reflection using the three tasks you've participated in leading up to this.

In your first blog post, you'll be typing out your reflection answers to the following group of questions that will clue us in to what you have learned so far during this project and how you intend to use your blog to answer our unit question.

• How can we use our blogs to share our ideas online (in a responsible and safe manner) in order to have a positive effect on our community and ourselves?
• How will you use what you have learned to make an excellent blog that is personalized to you and represents you and your learning at Le Jardin Academy? (What learning experiences do you think it would be appropriate for you to share?)
• What features and characteristics of blogs do you feel will need to be present in order for your blog to be successful. (Use your section's Awesome Blog Group doc to help you answer this: Green, Blue, Red)
• What strategies will you use to ensure your blog is dynamic?

To earn a 7 – 8, please check out the task-specific rubrics (here and here):

• the student writes a blog post rough draft that answers the suggested questions in a concise manner and includes supportive and relative media and links

Remember:

• Your reflection should include at least 4-5 paragraphs.
• Your reflection should be saved in your Design Google Drive Folder.
• You reflection should include only answers, not the questions and be conversational in tone.
• Each paragraph should be written so the reader can understand the question (without including the question).
• You are writing for an audience that may not be in our class, make sure to describe things so that anyone could understand.
• Be sure to follow the class Netiquette Guidelines while writing your blog post.
• You might want to consider using multimedia to support your ideas (images or videos) including links to relative resources (like your idea map, our class blog, etc.)

In class we'll discuss some of the formatting choices you'll need to make to complete this assignment including linking to the documents you've been working on, correctly labeling the post and inserting images...

Abigail, Eva and Ameilia did an amazing job with this last year.  You can check out their sites to see an example of how they wrote their blog posts. (It doesn't need to be this long FYI... make it concise.)  Will yours show up here as an example when all is said and done?

Images:
Teacher in Classroom  Stock Image - iStockphoto.com

And So It Begins!

Everyone ready to get started with their first blog post?!?!

This is the final task of the investigation phase of this portion of the project.  On your blog, you'll be completing a reflection using the three tasks you've participated in leading up to this.

In your first blog post, you'll be typing out your reflection answers to the following group of questions that will clue us in to what you have learned so far during this project and how you intend to use your blog to answer our unit question.

• How can we use our blogs to share our ideas online (in a responsible and safe manner) in order to have a positive effect on our community and ourselves?
• How will you use what you have learned to make an excellent blog that is personalized to you and represents you and your learning at Le Jardin Academy?
• Which 5 of the class criteria are most important to you? Why? 
• How do you plan on making sure that your blog meets these 5 criteria and how do you plan on testing your blog to gauge your success?

Identify Criteria	Why is this criteria important?	How will the criteria be tested?
Example:  Relevant Content	- content should be related to the overall purpose of the blog so readers can relate to the topic and able to easily engage through comments/feedback.	- review statistics on comparing number of hits vs. number of comments - create a survey that will be linked from blog OR add a "like" function to the blog post
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
etc.

To earn a 5 – 6, make sure:

• You have included a complex and detailed reflection.
• You have included many excellent details and specifics relating to your project.

Remember:

• Your reflection should include at least 4-5 paragraphs.
• Your reflection should be published on your blog.
• You reflection should include only answers, not the questions.
• Each paragraph should be written so the reader can understand the question (without including the question).
• You are writing for an audience that may not be in our class, make sure to describe things so that anyone could understand.

In class we'll discuss some of the formatting choices you'll need to make to complete this assignment including linking to the documents you've been working on, correctly labeling the post and inserting images...

An Introduction to Blogger...Narrated!

Congratulations of starting your brand new blog!  In no time we'll be posting amazing content, sharing our ideas and connecting with others from around the globe.  To get us started, we'll need some basic working knowledge of the Blogger platform.  To help you along, we've created a set of Worksheets that should clue you into the features and options that Blogger has to offer.  We've even created a set of video tutorials to better help you find the main areas of your blog that you can modify and customize to better reach your intended audience.

Here's the list of videos to get  you started:

Introduction to Blogger
Creating Your Blog on Blogger
Intro to Blogger: The Blogger Dashboard Menu
Intro to Blogger: Adding New Posts
Intro to Blogger: Inserting Multimedia
Intro to Blogger: Commenting on Posts
Intro to Blogger: Header - Menu - Navigation
Intro to Blogger: Gadgets and Widgets


As you experiment with your blog, try changing some of the template and layout settings to see what effect it has on the look of your blog.  Try adding in a few important links you think would be helpful and useful such as link back to this blog or to Managebac.  See if you can make a simple "Welcome to My Blog" post with a label or two.  If you find something neat, don't forget to share it with the rest of us!

Homework:

Your task is to finish the Intro to Blogger Worksheet Packet by filling in all the boxes with information about the highlighted features. Be sure to ask your self, "What is the function or purpose of this tool? and How will this tool help my readers have a better user experience?"

Don't forget to view the "Practice" band on the rubric for this assignment so you know what your goal is for this task.


Due Dates:

• 6-Blue:Tuesday, October 16th, N Day
• 6-Red:Tuesday, October 16th, N Day
• 6-Green:Wednesday, October 17th, J Day

The Secret is Out!

Looking to make your blog successful?

Our 6th graders have worked together to investigate and research what the are some of the elements, characteristics and features of quality blogs.  We already knew that engaging writing and interesting topics are what readers come back to a blog for... but there's something about how blogs function and the way users interact with them that helps make for a more successful reading experience.

It looks like all three of our sections found some similarities between the successful blogs they reviewed.  What did they find?  See for yourself in the links posted below!

6th Grade Section 1 Green
6th Grade Section 2 Blue
6th Grade Section 3 Red

Bloggers of the World Unite!

Aloha 6th Graders and Welcome to your first true design challenge of the year!

In this unit we'll harnessing the power of the internet by building blogs that will help us to connect with others around the world, build a positive online presence and reflect on all the things were learning and experiencing in this last year of Middle School.  As we talked about in class, our steps will be guided by the the Design Cycle as we begin to Investigate the power of blogs and how to make our blogs more powerful!

The limits and reaches of our communities are expanding everyday as the advances of global communication evolve at breathtaking speed.  What was impossible for thousands of years has only recently been turned upside down, allowing you the opportunity to put your thoughts, ideas and perspectives out for the world to see...  With today's technology, you can publish almost anything, practically anywhere, at anytime: day or night... for free.

Your thoughts, your perspectives, your ideas...  shaping the world we live in!

OK!

Now, to get started, we'll be looking at existing blogs from our community and beyond to help us get a sense of what marks a quality blog.  You'll be asking yourself:

• What elements or characteristics of the blogs you liked stood out to you?
• What got your attention?
• What visual features did you enjoy?
•  How were you able to interact with and move through the better blogs?
• What kinds of information and how was delivered in a way that got you to stop and read it?
• Once you've seen a few blogs... what features do you think every blog should have?

 Here are a few sample blogs to get started with:

• NeverSeconds (a very famous blog written by a 9 year old Scottish  school girl about her schools food options)
•  The White House Blog (Our governments blog that let's us know how they're leading our country)
•  Ukulele Underground (a local blog that helps people learn how to master the Ukulele)
• MacRumors (a blog dedicated to sharing all the latest Mac related news and speculation with us)
• Ars Technica (a very well run and respectable video gaming news blog site)
• Troy43 (the official website and blog of Troy Polamalu - Pittsburg Steelers All-Star Safety)
• MAKE (a great blog featuring tons of DIY projects, how-tos, and ispriation from geeks and makers)
• The Tasty Island (a honolulu based food blog that goes behind the scenes of some of our favorites)
• Ono Kine Grindz (A blog of onolicious eats from Hawai’i and around the world!)
• Emily's Blog (the 2010 winning student blog of the annual EduBlogs student competition)
• Chemistry: It's "Element"-ary!!! (the 2010 runner-up student blog)
•  Haley's Blog (The 3rd place student blog from EduBlogs competition)
•  LJADTMYP3 Blog (Our class blog... that's right... )

Homework:

Remember, you should start off by reviewing at least 2-3 of the blogs listed above.  Make sure you explain what is good about each blog and why each item is good. We will use this sheet to determine the criteria for an excellent blog.

To earn a 5-6 on the rubric, make sure:

• You have examined 3 or more blogs.
• You have and included more than 2 comments for each blog you review.
• All of your comments are detailed and meaningful. You clearly explain what is good about each blog and why it’s good.

You're welcome to review other blogs you might enjoy, just make sure that they're appropriate for school.  You need to make sure that you copy and past the full URL (the address on top) of the blog into the Blog Research Sheet.

If you think there's a particularly great blog out there that your classmates would like to review, share it with us in the comment section below. (Be sure to tell us the name and give us the full URL!)

Good luck!

Welcome to Design Technology

Aloha 6th Graders!

Welcome to Middle School, the MYP Program and 6th Grade Design Tech!  I can't wait to meet all of you as I've heard such wonderful things about you all!

This is our class blog for Design Tech.  It's the place you'll go to find out what's going on in class, where to go to get help and what's expected of you.  It will be my way of communicating to all of you and your parents about our units of work (assignments and deadlines), upcoming events (activities) and much more.

I know that were going to learn a lot this year - all while having a great time!  If you have any questions or comments, please let me know! See you all soon!