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
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.
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 feature?
How will this feature help my readers have a better user experience?
Don't forget to view the task-specific rubric for this assignment so you know what your goal is for this task.
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
Aloha 6th Graders and Welcome to your first design challenge of the year!
In
this unit we'll be 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 we're learning and
experiencing in this first year of Middle School. As we talked about in
class, our steps will be guided by the the Design Cycle as we begin to start an Inquiry into 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 inspiration 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)
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. You should record at least 2 meaningful comments about each blog (including their characteristics or features that positively impact the viewer). We will use this sheet to determine the criteria for an excellent blog.
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 (i.e. how it impacts the visitor.)
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 paste 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!)
Can you see it off in the distance? It's right there! Our blogs are almost finished...
At this point of the unit we would normally be planning the steps and actions we would take to build and create our product or solution. We would start determining what resources, equipment and tools we would need, how much time each of the steps might take and what support or knowledge we would need to acquire or call upon.
In this unit, we've already begun
the process of creating our blogs. In fact, each of you already has a
functional working blog that you've been posting to over the
last few weeks. So instead of planning to build a blog... we're going to plan on how to finish our blog...
Some of the functional and aesthetic aspects of our blogs are in place.
There are a number of the elements that need to be added or tweaked
before our blog is finally ready for prime time. Which elements? Well
according to our functional sketches and blog template mock-ups... we
still need to ensure we have a...
functional Menu,
a complete Author Bio Page,
an appropriate unique URL,
a Background that matches our theme
appropriate and functional Gadgets,
a clean and organized Layout,
and an optional Banner
any of the Features mentioned in your Specification!
As we've talked about in class, we should plan on finishing
these items are part of our create phase by following the guidance we've
received by looking over our Design Criteria, the Functional Blog Sketches and our Template Mock-ups.
As
our time grows shorter this semester, it will be up to you to
determine when the best time for you to work on these items will be. I have come up with an Action Plan Worksheet
to help you plan and budget your time appropriately by coming up with
some task action steps, complete with space for you to plan when you'll
work on these items and to check off when you have completed them. It should already be in your folder! Be sure to work on this in and out of class!
Additionally I've put together a set of tutorial resources videos to
better help you begin creating and fixing each of these items after
using your Action Plan Worksheet to determine what your priorities are
and when you'll get to them. To access these resources, please view the
linked videos below:
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
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 homework:
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! For help on understanding how to get started with Google Draw as a mind mapping tool, be sure to check out this tutorial video!
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!)
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?
Whatlearner 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.)
You may either do this in written or video format. If you opt for the video option, note the following:
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:
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:
IntroductoryParagraph (to help readers understand the need and process of evaluating afinal 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. yourpersonal criteria, functional blog requirements, design elements and yourpersonality/theme?
What featuresor 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 tohave a positive effect on yourself andyour 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?
Whatlearner 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?
Conclusionparagraph (that sums up the success of your final product.)
You may either do this in written or video format. If you opt for the video option, note the following:
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 one of your fellow classmates. 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:
According to Wikipedia, an avatar
is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or
character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or
virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums
and other online communities.
Avatars are fun to make and can provide us with an alternative for posting pictures or images of ourselves online
There
are lots of great avatar making websites out there. Some of them
require you to pay and create accounts. Some incorporate content I
don't necessarily fell is appropriate. So... we'll use the following
websites today to make ours:
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...
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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!)
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.
