Time for 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:

1. Introductory Paragraph (to help readers understand the need and process of evaluating a final product.
2. What are your feelings about your final product? (Positive and/or negative
3. What aspect of your final product are you most proud of and why?
   
4. How does your final product meet your design specifications i.e. your personal criteria, functional blog requirements, design elements and your personality/theme?
   
5. What features or functions on your blog would you change to make a better product?
   
6.  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?
7. How effective do you feel you were in this unit?  What actions or behaviors will you carry over or change for our next unit?
8. 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?
9. 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:

• Suggested web tool to create video:  http://screencast-o-matic.com/
• Video length should be no more than 5 minutes.
• Video must be uploaded to your YouTube channel and then embedded in your blog post.

Here's an example reflection from Tobi a current Design Tech MYP 2 student at Yokohama International School in Japan.

To earn a 5 – 6, make sure:

• € comprehensively tests the product/ solution against the design specification
• € thoroughly evaluates the product/ solution based on testing and suggests possible improvement
• reflects on his or her performance at  each stage of the design cycle and identifies ways in which his or her performance could be improved
• considers the impact the product may have on individuals and/or on society

Due Dates:

• Pink and Purple:  Dec. 18th (T)
• Yellow:  Dec. 19 (W)

Planning for the Finish Line

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 on 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 modifying continuously over the last few weeks.  So instead of planning to build a blog...  we're going to plan on how to finish our blog...

Many of the functional and aesthetic aspects of our blogs are in place.  There are just a few 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!

As we've talked about in class, we should plan on finishing these items are part of our create page by following the guidance we've received by looking over our Design Criteria, the Functional Blog Sketches and our Template Mock-ups.

As we have little time left to use this semester, it will be up to you to determine when the best time for you to work on these items will be.  Mrs. Okumura and 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.

Additionally we'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:

Creating a Menu and Author Bio Page in Blogger
Choosing a Unique URL for your Blog (The blogs web address) [Linked Articles: #1, #2, #3]
Adding Appropriate Gadgets (includes ClusterMap)
Adjusting your Blog Layout [coming soon]
Adding a Banner (using SumoPaint)

Due Dates:  

• All tasks in your action plan should be completed by Tuesday, December 11 (R day).

Image Credits:
Runner's Den by Dru Bloomfield. Creative Commons Licensed on Flickr

Evaluating Your Designs (Reflection #2)

Great job bloggers!  We have seen some amazing designs and themes emerging from all of you.  Now, the last step in the Design Phase is to create your reflection #2 blog post where you will evaluate the different design mock-ups that you came up with.

Step 1.  Write your 4-5 paragraph reflection:

• What theme has emerged from your designs? 
  How does this theme relate to or represent you?
• For each blog template mock-up:
• explain the choices you made 
• compare how this design measures up to:
•  your design specifications (from your Reflection #1)
• functional blog requirements (your sketch)
• aesthetic design elements (color, photo, graphic design)
  
•  Select your final design and justify your choice by validating against your specifications and other design options.
 

Step 2.  Add your screen capture images from your Picasa Web Album into the relevant paragraphs of your reflection.


Be sure to use the task specific rubric #2 to guide you as you write your reflection.

To earn a 5 – 6, make sure:

• You have included a complex and detailed reflection.
• You have done an excellent job justifying and comparing your designs with the specifications.

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.

Due Dates:

• 7th Grade Pink:  Nov. 27 (T)
• 7th Grade Purple:  Nov. 27 (T)
• 7th Grade Yellow:  Nov. 28 (W)

The Aesthetics...Creating Your Mock-Up Designs

Here's the fun part!  How can we create aesthetically pleasing designs by incorporating a variety of design elements?  We will focus on answering this question over the next few classes and in the end have a number of design mock-ups to select from.


STEP 1. The Color Wheel

• a. Create Mock-up #1 applying elements of the color wheel discussed in class (hue, shade, tint, color relationships: monochromatic, analogous, complimentary, etc.) to your background.
• b. Refer to your Color Wheel worksheet notes taken from the Color Wheel Video Explanation
• c. To edit background:  Template --> Customize --> Background (select a color theme) or Advanced (to customize each section of your blog)
• d. Take a screen capture of this design #1 and upload to your Picasa Web Album.
• e.  Add a caption with brief explanation of your color choice.

STEP 2. Photographs 

• a. Create Mock-up #2 applying a photograph to your background that uses rule of thirds.

• b. To edit background:  Template --> Customize --> Background --> Background Image (look through gallery of photograph categories OR take and upload your own photo).
• c. Take a screen capture of this design #2 and upload to your Picasa Web Album.
• e.  Add a caption with brief explanation of your photograph choice.

STEP 3. Graphic Design  

• a. Create Mock-up #3 applying graphic design elements discussed in class (color relationship, line, vector-shape,stroke-outline, patterns.
• b. To edit background:  Template --> Customize --> Background --> Background Image (look through gallery* with graphic designs or create/upload your own.)
• c. * Suggested graphic design categories include:  Abstract, Patterns, Technology, Textures & Transparent.
• d. Take a screen capture of this design #3 and upload to your Picasa Web Album.
• e.  Add a caption with brief explanation of your graphic design choice.

Be sure to use the task specific rubric #1 to guide you in this design phase.

To earn a 5 – 6, make sure:

• You have generated THREE or more thoughtfully created template mock-ups through screen captures.
• All mock-ups demonstrate good blog design using the basic design elements and principles.
• All mock-ups clearly reflect your personality, theme and design specifications of your blog.

Remember:

• Each of your designs should display insight into your theme.  Some ideas discussed:  Star Wars, Sports, Hawaiian, Nature, etc.
• Take a look at your mind map.  Are there any themes that you could tap into from there?

Time to Design! How Will Our Blog Function?

Well, here we go!  We've spent time understanding what makes a good blog and have identified the criteria we'll use to measure its success.  Now, we are ready to formulate our designs!

First step is to determine how your blogs will function.  What will be the features on your blog and where will they go?  As you answer these questions, think about a theme that may be emerging in your design.


STEP 1.  Sketch out your FUNCTIONAL design layout incorporating the minimum elements we discussed in class:

Minimum Functional Blog Requirements:

• Appropriate Blog URL, Title and Description
  What is the best possible URL, title, description to best match your blog theme?

• Navigation/Menu Bar
  Where will your menu be located on your page? What will be included in your menu?  What order will you place each menu item?
  
  
• Appropriate and Functional Gadgets/Widgets
  What widgets will be included?  Where will you place them and in what order? Remember to ask yourself what purpose will the widget serve?

• Author Bio Page
  How will you incorporate your bio/About Me information?  Will you include as part of your menu?  Design in a separate page?
• Optional: Banner
  This is an optional element.  If you include, sketch out an idea of the design.

STEP 2.  Refer back to your Investigate Reflection at the FIVE criteria you identified. Are there any other requirements you identified here that you may need to include in your functional layout?
 
• Example (discussed in class):  If one criteria you identified was the ability to search your blog, this would be an additional requirement that you need to include in your sketch.


Be sure to use the task specific rubric #1 to guide you in this design phase.

To earn a 5 – 6, make sure:

• Your sketch includes the minimum functional blog requirements.
• Your sketch incorporates the criteria that you identified in your reflection.

Remember:

• You should begin to see a theme emerging as you formulate your functional sketch.
• When sketching, be intentional about what goes onto your sketch and where they get placed.  Everything should have a reason.

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...

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 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! 

Due Dates:

• 7-Pink: Oct. 4th - N Day
• 7-Purple: Oct. 4th - N Day
• 7-Yellow:  Oct. 5th - J Day
  

To earn a 5 – 6 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:

8th Grader Tiana (Here use of color and balance makes her information easy to read and understand.)
7th Grader Chris (Do you notice he's beginning to create a theme that matches his interests?)
7th Grader Claire (Her idea map is very balanced and makes a good use of color and organization.)
6th Grader Mahea (Her idea map is very complex and detailed!  She has a technique with color too!)

The Secret is Out!

Looking to make your blog successful?

Our 7th 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!

7th Grade Section 1 Yellow
7th Grade Section 2 Pink
7th Grade Section 3 Purple

Bloggers of the World Unite!

Aloha 7th 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!