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:

• 8-1 Connors: September 26th, N Day
• 8-2 Okumura: October 1st, R Day
• 8-3 Okumura:October 1st, R 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 8th 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!

8th Grade Section 1 (Connors)
8th Grade Section 2 (Okumura)
8th Grade Section 3 (Okumura)

Bloggers of the World Unite!

Aloha 8th 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... )

Remember, you should start off by reviewing at least 2-3 of the blogs listed above.  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!