The Eights

Miss Wyatt’s first try at creating an animoto.  Hayley is complaining about the oldies music Miss Wyatt chose for the background of this animoto.

A great start to a new term of ICT learning.  Everyone who had permission to use computers now has created their blog. 

From the dashboard, some of you have:

1. changed your theme   appearance > theme
2. changed your password  users > your profile
3. uploaded your blog avatar  settings > blog avatar
4. uploaded a comment avatar   users > your avatar
5. added your blog avatar to your sidebar  appearance > widgets > blog avatar or text (to add code)
6. changed your name for leaving comments (nickname)   users > your profile
7. changed your blog name and tagline settings > general
8. changed the time clock to UTC +10  settings > general
9. changed comment moderation   settings > discussion > ticked boxes 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 11 and also 9 if you want an email sent when someone leaves a comment

added these widgets to your sidebar:

• search
• pages
• blog avatar
• links
• recent comments
• recent posts
• meta

Many thanks to Lisa, Alex,  Darrel and Aaron who I saw giving lots of help to other students.

You can now get into our school intranet at home.  You will need to log in first by using  schools\then your username and password that you normally use when logging in at school. The only people who should know your password are yourself and perhaps a parent or teacher.

Then head to classes>specialist classes> computer IT to find the links section on the right.  Here you can get  to activities set by Mrs Barnes that will help you achieve your grade 6 or 10 checklist.

We will be using some of these over the next few weeks in IT class time.

What is a wordle??

A wordle is a visual image of a word count.  To create your own wordle, you will need to go back and forwards between your blog and this site .  You have two choices: either a wordle from text you paste into the space eg the posts about triumph over adversity for five blogs OR you put in the URL of your own blog to see which words you are using most often.  Make sure you fiddle around with colour and font.

Here is a wordle I created about our ICT blog in grade 8. Why are some words larger than others?  Where are the common words like the, of, and, I and it? Click on the wordle to see a larger view.

If you use a screen-capture or other image representation of the Wordle on this page, you must attribute the image to http://www.wordle.net/. Images of Wordles are licensed .

You have now had three lessons in ICT since the beginning of term 2.  You should have already completed some of these activities, if not, you need to get on with them.  Once you have completed these compulsory activities, you then get a chance to make choices about what else to learn in IT this term.  This could include videoing, programming, digital photography, graphics editing etc.  It will be up to you to put in a proposal of what you want to do.

But first, you must complete the following:

On your blog

1. Create blog and manage it well by having settings organized as per this post.
2. Created an avatar for your blog and comments – this can be same avatar or two different ones, but you must have created one from a site on this post.  You could use an image for the second one if you want.
3. On blog sidebar, include page for ICT glossary, blog avatar, clustrmap, recent comments and recent posts, blogroll with at least 10 names on it and at least two other widgets you have found that are suitable.
4. Have written at least five posts including 3 of your choice and also:   Why it is important to have a positive digital footprint on the internet and how you can create this.  Looking at the grade 10 checklist and deciding where you will need help to pass this over the next few years.
5. Commented on at least ten different blogs – five within our school and five from other students outside our school. Email Miss W with links to where you have left comments.
6. Read the posts from earlier in the year on this blog and left your comment: Safe blogging, What makes your computer tick, Staying safe and Blogs vs websites.

On the web, but could be embedded as part of blog posts

• Create a comic strip
• Create a quiz
• Create a poll or survey
• Play a simulation game and review it as a post on your blog, see links in our sidebar

Remember though, when registering on the web, try to keep the same or similar username and password so you can remember them more easily. 

Welcome to the grade 8 ICT blog.  Many of you have not used this type of web 2.0 tool before but I think you are going to enjoy it.  It involves you in reading, writing posts and comments, creating avatars, visiting other students’ blogs, designing your theme and adding widgets.

WHOA!  you say.  ‘What are themes, widgets and avatars?’

In today’s lesson you need to explore the web to find out about these terms. 

Activities:

1. Start building a web 2.0 glossary in a word or publisher document or as a PAGE (not post) on your blog. You will be adding to this document often throughout the term.
2. Send Miss Wyatt an email asking her to create a blog just for you.  This blog is going to be a major part of your ICT assessment this term. Those students with blogs created last year, the assessment will start from today only. If you already have a blog, still send Miss Wyatt an email but give her the URL of your blog.
3. While waiting for the email from Edublogs, create an avatar to represent you both on your blog and when you are writing comments on other students’ blogs. If you created an avatar last year, remember now you are 13 or older, you have more choices of where to go to create the avatar.
4. Look at themes used by other students and decide which one you are going to use in your blog. Here is a link to over 300 students and their blogs. Your choices must be from this list though, as I require comments to be able to be made on pages as well as posts. If you want to check out how many columns and colours for themes, then read this post.
5. But before you start adding comments to other blogs, remember what you were taught about being internet savvy in the classes from last year.  Check out this post by Megan Golding for middle school students who are blogging. I will be checking to see if you have left a comment at this post about which rule you think is most important and why.

If you have problems doing any of the work listed above, ask students who were in my class last year especially about blogging questions.

For a comment on this post, what would you like to be able to do as part of your grade 8 ICT course this year?

You will notice I have now taken off the page labelled grade 7/8 ICT skills as I have found out that you can be assessed for the grade 10 checklist as soon as you start grade 7.  This means if you do a fantastic job of your digital story you could possibly be assessed for many of the skills on the checklist, especially those under inquiring and creating. 

Even though I wont be in class teaching you, if you have any queries about the final task of digital storytelling, please feel free to send me an email with your question.  I will write another post nearer the end of term showing how you can put your digital story onto your blog.  But this can only be done if all images and other forms of media are creative commons with an attribution license that allows you to copy freely.

I will also be writing some other posts that might help you with assessment in other skills on the checklist such as that of using simulations.

I am still marking off some students for the April assessments and find many of you have not been to the Megan Golding website to leave a comment, nor have many of you left a comment comparing blogs and websites.  All these are part of the report I will be writing about you over the June holidays.  Remember you could email me your work (as attachments) such as glossary, avatar and comic strip as well as any other work you feel I should assess for this topic that you have completed during the Friday sessions.

I wonder what the story is about this gentleman and his bench?

As the end of term is coming quickly, I am setting you your final piece of work for assessment. I want you to create, with a partner, a digital story.  What is this you ask?  Check out some examples from this blog.  Look at ‘Crikey, frogs”, “My Grandad”, “Martin and Elaine” and “Steve takes a shot”.

Now check out the ‘Create’ section of the website.  Getting started, storyboarding and then the photostory 3 tutorial.  More information about storyboarding can be found here.

Another great website with lots of ideas for digital stories is found here. Alan created the same story using 50+ different tools on the web.  But for your assessment, you may use photostory3 as this is one of the easiest and we have it loaded on the school computers. If you wish to try out one of the other tools, feel free but remember you only have till the end of term to have your story completed.

One of the most important aspects of assessment in this assignment is where you get your music and images from and how you give attribution at the end of your story.  They MUST BE copyright free so just doing a google search is not going to be good enough. If using this website for images and media then click on the photo and check out the license under which it is copyrighted. (Scroll down the page for this.)

This website has a great tutorial about using photostory3 especially all the effects you can do with editing your story.

A rubric for your assessment can be found here, so check out what I will be looking for in your story. I will NOT be looking at videography as most of you will not be taking video but using images instead.

So now it is time to get started on your digital story.

Original image: ‘I believe that you have taken my bench!‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79865753@N00/2128845834
by: Kathleen Conklin   Released under an Attribution License

Below are the compulsory activities you should have completed by the end of March:

1. Create an avatar and save in your own drive then paste into public drive>senior school>8ICT>avatars  Make sure the avatar is in either a .gif or .jpeg format and as saved as yournameyourclass eg avaDjia8C Your avatar can also be found on your blog instead of the public drive.
2. You have at least ten words and their meanings on your ICT glossary. This is either a page on your blog or saved as word or publisher in  your own drive then pasted into the public drive again in folder 8ICT>glossary  Saved like glosDjia8C
3. Have completed a comic or cartoon using online or school resources about the topic ‘Internet Safety’. Embed on your blog if possible or save in your own drive then paste in public drive under 8ICT >comic  Saved like comDjia8C
4. Have visited Megan Golding’s blog about middle school students blogging safely online and left an appropriate comment.
5. Have visited at least 5 other 8C students blogs and left appropriate comments. Blog owners, please tell me who has visited and left a comment since the beginning of this term.
6. If you have your own blog, make sure you have completed the settings as per the Feb 23 post.
7. Comment discussing websites and blogs from March 5 post.

Keep a record in your ICT book about what you have completed so far, then start working on the remainder.

Before beginning more interesting activities, all the compulsory ones must be completed. There will be another set of compulsory activities in April and May before your course finishes at the end of term.

Check out this video about blogs and write a comment about what you see are the similarities and differences between blogs and websites. Think about:

• layout
• information
• reader
• communication