1. Reading Survey: Please complete the reading survey found at this link.
2. Blogs: Make sure you can get into your blog, and write your first post! If you don't have a blog, we'll get one set up for you first thing. Call your first post "New School Year: 2018-2019." Your first post for the year should include the following:
- What you're looking forward to this school year
- What skills you have that will make you successful this school year
- What challenges you have that might hinder your success this school year
- What your goals are for this school year... How do you want to improve yourself and change for the better?
3. Check the right-hand margin of Mrs. Edlin's blog. If you don't see yours there, please e-mail the url (web address) of your blog to her at tena.edlin@fairfieldsfuture.org.
4. Goodreads Accounts:
If you DO NOT have a Goodreads account yet, we'll get you set up with one.
If you DO have a Goodreads account, you need to edit your bookshelves.
If you DO NOT have a Goodreads account yet, we'll get you set up with one.
If you DO have a Goodreads account, you need to edit your bookshelves.
- You will need the following shelves to keep track of your books for this year:
- Science Fiction
- Realistic Fiction
- Poetry/Novels in Verse
- Mystery
- Historical Fiction
- Graphic Novels
- Fantasy
- Classics
- Action/Adventure
- Biography/Autobiography/Memoir
- Informational Nonfiction
- Add a shelf for "2018-2019 School Year."
- Make sure you're a part of the FMS GOAL group, and if you're not, request to join.
- Add friends from the FMS GOAL group, if you'd like to (the more friends you have, the more informative/helpful/interesting your news feed will be).
- Accept all friend requests from GOAL students in any grade.
- Adjust your notification preferences to whatever works best for you.
- Read through your updates, looking for books you might want to add to your "Want to read" shelf.
5. UNIT INTRODUCTION
When your Goodreads account is ready to go and you've finished your blog post watch the following film to give you an introduction to our new unit to start the year. This unit will be on Differences in Learning. This unit is to give you an awareness of all the ways people learn. You will develop understanding for people who learn differently from you, and you will better understand your own ways of learning. When you know how you learn best, you can begin to advocate for yourself and take charge of your own learning and academic success.
Start by watching this video: Temple Grandin TED Talk: The World Needs All Kinds of Minds
Then, write a blog post describing what you saw, what you learned, and what it made you think about and/or wonder about.
6. TIME TO COMMENT!
Read and respond to the blog posts of others. But first, you need to know HOW to write good comments. Yes, this seems obvious. But with student blogging, it's the area which always disappoints me the most. Even first graders seem to know how to do this better than middle school students. Case in point: Watch the first grade video on commenting, and PAY ATTENTION to what these kids are talking about. I know this is geared for elementary kids, but have fun with the Panda and learn from the younger generation about how to write a good blog post.
YES, I KNOW THIS MOVIE IS LAME, BUT THERE ARE NO BETTER ONES. REALLY! Let's MAKE a better one. Comment to this post with at least one suggestion about how we can update this in a way that's useful and more relevant to middle schoolers than a 2-dimensional panda!
6. TIME TO COMMENT!
Read and respond to the blog posts of others. But first, you need to know HOW to write good comments. Yes, this seems obvious. But with student blogging, it's the area which always disappoints me the most. Even first graders seem to know how to do this better than middle school students. Case in point: Watch the first grade video on commenting, and PAY ATTENTION to what these kids are talking about. I know this is geared for elementary kids, but have fun with the Panda and learn from the younger generation about how to write a good blog post.
YES, I KNOW THIS MOVIE IS LAME, BUT THERE ARE NO BETTER ONES. REALLY! Let's MAKE a better one. Comment to this post with at least one suggestion about how we can update this in a way that's useful and more relevant to middle schoolers than a 2-dimensional panda!
7. Now actually read and respond to other blog posts. Look at the righthand margin of this blog to find all the GOAL student blogs. Read and respond to at least 3 posts about goals for the new year and at least 3 posts about the Temple Grandin video. Try to find blogs that don't have any comments yet. Read and edit before you post to avoid silly errors. You may comment on GOAL blogs from any grade.
8. Go back to your blog and see what others have said. Respond to their comments if/when necessary.
9. Think you're done with everything? Make sure by submitting the checklist found here.
10. If there are any design modifications you'd like to make to your blog (background colors, margin widths, etc.), you may do it now.
11. When you're done with everything, you may check out books from my library and read and/or go to any of the sites on my blog along the lefthand margin under the category: Idleness Prevention Society.
10. If there are any design modifications you'd like to make to your blog (background colors, margin widths, etc.), you may do it now.
11. When you're done with everything, you may check out books from my library and read and/or go to any of the sites on my blog along the lefthand margin under the category: Idleness Prevention Society.
I think a way we could make this video better is if we add a section of grammar or ways to correctly spell things. Even if you do all of the things they said in that video correctly, if you have terrible spelling it won't seem like a good comment. So if we do a short clip of some major words that people spell wrong I think it could help a lot.
ReplyDeleteHoly cow, that's a good idea. I know that if I see bad grammar/spelling, I make assumptions about the person commenting that might not be true at all. Very good point!
DeleteI think a way to make a better more updated one for middle schoolers is too first make sure to write school appropriate stuff and not to use text or slang words in the comments so then you sound more professional.
ReplyDeleteI think we can expand on our knowledge a bit. We might know a little more than first-graders. Maybe we could also talk about checking over your comment and making sure it's understandable.
ReplyDeleteI think we could have the same idea but go way more in depth than that video. Definitely not have a 2D panda that's way to cheesy for middle and high school students. Also definitely have a spelling portion because some comments have a lot of spelling errors.
ReplyDeleteI believe that to make a better video you need to get rid of the panda! Next let a higher grade do the talking. Finally whatever you do try to make the tips better and explain them well and not like robots. What do you say to that?
ReplyDeleteI think we need to get rid of the 2D panda. We can also talk about what not to do, like don't use slang or texting language. And we need to explain well too so we don't sound like robots and don't use the word "um..."
ReplyDeleteI believe that we could do a very similar video, but unlike little kids we could speak more fluently and more clearly. Also ditch the panda.
ReplyDeleteFor an editing standpoint we need to edit the video better and add cooler transitions. We could also get better music!
ReplyDeleteI think that we need to get rid of the panda for sure. We also should have a higher grade level do the talking and have the kids focus on the camera more.
ReplyDeleteTOTALLY!
DeleteI think that a good addition to this video would be to maybe put in that you don't always have to start out with a compliment, you could finish with one too. I know that of the comments that I've read from our class, most of us finish the comment off with something along the lines of: "overall, this was a great blog post, great job!" Another thing, I agree with Bradley, ditch the panda.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ryan, it could use better music.
ReplyDeleteI think they should try to get kids who speak fluently and not like robots. Also you shouldn't use slang words or bad spelling, like wat as what or something like that. also that you should probably end with something good, like " Well this was a good post, thanks for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteIt was a good video on how to comment, but it was i little weird with the panda in it. I would say to get rid of the panda, and it does need better music.
ReplyDeleteI think that adding words most people spell wrong and homophones would be very important. Also grammar!
ReplyDeleteYou can never express grammar enough, another thing that would make it better would definitely be something to do with the most often mistakes because people want to know what to avoid.
ReplyDeleteAll we need to do is basically the same video but way less cheesy and more advanced information.
ReplyDeleteI think we should use better words.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion would be to make the kids in the video a little bit more serious(possibly the teacher, too), so that they can be, maybe, a bit more entertaining to watch.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Erin and Sara we could add a grammar/punctuation section and we could say something about making sure that the comment is understandable.
ReplyDeleteI think that the creepy panda was the best part.
ReplyDeleteI think we should practice more so we don't have long pauses.
ReplyDelete