The Blogs
The importance of writing your weekly blogs cannot be understated. Read my post on "Why the blogs are not going away".
Completing your blogs in a timely manner increases your standing in Eventyr's Hall of Honor, allows you to gain power, successfully train your dragon and can sometimes be used to give you access to different projects.
You may choose to type direcly into blogger, or you may create a video or audio blog. Your blogs are graded acording to a rubric. Read it, understand it make sure you make corrections. The blog points are cummulative throughout the whole year and will allow your dragon to grow.
At the end of every unit, you must write a reflective blog post. The Unit Reflection Post will count as your blog for that week.
There are two options for you:
The purpose of this type of blog is for you to reflect on the work you did over the past week, and gives you a plan to improve as a student.
You must answer ONE question in each section, and except for the image, the answers should be in paragraph form, and give specific examples/details.
Surprise
Give one sentence (or two) to the following):
-
Context (What were you doing when you were surprised)
-
What was the surprise?
-
Why was it surprising?
-
What this tells you - What can you learn from the surprise?
Summary
-
Briefly state what you learned this week. Click here for a summary frame.
Image
-
Include one image directly related to the topic (this can be a graph, illustration, picture, etc).
Backward-Looking:
-
How much did you know about the topic before we started? What do you now know about the topic that you did not know before?
-
Have you done a similar kind of work in the past (earlier in the year or in a previous grade; in school or out of school)?
-
In what ways have you gotten better at this kind of work?
-
In what ways do you think you need to improve?
-
What problems did you encounter while you were working this week? How did you solve them?
-
What resources did you use while working this week? Which ones were especially helpful? Which ones would you use again?
Inward-Looking:
-
How do you feel about your work this week? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why?
-
What was especially satisfying to you about your work this week?
-
What did/do you find frustrating about the work done this week?
-
What were your goals for this week? Did your goals change as you worked? Did you meet your goals?
-
What does your work this week reveal about you as a learner?
-
What did you learn about yourself as you worked this week?
-
Have you changed any ideas you used to have on this subject? How/Why?
-
What does your work this week tell you about yourself and how you learn?
Outward-Looking:
-
Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? How was it similar or different from others?
-
If you were the teacher, what comments would you make about your work this week?
-
What grade would you give yourself? Why?
-
What is the one thing you particularly want people to notice when they look at your work?
-
What do your classmates particularly notice about your work when they look at it?
-
In what ways does your work meet the standards for this assignment? In what ways does it not meet the standards?
-
If someone else were looking at your work what might they learn about who you are?
Forward-Looking:
-
One thing I would like to improve upon is ...
-
What would you change if you had a chance to redo the work over again?
-
What's the one thing that you have seen in your classmates' work or process that you would like to try next week?
-
As you look your work, what's one thing that you would like to try to improve upon?
-
What's one goal you would like to set for yourself for next week?
-
What things you might want more help with?
-
What work would you show your teacher to help her understand what you need help with?
Question set modified from Edutopia
The purpose of this type of blog is for you to explore a topic you are interested in.
Here are some links to good places to find articles:
You must answer one question in each section, and except for the citation, they should be in paragraph form.
Surprise
Give one sentence (or two) to the following):
-
Context (What were you doing when you were surprised)
-
What was the surprise?
-
Why was it surprising?
-
What this tells you - What can you learn from the surprise?
Summary
-
Write a brief summary of the article. Click here for a summary template
Complete citation
-
In order for your readers to be able to find the article and read it for themselves, it is important to provide an accurate citation. Giving the URL is not enough since there are times when URLs change or get moved. Use easybib to cite the work appropriately.
Backward-Looking:
-
How much did you know about the topic before you read the article? What do you now know about the topic that you did not know before?
-
What connections can you make between the article you read and work you have read/done previously?
Inward-Looking:
-
What does your choice of article reveal about you as a learner?
-
Have you changed any ideas you used to have on this subject? How/Why?
-
Why did you choose this article?
-
How did the information provided in the article affect you?
Outward-Looking:
-
How does the information provided in this article affect the community?
-
How does the information provided in this article affect the environment?
-
How does the information provided in this article affect the future?
Forward-Looking:
-
One question you have after reading the article. How would you go about answering that question.
-
What would you suggest to the author as a possible expansion on the topic?