"THE" Blog

Here is my evaluate reflection, the last part of “Teachers of the Future.” This time the reflection is in a video.

Here are the links to the blog posts I have posted during this unit; Teachers of the Future.

My favorite tutorial
Teachers of the Future: Investigate Reflection
Teachers of the Future: Plan Reflection
Teachers of the Future: Create Reflection

Now that we are done with this, I am very excited so know what we are doing next.

For this unit in tech class, we made a tutorial ourselves. Before we made the tutorial, we first went back to the class criteria and reviewed what makes a good tutorial. Then we started making our tutorials. Once we were done, we commented on other people’s tutorials. I made a tutorial about “How to Use Split Strategy.” I choose this because I like math and I thought that it would be easy because I know  lot about using split strategy.

How To Use Split Strategy from YIS Academics on Vimeo.

Durning this unit, I learned a bit more about how to use iMovie. I have used iMovie a bit before, but only knew the basic tools. I learned most of the tools in the iMovie practice activity in class. This helped me a lot because without it, I couldn’t have created my tutorial. I also learned what makes a good tutorial. I learned this in class when we discussed the topic and created the class criteria. This helped a lot because I could think about it when I was creating my tutorial, which helped me make it better.

Overall, I think that I was a bit happy with my tutorial. I think that I worked hard and spent time on it – one night I stayed up really late working on it – and I feel like I did something useful with my time. I also think that it was good that I learned how to make a tutorial because in the future, I may have to make a video or something like that to be able to graduate or do well in a job. I am also not happy in some parts of my tutorial. I feel like I could improve on my grammar, and other language parts, but i think that I did better on the tech parts.

While creating the tutorial, I found it hard finding a good place to film where it was quiet so there are no background noises. I also found it hard thinking about witch class criteria my tutorial matches and editing/making my tutorial at the same time. I found that using iMovie was a bit hard at the beginning , but once I knew all the editing tools and knew how to use iMovie, it became really easy to use.

I think that my tutorial meets the criteria Actions from the class criteria because I explain my actions at the same time as I do them. I think that this helps because if it’s just the action, or just the explanation, the audience wouldn’t know what exactly to do. I also think that my tutorial had Clear Directions. I think that this is useful because without showing the audience what to do, clearly, some of the audience who have no idea about the topic will have trouble understanding.

I think that to make a better tutorial, I would need to learn how to use other editing software, not just iMovie, so that I can make better edits and other things. I also think that I should explore iMovie a bit more - especially the music trimming – to be able to make a better tutorial.

For the part that we commented on other people’s tutorials, I commented on Jack’s tutorial and Johan’s tutorial. From Jack’s tutorial, I learned about the safety rules in the dance studio and the gym. From Johan’s tutorial I learned how to post something on a blog – although I’m doing it now, it was helpful to review it again so I don’t forget.

In conclusion, I think that creating the tutorial was the most fun thing in the whole unit. I think that I want to create a tutorial sometime else just by myself, not in class. The one thing I didn’t like about this unit was that the reflection took quite a long time, although I know that some day in high school I will have to write an essay about three times longer than this.

In the Plan section of this unit, we planned what to do for our tutorial. During class, we discussed what makes a good tutorial and put it in a Google Document.At the beginning, we made our own story board. For creating the story board, we discussed why are story boards so important. For the story boards, we drew pictures for what the clips were going to look like, and then filled in the information, such as how long the clip was going to be and what we were going to say for the clip. After making the story board, we made a chart to help us plan for our tutorials, what to do by when.

I think that my tutorial story board has clear directions of what to do. I think that that is important because without clear directions, the tutorial will be really hard to understand, therefore it will be a bad tutorial. For my tutorial story board, I also made it so that I will do the
 actions as I explain them, so the viewers can understand what they are doing. If it was just the voice but no action or showing what to de, the viewers may think that they are doing right, while they are not. My story board for my tutorial was set so it was about 3~4 minutes long. I think that having a good length is really important for a tutorial because if it is too long, than the viewers will get board, but if it is too short, than there will be not enough information in the tutorial.

I can’t be exactly sure that the viewers will learn the skill. I think that my tutorial will be easy to learn from because I do everything step-by-step. This will help viewers that cant understand the topic. My steps that I made are fairly simple, so it will be easy for everyone who views my tutorial.

I think that to be able to complete the tutorial, I will need to learn a few more things. One thing is that I need to learn how to use a tripod because I am planning on having a camera recording above my head so it can film a piece of paper that I am going to be writing on. I also need to figure out how to cu out the background noises.

Overall, I found making the storyboard really fun, although it was my first time ever to create a story board ao it was a bit challenging. It will be my first time to make a tutorial so I am really excited to make the tutorial. Im not that sure of how to make a tutorial,, so if any of you, readers have any advice, please leave a comment!

For the next unit in technology class, we are making video tutorials. For a introduction to this unit, we made a simple drawing, then wrote the instructions of how to draw it on another. After that, we traded instructions and tried to draw each-others’ drawings. It was really hard to explain it just in words. I did a really bad job at explaining it so the person who got my instructions wasn’t able to draw it like the original.

After an introduction, we watched three tutorials online and made a tutorial research chart. The three tutorials I watched were AppleScript for Beginners, Basic AppleScript, and how to create a AppleScript calculator. I had a bit of trouble completing my tutorial research sheet because I didn’t put enough details in it. I think that it was fun watching the tutorials and commenting on it. I wonder how the creators of the tutorials would react if I sent the comments I have made to them.

Out of the three tutorials we watched for the  tutorial research chart, we choose our favorite video, and put it in a blog post. After that, we commented on other peoples’ blog posts about their blog post. I commented on Alex’s and Justin’s. We had to answer;

• What could you learn from this tutorial?
• What makes a good tutorial? Why?
• What would be difficult to learn from this tutorial? Why?

I think that I found al the Why? questions hard. Why? because I’m really bad at answering things in detail.

As a practice tutorial, we made an presentation on google docs. We learned how to use google presentations before actually making one, or I couldn’t have made it because it was my first time ever to make an google presentation. I think that it wasn’t that hard to make one. We used screenshots and colored arrows and other stuff to make it easyer to understand.

Overall, I think that making the mini-tutorial presentation was the most fun, but that doesn’t mean I think I did the best on it. I think that next time I will try to explain stuff in more details. In this unit, I learned that good tutorials have easy steps, so it is easy for the viewers to understand, that the creators do not go off topic when they are making the tutorial, I have seen some bad tutorials that the creators go off-topic and the tutorial makes no sense then. I also learned how to create a Google Docs presentation, which I think that I would use that skill in many other classes.

In technology class, we started a new unit about tutorials. For homework we watched three tutorial videos and filled in a Tutorial Research Sheet. We will be making a tutorial video ourselves so I am very excited. I think that I would choose the Basic AppleScript tutorial  because it was explained the best and pretty simple. He explained it detailed so it was easy to understand for beginners. The hard part was that he didn’t explain what all of the script text meant, it would have been better if he did.

In the “Becoming a Blogger” project, we went threw four units, Investigate, Plan, Create, Evaluate. This post is for the Evaluate stage.

During this project, I think that the most important thing I learned was how to be a good blogger and owning a blog. I learned most of the techniques in the Worksheet that we did in the Investigate unit. I think that those skill are important because if I don’t know those skills, my blog would have been terrible.

I think that during this project I didn’t work in class that well because I couldn’t concentrate during class time but I could concentrate more at home. I think that I was a bit productive during the project by doing most of my homework at home. I think that next time I would probably do all of the homework at home, not during class.

I think that in the future I can use the skills that I have learned in this project by trying to share my ideas to the world using a blog. In other classes, we also use blog posts to make reflections and if I didn’t know these skills, i wouldn’t have been able to complete them.

I think that I I had another chance to do this project, i would retry it and do the work more detailed.

We have recently finished a unit in technology class.

I am not that happy with my blog designs because I didn’t spend enough time on them, so they ar not very detailed and they didn’t represent myself much. I think that I should have spent a bit more time and made it more detailed so it represents myself.

I am most proud of my “about me” page on my blog. I think that way because it is more thoughtful than most of the posts and I have a few links. It also explains about my life a bit and it also has a few of my hobbies and things that I do.

I think that I learned most of the things that I wanted to know about blogging. The only thing that I still want to know is how to add a widget from another website.

I think that next time I should have done a bit more work and finished all the stuff that I had to do.

In this unit in technology class, we learned about how to grow our blogs. We filled in a worksheet about how to grow our blogs. We  also drew our own blog designs and chose one out of three and made our blogs look like the one we choose.
This is the blog design that I drew

I choose the design because it has the side bar on the left and I think that is good because it is easy to see. The design also shows my hobbies and what I like to do. It is colorful and it represents my personalities. The blog template I have now doesn’t match the blog design that I drew because my blog design that I drew is white based and the one I have now is more black based. I think that I will soon change my blog design that I have set now to a one that suits the design that I drew.

I think that I learned most of what I wanted to learn about this unit. Bu there is only one thing that I wanted to learn; that one thing is how to get widgets onto my blog that you can get on other web sites.

I think that this unit was fun because we got to design and draw our own blog template, and I like to draw. I think that I learned a lot in this unit that will be helpful and I will try to use as much of my new knowledge I have earned from this unit to make my blog better and have more readers.