THE YEAR 8 BLOG (8A)

It’s important to know that EVERYBODY experiences social and emotional stress and difficulty at different times in their lives. However, it’s a fact that social/emotional stress is a BIG problem for teenagers, right up until you are in your early 20’s. Because of this, it’s important to develop social and emotional “skills” that help you to cope with stuff, and to help you support friends who are trying to cope during tough times. For this reason, some of our “Team Challenges” are going to involve activities which help you to understand yourself and each other better, and to improve your coping skills.

So, what does your team think about this? What did your team find out that was surprising during the “Swap Stats” activity? How and why was it surprising? Explain your team’s thinking! (40 points to the team in each class who produces the most “thoughtful” comment which reflects quality team discussion).

1)      Change your theme

2)      Change the site tagline (in appearance, customise)

3)      Replace the “Hello World” post with your own introductory post

4)      Add an “About Me” page and write something about who you are. Try and focus on the things that make you unique – NOT just the “I’m a 14 year old with 2 sisters…” type response. Have a look at Bree’s as an example.   http://bree8a.global2.vic.edu.au/about-me/

5)      Add some SUB PAGES to your “about me” page. (To do this, just add each of them as “New Pages” first. Then, go to APPEARANCE, MENUES, create menu, put “Music I like”, “Where I want to be..” and “Other blogs I like” UNDER “About me” and drag each of them slightly to the right. Save menu. Then go to back to APPEARANCE, CUSTOMISE, NAVIGATION and select “Menu 1”).

1. MUSIC I LIKE. Make sure you include some examples (embed some pictures, a Youtube clip and include some hyperlinks)
2. WHERE I WANT TO BE IN TEN YEARS TIME. What job would you like to have? House? Car?
3. OTHER BLOGS I LIKE

6)      Add the “class blogs” widget so you can view everyone else’s blog easily

7)      Add a Twitter widget

8)      Add a “Feedjit” live feed widget so you can see how many people are visiting your blog

9)      Get rid of the widgets that you don’t need (e.g. archives, categories, meta).

So I was reflecting on the learning that I saw happening during periods 2 and 3 yesterday when 8A were working in their groups, trying to decide on the sorts of punchy messages and powerful imagery they could use to convince teachers that they need to get with the times and learn the language of the digital natives.

I saw lots of laughing and energy, and lots of sharing of ideas, and lots of creative thinking. I saw lots of really good leadership and I saw people (towards the end of period 3) really pushing themselves to try and complete the task in the time they had left.

I was reading a book last night about how education should not just teach kids how to read and write, but it should cultivate important DISPOSITIONS. (In case you wondering what the hell that means, its like saying that there are certain qualities or characteristics we all have the potential to show, but education needs to see the seeds of these things within you and keep watering them so they grow).

Some call these dispositions the “HABITS OF MIND”. I’d like you to google this and find out what they are. Which ones did you have to use to get through the task yesterday? Which ones do you think you still need more opportunity to develop? (Try and give specific examples from yesterday which relate to these habits of mind). You can work in your groups again to get this done, and write up one reflection as a team (but in that reflection make sure you talk about each member of the group). Post your reflection as a comment to this post.

Was just reading Bree’s “About Me” page (well worth having a look at) and it made me think of this show (see my comment on her page). Anyway, it inspired me to write a new post.

Have a look at the video:

It’s funny how we just accept that blue is for boys and pink is for girls. When you really think about it, colours don’t have any connection whatsoever to gender. Yet our society somehow MAKES these stereotypes. There are lots of stereotypes about girls (and boys) when you think about it. Like when boys say to each other: “don’t be a girl”. What do they mean? Or when people say that cooking or cleaning is “girl’s work”. All of these are just stereotypes or “social norms” that people have CREATED.

To me, the worst thing about the “Toddlers and Tiara’s” show is that little tiny girls are being taught that to be successful, they need to look pretty and act in a certain way (a girly way). I think that’s wrong. It’s bad enough that teenage girls are made to feel they need to look like models from magazines or music videos – but surely 3 year olds should be exempt from this!

Anyway, what do you think? Do you reckon boys also are made to feel that they need to act in or be a certain way? Or do you think it’s worse for girls? What are some other “social norms” at Hume about how girls (or boys) should look or act?

Hi Year 8s,

I’ve put together a survey using “Survey Monkey” which I want to do with every student on our campus. I really want to find out exactly how much students are actually using social media and also how it’s impacting on their lives. PLEASE NOTE that it’s completely anonymous. I’m going to go around to every class and get them to do it, but in case any of you see this post before then, you’re welcome to do the survey now – but please read each question carefully and answer each question as honestly as you can (nobody will know what you’ve written).

Click HERE to do the survey.

Remember – BE HONEST! I want to share the results with teachers as a way of helping them understand the “digital native” language.

From Ms Mc…

Hi Year 8s,

So, I’m very new to this whole blogging thing but I have to say I’m very excited about what I think it can do for our learning.

I’m interested in what you think about this. Have any of you kept a blog before (perhaps using Tumblr or something like that?) Why do you think people write blogs? Do you know of any good examples of blogs that are so interesting they’ve made you want to follow them?

I’m also hoping that your blog can become one of the main ways that your teachers and other students can get to know you, what matters to you, what your thinking is like and so on. I plan to post stuff that hopefully gets you thinking and that you’re interested in, and then I’d love it if you share your thinking about that post topic and also go into each other’s blogs to see what each other is thinking, and comment on and question each other and engage in discussion. I know how much time you all spend on social media so I kind of hope that this can be a social media that you enjoy spending time on but which also pushes and challenges your thinking a bit more than perhaps you’re used to on Facebook. I’m hoping the questions you ask each other might be just a bit more ANALYTICAL and THOUGHTFUL and IMPORTANT (in terms of social, environmental or other issues that go a bit beyond who likes who!) than the questions you ask each other on Ask FM.

Anyway please comment below and start sharing your thoughts…