VIII. Documenting the Process: Your Blog and Your
Weekly Plans
Every Senior Capstone student will complete a series of blog posts, due every other week, detailing his/her research experience and the creation of his/her final product. The blog posts serve as a way to keep our Capstone community, the teachers, and the mentors aware of your progress.
In the past, students have asked how long their blog posts ought to be. There’s no exact proscription but the recommended approximate length should be 250 words. Think about texts you’ve read that are more engaging than others. They are usually divided into paragraphs that are reasonable in length. Sometimes they have headers to divide topics; other times they integrate visuals to bring alive a point or to offer an example of what you are talking about.
In the Senior Capstone blogs, it will be important to include evidence of what you are up to each time you blog. Be sure to collect images, PDFs, documents, notes, etc. Photograph and upload them to your blog. We’ll be eagerly anticipating them with each entry!
Writing your blog entries on your Capstone website:
Follow these steps and you should have no difficulties.
1. When you are on the “Blog” section of your personal Capstone website, click “new post.” Give your blog post a title. (If you have difficulty doing this the first time, it means that you did not set up your blog section in blog format. You may need to set this up all over again, insuring that you select “blog” rather than “standard format.”)
2. When you are ready to type text, click the “Build” feature along the top toolbar and and a toolbar should appear on the left.
3. Click on the “text” button and DRAG it OVER the box beneath the words “Drag elements here” and you should be able to begin typing. (Note: do NOT drag that text anywhere but this spot or you will have major margin problems).
4. Begin typing the blog entry.
5. ESSENTIAL: Remember, be sure to first “save” and THEN, separately “publish” this.
Key tip: Never write your original work directly on the site; always draft/write elsewhere and then copy
into the site so in case Weebly times out, you never lose your work!
Keep in mind that we read and try to respond to each of your blog entries. You also receive points for
doing your blog entry (and you lose points if it’s late, so don’t be late!). The rubric used to assess each
blog entry may be found in Appendix E1.
The content of your blog entries for the Capstone:
Each blog entry you post must include the following.
1. A description and reflection on work you accomplished in the preceding two weeks and what you learned in the process.
2. Evidence of work accomplished through visual examples. This evidence may take the form of an image (e.g.--screenshots, photographs, PDFs) or an artifact (e.g.--a document you created, survey or interview questions you wrote).
3. A discussion of inspirational moments or setbacks that you encountered in the preceding two weeks.
4. Mechanics of your blog entry. Remember that we--teachers, mentors, fellow students, random people who want to take a look--will be reading your blog posts and offering comments. The world can read these--the Internet is a public place! You want a tone and commentary that is suited to the professional and academic nature of this endeavor.
We found some helpful tips regarding your voice and language in a blog, thanks to a colleague, Jon Calos, who directs the “Signature” program--a Capstone program for seniors--at the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. These remarks apply not only to what you write in your own blog, but whenever you write comments in response to your colleagues’ blogs as well.
Source: http://emmawillard.libguides.com/content.php?pid=603894&sid=4984077
Creating Your Weekly Plan
Beginning on the date announced in class, you will complete--on the Saturday evening preceding the week (by 11:59 pm)--a chart describing what you plan to accomplish both in and outside of class on each day of the coming week. You are to copy the template from appendix F into your Google folder and use it weekly to write your weekly plan; the template will also be shared via Google classroom. Label each of your weekly plans with the date of the Monday that begins your week.
Know that the course teachers and mentors will be using these weekly plans and your blog to chart your progress. And at the end of each week, you need to revisit the weekly plan for the week completed and update it with notes as to what you accomplished each day of that week.
You will create one new weekly plan each week through the end of the course. You will update the preceding week’s weekly plan at the conclusion of each week as you plot out what you will accomplish in the next week. Just a note: if the weekly plan is not posted in your weekly plan folder (on Google drive) by 11:59 pm on the Saturday evening before the week described in the weekly plan, you will be penalized in terms of the points earned for each plan.
Weekly Plans
Every Senior Capstone student will complete a series of blog posts, due every other week, detailing his/her research experience and the creation of his/her final product. The blog posts serve as a way to keep our Capstone community, the teachers, and the mentors aware of your progress.
In the past, students have asked how long their blog posts ought to be. There’s no exact proscription but the recommended approximate length should be 250 words. Think about texts you’ve read that are more engaging than others. They are usually divided into paragraphs that are reasonable in length. Sometimes they have headers to divide topics; other times they integrate visuals to bring alive a point or to offer an example of what you are talking about.
In the Senior Capstone blogs, it will be important to include evidence of what you are up to each time you blog. Be sure to collect images, PDFs, documents, notes, etc. Photograph and upload them to your blog. We’ll be eagerly anticipating them with each entry!
Writing your blog entries on your Capstone website:
Follow these steps and you should have no difficulties.
1. When you are on the “Blog” section of your personal Capstone website, click “new post.” Give your blog post a title. (If you have difficulty doing this the first time, it means that you did not set up your blog section in blog format. You may need to set this up all over again, insuring that you select “blog” rather than “standard format.”)
2. When you are ready to type text, click the “Build” feature along the top toolbar and and a toolbar should appear on the left.
3. Click on the “text” button and DRAG it OVER the box beneath the words “Drag elements here” and you should be able to begin typing. (Note: do NOT drag that text anywhere but this spot or you will have major margin problems).
4. Begin typing the blog entry.
5. ESSENTIAL: Remember, be sure to first “save” and THEN, separately “publish” this.
Key tip: Never write your original work directly on the site; always draft/write elsewhere and then copy
into the site so in case Weebly times out, you never lose your work!
Keep in mind that we read and try to respond to each of your blog entries. You also receive points for
doing your blog entry (and you lose points if it’s late, so don’t be late!). The rubric used to assess each
blog entry may be found in Appendix E1.
The content of your blog entries for the Capstone:
Each blog entry you post must include the following.
1. A description and reflection on work you accomplished in the preceding two weeks and what you learned in the process.
2. Evidence of work accomplished through visual examples. This evidence may take the form of an image (e.g.--screenshots, photographs, PDFs) or an artifact (e.g.--a document you created, survey or interview questions you wrote).
3. A discussion of inspirational moments or setbacks that you encountered in the preceding two weeks.
4. Mechanics of your blog entry. Remember that we--teachers, mentors, fellow students, random people who want to take a look--will be reading your blog posts and offering comments. The world can read these--the Internet is a public place! You want a tone and commentary that is suited to the professional and academic nature of this endeavor.
We found some helpful tips regarding your voice and language in a blog, thanks to a colleague, Jon Calos, who directs the “Signature” program--a Capstone program for seniors--at the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. These remarks apply not only to what you write in your own blog, but whenever you write comments in response to your colleagues’ blogs as well.
- Be authentic.
- Write in your own conversational voice, but remember that you aren't talking to your friends. In other words, be somewhat formal, while conversational. This is a bit challenging at first. This blog could be a great thing to include in a portfolio that you share with colleges/future employers. One of last year’s Capstone students used her blog to get off a waiting list into a college! So remember that voice matters.
- Check spelling/grammar
- Show your personality! This doesn't have to be all business all the time. React to your experience. Ask questions. Pull your readers into a conversation. Be engaging.
- Ask permission before posting a picture of someone else or before blogging about potentially proprietary information.
- Think about copyright when you use someone else's information. Are you citing your information? For images, check out this libguide from MIT: http://libguides.mit.edu/usingimages
- Provide useful feedback to your peers. Be as constructive and as helpful as you can. Avoid a one sentence comment.
- No texting-ese. No emoticons. Repeat: if it sounds like a text, rewrite!
Source: http://emmawillard.libguides.com/content.php?pid=603894&sid=4984077
Creating Your Weekly Plan
Beginning on the date announced in class, you will complete--on the Saturday evening preceding the week (by 11:59 pm)--a chart describing what you plan to accomplish both in and outside of class on each day of the coming week. You are to copy the template from appendix F into your Google folder and use it weekly to write your weekly plan; the template will also be shared via Google classroom. Label each of your weekly plans with the date of the Monday that begins your week.
Know that the course teachers and mentors will be using these weekly plans and your blog to chart your progress. And at the end of each week, you need to revisit the weekly plan for the week completed and update it with notes as to what you accomplished each day of that week.
You will create one new weekly plan each week through the end of the course. You will update the preceding week’s weekly plan at the conclusion of each week as you plot out what you will accomplish in the next week. Just a note: if the weekly plan is not posted in your weekly plan folder (on Google drive) by 11:59 pm on the Saturday evening before the week described in the weekly plan, you will be penalized in terms of the points earned for each plan.