OLPH Technology 6

Useful links:

Our Lady of Perpetual Help School Website

Grade 6 Wikispace

Tech class blog

PowerSchool Login

Edu.glogster.com

Updated message posted on the olph-technology wiki on April 16. 2012

Updated message posted on the olph-technology wiki on February 17. 2012.

Updated message posted on the olph-technology wiki on November 16. 2011.

Hi everyone and welcome back to a new year of technology adventures! This year I am experimenting with posting news and class assignments in a different way. I have created a wikispace for OLPH technology (aptly named olph-technology) and I will be posting class project information on that site. You can still subscribe to this page for updates, since whenever I have information to push out I will do the push from this page and you can just click the link back to the wikispace. (You may not want to use the Notify tab on that page as you would be notified every time I changed a typo and that could become tedious!) The technology wiki will grow as the year progresses. There is a lot I want to add that the space on schoolnotes just doesn't permit. Students or parents should feel free to contact me via the schoolnotes link at the top of this page or directly at pruffing at gmail dot com. Visit the new site at http://olph-technology.wikispaces.com/ and please pardon the dust - still under construction!

**I will delete the notify option for any parents who do not have a student in sixth grade this year. I believe when you sign up you get the option to be notified of "all pruffing's pages" and many people check yes, not realizing that they will get 3rd grade updates, and 4th grade updates, etc. Our emails accumulate quickly and we don't need any more unnecessary messages to open. So when you sign on for a page be sure it is just the page for your child. My main schoolnotes page will just be a portal to the other pages and will not likely be updated throughout the year, so feel free to add your name to that page and you will not be inundated. :-)

April 1 - Blog post due on summarizing one of the three themes of Digital Citizenship discussed during March. Requirement for the blog post are on the left of the class blog under teacher assignments. The due date for the post was April 1, but as of April 2 only half the students had requested publishing for their post. I will not publish the posts until Sunday, to allow for originality of work. If your post is not completed on time you lose the ontime points, more as each day goes by. After Tuesday, April 5, the score will be zero. Some students still think they completed the assignment and do not remember to REQUEST PUBLISHING!

There were 3 graded assignments as you can see on Power School - Blog challenge 4 to learn how to post good comments (68 pts); Sharing What I Learned using eduGlogster (100 pts.); embedding the glog in a blog post to share with a wider audience (50 pts.)

I took into consideration that on one of our class days we were closed for snow, and the following week went over again the information regarding embedding the glog and naming people who had not completed that. My suggestion was to come to the lab at recess if you thought you would not be able to do it at home. By Friday of that week the grades were closing and I came to the sixth grade classroom first thing in the morning and read off names of those getting a "last chance" to come in and finish it, and only 3 students came at recess. If your Power School grade for that assignment is 0 and has an M for missing, you know you are one of those students that should have been in the lab.

Please also note that the year end average for the class may not match up with what you see as grades for the first and second quarter. This is because the year end average reflects the numerical value of the points earned to date. Many of you need to look at your letter grade and compare that to the actual percentage earned for the assignments to see that there has been quite a bit of leeway granted; even with that there are some very disappointing grades. The end of year average will be adjusted when the time comes to reflect the average of the letter grades actually given on the report card.

One final reminder: If you are absent on a day we are in the computer lab, please assume there is something that you need to catch up on and do not wait for me to send for you. If you wait until the next class period to ask about it, you will be behind in the work and will be struggling to catch up. Please take responsibility for this.

Jan. 27 - Second Quarter projects!
The quarter officially ended on Jan. 21 but because of weather issues we have had an extended time to wrap things up. The glog project was supposed to have been embedded in your blog page to showcase your work by Jan. 18.See assignment on class blog. During class on Jan. 25 I mentioned names of people who had not embedded their glog and reviewed expectations again, including the glog I made myself to help you with the embedding. I showed examples of students who had correctly embedded their glog and gave students another chance to do this. Although every resource needed was available from home, I said that if you thought you would not be able to do it from home, you could come to the lab at recess to complete it. Two students did that. When I finally went to check on the ones that were missing, there are still 18 not published. Now perhaps you did all the steps except the final one of requesting publishing, but without that step I have nothing to approve and therefore nothing to evaluate. Students who have no embedded glog will be called to the lab at lunch recess on Friday, Jan. 28. After that, there are no more chances. It would have been great if the unexpected snow day could have been used to complete the missing assignment but it seemed not be given a thought.


Jan. 18 - Snow Day! This makes our completion schedule for projects a bit tight but you have everything you need to finish your project requirements; HOWEVER...I am trying to score glog projects and I only see 15 out of 30 posted. I am guessing that some of you left your status as "unfinished" and that is why it is not showing in the View All Glogs section for the class. PLEASE make sure your glog is saved as Finished and Private. Then you can embed it in your blog according to the directions found there. If I need to log on as each person with a missing glog and save the finished glog for you there will be a deduction for that...a very tedious process! I was going to create blank Google Docs for students who had not saved a citation document for me to upload but if the glogs are not even finished then I think I might be wasting my time. Feel free to email me if you are trying to complete the project and running into difficulty - BUT...be sure to read directions below AND refer to the glog I created on classblogmeister.

Jan. 12 -

Assignment sheet for Glog project

Some sixth graders have been trying to embed a video into their glog and they are finding that the glog disk just spins and spins and the video never loads. I have discovered that the samples I showed you before we started the project are having the same thing happen, even though the videos loaded fine when we first viewed them. This leads me to believe there is some network issue causing these videos not to load. When I view them at home they all work fine. So if you are trying to insert a video, open your glog at home and put the video where you want it to be. Don't worry if you can't open it in school. If your video is a little off because of this issue, that is not anything that is your fault. I will keep looking into it and trying to find the cause.

If you want to log into your glog at home and do not remember the username, feel free to email me and I will send it to you. Just be sure to give me an email address I can respond to.

I have also started adding blank Google Docs for students who never completed the citation document to be saved to the collaboration folder. Any citations you create should be put in this blank Google Doc. The doc saves every few seconds.

Jan. 11 - We are approaching the end of the second quarter. Time for a re-cap.

The first assignment of the quarter was developing commenting skills by finding five blog posts by other students (other schools, other countries) and leaving  thoughtful comment to "continue the conversation" based on commenting do's and don'ts seen in a shared video. Screen shots were taken of the comment and the accompanying information before submitting. The screen shots were added to a Word document and formatted as necessary. Included was a text box for each that contained the name, age, and country of the blogger and a link to the specific post. Some sixth graders wrote very thoughtful comments, and others seemed to spin their wheels and  never complete the assignment! Following directions is very important!

Students then were assigned a topic from their reading class which they would share via a glog. The completed glogs are due today, and the blog post where the glog is embedded and shared with the world is due on Jan. 18. We also used an online citation maker to credit our sources. Students placed a document containing the citations for their image sources and information sources in a Word document in the collaboration folder and I uploaded these to Google Docs so they had a link to include on the glog. Here is the Google Doc containing links to student citation documents.

I created a glog on classblogmeister to give you the steps for doing your own embedding of your glog.

Using the sample glog and viewing the blog assignment listed on the left under "teacher assignments" and being able to access the link to your citation document will allow anyone who needs to work on this at home to do so.

Dec. 14 - We should be organizing information into an eye-catching and easy to read digital display on the glog...but only after the information has actually been gathered. Some students are trying to arrange graphics on their glog without having the information and that is the most important thing you are sharing. I have mentioned to a number of people about font contrast and readability, placing text on a busy patterned background will not make someone want to read what you are sharing. We should have the following included on the glog:

-an appropriate title
-an appropriate background

-necessary factual information as required by Mrs. Buonpane or Mrs. Reese

-a working hyperlink to a reputable further source of information on the topic. It can be a picture or words that your viewer clicks to visit the site.

-appropriate graphics that will enhance the information you are sharing without making your glog page seem cluttered

-font size for easy reading without having to use a scroll bar (break up long sections of text if necessary)

-correct spelling and grammar

-a document saved into the collaboration folder that contains all your resources. We are using Online Citation Maker to set up sources and copying the citations to the document. I will then upload this document with your sources and give you the link to be included on your glog. We always must credit our sources of information and images.

Remember that you can and should access your glog from home, using the link at the top of this page. Username pattern is 2013olph followed by your 3-digit number. Password is the same as for your blog.

The goal was to have this project completed before Christmas. Some students have completed but many have not. There has been a lot of dawdling and playing with graphics before information has been researched. There has also been time wasted because students are searching for their topics and misspelling their assigned topic. Please access your glog and continue to work. And if you are behind in other assignments you MUST make it your responsibility to get in and get those finished during recess. You can not spend class time on the old work; class time must be for the current project.

Nov. 23 - Assignment 3 on posting comments to others and showing the posting with screenshots should have been completed today. If you are not finished, please make arrangements to come to the lab during recess Nov. 30-Dec.3 to catch up on this.

We have begun the digital poster known as a "glog". Students can work on the glog assignment over the Thanksgiving break if you choose. If you forget your username or password for the site edu.glogster.com please email me and I will send it to you (Be sure you include an email address for me to respond!) The completed glog will be due before Christmas. We will also share it by embedding it into the blog page.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oct. 19 - last day to work on assignment 2. Anyone behind at this point needs to use some recess time in the lab to get caught up. Students received log on info for edu.glogster.com and those who were finished experimented with the tools in preparation for an upcoming project.

Oct. 12 - continue work on Assignment 2

Oct. 5 - Assignment 2 - Connecting with Others

1. Use link to Student Blogging Challenge Week 2 to create an avatar from one of the abi-station links (Illustration Maker, Avatar Maker, Otaku Avatar maker).

2. Download completed avatar to the Grade 6 collaboration folder. Name the file avatar 6a/b your initials.

3. Add either a flag counter or clustr to your side bar using the links at the left of the class blog. Be sure to copy and paste the code carefully!

4. Read the "8 Commandments for Bloggers" in Week 2 of the Student Blogging Challenge. Remember to take a screen shot of your comment and information before hitting submit! You should also have checked for correct spelling and punctuation.

5. Paste your screenshot into a Word document and save into your network folder as Commandment comment_yourinitials. Due date: October 19

Sept. 28 - continue working on assignment 1. Begin to work on uploading avatars to blog using the Control Panel and also saving the image into the collaboration folder on the network.

Sept. 21- continue work in class on assignment 1.

Sept. 14 - Begin Assignment 1 - Getting Started

1.Update About Me on the blog sidebar using 5 complete sentences, checked for correct spelling and punctuation.

2. Add Student Blog Challenge widget to sidebar (code found in Shared Work or here.)

3. Write a first blog post of the year using at least 5 complete sentences on what you hope to learn in sixth grade or your goals for the year. Use Microsoft Word to check for spelling and punctuation errors.

4. Be sure your blog post has an appropriate title. This is not the same as the title of your blog page which is inserted in the Control Panel.

5. Be sure you have no more that one personal widget (such as a virtual pet) on your side bar.

6. Adjust your font and background colors if you are using the custom template so that it is an easily read color combination.

7. Request publishing no later than Sept. 30.

Sept. 7 - We reviewed lab procedures, how to check network connectivity, completed browser settings in Firefox, IE8, and Chrome, desktop shortcuts and tested blog log ins. Remember to have Internet permission form signed and returned.

End of year comments -

Congratulations to sixth grade for doing a fine job with your glogs, a new activity for you this year. Students received 70 points for the correctly completed glog (according to directions on the wiki) and 30 for correctly posting it to their blog page in order to share it with others. What you should see on the blog is a copy of the "glog" at 50% or 75% of size, 5 sentences describing it and the activity of glogging, and a hyperlink to the full size glog on edu.glogster.com. Without this post to the blog, the glog remains unshared. 

I would encourage you to continue to blog over the summer. I will periodically check for items needing approval, so feel free to write about books you read, places you visit, or anything that is on your mind. Just be sure to follow our guidelines for safe blogging. Be sure also to follow our rules for posting images. Some students submit posts for approval but have an image with no citation and I cannot publish your post. Do check your spelling and make it your best work, even if it is not being graded. The world sees what you write, so be sure it is something that reflects your talents and abilities. If you have requested publishing but do not see it posted after 24-48 hours, please check the text view of your post. If I have made comments to you regarding the post, they will appear below the post in red. Also feel free to email me at anytime. I will add things to the class blog over the summer as well.

Have a safe and wonderful summer!

During April and May we have worked on a project called "Peek into the Past". Each student was assigned a different social studies topic relating to a variety of topics such as the Industrial Revolution, Renaissance Art, Chinese inventions, Feudal Life, and many more. Each student had their own set of questions for their particular topic. All work was completed on the class wiki with guidelines posted there. Tuesday, June 1, was our last in class work day, but students may come to the lab from June 1 - 4 to finish any incomplete work.

Students shared their research in a digital poster called a glog. Scores for the finished glog will not be posted until the final week of school because of the time it will take to go through all the projects.

This project was done using a "glog". Other technology besides the wiki involved adding a Google doc link to the glog page and posting the final result with commentary to the blog. Absolute last deadline for this work is June 4. See the class wiki for the project checklist. Some students have spent so much time being artistic with their glogs that they neglected some basic project requirements, but for the most part students did a great job with their first glog.

Feb - March During the last few weeks we have been working on Internet Safety topics with discussions and videos. As a concluding activity and to demonstrate understanding of the topics presented, students needed to create a blog post of their "Ten Internet Safety Tips". This post has been scored based on the checklist for the assignment that was posted on the blog. Grades are entered in PowerSchool, and any student who has not yet completed the post has until Tuesday, March 30, to turn it in for the third marking period. Scores for quarter three will be the pie chart, the post for Catholic Schools week, and the post on Internet Safety.

Jan - Feb - We concluded work with Excel with each student responsible for charting one specific grade and event in the overall physical fitness testing for the school. These charts were posted during Catholic Schools Week. Also during Catholic Schools Week students completed a blog post entitled "Three Best Things About My School".

December - We have been working on using data in Microsoft Excel to create pie charts. The data is from the mile run results for grades 2 to 8. We have used formatting tools to change font, data source, patterned fill, etc. The mile run assignment needs to be completed by the end of class on Dec. 22. About half of the students already completed that and their grades are posted for the assignment. If there is no score shown in PowerSchool that means the assignment is not yet completed.

Blog Challenge 7 scores are posted in PowerSchool as of Dec. 16. Both Challenge 7 and 8 sheets will be returned on Dec. 22. Students who have received any zero scores will have until Tuesday, Jan. 5, to turn in the sheet for re-scoring. After that date no re-score requests will be accepted. Please remember by requesting a re-score on a missing item you lose the points awarded for an on-time assignment.

There are some students who scored less than an S for the first quarter who still have not removed their personal widgets. I am thinking that there may have to be a penalty if I have to remove them myself. You may earn the right to personal widgets again by attaining at least an S in the second quarter. That should not be hard to do. Following directions is key!!!

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year celebration. Feel free to post to your blog about your holiday activities. 

11/24/09 - We are wrapping up our participation in the Bloggers' Challenge with the Challenge for Week 8. We will talk more about this after the holiday and also begin working on our next project involving charting in Microsoft Excel, by charting the level of achievement of our students in the President's Physical Fitness Challenge. Have a great Thanksgiving holiday!

11/17/09 - Important note for grade 6: Because the type of image to be used in Challenge 7 post has been changed from a Google Earth image to a regular jpg image, grade 6 may have extra time to complete the post. We reviewed finding non-copyrighted images and providing the correct attribution. New due date: Dec. 1.

11/10/09 - Blog challenge 7 was explained for the "fantasy trip". We reviewed inserting hyperlinks and also providing the correct citation for images and using Creative Commons licensing to determine if images may be used. Due date: Nov. 24.

11/3/09 - All re-score sheets were returned. Additional catch up time was provided and students who had all work in had time to visit other schools' blog pages and leave comments.

**Comment on first quarter grades: There were too many students who had to be given second chance to complete assignments and sadly, many of them did not take advantage of the second chance. There will be shorter spans of time that late work will be accepted in the second quarter. Students who receive less than S in the first quarter may not include any "personal widgets" on their pages until the grade improves in the second quarter. This does not include widgets that were part of an assignment. Note - even with the curve on grades there are some who did not receive a satisfactory grade in technology. Perhaps paying less attention to virtual pets and similar things will help make class time more productive.

10/27/09 - Score sheets were returned for the Blog Challenge 4 assignment. There were several students who received a zero for not submitting the assignment. We also went over Blog Challenge 5 (again) and students had the opportunity to work on whatever was missing from their pages.

**Information regarding the close of quarter 1:**

The following list of assignments must be completed for first quarter credit. Any assignment for which you received a zero due to non-completion (except for Challenge 1) will be re-graded IF you return your score sheet to me with "Please re-score" written on it. Without that sheet I will not return to your blog page to re-evaluate your assignment. I absolutely will not keep looking at everyone's pages "just in case" you completed your work.

1- Blog Challenge Week 1 - 35 pts.
2 - Widget (Clustr Map or Flag counter) - 10 pts.
3 - Blog Challenge Week 2 commenting - 45 pts.
4 - Translator widget - 10 pts.
5 - Blog Challenge Week 4 - International Blog 17 pts.
6 - Blog Challenge Week 5 - personal choice with link and images - 44 pts. (as of today this assignment is not yet graded.)

Deadline for any "re-score" requests will be Monday, Nov. 2. After that date I will NOT accept any sheets for re-scoring whether you have completed the assignment or not. By having the assignment re-scored you forfeit any points that would have been earned for having the assignment completed on time. I will also make one more pass before final grades are in for any missing widgets. The original point value was 10 but students may earn 9 or 8 depending on how late the widget appeared on the page.

10/20/2009 - Score sheets were returned for the commenting assignment. The most common mistake was students linking to the main blog page rather than the individual post on which they wanted to comment. We reviewed this difference as the assignment for Challenge 4 involves recommending a student blog from another country. The whole blog, not an individual post. Refer to the description on the blog site for details.
Some people did not do the commenting assignment or were sure they did it but realized it was never sent for publication. Without a request for publishing I will never see it! I have one score sheet returned with a "please re-score" for that reason; however the post still was not sent. YOU MUST SEE A QUESTION MARK NEXT TO THE POST NAME OR I CANNOT SCORE IT!!!!!

In addition to reviewing the difference between linking to a post and linking to the blog site, we also reviewed again the steps for inserting an image URL into the post (for challenge 5), how to look at the "properties" of an image, and giving credit to the source of the image. Be sure to review all the requirements for the challenge 5 activity in the blog post. Some people are still not being careful with directions.

Some people did not receive credit yet for their translator widget. If it does not appear on the page, perhaps because you accidentally delete it, then I cannot give credit for it. For some people the virtual pets are still a problem. If at the end of the quarter you have more than one pet, or more than one personal widget (meaning other than assigned widgets) there will be points deducted for not following directions! There will be no further reminders.

Some students did the extra credit assignment for challenge 6. Those points have not been added in yet.

10/13/09 - In class review of  images from approved sites and BAD.

Here is a list of dates with activities due. Please add to your assignment book calendar and follow the directions listed on the class blog.

10/15 - extra credit (optional) activity for BAD
10/19 - translator widget
10/21 - post recommending 1 student blog from foreign country
10/26 - post on topic of choice using image and hyperlink

***Clean up the widgets!! ONE personal widget, such as a virtual pet. All widgets must link to acceptable websites or they will not be approved.

10/7/09 - Yesterday in class students were reminded that I would be checking their required widgets which were actually due by 9/28. I am afraid a number of sixth grade students have gotten carried away adding extra widgets, some going way overboard, and have neglected the required widget for the assignment. It was an easy 10 points but unfortunately some have ended up with a zero instead. If you re-do it after this point I will give half credit. There will be no other mention of it from now on.

Regarding extra widgets: I will be announcing next week that you may only have one extra widget on your page beyond the required ones. Unfortunately some students have added a half dozen or more, and are neglecting their assignments. There should be no widgets that directly promote a business or bring ads to your page.

We also went over the details of the commenting assignment as some had been doing it incorrectly. We looked at examples that had already been submitted. I will not be scoring these until the end of the week. Please adjust and complete as necessary.

In the next part of the blogging challenge we will be adding one more widget. Time to clean up before we do!

**Reminder: No Internet access form returned, no Internet access at school!

**The deadline has passed for students to have the first assignment re-scored. I am sorry that not everyone took advantage of that.

10/5/09 - Heads up! There are 4 students in grade 6 who have either not brought in their signature pages for Internet access or brought it in without the signature. I have placed the info in the student grade sheet on PowerSchool. If your list of grades shows "missing" that means you will not have Internet access in class tomorrow, as I indicated would happen when the sheets were distributed last week. If you see your name in the "missing' category, I will accept a note saying you may access the Internet at school until the official form is returned.

Assignment 2 - Blogging Challenge Week 2

This assignment has 2 parts and the explanations are in separate posts on the class blog.
Widgets - Due Sept. 28  Easy 10 points - follow directions!

Commenting - Due Oct. 5  Please look at the sample student posts from another school (Brad and Abby) and follow directions for hyperlinking to the individual posts that I have listed in the explanation. Some students have submitted this assignment but some are not being published yet because they are not writing the actual comments they plan to make, just saying why they liked the post. This is NOT what you should be writing. Also, all 5 comments should be included in one post. Once again, SPELLING COUNTS!

9/27/09 - Scores have been posted in PowerSchool for the first blogging assignment. There are quite a few students whose PowerSchool grade will show up as a U because they did not complete parts of the assignment.  (If your point total out of 35 is a blue hyperlink, that means I have inserted a comment with the score.)  Also, in class 9/22 the assignment was reviewed with my  Comments on Blog Challenge 1 post. Students were told to look over their posts and complete whatever was missing.

These are the conditions for which I will re-grade your post. I will not keep re-reading and re-scoring your work. Eventually the window of opportunity will close.

1. You must return your score sheet to me with the words "Please re-score" written on it. I will accept this sheet up until October 5. (Sheets are being returned on Tuesday, Sept. 29.)

2.Only students who have received a zero in a part of the assignment maysubmit their sheet for re-scoring. If you have misspelled words andwant to correct them, you are free to do so, and I strongly encourageyou to do so, but I will not re-score based on spelling errors. Some students received partial credit for specific things that will receive full credit when adjusted. If this applies to you, there is a note on your score sheet (such as an avatar that needs a makeover). In many cases the problem may be just not remembering to request publishing or submit for approval.

3. Anyone who submits a sheet for re-scoring will not receive the 2 points for having the assignment completed on time.

4. I will not ask you for the sheet or remind you to turn it in. It will be announced in class on the 29th and listed here. You must take responsibility for improving your grade.

Assignment 1: Blogging

Blogging Challenge Week 1 - We are participating in the edublogs challenge and the first assignment is posted on our tech class blog. All of the items I will be looking for in your blog post are highlighted in yellow. We began in class but it needs to be completed at home. Anyone who has access issues at home please ask for a pass and use the lab computers at recess. The due date is Friday, Sept. 18. There is not much to write but it is important that you upload your avatar, enter your "about me" info, and write your 5 sentence post this week.

Remember that our procedure for checking grammar and spelling will be to enter all sentences in the article window (use graphical - wysiwyg window) and then copy your text to a document in Word or Works and use the spell check there. Make corrections as needed in your post and don't forget to check PUBLISH in order to get credit for your assignment. If you run into any issues please feel free to email me and include your return email address!