Welcome back to yet another year of school. I’m in grade 11 now (yes I’m still in denial about that: no way has it been three years of PLP already). This summer I did a lot of online math and french for school (don’t recommend). Thankfully, I also got to go on a camping trip back to Miracle Beach on Vancouver Island. While there I got to take a lot of cool wildlife and nature photos, check out a few of my favourites below:
I took a lot more cool photos, go check out my photography portfolio by clicking the button below:
Okay enough about my summer, moving on to our first project for grade 11.
• • •
We just finished our first project for PLP Humanities this year, the goal of which was to learn how to write to “Communicate for a Purpose.” Our final product for this project was to create a piece of text containing advice for this year’s PLP grade 8s, in order to answer the driving question:
How can we use the power of written text to inspire the new PLP 8 learners?
I think the database I created full of tech tips does an excellent job at answering. I created this database so that the PLP 8s can become pro iPad users fast! You can read it by clicking below:
• • •
In order to prepare for creating a text for the PLP 8s, we first explored pre-writing activities to set ourselves up for success with writing. I created this “Writing Journal” with my pre-writing activities and writing workshops. One of these activities included turning a simple sentence into the most wordy an long sentence we could think of… here’s what Faith, Ariane and I came up with:
Click below to see my Writing Journal:
As a way to demonstrate our ability to “communicate for a purpose” we wrote a piece of “academic writing” to answer the quesiton “Why is PLP a Good Choice for Students?” In order to create the final writing, I first brainstormed ideas, researched for credible sources and went through many revisions and peer critique. You can see all my revisions, as well as my final piece of writing below:
• • •
We then jumped right into creating our final piece of text for the grade 8s. To begin this, we had an interview with the grade 8s in order to learn about things they wanted to know about as knew students in high school. The one thing they said that stood out to me was wanting a better understanding of how to use their iPads effectively. Being a bit of a nerd for all things tech (Apple tech in particular), I decided this is what I would focus on. The first step was to determine our purpose. To do this, we answered and had discussions about varying questions, such as “What does THIS audience (grade 8s) need from you (senior student)?” or “How could they benefit from a connection with you?” If you’d like, you can see my answers here.
I then began creating my tech tips database in Craft. I chose the apps and skills they would need to know about the most, based off my experience in grade 8, as well as now. I used a combination of text, annotated screenshots and animated .gif screen recordings to communicate to the grade 8s how to complete various tech skills. I also included an introduction to the tech database explaining who I am and why I know what I’m talking about, as well as my wish to provide the grade 8s with useful tech tips to get them using their iPads like pros. If you didn’t before, you can visit my final database of tech tips here:
• • •
The final step of this project was to receive feedback from a grade 8, however I did not receive any. I hope any grade 8s reading this enjoyed it and feel free to give any feedback you might have in the comments below.
• • •
In conclusion, I believe I was able to reach the goal of communicating for a purpose. I was able to craft a piece of academic writing for a more mature audience, and a more easy to understand and demonstrative collection of tech tips for a younger audience. I hope you enjoyed reading, let me know what your favourite tech tip was in the comment section below!
Thanks for reading! 🙂