Update Class Sites and Personal Portfolios

The above image is taken directly from the FBLA competitive events scoring sheet and will be used to assess your work as we create a social media campaign for our WBL class.  

This week, we will use two of the FBLA Competitive Event Topics to guide our work as we demonstrate mastery in communication, thinking & problem-solving, and creativity.  The topics are vague, so I’ve set a daily task checklist to ensure we do our work effectively.  Please see below for our two projects:

Social Media Campaign:

In class, we will create social media accounts for our WBL Class (Northwest High WBL).  We will utilize this platform to promote the course.  This allows us to teach upcoming students what we do in class AND helps everyone in the class create a positive digital footprint.

Website Design:

We’ll also create a Northwest High WBL Weebly page, on which we will highlight our students (feel free to utilize what we included in our Newsletter) and some of the projects we’ve completed.

This week, we’ll simply focus on getting everything launched, adding effective introductory information, and connecting with people who we believe should learn more about what we do (think teachers, underclassmen, friends, and POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS).    Sure, this project is intended to be a learning experience, but if you put together something that will help you stand out among others, why not use it to your advantage?

Our Clear Target for each day this week is as follows:

We can create an effective online presence through effective use of online resources

Monday:

Objective: Create Google, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, and Weebly profiles

I’ll begin class by explaining the goal of this project.  Essentially, we want to raise awareness about our WBL class, so the best way to connect to those who will be interested is through their favorite channel – social media.

As a group, you will determine who will manage each account and begin working on the profiles for each.  For the Weebly page, one or two students can come up with a design and skeleton for the site, including what tabs the site will have, what links to include, and what kind of content (images, videos, writing) to present.  Social media pages will require images, a profile, and a number of groups to connect with.  This allows you to get noticed by the right people.  If/when you finish, use any spare time to take notes on what other quality accounts have on their profiles so that we are on par with the best.

By the end of class, each student will report out about how much has been finished.   

Tuesday:

Objectives: Make first posts online, Establish presence by tagging the right people, Connect all channels

Do you ever notice that most businesses have uniformity within their website, FaceBook, Twitter, Google+, and email?  This is obviously by design.  On Tuesday, you’ll make sure there is uniformity within our channels so that we have a truly connected identity.

Once this is accomplished, we will actually publish our first posts for our accounts.  Coming up with unique content that will attract followers isn’t easy, so this will take some time to think about.

Once we’ve sent out a few posts/tweets, we can start reaching out to people who might want to follow us or people who we feel would benefit from our message.  This also requires some thinking and research, but thankfully, the websites (and Google) will provide us with some assistance.

By the end of class, we will again report out on our progress.  Once we have uniformity across all channels, we can begin to work on our first big step with this project.

Wednesday:

Objectives: Prepare to give WBL Presentation, Practice run for WBL Presentation

Remember that Google Presentation we made about WBL?  Remember how we were supposed to film ourselves giving that presentation but our camera equipment wouldn’t be in for a few weeks?  Well, our equipment still hasn’t arrived, but we can definitely prepare to give our presentation and thanks to our smartphones, we can still film and load the videos!

On Wednesday, you will be given approximately 10 minutes to review your talking points for the presentation and practice them.  After that 10 minutes, you will have another 5 minutes to work together to establish who will be speaking and when (basically you’ll set the order for giving the presentation).  With the remaining 30 minutes, I expect you to practice giving the presentations at least three times.  After each practice presentation, we will discuss things that went well, things that could have been done differently, and how to make the presentation look and sound worthy of loading to our accounts.

This is not going to be easy, so don’t be upset or disappointed if you’re not perfect by the end of class.  Just be ready to film the presentation when you return to class on Thursday.

Thursday:

Objective: Film at least three takes of WBL Presentation, load presentation to YouTube (on your own time)

All the work you put in on Wednesday, both during and after class, will be put on display on Thursday.  During class, we will record at least three takes of our presentation, allowing us to select the best take to load to our YouTube Channel.  Feedback will be provided after each take, and we will have time to view each take to determine which one is best.

Friday:

Objective: Publish video across all platforms, reflect upon work completed this week.

Once the video is loaded to our YouTube, we can share the video via Twitter and Google+, as well as embedding it to our Weebly.  This will put a nice bow on the work we’ve done all week.

When finished with these tasks, you will compose a Blogger post of at least 250 words (try to stay below 400 words, though), with images and the YouTube video embedded to the post.  Use the following questions to guide your writing:

• Which social media platform did you work on?
• What did you notice about other effective accounts and how did you incorporate them into our WBL account?
• How well do you think you performed in the presentation?
• How will our social media platforms help others understand what we do in class?
• Do you think students will be interested in enrolling in WBL as a result of what we’ve posted?  Why or why not?

That’s it for this week.  I’ll see you all tomorrow!

Thanksgiving Week - Option to Go to Placements Monday And Tuesday

Sadly, I’m not going to be in the building on Monday, as I will be with my Virtual Enterprise students at our Trade Fair competition.  Also, since many of you will be at your placements both Monday and Tuesday, the only work I have for you is to email me a brief message about how you are liking your job/internship/volunteer work leading up to the holidays.  I’m not going to bog you down with another written assignment, so make the most of your time at your placements.

For those of you who I do see on Tuesday, we will catch up on missing work (if any), view the final cut of our App Challenge submission, and discuss ways to do more fun videos with the limited time we have in class.

Finally, for anyone still in need of a placement, please make use of class time to apply for jobs, call potential internship hosts (use the list we discussed), and assist Ms. Brown with any work she has for you.  I will see you Tuesday and we will brainstorm a plan to get you in the field.  

That’s it for this week.  I look forward to seeing whoever is around on Tuesday!

Teamwork & Collaboration: Take Two

Last week, you focused on Standard 8, which relates to teamwork.  Since it was only a 3-day week, you really didn’t get a chance to immerse your thoughts in all of the team-oriented tasks you conduct.  That said, you will again focus on collaboration and teamwork at your placements.  To review, Standard 8 states:

8) Collaborate and work productively as a team member: Work effectively as a member of a team and address conflict with sensitivity and respect for diverse points of view. Demonstrate understanding of one’s own impact and build on different perspectives to strengthen joint efforts. Demonstrate leadership where appropriate on collaborative workplace tasks. Effectively employ meeting management strategies, such as use of an agenda, time keeping and meeting facilitation strategies, identifying action items, and scheduling next steps. Work-Place Example: A student works with a diverse team in a warehouse to pull ordered items, package, and ship the items on time. The student alternates between taking the lead and assisting others as the situation demands.

With that said, at your placements, you will again think about the following driving concepts:  

1. Analyze the instances in which you act as a leader and instances in which you follow the lead of others.  
2. Identify how you leverage your strengths with those around you to accomplish your tasks more efficiently.  
3. Finally, make a note of how you deal with minor/major conflicts regarding decision-making and/or distribution of tasks.

Students in the classroom will work on completing your Verizon App Challenge.  There are only a few details to finalize before creating your video, so this week will be a focus on refining and completing the written portion before turning your attention to creating the supporting video. You too will focus on these elements of teamwork:

1. Analyze the instances in which you act as a leader and instances in which you follow the lead of others.  
2. Identify how you leverage your strengths with those around you to accomplish your tasks more efficiently.  
3. Finally, make a note of how you deal with minor/major conflicts regarding decision-making and/or distribution of tasks.

It was pretty tough missing Thursday’s share-out so I’m excited to get back in the classroom with you guys and hear about all the great things that happened during the week.  Keep up the hard work and continue to take pride in everything you do.  I’ll see you tomorrow.

Short Week - Short Blog: Teamwork Focus

Since we only have 3 days of class (and two in which I'll be in the building), your assignments will be straightforward and team-oriented.  That's convenient since we have a standard that focuses on collaboration/teamwork:

8) Collaborate and work productively as a team member: Work effectively as a member of a team and address conflict with sensitivity and respect for diverse points of view. Demonstrate understanding of one’s own impact and build on different perspectives to strengthen joint efforts. Demonstrate leadership where appropriate on collaborative workplace tasks. Effectively employ meeting management strategies, such as use of an agenda, time keeping and meeting facilitation strategies, identifying action items, and scheduling next steps. Work-Place Example: A student works with a diverse team in a warehouse to pull ordered items, package, and ship the items on time. The student alternates between taking the lead and assisting others as the situation demands.

With that said, here's our breakdown for students who have placements:

On Monday and Wednesday, please focus on things you do collaboratively.  

1. Analyze the instances in which you act as a leader and instances in which you follow the lead of others.  
2. Identify how you leverage your strengths with those around you to accomplish your tasks more efficiently.  
3. Finally, make a note of how you deal with minor/major conflicts regarding decision-making and/or distribution of tasks.

Students in the classroom will re-focus their efforts on completing the presentation and newsletter, working as a team to complete this project.  Since we made use of class time to help teacher mentors and observe students in classrooms last week, we did not make much progress on this task.  You too will focus on these elements of teamwork:

1. Analyze the instances in which you act as a leader and instances in which you follow the lead of others.  
2. Identify how you leverage your strengths with those around you to accomplish your tasks more efficiently.  
3. Finally, make a note of how you deal with minor/major conflicts regarding decision-making and/or distribution of tasks.

I won't be in the classroom on Thursday, but you will be responsible for a blog entry that addresses all three of the aforementioned areas of focus for the week.  I look forward to reading your entries.  See you all Monday!