Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to lesson five of gaining support for a cause.

I'm Ben and this lesson has all to do with promoting your cause.

So we've done so much work so far, prepping all the things, getting ready to write a blog.

So this lesson is all to do with actually making that blog.

Okay.

So all you'll need for this lesson is your computer and a web browser.

And then other than that, you can clear away any distractions as usual.

See if you turn your mobile phone off, see if you can find a nice quiet place to work.

And when you've done all of that, we'll get started.

Okay.

So let's start looking at what we are going to do in this lesson.

So, we are going to construct a blog using appropriate software.

We are going to organise a content of the blog based on credible sources.

And we going to apply referencing techniques that credit authors appropriately.

So we look at those second to objectives.

What we are really doing here is we are getting all the things that we've learned about in lesson one, two, three, and four in this unit, I'm putting them all together and making a blog using some software.

Okay.

So that's going to be the aim of this lesson.

Now, what I'd like to do, I've got a question for you to start off with, and I'd like you to think of three things that your teacher would want to see in your blog, when marking your work.

So it might put yourself ahead and imagine that you've made your blog already, and you're about to submit it to your teacher.

What three things do you think they might be looking for that would make them give you a good mark and a big green tick and say, well done.

Okay.

So pause the video.

See if you can think of those three things and then unpause when you've got some.

Okay.

So hopefully you've got three things.

Now, if you've got those three things, you are actually what you are doing there is thinking what actually would make a successful blog.

What do you think my audience would want to see? What's going to make my blog successful? Okay.

So that brings us nicely onto something called success criteria.

Now success criteria is when is.

I'm going to start that again.

Okay.

So often when you work on a project, you see a list of success criteria before the project starts.

So, this is a list that you'll use at the end of the project to decide if it meets the needs of the audience.

Okay.

So, I've got two examples success criteria here for you.

And you may have noticed straight away that one of them's got a green tick next to it.

And one of them's got a red X next to it.

So let's explore why that is.

So the first one, the blog must include three images.

That's got the green tick next to it, which means it's valid success criteria.

Let's now look at the second one that has got the red X.

It says images must be interesting.

So what do you think about that success criteria? Do you think maybe makes it not valid? So let's do that.

Let's look at the first one.

The blog must include three images.

Okay.

That's a very factual success criteria, allows me to answer with a yes or no.

Whereas the second one, images must be ref.

Interesting, sorry.

Does that allow me to answer with a yes or no? Well, I think it allow me to answer with a yes or no, because, I hopefully already found them interesting, because I was the one who put them in the blog.

But what about my audience? Now, this success cross criteria is what you call subjective, which it means it's based upon opinion.

So my opinion is that it's interesting.

But would that be the opinion of all of my audience? Maybe some of my audience, but not all of my audience.

So, that becomes a bit messy in determining whether or not is successful in what you've done.

Okay.

So we've got to avoid using anything that's subjective, and really aim for something that allows for a very factual yes or no answer.

So let's explore that a little bit more.

So let's take this another success criteria.

So the blog must include useful information.

So, why is this not appropriate for success criteria and how can it be improved? So again, you can just pause that for a second to see if you can determine.

Bear in the mind, what we talked about in the previous slide.

Determine why it's not valid or appropriate success criteria, and how would you improve that? Okay.

Well, hopefully you've determined that it's not appropriate because again, it's subjective.

The word useful there is, well, how do we determine whether or not something's useful? And again, becomes subjective because it's not quite a simple as a yes or no answer.

So, I've come up with two alternative ways in which you might word this, but to really kind of capture the essence of what we're trying to say here, 'cause it's a valid thing that we're trying to say, the blog must be useful.

We want it to be useful information.

But how can we reword that so that the success criteria falls into that non-subjective category? Okay.

So my examples are, you could say, the original author of any information referred to must be referenced or cited.

Okay.

So we've referenced it, then that's a yes or no answer.

It either has been referenced or cited or not been.

Okay.

But if we've done that, then maybe we are saying, well, if that's come from another source and hopefully we're somewhere along the journey to say that this is useful information.

Okay.

What about this one then? All the information used in the blog must come from credible sources.

Now, you could argue that saying something come from a credible source, could be subjective.

Because it is subjective whether or not a source is credible.

However, it might not be subjective, if you've done your work from lesson four, where you proved that it was credible.

Where you looked and you could find the information from other sources.

So, once you've done that work, then that's success criteria doesn't become subjective.

It becomes a yes or no answer.

Okay.

So, your task now is to make your success criteria for your blog.

Now, I would like you to head over to task one on your worksheet in a minute.

And I'd like to write down a minimum of four success criteria.

Now, I say a minimum of four.

So four is absolutely fine.

But if you'd like to think of more, if you think of more things, you know, you might get an idea of the spirals into wanting to write more.

Basically you are making a checklist of all things you think your blog should do, to be successful.

So like I say, minimum of four, but if you want to do more, that would be great too.

Okay.

Now put these words on the slide that might help you just kind of prompt some ideas here, success criteria.

So I've got audience, formatting, hyperlinks, citation, licencing, images, research, and credibility.

So all of those things together might help you form at least four success criteria.

So, if you can pause the video now, head over to your worksheet, complete task one, and put in this success criteria for me.

Okay.

And once you've done that, you can unpause the video and we'll get going with making the blog.

Okay, great.

So now you've got a set of success criteria that we can use and have the checklist as we make our blogs.

So, make sure you've got that document handy at all points because you can always use that as a helpful reminder of the things that you want to include in your blog.

Okay.

So now we are going to have a goal of making the blog.

Now, we need to use appropriate software to do this.

Now, I'm going to demonstrate how you can make a blog using Google Sites.

Now, if you've not got an account on Google, then please ask your teacher, parent or carer to give you permission to do this and set you up with an account.

If you haven't got permission to do this or Google account, then you can use other software as well.

So if you've got a Microsoft account, then you can use a Microsoft Sway or tentatively, you can think back to the work that we did in lesson one and two, and just use a word processor to do this.

Okay? So it's not essential that you use the software that I am using.

There are alternatives and you can just use and apply the skills that we learned in earlier lessons using a different software.

Okay.

Now, if you aren't going to use Google Site, please watch this demonstration anyway, because I might talk about some kind of common formatting techniques that you can apply in that other software as well.

Okay.

So I'm going to head over and do that right now.

Okay.

So, I've navigated over to my Google drive and I'm going to get going with actually making my first Google Site, which is going to form my blog.

Okay.

So, if you are using Google drive, you just click on new on the left hand side here and you slide go down to more and then hopefully you'll have Google Sites down here.

So I'm going to click on that and it's going to load up my site.

Now, we can name it using, once we've opened it, and that will help us save it, remember where we saved it and what it's called.

So, I'm going to straight away go to title sight, 'cause that's the name of it.

So I can rename it this way.

So, the course I'm really passionate about is trying to reduce local litter.

So making sure.

I really love it if people would just be more aware of the consequences of them throwing litter around.

Okay.

And make it a nicer place for us all to live.

So I'm just going to call mine a local litter.

Okay.

But you can think of a creative name for this.

This is not necessarily what the user's going to see at the end of it.

So it's just going to be helpful to you.

Okay.

Now, so once I've created that, click off this.

Now let's get going with making our page title.

Okay.

So, it says your page title, and you can see that when I move my mouse over it, you got a slightly a blue box that appears kind of showing you that's where your mouse is highlighted.

So, if I click on this, I can change it to something more appropriate.

Now, I'm not the most creative person in the world.

So, if you are not, then don't worry about it.

It just.

Write something down then later on you might be hit with some inspiration about what would be a really catchy title.

Okay.

I'm going to write Your litter, our problem.

Okay.

bad is it? Okay.

Now, you can't have an image in the background here as well, and it would be as simple as change image.

And I'm going to show you a little bit more about how to add images a little bit later on, but you can use that.

Alternatively, you can change the head of type as well.

So, it maybe like this.

A large banner, just a banner like that or just a title.

You might just want it like this.

I quite like it like that.

So, I'm going to keep it like this.

Now, if I just move my web cam out of the way, 'cause I'm hiding some important options here.

So, I'm just going to pop myself down here.

Okay.

Now, we've got all these different options for insert pages and themes.

Now, at the moment for this lesson, we are just going to stick with a single page, but we can add more pages as we go along.

So one.

I'll move this stuff all the way again.

If I want for the new page for my blog later on, I can do that.

So I'm just going to show you how to do that just in case you want to later on.

So if I click on the plus, I can put a new page, and I don't know.

I'm just going to call it images but you can call it what you want, whatever is relevant to you.

There's no expectations that you have to create a second page either.

I think a blog.

Most blog layouts tend to be a single page and they kind of go down in chronological order.

So, you don't need to create that second page but just in case you want to, I'll do that.

I want to click done.

You can see the way it's automatically created me the page.

It's called the title that I called it then.

You can customise that and change it.

But also is put the hyperlink at the top there for me as well.

Okay.

Now, if you didn't ever want that to be in the title either, you didn't want the hyperlink to be there, you can click on these dots.

Okay.

And you can hide from navigation that will make the hyperlink disappear.

Okay.

But actually for the time being, I don't even want this page.

So I'm just going to click delete and that page is gone.

Okay.

The other key part here, themes.

Now, I could go through all the things with you now but that would be a record really boring video.

So, I'm just going to show you the fact that you can change the theme.

So, you know, scroll down and find something that you like the look on for.

For example, that's impression.

And also, if you like the kind of like the theme of that, but not quite sure about the colours.

You can change the colours.

So, we can say that pretty much just changes the underlying bar.

Okay.

But I'm fine with that.

So, I'm going to leave it at this.

Okay.

So that's how you do the themes.

Now, once you got your title sorted then really all that is left for us to do is start making your content.

As you started writing about, you know, the issue here with local litter.

I'm really trying gain support for this cause.

Okay.

So I'm try going to use some persuasive language.

But really importantly, I'm going to use the images that I researched in a previous lesson.

I know in lesson four.

Sorry.

And also I'm going to use such research in terms of the citations that are found.

The quotes that I want to use, the information that I want to, that I did some research on.

That needs to be included inside our blog.

So, you make sure that you've definitely got that document from lesson four open whilst you are doing this.

Okay.

So, let's start off by clicking on insert.

Now, we can just kind of.

If we want to just use a text box and images and have full custom control over exactly how our page looks.

But you might find that helpful initially to have to use some of the prebuilt layouts.

And you can see here on the right hand side, I've got some really nice layouts.

So I quite like to use this one.

So if I pop that in, can you see the way it's created a nice space for me? Where I've got the image, which that to me looks like at the appropriate kind of width of the screen, where an image should appear.

And I've got a space for title and a space for some text as well.

Okay.

So, I'm just going to put.

Title this local litter.

Now, personally I feel maybe that's a little bit big for that because I wanted to be a heading, but maybe not that big.

And again, this is all personal choice.

This is just what I think, where you might have a different opinion.

So, I'm just going to highlight this.

I'm going to change it from a title to maybe just a heading.

Here we go and that looks fine to me.

That was a little bit better.

Okay.

And then I can start writing in here.

Can start writing what I want to.

Again, use the quotes that you found out, go back to your worksheet, find those references, and really kind of draw upon the research that you did last lesson.

Okay.

Lesson four.

So, there we go.

So you can write in there.

So, I suppose the next thing to do is show the images.

So, if I click on the plus here, you've got some options here.

You can embed a YouTube clip if you want to.

But remember, not all YouTube videos allow you to use it.

So check the creative commons licence, please.

You put a calendar, a mapping.

But what I would like to do is insert an image.

So, we are going to do that.

We've got some options.

So I could select an image that I previously uploaded into my drive.

I haven't got any.

So I'm not going to use the option.

All I'm going to do, is I'm going to click on upload.

Okay.

Now, before I do that, I need to have the image to upload.

Now remember, ask your parents or carers before you do this.

But you can use the creative common search.

Okay.

Now I've searched for litter.

Okay.

And I came across this image that I really liked.

And if you remember this from lesson three when we looked at this, Lesson two, sorry.

And I moved myself up here.

Now, we have these images here.

I would like to use that image.

So I'm going to save my image.

So, right click on it, and I go Save Image As, and save it to my computer.

Okay.

Make sure you keep this page open 'cause it's got some really useful information that we are going to use later on.

So if I go back to this.

If I go to upload, I've saved this to my desktop.

And you can see there.

That's my mission I want, and I'm going to click open.

And I can pop the image in.

And it actually makes it in such a nice size.

You've got freedom to change the image size that you want to.

So we can just drag things in and drag it out again, you know, and keep doing this until you feel like it's right.

But I think what's really important to remember is the most important button that's ever been invented in the history of computers, is the undo button.

So you can see in the top of here, I've got this undo button there.

And if it didn't like what I did, I can always use the undo button.

Okay.

Now, again, really important that we do reference any sources of information that we come across, images included.

So going back to my creative common search, I can see that I've got this information down here.

So I can click on copy.

Okay.

And that copies it to my clipboard.

And I want to be able to put this underneath the image.

Now, going back to my site here, I can't.

Oh wait, I could put it here, but that really be with the body of the information that I want to include.

That's not really going to be linked necessarily visually to the image.

Okay.

So, I'm going to save this text box here for writing about the issue that I want to talk about, which is local litter.

So what I need to do is create a separate textbook.

Text box, sorry.

I'm going to put it underneath the image.

So, just move myself down again.

Now you can see an option to have a text box.

So, if I select that text box, can you see the way it automatically puts it in underneath the image? Which has luckily what I want.

But I'm not sure whether you can see this.

But if you look so closely here, you can see these like dotted lines above and below the text box.

Now, the user person looking at your blog, won't ever see this.

It's literally, so you can use it as a guide, so you can help position things on the screen.

So don't worry about that.

Now, if I move this in and you can see some grid lines appear and they're helpful to kind of make sure I get things lined up nicely, how I want it to be.

So I'm just dragging it and it's been a little slow.

There we go.

It's getting there.

Still going.

I don't quite want it that small.

I'm going to make it a little bit wider, to about there.

So kind of of it's in line with the edge of my image.

Now, I said that a copy of that reference to my clipboard.

So all I need to do now is a right click and paste.

And you can see it's put the referencing in for me there.

I don't want it that size so we can just customise it like you would do normally.

So we can just change it to a different font size.

So maybe call it small.

That'd be good.

That looks all right to me.

And there we go.

So we've got an image and we've got a reference appropriately.

I've got a title, I've customised the colour scheme, and I've got another subtitle.

And then hopefully, when you start making your blog, you can populate it with something that's going to be relevant to this article and gain support for the cause that you need.

Okay.

Right.

You can move things around.

You can drag things around.

Don't forget.

So you can click on this layer here and you can.

If you wanted to go down, you can do.

Okay.

So if you change your mind about the order of things, don't delete anything.

You can always move things around.

Okay.

Now, the final thing that I wanted to show you is how you can see what this would look like to a user, because we're in kind of a like a design layout.

So what I'd like to do is, if we click on preview at the top here, next to undo, redo.

We've got a preview button.

If I can click on that and it will show me what this blog is going to look like on an actual web browser.

Okay.

And, there we go.

So, I can also see what it's going to look like on a mobile phone, which is really helpful.

This is what it's going to look like on a tablet.

And this is what it's going to look like on a desktop computer.

So, it's really helpful to look at that because user experience again, a lot of people might be looking at your blog on a mobile phone.

So, you might want to customise or adapt to the size and width of things, depending on what it looks like on different platforms. Okay.

So to get out of that preview mode, I'm going to click X here.

Okay.

There we go.

I'm just going to.

I think that's enough for me to show you, because again, I think what's really important about this is you just, have a little play with the different options that you've got.

If we scroll down on the options on the right hand side, you've got YouTube videos, you've got maps you might want to include.

I might want to include a map of my local area that shows where the litter is, maybe.

You can embed a Google doc, a Google slide.

And there's all sorts of different things you can put in.

So, do play around with this because you are not going to break anything.

Okay.

Because that magical undo button will always be there for you.

Okay.

So, please do play around with it.

So I'm not going to show you anymore.

I'm going to head out to the slides and give you some tips.

So let me move over to my slides.

Okay.

So here are my tips for when you start making your blog.

Okay.

So I would like you to remember to open your research document from last lesson, which was lesson four.

Okay.

And make sure that you use the references that you came across.

Make sure you make the most of the research that you did in lesson four.

Okay.

All those references that you might use, make sure you do reference them properly, use citation.

I'd like you to credit the authors of the images, just like you saw me do when I made my Google Site.

Make sure you use a formatting tools to make your blog suitable for the audience.

And we did that in lesson one and two when we did word processing.

And then finally, make sure that you have your success criteria next to you.

You've made your success criteria, so make sure you use that like a checklist to keep yourself in order and then check to the things that you need to include in your blog.

But I think most importantly with this, please have fun with this.

This is your opportunity to really gain support for a cause that you're passionate about, and maybe make a difference in the world.

Okay.

So do have fun with it.

You don't have to use Google Site.

You can use word processor.

You can use Microsoft Sway.

You can even use a slide deck.

But really make this your own.

Okay.

So, good luck with that.

And when you've done.

I would spend approximately about 30 minutes on this, because we are going to give you time in lesson six to do this as well.

Okay.

So have fun with it and when you're done, you can unpause the video.

Okay.

That's all for this lesson.

And I really hope that you've made a great start with your blog and you're feeling ready and enthused about getting on with the next lesson and finishing it off.

Okay.

Now, we would love to see your work in progress.

So please do share it with us.

And if you'd like to share it with us then please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnWithOak.

Okay.

So, that's all from this lesson.

So, I'm really looking forward to finalising your blog with you next lesson.

So, I'll see you then.

Bye.