Solution Fluency Style Blog Writing - The Basics
- 1. Solution Fluency-Style Blog Writing: The Basics by GDC Team | May 7, 2015 | 0 comments Are you or your students looking for a way to help your thoughts flow freely and constantly as you write blog articles? Tired of wasting valuable time and losing focus? For a special treat today, we’re going to give you an inside look behind the scenes of blog writing for Global Digital Citizenship Foundation. We put our money where our mouths are and really put into practice the 21st Century Fluencies, especially in the blog writing process. So we’ll show you how we do it, the tools we use, and the thought processes that are entailed, especially using Solution Fluency as a template for flowing smoothly to completion. Of course, all other fluencies make appearances as well. First, a general overview: 1. Using Asana as our collaboration tool and task manager, Team A comes up with blog ideas and lists them in Asana as tasks under “Ideas.” 2. Members of Team B (writers), look over the list and choose from the titles and assigns themselves the blogs that they want to work on. 3. Using Google Drive, each member of Team B creates a working blog document from a copy of a template, renaming it according to their blog topic and placing it in a separate shared folder, making it open for all team members to comment upon either in the document itself, or using the comments section in Asana. 4. Back in Asana, they attach the document to its corresponding task, linking it to Google Drive. From here on out, there is no need to go back to their Google Drive; simply fire up Asana, find the task, double click on the working document attachment, and it launches a new browser tab in Google Drive and the working blog. 5. Team B writes the blog using Solution Fluency as a template. 6. Once a blog is finished, it then moves to Team C who checks citations, adds graphics, relevant links and cleans up wording and formatting. 7. Blog is published. That’s the overall process and embodies Collaboration Fluency nicely. While all teams have an important part, it’s in the blog writing process where the 21st Century Fluencies thrive. Based overarchingly on Solution Fluency, our blog template that we use follows a specific flow from beginning to end. The Solution Fluency Blog Template The template we use is available here: SolutionFluencyBlogTemplate It was modified from a Hubspot blog where you can find more great resources on blog writing. No doubt you’ll find other numerous tips all over the web. Once you know the ins and outs of “SEO” keywords, it will be time to get creative! Join our 300,000+ Awesome Readers! Severus Snape s.snape@hogwarts.com Connect With Us Latest posts 5 Class Strategies for Engaging Students Top Tips for Using Social Media to Expand Your PLN Download the New Twitter- Tastic Teacher’s Guide! Student Engagement with Blended Learning: 9 Unique Ideas 80 Unique (and Free) Resources for Teachers Museum Field Trips—My Favourite Could Be Yours! (Part 5) 7 Awesome Writing Help Services for Students Cool Tools for Students: Free Online Design Resources 4 7 2 Join Now Facebook 274 Followers Twitter 31,647 Followers LinkedIn 228 Followers Google+ 314 Followers Vision > The Fluencies > Services > Blog Resources U
- 2. Based on Global Digital Citizenship Foundation’s own Solution Fluency, our template guides the writer in a quick, comprehensive way of organizing your data, references, information, ideas. Once all your thoughts are gathered, you can begin drafting the blog. Solution Fluency Blogging Step-by-Step As you know, Solution Fluency encompasses 6 processes: Define, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver, Debrief. These processes are deeply rooted in Bloom’s Taxonomy and also happen to be a great roadmap to creating a substantive blog or any report that you want, for that matter. Define Right off the top, we go into the Define Process. This entails deciding who your audience is and deciding your key takeaway. We call it your “Big Ideas,” or “the end in mind.” There are other Define steps, but keep in mind that when you lose focus on your blog, you can easily scroll up and be reminded of your task. At the same time, don’t be afraid to change your key takeaway, if during the writing process you need to change direction. This template is meant to be organic and can change as your thoughts take shape. Discover The next step of the process is Discover. In this section, we gather all links that you visit for research and are related to your Key Takeaway. Links to videos, websites, infographics, pdfs, quotes. Don’t limit yourself to Internet resources either. Maybe you have a document of your own in Google Drive—you can insert that link as well. The goal is to create a repository of resources so you can easily go back for attribution when your blog is done, or insert related links quickly. It’s also a good idea to add a short description of the link or an excerpt from the site for easy identification. Take time to really read your resources thoroughly. Internalize the information and don’t rush. Remember this quote from Honest Abe: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Additional Fluencies used: Information Fluency, Media Fluency Dream Next, we go to Dream about what direction we want to take. Start dreaming with a title, like before a baby is born when parents are already dreaming up names. This could direct your focus as well. Again, think of different possibilities. Your top choices might fluctuate as you write. Begin to imagine how your blog will look in the end. Will you use an infographic? Charts? Will you include catchy references to popular culture? Will the text be of the more serious, academic nature? Write down your thoughts in this stage. These may or may not find their way into your final draft. At this stage, it should be a good idea to put yourself on a timer so that you don’t get carried away. You’ll need to produce something soon, especially if you’re on a time limit! Think rough sketches here, which will subject to change. Design The Design stage is the next step before fleshing out your blog. By now, you should have an idea of what your post will look like and its specific components. Take the time to jot them down (there’s a lot of pre-writing before you get to the actual writing—and that’s a good thing!) Deliver This is the writing process in its highest-order stage. You are now full of information and ideas that simply need to be applied to a canvas. Here is where you do a lot of cutting, pasting, rewording, and starting over from scratch. In our template we highlight this section in green, to set it off from all the other thought organizing material.. Within this space, the Creation Fluency is most meaningful as you constantly reflect on your work,rewriting the parts that don’t come together, and revelling in the parts that reflect your true genius. Additional Fluencies used: Creativity Fluency, Media Fluency Debrief The Debrief section is a space for you to evaluate your day’s work before coming back the next day or hour, after a long break to allow your brain to digest. Categories Categories Select Category
- 3. As you wrap up your blog—whether you toss it to another team member for clean-up and adding graphics or finish up yourself—the last step is to go over the blog for proper attribution of your sources. Since you compiled those in the beginning, it should not be too hard. This practice honors the final component of the 21st Century Fluencies, which is Global Digital Citizenship. Using a template brings the writing process into a context that is succinct and meaningful. As you utilize the template and become familiar with the process, you may find that you need to tweak it for your own use. Happy blogging to you and your super-creative students! Share your thoughts Enter your comment here... Join 300,000+ Awesome Educators Get the latest acticles straight to your inbox. Enter your email address below. s.snape@hogwarts.com Subscribe Now Global Digital Citizen Foundation © 2015