Welcome to SST's big family! Greetings from Mr Dean Ang, HOD ICT. I will be your online guide with 5 online sessions of learning.
If you are a Sec 1 student (2016) reading this blog post, chances are you have already received your SST account and waiting for your new learning device, the Macbook, to start an exciting learning journey in a few weeks time.
Most of you will have an Internet connected computer at home, let the learning begin as soon as today!
You will need the following:
- An SST account
Refer to the following post for instructions to activating your account. - A computer connected to the InternetSince not everyone has received his or her learning device (MacBook), I shall focus on cross platforms web-based applications accessible within a browser of an Internet connected desktop computer.
In SST, blogs are commonly used communication platforms. The Students Blog is our main announcement platform where information is disseminated to the student community.
Each class also has a class blog where class activities and daily homework are posted there keep all (students and parents) informed of the happenings at the class level. Similarly, some subjects run activities via the subject blogs too.
You will be required to participate in blog activities quite regularly, as someone to comment on blog post, or as a co-author. It is therefore important for all to be familiar with the features of the blog.
Managing your own blog(s)
To access your own blog,
- Log in to your SST (Google) account
- Click on the Apps launcher, click "More" to display the dropdown menu.
- Select "Blogger"
Activity 1 - Setting up My Blogger's Profile
1. You will be prompted to login again. The following will be displayed.
Choose "Blogger Profile" (on the right) to create a limited Blogger profile.
2. If the Blogger Profile is not available, choose the Google+ profile first. Click on the Gear icon 
to revert to Blogger profile. The reason is that Google+ service will not be activated for Secondary 1 students.
to revert to Blogger profile. The reason is that Google+ service will not be activated for Secondary 1 students.
3. Enter your FULL Name in when prompted to update the Blogger profile.
3. Next, you are ready to create your first blog.
Click at "New Blog" (on the left) to begin
4. For the first blog, give the blog title, "My SST Journey begins here".
Create your own blog address. You are encouraged to name it with "sst-" before your full name (e.g. sst-chuawaitan.blogspot.com).
Choose a template before clicking at "Create blog!" at the bottom right.
5. You are now ready to blog. You will be "brought" to the dashboard where your blog is.
Click at "New Blog" to start blogging.
Activity 2 - Introducing Yourself
1. In your first blog post, you are going to do an introduction about about yourself.
Your target audience: Your Form Teacher and Classmates in 2016
- Blog title: About me (I)
- Insert image of an object that you would like your peers to associate you.
- Give a brief introduction about yourself. It should include...
- Your name, how you would like your peers to address you
- What are some things you like to do (i.e. your hobbies)?
- e.g. Are there some sports you enjoy doing?
- e.g. What are your favourite pastimes?
- Your personality and behaviour that you would like your peers to take note of
- e.g. Do you enjoy talking to people?
- Do you tend to quickly get into action?
2. Make an attempt to change the size, font and colour of the text and even highlight some key words that you would like to draw others' attention to.
Activity 3 - Embedding a Video Clip from Youtube.com
Besides text, we can also embed video clips into a blog.
1. Create a new post entitled "A video clip that caught my attention".
2. Identify one video clip in "Youtube EDU" (http://www.youtube.com/education?category=K-12) that you find interesting and would like to introduce it to your audience.
3. Underneath the video clip, click at "Share" followed by the "Embed" button.
4. The HTML code will be displayed. Copy the HTML code.
5. Return to the blog post, switch to the "HTML" mode and paste the code in the space.
It should look like this:
6. Switch back to "Compose" mode and the post should look like this:
7. In the same post, add the following:
- Title of the video clip
- Briefly what is the content of the video clip
- In 3 bullet points, describe briefly what you have learnt from this video clip?
Classroom is a free web-based platform that integrates your SST Google Apps account with all your Google Apps services for your online learning activities.
Students can keep track of what’s due on the assignments page and on Calendar and begin working with just a click.
Visit the Google Classroom help page to understand more about Classroom.
Students can keep track of what’s due on the assignments page and on Calendar and begin working with just a click.
Visit the Google Classroom help page to understand more about Classroom.
MANAGING YOUR CLASSES
A Class titled "2016 Pre-school Engagement Programme" has been created and you have been invited to join as a student. The instructions and learning material available in this blog will be made available in the Class under the STREAM tab. Accept the class and submit the url links of Activities 1-3.
To accept an invitation to join a class:
.
Activity 4 - Submitting the url links for Activities 1-3
2. Complete and submit the 3 urls from Activities 1-3 to Google form. Add the first url (to your main blog) to the assignment before you turn it in and mark it as done.
That's it for Session 1.
Next up: 2016 Pre-School Engagement Programme - Session 2
Title: My SST Account, Introduction to Google Apps (Part 1)
Here's a little video from Google that shows some of the things your SST account can do.
Title: My SST Account, Introduction to Google Apps (Part 1)
Here's a little video from Google that shows some of the things your SST account can do.