It has been a very rainy spring in Dundas and students are finding it difficult to get out and take their pictures. Next week it is supposed to be sunny. Let's cross our fingers. In the mean time, we have begun thinking about text and content.
We had an excellent discussion about the appropriate length of text for each location. This is where having a real audience makes the teaching of writing so much easier. Students understand who they are writing for and are able to discuss the needs of the reader.
With this in mind, we considered the following: How many sentences will the app users read before they begin to lose interest? How much information is necessary? What exactly would entice the user to want to visit Dundas? The students thought that 5-10 sentences would be the most a user would read. I thought that a few locations might include more information than this.
If this is the case, how then, do we narrow down the content? In a discussion with Emily and Bianca who are covering our school, Emily recognized that while the school closure issue (yes, our school was at risk of being closed down at one point) might be of interest to locals, it wouldn't be the most interesting detail for a tourist. The fact that an extra-curricular activity that ran in our school at one point was a shooting club and that they practised in the basement, now THAT is interesting. The work of the students is to keep their audience in mind as they complete their research and make content decisions.
We had an excellent discussion about the appropriate length of text for each location. This is where having a real audience makes the teaching of writing so much easier. Students understand who they are writing for and are able to discuss the needs of the reader.
With this in mind, we considered the following: How many sentences will the app users read before they begin to lose interest? How much information is necessary? What exactly would entice the user to want to visit Dundas? The students thought that 5-10 sentences would be the most a user would read. I thought that a few locations might include more information than this.
If this is the case, how then, do we narrow down the content? In a discussion with Emily and Bianca who are covering our school, Emily recognized that while the school closure issue (yes, our school was at risk of being closed down at one point) might be of interest to locals, it wouldn't be the most interesting detail for a tourist. The fact that an extra-curricular activity that ran in our school at one point was a shooting club and that they practised in the basement, now THAT is interesting. The work of the students is to keep their audience in mind as they complete their research and make content decisions.
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