what is design based learning?
“Design-based learning (DBL) is a form of project-based learning in which students learn what they need to learn in a just-in-time fashion while trying to design something” http://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schunn/research/design.html
Here is an example of a school that is using this approach to teach a multidisciplinary program at the middle school level:
How does this apply to me? I am teaching myself to use an application with a URL that I can present as my final project. As I design this final product, I am learning the things I need to know as I go.
At this moment I am looking more deeply into SharePoint, so that I can decide if I want to continue to use it for my class website and to create class and student blogs. I was provided this link by our staff Development department “SharePoint Blogs” (I don’t think 
you can get in without a username and password).
So I have included several screen shots. They have provided examples templates, and How to Documents.
Example of Teacher Blog page
Example of the Student Blog
Both of the example templates shown here look very “SharePoint” and I am not sure that I am a fan of the layout or the possibilities for personalization for me or my students. There is not the easy of use that other Blogging platforms have. Especially Weebly, which with its drag ang drop style, is my favourite to set up so far. That being said, the page provided by the district has many useful document and links related to creating and using blogs including:How do I create a classroom Blog , Connecting Blogs to Windows Live Writer XP, and perhaps most usefully of all Blog Rubrics.
There is also a link to a site called “Teachers First Blog ideas for the classroom“, which has some good ideas about how to use the blogs.
I may not be tied to the idea of SharePoint, but the idea of having the district supported platform does have some appeal both because there will be no FIOPPA related issues, but also because from my initial explorations into the digital world of my new school I can see that there are several teachers making use of their SharePoint websites and no evidence of links to any non SharePoint teacher/class sites. It may be best to start off here and then look into other possiblities when I have a chance to settle in. To this end I have put in an IT request to migrate my site to my new school and have put in a request to my new admin for more info.
A next step is to further investigate Edublogs, as that is the only blogging site for which a permission form exists on the district’s “Cloud Tools” page.