Assignment Due Friday, March 6, at Midnight
Overview: Huffington
Post
Read in The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging:
--Chapter 4 “Finding Your Voice”
--Chapter 5 “Community: Creating and Building It”
--“The Huffington Post Blogroll” (pp. 173-184)
Writing in Journals:
1. For chapters 4 and 5, use your reading journals to record Huff Post suggestions you would like to try and Huff Post claims that in your opinion are sound and worth consideration. Note any claims the authors make for blogging that do not match your experience.
2. For the Blogroll section, choose two recommended blogs of possible interest. Check these out briefly using the description of them to guide your brief look. Each blurb is partly descriptive and partly a pitch for its angle or particular value.
Comments to Class Blog:
a) Write an observation you recorded in your journal that you think will have resonance with your classmates. Craft it specifically to gain response.
b) Write a response to someone else’s observation.
c) Comment on how useful the Huff Post blurbs for introducing the blogs you chose. Did these blurbs change the way you approached your selected blogs?
d) See Number 4 below for what more to do with the blogroll reading.
Assignment to prepare for Tuesday, March 10, due at the beginning of class
Overview: Research and Reading Journals. Post and comment. Blogroll work.
1) Work on your journals, especially planning and research. I’ll collect and grade these documents right after spring break. There’ll be a second grading period at the end of the semester. Be sure you’re covering all forms of posts per the handout: reports on research, reading logs, planning and reflection, class notes.
2) Post at least once to your own blog and comment on all group-mates’ blogs. VERY IMPORTANT: IF a given blogger asks you to DO something in particular (e.g., comment on a scene, view a video) DO it. Then report back next class period on the experience—specifically, how to make it better.
3) Choose one blog from your own blogroll and read through a good number its past posts and comments (whether you read a month’s or a week’s worth will depend on the blog). In your journal, note what makes this blog work well, that is, what makes it worth recommending to your own readers.
4) Following the Huff Post models for recommending blogs (their little blurbs), compose a recommendation blurb about the blog you’ve just been following. Tell readers what they will find and what’s of particular value. (You know where this is leading—to blurbs about your own blog—but that’s for later.) Post your blurb to Class Comments.
NEED VOLUNTEER(s) STILL:
Creative Commons
http://search.creativecommons.org/
Your job is to make this site useful to class members, maybe using class blogs topics/themes as examples.
NEED VOLUNTEER(s):
Alternative Templates
Your job is to showcase your best picks for alternative templates compatible with Blogger, e.g., http://www.pyzam.com/ and others of your choice.
Job description: How to roam efficiently through these sites. How to import the code and troubleshoot incompatibilities.
NEED VOLUNTEER(s):
Advanced Image Editing
Are you somewhat competent in PhotoShop or other advanced image editing or drawing software? If so, develop a presentation geared toward novices who need more than Picasa or Picasa-like programs offer. I will need to find and load Department copies of the selected software on our projection machine—so I need prep time.
NEED VOLUNTEER(s):
Code
Your job would be to introduce basic HTML or CSS training for novices. Your presentation would be narrowly focused—providing a few principles but only enough to allow novices to spot and manipulate or add features pertinent to Blogger. Gear the presentation to the enthusiastic and intrepid novice. Use your practice blog to demo.
NEED VOLUNTEER(s):
Deep Blogger
Your job is to take classmates into some of the inner chambers of Blogger capabilities. This would entail consulting with me and classmates about what features not readily visible will enhance your site or your writing process. Start with http://help.blogger.com/
What else would you like to know or present?