Welcome to the class blog. Everyone doesn’t talk in class but everyone’s contribution to the class discussions is still necessary. In order to make sure that everyone has a voice (and uses it), I am requiring every student to write comments about the course conversations or lectures. Every student is required to initiate 10 threads on the course web-blog. These threads will each be worth up to 10 points. A thread can be a link to an interesting and relevant webpage (with an explanation), a link to a relevant report or article (with a summary), your comments on the class discussion or lecture, or questions that you might have for me or other students in the class. Every thread will start at 8 points and work up from there based on how much interest (from myself and the class) it garners. Yes, that means you should make your contribution worth our while. In order for you to get credit for all of your contributions, you must ALSO comment on 10 other students’ contributions. For each comment you’re missing, we will take away 3 of your points for your initiated thread.

First things, first.  You need to register for the blog.  To do so, look at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.  There you’ll find a pencil logo.  Click on it and another panel will open up down there.  You should see a link that says “Register.”  Click on it and the registration/login page will open up.  Type in a screen-name (some version of your own would be great!) and your email address.  We’ll then send you a password.  Once you receive that password, get back to the registration/login page and click the “log in” link.  You’ll be able to log in and then change your password.  Pick a password that you can remember!

You can add a post two ways.  When you log in, you’ll be on the DASHBOARD.  On the right hand side of the dashboard, there is a quickpost box.  Use that approach if you’re just doing text with no special format or links or videos.  On the left hand side of the dashboard, you’ll see a box marked “Posts.”  Click on that and you’ll see the “Add New” link.  That will take you to the regular post box where you’ll be able to format your post, add hyperlinks to other webpages, and even add youtube videos.

Before you publish your post, please add THREE tags (or keywords) to your post.  Tags should be no more than two words and should be separated by commas.  This will make it easier for people to get to posts on particular topics.  Since part of your grade is determined by other people’s interests in your posts, it is advantageous to come up with tags that would draw our attention.  Eventually, you’ll be able to “choose from the most popular tags.”  Tags will eventually appear under the pencil icon as a Tag Cloud.

If you are going to give us a webpage link, copy the url and then, while you’re typing your post, highlight part of the description of the page.  You’ll see the little chainlink icon light up.  Click on it and then past the webpage’s url in the top box and then click “insert”.

In the past, students wanted to point us to a “YouTube” video and would provide a link.  Now you can just embed the video.  To do so, click on the little “YouTube” button in the icons list and paste in the YouTube url.  Please don’t change the dimensions.