Advanced ESL

Your first blogging assignment

Hi everyone,

I've just added links to your personal blogs. Look over at the right sidebar to the list of names. Do you see your there? Click on it! Now click on some of your classmates names. Pretty nice, eh?

A couple of the links need more work - but we'll sort that out in our next computer lab time.

Online only students - Claudia, Jaber, Mahmoud, and Ji Young - please follow the tutorial in the Advanced ESL - Mixed Online course site (Moodle) and set up your blog. Email me your username, password, and the URL (Internet address) of your blog, so I can add it to the others on the sidebar.

As I mentioned in class, these are your blogs. You can keep adding to them long after the class is finished. I hope you'll feel free to be creative and make your blog as individual as you are!

My "plan" is to use your blogs to showcase your writing. It's a place where you can post your finished compositions, and invite family, friends, even employers, to see your work. I've written "plan" in quotation marks, because I see that Will has chosen a theme for his blog. Will, are you planning to invite people to post their favourite stories on your blog? If so, maybe you won't want to put your class compositions on it.

Ok, I can be flexible! If you want to chose a theme for your blog, like Will, and develop that theme through the next 8 weeks, go ahead. On the other hand, if you prefer to put your corrected class writing projects on it, that's fine too. It's your blog, so you can decide how you want to use it. Just remember, your blog is part of your class mark in writing.

Come here regularly for assignments and to get easy access to your classmate's blogs. I think you'll find that an important part of blogging is looking for comments from your readers, and leaving comments for blog writers. More on that later.

Your assignment for Week 2 is:

• check that your blog is correctly linked - I mean, you can see your blog when you click on your name.
• visit other students' blogs (click on their names). See if you can figure out how to leave a comment, and do it.
• Re-read your welcome paragraph and see if you can improve it. Check your spelling and sentence structure.
• Check your settings to make sure you protect your privacy.

That's all for now. Did I remember to say how great your blogs look already?

posted by Wendy @ 9:46 PM