Assignment #2, First Task

Due Date: Friday 6 October, 1 p.m.

A couple of days ago I mentioned that we would continue working with the course weblogs. At this point you should consider the weblogs your primary platform for presenting your work for the course and you should work on them consistently over time (meaning do that work day-by-day and week-by-week, rather than trying to do all your work at the last moment).

The next official due date for your weblogs (when I will review them for your next grade) is at the beginning of class on Friday 6 October, but I will be giving you tasks to accomplish once or twice a week leading up to that date. Each of these tasks will be clearly identified on the course weblog as requirements for assignment #2.

Your first task for assignment #2 has three parts:

1. Enable your weblog so that it allows all visitors to leave comments and to post links at your site. (We reviewed how to do this for Blogger in class Monday. On the editing screen under Settings and Comments, enable Comments and Back Links.) Please try to complete this task by Wednesday 20 September before class. If you have difficulty making it happen, we can address it again in class. You may also look at the Help section in your blogging tool. (In Blogger click Help, then click Working with Blogger, then Comments for a list of relevant articles.)
   
2. Browse through the material posted on your colleagues' weblogs. (Links to their sites are listed in the right sidebar of this weblog.) Look for something that sparks your interest and write an entry for your weblog that refers to, draws on or responds to that material.
3. In your entry, be sure to post a link to the entry you refer to at your colleague's weblog. And use the linkback or commenting features at that site to post the URL of your new entry. Be sure you are linking to precise entries rather than just to entire sites. This will help your readers locate the relevant entries rather than having to search for them.

The purpose of this first task is to begin to develop our weblogs as two-way conversational media rather than as one-way broadcast media and to see them as part of a network of media (our immediate network being made up of weblogs written by people in our course) rather than individual media.

Please try to post one or two such conversational entries this week. Although the best entries will deal with issues of substance and thought, they don't necessarily have to be long. Please keep your discussions cordial and collegial. I am happy to respond to any questions you have about the assignment. Please try to have some fun with it.