For many of us, sitting down to write an academic essay from scratch becomes an exercise in stress-management as we struggle to “get into the zone” of academic writing. Of course, there are some frustrations that are inherent to the act of writing itself. However, we may begin to minimize our discomfort with writing if we simply commit to writing as often as possible. In these respects, blogging offers us a means to engage writing for multiple audiences regularly.

Additionally, since we are interested in this course in how writing and communication change across various media—and in fact how technologies enable faster and more expansive connections across spatial, temporal, and cultural distances—blogging represents a user-friendly space for us to experiment with writing as a digital technology.

Though I understand that blogging will be new to many of you—and even unsettling for some—my advice as a fellow blogger is to relax and have fun with your blog. Blogging will be an important part of the writing you do in this course—in fact, by the end of the semester you will likely have “blogged” more than you have “written” printed academic prose. That said, I urge you to take full advantage of the cooperative learning environment this course promotes to experiment with your blog (and by extensionyour own writing), to step out of your comfort zones and try out new ideas.

So What Is a Blog?





For some examples of established blogs, check these out:

*Schizzes and Flows
* Convergence Culture Consortium blog
* CuteOverload
* A Fish in a Nice Sweater
* Post Secret

What do I need to do?

1. Go to the free blog provider of your choice.
* Typepad
* Blogger
* Or do a Google search for "blog hosts":

2. Click on the big orange Create Your Blog Now arrow. It’s easy to get set up. Think of a name for your blog, set up your profile and make it fun if you want to.

3. Add your blog’s address to the course wiki Blogroll page

4. Start posting!

Specifics

1. Set up your blog and profile by Monday, February 1. By Monday, also post your first entry to your blog!

2. Make your first comment to 3 classmate-blogs by Friday. When you comment on a peer’s blog, be sure to include your name so the blogger knows who’s commenting. (Including a link to your own blog in the comment itself is a popular, and useful, convention in the blogosphere.).

3. You can add your classmates' blogs to your blog's blogroll; however, each week you will need to have added one or more new blogs (from outside the class) on your blogroll. Find blogs related to your interests.

4. I would like you to comment on outside blogs, also. This is the best way to build connections with bloggers outside of our class. Commenting on a stranger’s blog, understandably, can be unsettling; however, feel free to lurk for a while before posting. All I expect is for you to send me the URLs to your comments.

Some guidelines

* Grading standards : I’d like for you to take ownership of your blog. In other words, I want you to feel free to use that space to engage writing at various levels and with various intentions. That being said, I’ll be looking for at least one post per week that addresses “something.”

* Cite those whom you quote and with whom you converse. Through the magic of hyperlinks, you can connect directly to any of your peers’ blogs, etc.

* Think about your audience . You’re still writing for me and for your colleagues. But bear in mind that eventually the larger public might begin finding its way to your blog.

HELP

Blogger Guide:dummies-guide-to-google-blogger