The Election

Using Google, search news sites for the one election story that you find most interesting (search for the candidates name then click on news at the top of the Google page). Link it in a blog post explaining why you think that the article is interesting.

Read a few more articles. See if you can find three articles that were only published on the internet. What makes these articles different from something that was on a news show like CNN or in a magazine like Time? Do you think that the internet has changed the way that news is reported?

Check out these sites, and choose your three favorite articles from each:

Smoking Gun

Drudge Report

Huffington Post

Summarize your three favorite articles in a sentence or two.

That’s it – Happy Halloween!

Finish Up!

Make sure that you have everything finished. Your bogus MLA paper should be complete. You should have finished the long “Part of a Blog Window.” Your handout and your presentation.

Next week is the LAST week of this six weeks. Your grade for this six weeks will be determined by what you have done by Wednesday of next week.

AutoBlogGreen

Read through several stories from AutoBlogGreen.

Summarize your 3 favorite stories in two sentences each.

Write two paragraphs, at least five sentences each about this topic:

What do you think that cars will look like in 25 years? How will they run? What fuel will they use?

This is due at the end of class today, Wednesday, October 29th.

History of the Internet

Search for the History of the Internet, and find three sites that you like to read about the history of the internet.

List those three sites in your blog with links.

Make a timeline as a list, like this:

1902 – First Telegram sent by Joe Hodgson

1913 – First Morse code message sent by Jack Billingham

1921 – First smoke signals sent by Big Joe Brown

Finally, make a list of 25 terms, dates and names. You will take a quiz and will have only this list to use for reference.

So your blog post for today should have three things in it:

1. A list of the three sites that you used
2. A timeline
3. A list of 25 terms and people

This is due at the end of class today, Tuesday, October 28th.

Answers and Guidelines

The six most important requirements are:

header – your full name, the current date, your class and class period, and the teacher’s name

one inch – the margin on all sides; be careful because the default margins in Microsoft Word are 1.25 inches on the sides

page numbers – should appear on only the second and later page – formatted with your last name and the page number

paragraphs – should be indented on half inch OR skip a line between paragraphs, but never both

bibliography – a standard bibliography, at the end of the paper, with the word Bibliography before it, centered on the page

font/size – any non-decorative font (with or without serifs, doesn’t matter), size 10 to 12 points

The most important tools in Word you’ll need are:

Edit Menu- Paste Special

Format Menu – Paragraph (Spacing: Double) Be sure to check in “Help” and search for “page numbers” to find out how to keep the page number off of the first page; AND Format – Paragraph – Alignment (your ID block should be on the right, the title should be in the center and the bibliography should use a “HANGING INDENT”)
And of course, in the File menu, Page Setup for margins.

If you need to make corrections, do so and I will check the paper on your computer next week. Do not email the corrections.

MLA Papers

An MLA paper is a paper written to the standards of the Modern Language Association, which is a group of English teachers and others who wanted to agree on certain ways to do things.

Use this resource to find out what an MLA paper is, then list the six most important parts or elements of an MLA paper in your blog. I will post the answers Monday, and you can check your work.

Next, create a bogus paper with text you copy from a Wikipedia article about your country. Don’t write anything yourself, except your name, class/teacher and date. This paper should be a good example of an MLA paper with no major mistakes. Since you’re not writing anything, all you have to pay attention to is the format, not the content. Just pick five paragraphs from Wikipedia and use them, then make yourself 3 bibliography entries.

By the end of class Monday, you need to attach this paper to an email and send it with the subject: Your Name (First AND Last), class period, Bogus MLA Paper.

Hint: To remove formatting from the text you copy, you need to use the “Paste Special” command from the edit menu. If your paper has more than one font, font size or other formatting, you will have to fix it to pass this assignment.

Chain Emails

Answer these questions in your blog. Do not email the post or answers to me.

1. What is a chain email?
2. What is a chain letter?
3. What is a pyramid scheme?
4. Why do chain emails do more damage than SPAM?

Here are some good sources of information:

BreakTheChain

Snopes

HoaxSlayer

Wikipedia

1. Why do you think that chain emails are so exciting to people?
2. What hoaxes do you find on these sites that you think are scary? funny? (2 examples of each – linked in your post)

This is due at the end of class today, Thursday, October 23rd.

Parts of Your Blog Window

Let’s find out what the different parts of this blog post entry page are. First, do yourself a favor and open another Firefox window, and use the resize controls (the top right buttons on the Firefox window, and the corners and edges) to open two Firefox windows one above the other or side by side. You should be able to see both this blog post from me, and then in the other window, open the page for a New Blog Post.

Start at the upper left of the page, and explain what the parts of this page are. Three words is NOT enough. You should have two complete sentences for each item.

WHAT DOES IT DO???

1. “My Account,” “My Dashboards,” “New Post”
2. Next to the title, the button “Visit Site”
3. Under the title the Tabs “Write,” “Manage,” “Design,” “Comments” and “Upgrades”
4. With the “Write” tab selected, what is the difference between “Post,” “Page” and “Link?”
5. Below that, it says “Title.” What title does it mean? The page? The post? Your blog?
6. Hey, what’s a blog anyway?
7. Why do you think that it calls that next line of text “Permalink?” Do they mean permanent link? Why would you need this? Does it show up before you give your post a title?
8. Do you think that you could get a quiz over this stuff? (Y/N)
9. Under that, there is a line that says “Post” and then to the right it says “Add media:” and has some odd little icons. What is that about?
10. Then, to the right of those icons for “Add Media” are two other tabs. What are they? Why do you want a tab that says Visual and HTML? What would you do with them?
11. If you click on the HTML tab (which you CAN do without losing what you’re writing), you get some different buttons with odd letters and symbols on them. What’s that about?
12. If you go back to the Visual tab, you get a bunch of buttons that look like the buttons in a word processing application like Microsoft Word. What are those buttons for? Tell me about every single one – I count 28 of them. Is there a way to find out what those buttons are without click on them or looking each one up? Yup. Just point your cursor (the little arrow that your mouse moves), and leave the cursor over the button for a second or two. It should have a little tag pop up that gives you the name of that button. Get that name, but ALSO, tell me what it does.
13. In that same set of buttons, tell me why some are “greyed out” so that you can’t use them.
14. Next, you have the window that you type your blog post in. And below or near that is a little gray tab on the left side and next to that it says “Tags” and has a field below it where you can type. What is that for?
15. What’s a tag? (You might have to look this up. Try opening a new tab, then in the little field next to the address bar, which is the Google search bar, type exactly what is here between the arrows >define: tags<, then hit enter (If you put the arrows in, you won’t get the definition, so just type the letters and that little colon thingy). When you get the definitions, look for the line that starts “Tags enable you to associate.” What do they mean by that?
16. Then below that, it has a section that says “Categories.” What do you think that you use categories for? Do I use categories in my posts? If your answer is yes, you’re correct. What category should this post be in? What category should the post “ThinkB4YouSpeak” be in? Am I missing categories on any of my posts? Do any of the categories tell you whether you need to complete something or not?
17. Then below that are a bunch of other tabs or sections that say things like “Excerpt” and “Trackback.” Should we skip those? If you want to, you can tell me about those too, but you don’t have to.
18. The other parts we are going to look at are on the right side of the page. Tell me what these buttons do: Preview, Publish and Save.
    

This assignment is due at the end of class tomorrow, Wednesday, October 22nd. If you are selected from the class, and all of your answers are complete, you will get to skip the quiz. I will choose students from the roster. If you ask me to check yours, you won’t get a pass on the quiz. You should have more than just 18 answers.

Preview of our next activity: Find out what an “outline” is and how to use it when you write a paper. You don’t need to do this, and it shouldn’t be a part of this post. It’s just a preview of the next lesson.

Your Handout

Create a handout for your Country Presentation. The handout should include:

1. the title of your presentation – 10 points
2. your name – 10 points
3. your class period – 10 points
4. your email address – 10 points
5. the current date – 10 points
6. a one sentence synopsis of your presentation – 20 points
7. a bullet list of the information included in your presentation – 20 points
8. your bibliography (a list of sites from which you got information) – 10 points

This handout cannot be longer than one page. This handout is due at the end of class on Tuesday, October 21st.

To turn this assignment you must attach the document to an email and the subject of your email must be in this format: Your first and last name, your class period, and the words: Completed Country Handout

If you do not use the correct subject line, your work will not be accepted. If you do not complete the assignment (all 8 elements, on one page, attached to the email) your work will not be accepted.

It is your responsibility to check your email and be sure that the completed assignment is accepted and that you receive a return email stating that it is accepted.

My email address is: misterbjerke, then that little at sign, then gmail dot com (with no spaces).

Presentation Check

You need to check your presentation against the rubric and then be sure that I sign off on the rubric.

You grade will be determined by this rubric. Without it, you cannot pass.

Presentations not complete by the beginning of class Friday, October 17th, with the rubric turned in, will be counted late, and will lose 10 points per day.