IDC 6004 Blogging Guidelines

[andrea_lunsford]

A blog is a public writing space where you share information, thoughts, and ideas that you want to be read by an audience.  Similar to online journals, blogs are only rhetorically successful if their authors are able to draw web traffic to them.  A blog is part of your (or your client's) electronic Identity (e-dentity). Blogs are trending right now as composition spaces that are both dialogic and multimodal in their design and a means of disseminating mass information, corporate training, and innovative ideas for schools and companies alike.

I want you to create a simple blog and write SIX blog posts in two spurts that incorporate multimodal elements.  You may use your choice of platform, but if you haven't blogged before, I suggest WordPress( general) or Edublogs (educational).  If your school or company already has a website, you may want to write your posts for those spaces.

NOTE:  This assignment has TWO PARTS.  For the first part, submit and provide a link to THREE 800-Word Posts.  For the second part, you will produce and submit a link to THREE 800-word posts, but on different topics. 

For Part I, write your posts about your worldview, different research methods, and source selection for a literature review. For Part II, write more about your research design and methods (surveys, interviews, observation, etc).

Resources: What is a Blog?   Educational Blogging   Audiences for Educational Blogs   Business Blog  Royalty-Free Music  Dr. Bohannon's Example

Assessment:  Grading Criteria Content Item located in Course Content Tab

For this assignment:

Objective (Purpose): writing about (your choice of topic) for a specific purpose (marketing; promotion; educational communication for parents, students, teachers); or your own defined purpose.

Requirements:

a. Minimum Word Count: 800 words per post.

b. How Many: Minimum of SIX posts.

c. Multimodal Elements: visual (video, images), audio (podcast), links AT LEAST ONE IN ADDITION TO TEXT PER POST. Please make sure that your multimodal elements are copyright-free or that you have permission from your company or school to use them.

d. Tags at the bottom of each post.  Think about your purpose and audience for each post, then tag each post with at least three keywords.  These keywords will help readers find your post when they search for these keywords on the Internet.

e. Reflection:  Post your textual script and link to your blog in the D2L Dropbox for this assignment.  I also want you to write a brief reflection on your experiences with this assignment.  Let me know what you think about the guidelines, the purpose of the assignment, and how I might improve it for future students.