Because most of our learning for this class will involve the Internet, it will be helpful for us all to have our own online personal learning environments (PLEs) where we can reflect on our learning, turn in assignments, share ideas with each other, take notes, and store “stuff” related to technology integration that you may want or need in the future. Many people use PLEs to help them become lifelong learners in a particular discipline. For example, I use a PLE in my own professional learning (see my other blog).
For this assignment, you will create your own PLE, using a blog or wiki. I recommend that you create a blog using Blogger because you can access it with the same Google username that you will use for other assignments in this class. If you don’t have a Google account, you’ll need to create one at http://mail.google.com. Blogger is also easier to use, in my opinion. However, if you have prior experience with blogs, you might want to try something new and more powerful like Edublogs, or some other technology that allows you more options. This very website is an example of what you can do with WordPress, which is the free technology used for Edublogs. Whatever you use must have an RSS feed so we can follow your posts (if you don’t know what that is, then you should use Blogger, which does have this). Because most of you will create a blog, we will usually just call our PLEs “blogs” for short.
Resources
- * (recommended) Blogger tutorial
- Adding static pages to Blogger
- Blogger help page
- Edublogs tutorials
- RSS in plain English
Evaluation Rubric
Characteristic |
Stellar |
Adequate |
Unacceptable |
Created a blog or PLE
|
Personalized through doing the following:
–Creating an about me page – Adding one or more of the following: pictures, a new theme, and gadgets/widgets/plugins (write a post about what themes/widgets/plugins you chose) |
Personalized through an “About Me” page and a list of important links, including your group members’ blogs (blogroll) | The blog exists, but we don’t know by whom! |
| Made it social (3 pts) | Added a blogroll with links to your group members’ blogs, and my blog. | Added a blogroll with links to your favorite websites. | Talk to the hand, I’m not social. |
Made it reflective
|
Labeled (or tagged) your post, and linked to at least one outside source. | Tagged your post. | Wrote a post describing your technology background and personal goals for this course. |
FAQs
1. How do I submit my assignment?
Just email me (rickwest – at- byu – dot – edu) or Pam (pamela.bayles – at – gmail.com) with your blog URL. All future assignments will just be submitted by posting them on your blog.
2. How do I know who my group is to give them my blog URL?
It takes a little bit of time to create the groups because people add/drop the class and things get shifted around. We will provide your groups by the second class period and then give you a couple of days to add your group members’ blogs to your own blog.
3. How do I link to an outside source?
When writing a post, highlight a word and click on the icon that looks like a chain link over a globe. In the drop down window, type in the URL that you want to link to. That’s it!
4. How do I label, or tag, a post in Blogger?
When writing the post, look underneath the main text box and you’ll see a small text box where you type in keywords, or “labels” associated with your post.
5. What should I write about in my blog entry?
We are not grading content for this assignment, we’re only grading that you have done everything correctly. However, it is helpful for us if you can blog about what your past experience has been with technology and what you hope to learn most in this class.
6. How do I add my group members’ blogs to my sidebar?
This is done through a widget/gadget. All widget/gadgets are found in your dashboard for your blog (where you write posts after logging in) and selecting the layout tab. You will be able to add different widgets/gadgets, including one for a list of links that you can use to make a list of your group members’ blogs.
7. Is “following” my group members blogs the same as putting their links in my sidebar?
Not really. Following is a good thing to do if it’s easier that way for you to read what they have written each week. The point of this part of the assignment is that we want to have you learn how to make a list of links to your favorite websites. So follow the steps outlined in the previous question and add a gadget/widget where you can create a list of links.
