For those of you researching students' media habits in relationship to technology, you might check out this post on the Read/Write Web: Teens Not into Twitter, TV, Radio, or Newspaper. The post includes a link to a report co-researched and written by a 15-year-old intern at Morgan Stanley.
Also, for those of you interested in media and its effects on society (in some way), Sociological Images is a good blog that occasionally discusses specific media and its relation to conceptions of race, sex, and gender. This post shows a clip from the British show "That Mitchell and Webb Look" that parodies the way advertisements target women and men:
Also, for those of you interested in media and its effects on society (in some way), Sociological Images is a good blog that occasionally discusses specific media and its relation to conceptions of race, sex, and gender. This post shows a clip from the British show "That Mitchell and Webb Look" that parodies the way advertisements target women and men:
In case you don't read Onward State, they have a post about Arts Fest if you're looking for what's going on!
Wysocki and Lynch provide the concept "composing-to-learn" in Chapter 3, which is a way of writing through a topic to see what you know or think or are learning about a topic. It's often more of writing for yourself rather than a final, polished, writing for someone else.
One way you might view your blog is a "composing-to-learn" platform where you can share and develop ideas as you research and delver further into your topics. If you're wondering at this point, "what the heck do I say on my blog?" you might check out some of the suggestions for "helping you think" that Wysocki and Lynch provide on pages 62-64: freewriting, collecting photographs that relate to your topic, doing research and writing about it, seeing a movie or listening to music and and trying to connect it to your topic, generating questions...
One way you might view your blog is a "composing-to-learn" platform where you can share and develop ideas as you research and delver further into your topics. If you're wondering at this point, "what the heck do I say on my blog?" you might check out some of the suggestions for "helping you think" that Wysocki and Lynch provide on pages 62-64: freewriting, collecting photographs that relate to your topic, doing research and writing about it, seeing a movie or listening to music and and trying to connect it to your topic, generating questions...
If you're trying to find some blogs to read related to your blogging/research topics, you might try out Technorati and Google's blog search, both of which have search engines for blog posts.
Blogs are also kind of like books or journal articles. Once you've found a blog you enjoy reading, you can search its blogroll for other blogs to read (much like searching the works cited of a book our journal article). Particularly if you find 3-4 blogs you like and they all link to the same blog, it's probably worth checking out.
Blogs are also kind of like books or journal articles. Once you've found a blog you enjoy reading, you can search its blogroll for other blogs to read (much like searching the works cited of a book our journal article). Particularly if you find 3-4 blogs you like and they all link to the same blog, it's probably worth checking out.
Today we're going to set up our RSS readers for class using Google Reader. Since we'll be using that, I'm going to start occasionally sharing some interesting things I come across that I think some of you would be interested in via this blog instead of via email.
A number of you are researching and writing about social networking sites like Facebook in some way. Today I came across this article at the Economist, We Are All Writers Now, which discusses writing and sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs. Worth reading, I think.
If you're looking for a good blog to read related to Penn State, Onward State is excellent, with some great news stories, public interest stories, fashion "columns," and other interesting PSU-related stuff.
A number of you are researching and writing about social networking sites like Facebook in some way. Today I came across this article at the Economist, We Are All Writers Now, which discusses writing and sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs. Worth reading, I think.
If you're looking for a good blog to read related to Penn State, Onward State is excellent, with some great news stories, public interest stories, fashion "columns," and other interesting PSU-related stuff.
This post should help you upload a file to our iTunesU page.
Step 1. Click here to go to our iTunesU page.
Step 2. Click on Upload files. You'll be taken to a webpage.
Step 3. Click on "add new file," browse for your file, and upload it. Wait for the upload to finish before closing your browser.
It should be fairly simple! Email me if you have problems!
Step 1. Click here to go to our iTunesU page.
Step 2. Click on Upload files. You'll be taken to a webpage.
Step 3. Click on "add new file," browse for your file, and upload it. Wait for the upload to finish before closing your browser.
It should be fairly simple! Email me if you have problems!
There are many reasons you might want to create a PDF:
1. No one else can change the document (without certain software)
2. You won't lose formatting because of different versions of Word or different operating systems
3. You won't lose fonts if you use a font someone else doesn't have them
4. Squiggly lines for spelling and grammar won't show up when someone else looks at your document
5. Every computer can read PDF files with Adobe Acrobat Reader, whereas some people don't use MS Word.
There are of course limitations to PDFs. The major one, in my mind, is the difficulty in reading them for viewers with visual impairments.
Here are some links to easy ways to create PDFs:
On a Mac: click here
On Windows computer: click here (this won't work if it's a campus computer)
On a Campus computer: go here and upload a file. it'll be emailed to you. (You might have to save your file as a .doc file first if it's a .docx file.)
1. No one else can change the document (without certain software)
2. You won't lose formatting because of different versions of Word or different operating systems
3. You won't lose fonts if you use a font someone else doesn't have them
4. Squiggly lines for spelling and grammar won't show up when someone else looks at your document
5. Every computer can read PDF files with Adobe Acrobat Reader, whereas some people don't use MS Word.
There are of course limitations to PDFs. The major one, in my mind, is the difficulty in reading them for viewers with visual impairments.
Here are some links to easy ways to create PDFs:
On a Mac: click here
On Windows computer: click here (this won't work if it's a campus computer)
On a Campus computer: go here and upload a file. it'll be emailed to you. (You might have to save your file as a .doc file first if it's a .docx file.)
This requires knowledge from the previous post, How to add stuff to your sidebar.
Here we're going to run through how to create a widget so that you can create a list of links in your sidebar, often called a blogroll.
Step 1. Log into the dashboard for PSU Blogs and go to your blog's specific dashboard.
Step 2. Under "Design" select "Widgets":
Here we're going to run through how to create a widget so that you can create a list of links in your sidebar, often called a blogroll.
Step 1. Log into the dashboard for PSU Blogs and go to your blog's specific dashboard.
Step 2. Under "Design" select "Widgets":
Step 3. Select "Create Widget Template" seen at the bottom of this image:
You should get an empty text box like this:
Step 4. Give your widget a title. You'll notice that I called this one "Blogroll."
Step 5. Download this file:
Blogroll Text.rtf (will probably open in MS Word)
and copy and paste the text into the textbox, so that it looks like this:
Step 6. If you want your links list called something other than "blogroll" change the word "blogroll" to something else in the line that starts h3 class.
Step 7. Save the widget for now.
Step 8. Using the directions in the post on adding a widget to your sidebar, add the blogroll widget to your sidebar. Make sure to "save changes" and "publish."
Step 9. Whenever you want to add links to your sidebar, do the following:
9A. Go to "Design" -> "Widgets"
9B. Click on "Blogroll" (or whatever you called the widget)
9C. Change the URL text to whatever URL you want to link to and the "text" to whatever you want to call that URL (probably the title of the blog you're linking to)
9D. To add more links, copy the entire line, paste it in as a new line, and replace the URL and the text. Make sure not to change the html tags.
9E. Save changes.
9F. Publish.
You should have successfully created a blogroll!
You should get an empty text box like this:
Step 4. Give your widget a title. You'll notice that I called this one "Blogroll."Step 5. Download this file:
Blogroll Text.rtf (will probably open in MS Word)
and copy and paste the text into the textbox, so that it looks like this:
Step 6. If you want your links list called something other than "blogroll" change the word "blogroll" to something else in the line that starts h3 class.Step 7. Save the widget for now.
Step 8. Using the directions in the post on adding a widget to your sidebar, add the blogroll widget to your sidebar. Make sure to "save changes" and "publish."
Step 9. Whenever you want to add links to your sidebar, do the following:
9A. Go to "Design" -> "Widgets"
9B. Click on "Blogroll" (or whatever you called the widget)
9C. Change the URL text to whatever URL you want to link to and the "text" to whatever you want to call that URL (probably the title of the blog you're linking to)
9D. To add more links, copy the entire line, paste it in as a new line, and replace the URL and the text. Make sure not to change the html tags.
9E. Save changes.
9F. Publish.
You should have successfully created a blogroll!
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