For this assignment I would like you to think about how the online spaces you have created over the last two weeks represent you and your identity/identities. Think about each online space you have been using—blog, Netvibes, Diigo, Blackboard portfolio—and how they are helping to construct an identity for you online. What do these spaces say about you? How they represent you? How you are being constructed by them just as you are constructing the spaces yourself? How is writing in the many genres we have been exploring contributing to your identity construction?
You may cite from the readings if you would like, but this should not be thought of as an academic paper. You do not need a thesis, intro, conclusion, etc. Rather, I’m more interested in how you are thinking about the online spaces, identity construction, and writing.
As a way to address your identity as constructed by your blog posts, I would like you to make a Wordle of your blog posts. To create the Wordle, complete the following:
- copy the text of all your blog posts together and paste them into the Wordle form field.
- create a layout for your Wordle that is both readable and pleasing to look at
- take a screen shot of your Wordle image (instructions for taking screen shots)
- paste the image into Microsoft Word and crop out the portions not needed
When discussing your Wordle, consider what the larger words say about your interests and topics. Are they consistent with what you thought you would be writing and thinking about? Are there any smaller words that surprised you? How so? Cite briefly from your blog posts as a way to provide evidence for your discussion.
When discussing your Diigo social bookmarks, refer directly to the tag cloud that emerged as a result of your bookmarks. How does that tag cloud relate to the Wordle?
Page length: 2 – 3 pages, double space, Times New Roman, font size 12, 1″ margins (not including the screen shot). I will not accept and cannot read Word Perfect (.wps) files. If you use Word Perfect, save the file in Rich Text Format (.rtf) and upload that file. Submit your paper to your Blackboard portfolio (email Dr. Wolff when you have submitted it).
Due: Monday, July 13 by 11:59pm
Submit your paper to your Blackboard portfolio (email Dr. Wolff when you have submitted it) in the Intro to Writing Arts binder you created. After submitting, make sure you complete Step 5 of the instructions for setting up the Blackboard portfolio:
Add Dr. Wolff as a Guest Portfolio Reviewer of your portfolio so he is able to see your organizational structure and read your paper. You will be asked for his username; it is: wolffw. Read about how to add a Guest Portfolio Reviewer.
In addition to the final paper, make sure that each and every requirement for each of the spaces has been completed. That is, every single bullet point should be fulfilled. Also, please add the following:
- in the same Word document list the following
- your public Netvibes URL
- your blog title and the URL
- your Diigo bookmarks URL
- all blog posting titles and the date they were submitted (there should be at least 8 total)
- add a link to your public Netvibes page and your Diigo bookmarks on your blog’s blogroll
Please email me with any and all questions.
Final Assignment Assessment
The grade is a calculated in the following way:
- Organizational Quality, or how well you set up your portfolio
- Repetition, or how often you posted and if over a series of days;
- Variety, or the variety in the types of posts;
- Identity, or how closely it aligned with the identity discussion in your paper
- Variety, or a variety of different kinds of widgets;
- Total, if you had the required at least 20 widgets and 3 tabs;
- Identity, or how closely it aligned with the identity discussion in your paper
- Tag Quality, or the quality of the tags you composed for each of your bookmarks;
- Folksonomy Quality, or how well the tags create a vocabulary for your identity and interests
- Identity, how closely it aligned with the identity discussion in your paper
Up to 3 extra credit points will be awarded if you include and discuss in detail a screen shot of a portion of your Netvibes page, as well as a screen shot of your Diigo tag cloud for that discussion
Up to 2 extra credit points will be awarded if you create a lesson plan that expolores any of the main ideas discussed the last day of the module and then create a blog post that showcases that plan.
The totals for each area = 100pts. That number is your final grade for the module.
taking, saving, and importing screen shots
A screen shot is a picture of your computer screen, in whole or in part. For example, a few screen shots I have used on my blog:
Screen shots are helpful when you need to incorporate what you see on web pages into essays, blogs, videos, and other documents you are creating. As with most things, Macs and PCs do this in slightly different ways.
Taking and Saving Screen Shots on a Mac
To take a screen shot of a Mac, hold down at the same time:
SHIFT + 4 + Command Key
The Command Keys, also known as the Open Apple keys, are to the right and left of the Spacebar, and look something like this:
This will bring up a cursor that looks like a large + sign. Move the cursor to the top left of the area of the screen you want to capture. Click, hold, and drag the cursor over the entire area. Release the click. You may hear a sound that sounds like a camera shutter.
An image will automatically be saved to your desktop (or wherever the default save is on your computer), called Picture #.png.
Taking and Saving Screen Shots on a PC
To take a screen shot on a PC press the PRINT SCREEN button. The PRINT SCREEN button is located in the upper right of most PC Keyboards, to the right of the F12 key, and amongst these keys:
This will save a copy of the image on your screen to your clipboard (a virtual space on PCs that hold copied items).
Importing and Edit Your Screen Shot
- After the screen shot is taken in Mac and PC, open Word. On a PC press CTRL + V to paste in the image. The image will appear. On a Mac, got to Insert –> Picture –> From File and select the image.
- Click 1 time on the image, which will bring up the Imaging toolbar (in the Mac, it will be in the Formatting Palette).
- Edit the image using the Crop and Wrapping features in the toolbar or formatting palette.
