Assignment Overview

For this assignment, students will be broken into groups based on similar professional interests to run a collaborative theme-based blog hosted by WordPress.com. The goal of the assignment will be for you to begin to share your thoughts on issues and ideas relating to your professional aspirations. Through your writings you will begin the process of creating a professional online identity.

Assignment Specifics

Each group will complete the following:

• choose the topical themes of your blog based your professional interests
• name their blog in way that makes it clear what the theme of the blog will be
• choose a layout theme for your blog
• learn several WordPress blog features (how to create posts, add links, add widgets, add images, and so forth)
• write an about page that describes each author of the blog professionally and the kinds of posts that readers can expect
• create a blogroll that links to each of the other course module blogs and no fewer than 10 influential blogs in your professional field (this will take doing some research, and I suggest using some of the blog search engines listed on this Mashable post).
• add the Twitter feeds from each of your blog authors using the WordPress Twitter widget

Each individual in the group will complete the following:

• post at least 2 posts per week per individual (if there are 4 people in the group, that’s at least 8 per week total)
  • 1 post should locate the readings in terms of your professional interests, remembering that the audience for each post is both the class and anyone else who might find it online.
  • 1 should be on another topic that relates to your professional interests and the theme of the blog (start these posts week 2)
• posts can be of any length, but the more nuanced your discussions the better your blog will be (my recommendation is no less than equivalent to 1/2 page single space text)
• posts can and should include images and/or videos, and be sure to include links in your posts where necessary; the more links you have the better your posts will be

WordPress has a very good Support page, and I encourage you to spend some time with it, especially the sections for Getting Started, Creating Content, Manage My Profile, and Customize My Site. Please check these areas before emailing BW with questions.

Update, 3/27
By the end of the module you should have 10 total blog posts:

• the 8 from the blogging assignment (2 per week for 4 weeks), due by the last week of the module
• the 2 for the Prezi, the rough draft and the final draft