Assignment #3: Blog Identity

Tasks must be completed by Tuesday, 10/9 by midnight

As I explained in class today, Assignment #3 is geared toward laying the groundwork for your blog. We're going to incorporate a few basic components that most good blogs and websites have, and that readers expect as part of an engaging experience on a site. We'll get to the writing over the next few weeks, but we want to keep the horse in front of the cart.

Part I: "About Us" & Mission Statement

First, in class each group created an "About Us" page which will contain your blog's mission statement and any other information that you think is valuable to include and convey to a reader.

If nobody in your group was in class today, one of your group members will need to work through these steps to create this "About Us" page:

1. Go to Blogger.com and sign in
2. Click on your blog's current title
3. Click on “Pages” in the left-hand sidebar

4. Click on “New Page” and select “Blank Page"

5. Title the page “About Us” and write “Mission Statement” in the body of the page, then press “Publish”

6. Click on “Show Pages as” and select “Top Tabs”

7. Click “Save Arrangement”

8. Click “View Blog”. A tab will open, showing your blog as your readers see it. Ensure that you now have a tab on your blog (probably just underneath the title of your blog), where you can see a menu bar. The menu bar should have two options – “Home” and “About Us”

Now your group should have an "About Us" page that you can add content to. You're welcome to include any content you'd like in your "About Us" page that you think will help readers understand what you're doing. For example: bios for your group members; brief statistics about your social issue; short stories about why this social issue is important to you -- whatever.

What is required for this assignment (first) is that you develop a mission statement for your blog and that you begin your "About Us" page with that mission statement. We discussed mission statements in class, and I encourage you to watch this video again for pointers on what a good mission statement consists of and how to create one. You'll work this weekend, in your group, to put together a mission statement for your blog. As you do, keep in mind that I'm putting very few constraints on your group in terms of what you're using this blog for. All that I've asked is that:

1. your blog should address a social issue; 
2. your blog's content should be geared toward an audience (rather than just writing for yourself);
3. you'll need to be able to write at least one post of 500 words per week AND you'll need to be able share one piece of content about your topic per week that you've found elsewhere

These are very wide-open requirements, so discuss among your group what you want to do with your blog this quarter and design your mission statement based on your intentions. For example: you might want to use your blog as a space for debate about your social issue; you might want to use it as a place where you highlight and provide commentary about news developments pertinent to your social issue; you might want to use it to actively advance a political agenda on your topic; or you might want to use it as a place where you share information that you find in the process of researching and learning about your social issue. Really, what you use your blog for is up to your group, as long as that purpose fits with the 3 requirements above.

Part II: Blogroll

A "blogroll" is a list of links, usually found in the sidebar of a blog, that directs readers to other blogs and sites about related topics. See, for example, The Monkey Cage--a political blog that, in the left-hand sidebar, includes links to other political blogs. Creating a blogroll like this is generally recognized as a good practice for a blogger or website: it's a place for you and your readers to further explore your social issue; it gives readers a sense of you and your sites's "identity"; and by linking to other sites, those other sites may be willing to link to yours. In lab, I demonstrated how we can create a blogroll that not only links to other sites, but also generates for readers the headline for that other site's most recent post.

The second part of this assignment, then, is for you create a blogroll that links to the sites you identified as part of your "peer group" for Assignment #2.

To construct your blogroll,

1. Go to Blogger.com and sign in
2. Click on your blog's current title
3. Click on “Layout” in the left-hand sidebar

4. In blue area on right-hand side, click "Add Gadget"

5. In the window that pops up, scroll through the list of what Blogger calls "gadgets" to the "Blog List" gadget and click the + sign

6. In the window now named "Configure Blog List," change the title from "My Blog List" to "Related Sites & Blogs" (or something along those lines -- the title's up to you)

7. Open a new tab, navigate to one of the sites you gathered information about for last week's "Peer Group Reconnaissance" assignment, and copy that site's URL from the address bar

8. Return to the "Configure Blog List" window, and click "Add a blog to your list"

9. Paste that peer group site's URL into "Add by URL" space, and then click "Add"

10. There's a chance, when you try to add a peer group site's URL, that Blogger will give you an error warning saying "Could not detect a feed for this URL." If that happens, go back to your peer group site and see if there's a page or blog on the site with regularly-updated, reverse-chronologically organized articles. Copy that regularly-updated page's URL and see if the error message goes away this time. If you can't find a page on the site that avoids this error message, don't fret about it--add the URL anyways (your blogroll just won't note for readers the most recent post from that other site).

10. Repeat step 9 for each of your "peer group" sites from Assignment #2.
11. After you've added the URLs for each of your "peer group" sites, click "Save"

12. Back at the "Layout" page on your blog's dashboard, click "Preview" and a tab will open showing you how your blog--including this blogroll--will look after it's published.

13. If you want to make adjustments to your blogroll, close the tab previewing your site, return to the "Layout" page, and click the "edit" button on your blogroll.

14. If you're happy with the way your blogroll looks, click "Save Arrangement" on the layout page

 

Part III: Blog Title and URL

A good title and URL are an underrated element of a successful blog or website. When we first created our blogs, you probably hadn't put much thought into the name of your blog. Discuss as a group whether you'd like to change your title and URL and what you'd like to change it to (ideally, the URL will include the same words as the name of your blog). As we discussed in class, there are a couple things to think about when picking a good name for your blog.

• How original and unique is it?
• How descriptive is it?
• What image does it convey?
• Would you remember it after seeing it once?
• Could you spell it after hearing it once?

To change the name and URL for your blog, complete the following steps:

1. Go to Blogger.com and sign in

2. Click on your blog's current title

3. Click on “Settings" in the left-hand sidebar

4. Here you can edit the title and URL (or address) for your blog. Keep in mind that some URLs that you like for your blog may already be taken -- there are millions of other folks that use Blogger, and someone may already use the URL you'd want. In this case, try variations on your URL as you see fit.

5. If your group changes your blog's name and URL, you'll need to have one of your group's members complete URL submission form again as you did in Assignment #2 (otherwise I won't know how to get to your blog's URL. To do this, click "View Blog."

6. This will open your blog as a reader would see it. (NOTE: the URL should read something like this: "nameofyourblog.blogspot.com"). Copy the URL for your blog from the address bar.

7. Enter your name and your blog's URL in this URL Submission Form form and click "Submit."

Assignment 3 Rubric:

A full-credit, 20-point completion of this week’s social issue publishing activities will:

• … include an “About Us” page on your blog with a mission statement at the top of the page
• … ensure that your group’s mission statement (a) explains why your site exists, and (b) does so in a short (15 words or less), memorable, inspiring, and audience-focused way
• … include a blogroll with links to your peer group blogs/sites (at least four peer group links for each of your group members)
• … ensure that each of your blogroll links is active (i.e., not broken links), and that links to the most recent posts for most of your peer group sites are automatically generated by the blogroll (this won’t be possible for every site, but make your best efforts)
• … incorporate a blog name (and closely corresponding URL) that is some combination of the following: (1) original & unique, (2) descriptive, (3) image-conveying, (4) memorable, and (5) easily spelled
• … update T.C. of any changes to your URL by using this URL Submission Form form.

15-points: Satisfies most, but not all of the criteria above, and does so in a satisfactory manner

10-points: Satisfies some, but not all of the criteria above, and does so with some important deficiencies

5-points: Satisfies little of the criteria above, and does so with serious deficiencies

0-points: No assignment submitted or submitted late