Pukman @ WinK: the community that time didn't forget

Do you like Swamp Works?

1. Did you do your blog check? (You cannot pass the course without doing this.)
2. Have you written at least 10 book reports?
3. Do you have at least 30 posts on your blog?
4. Isyour blog sidebar properly organized with blog links, Kumamoto links, other links, and labels?
   

1. Are there any gaps of 2 weeks or more in your blog? (For example, you missed one class and didn't write anything between classes.) This is a big negative.
2. Are there more than 2-3 weeks where you didn't write anything on your blog between classes? Also a big negative.
3. Are there many posts which were machine-translated? These will not be counted. (It's OK to use the computer translators to help you with a word or short phrases, but not a whole sentence.)
   

If you answered Yes to the 1st four, and No to the 2nd three, you're probably doing OK.

One more question: Have you done your presentation and posted it on your blog? If not, make sure that you learn how to do it today, and finish the presentation and post it before the end of the holiday.

Book Reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Check out this page! It has all the presentations tagged with "kumamoto". Most are by KGU students. I'm looking forward to seeing presentations by PUK students!

And don't forget to see the list!

Many people now use cellphones to take photos and then transfer the photos to their blogs. Probably the best way to do this is to become a member of flickr and upload your photos there. You can then import your photos from flickr, or even blog from flickr.

To become a flickr member you first have to join Yahoo.com (the American service, not Japanese). Some people don't want to do this, and for them there are several alternative ways.

One way is to send your photos from your phone by email to your Gmail account, for example. Then, when you are at a computer, you can open the mail and download the photo to your computer, and then upload the photo to your blog.

The pictures show you two SD/miniSD adapters. Most modern cellphones have a miniSD card slot, on which people keep their photos. Take the card out of the phone and insert it into the adapter, then insert the adapter into a USB port on your computer (on the computer itself, not the keyboard). The card will appear on your desktop, and you can copy photos onto the computer, and then upload in the normal way.

I've just found a very interesting list of unusual blogs that are worth reading. Why not read one or two of them and tell everyone about them?

Check out some of the presentations about Kumamoto that students have made:

• Yuhimi team
• Kaori
• Yuri
• Safu
• Narumi
• Kazu
• Shiorin
• Iyoume
• Nanae

What food blogs do you like? My favourite is Cooking with Amy. You can search for recipes there. I like this recipe for pancakes.
Please recommend food sites that you like!

Are you interested in Indian food? Check out this site!

Check out this presentation! And then visit Slideshare.net to see more presentations about Kumamoto, and many other topics.

If you found last week's podcasts rather difficult, try this one. They speak very slowly and they have a transcript too.

If you're interested in food, look for dining in the tag search section.

Today I read The Spider and the Beehive, a book in the Scholastic Folk & Fairytale Easy Readers series. A boy was well known in the forest as being very skilled at finding the best fruit. So one day a spider asked the boy to guide him to a place with the best plums. The boy guided him there but the spider ate all the plums without sharing any. The same happened when the boy took him to the banana tree. But when they went to a beehive, the spider ate so much honey that he was stuck inside the hive, and the boy refused to help him get out. Eventually the spider got out but from that day he was kind to everyone.

In this presentation I talk about 3 nice spots in Kumamoto, Japan: Mitsui Greenland, Kumamoto Castle, and Aso.

Kumamoto Castle is Known as one of the "Big 5" castles of Japan. It was built in ===== by Kato Kiyamasa.

Aso is famous as the biggest caldera in the world. It has an active volcano.

Mitsui Greenland is an amusement park in Arao.

Extra information about Mitsui Greenland here.

Today, let's learn how to upload our presentations. You should master how to do this during the lesson, even if you haven't finished your presentation. Then you can finish it off for homework and upload the new one. You need to do this before next week's lesson!

I hope that your blog, with book reviews, some short essays, a collaborative essay about Kumamoto, a presentation, Kumamoto links, links to other blogs, and of course some diary-type posts, is becoming something that you can be proud of. You should show it to prospective employers, or overseas schools, etc.

Total words this semester: 6120

How many total posts? 54

How many posts
in September: 10
in October: 17
in November: 23
in December: 4
in January:

(use labels for the following)
How many posts
about books: 8
with links: 12
with pictures/photos: 8

How many complex posts? (at least 3 links and 1 photo):

Sidebar: Do you have:
a labels section: YES
a Kumamoto links section: YES
other blogs: YES
(including at least 2 blogs from other classes in the WinK community: YES )

Comments (look in your dashboard):
How many comments are there on your blog? 2

Assignments/Book reviews:

How many book reviews have you written?
Have you done these assignments?:

1. assignment 1: review (at least 3 paragraphs of at least 3 sentences):
2. assignment 2: blog post about Kumamoto
3. assignment 3: collaborative essay about Kumamoto
4. assignment 5: presentation about Kumamoto
5. assignment 6: (collaborative) movie review; or kumamoto-i wiki assignment

Other questions:

1. What is the longest gap between posts on your blog?
   

Fairy tales: http://feeds.feedburner.jp/classic

Science show: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/default.htm

Here's another example of a presentation embedded in this blog through Slideshare. How to do this:

1. Join Slideshare
2. Convert your Keynote presentation to PowerPoint.
3. Upload the PowerPoint presentation to Slideshare.
4. Go to your presentation in Slideshare. Look for the embed field on the right side of your presentation. Copy ALL the text in that field.
5. Make sure the compose (sakusei) window is open in Blogger. Paste the text into a post.

Here is an example of a presentation embedded in a blog by using Slideshare.

Today I read The Nightingale, in the Scholastic Folk & Fairy Tale Easy Readers series. (I can't find this edition of the book on Amazon Japan, but here is another edition.) A king in China heard about a famous nightingale and invited it to stay in his palace and sing to him everyday. The nightingale sang beautifully, but one day the king received a present of a mechanical nightingale from a king in Japan, and gradually lost interest in the real nightingale. So he flew away.

What will the king think? Will the nightingale ever come back? Find out on the 3rd floor of the PUK library!

Natchan found a video of U2 (and Green Day?) singing The Saints are Coming. Check out her blog later!

Do you like U2 or Green Day? I came across their song "The Saints are Coming" on the iTunes Store. (I recommend that you download iTunes for your home computer and check out the store!) The 1st verse of the song goes like this:

I cried to my daddy on the telephone, how long now?
Until the clouds unroll and you come home, the line went.
But the shadows still remain since your descent, your descent.

How many total posts?
How many words? (Calculate this last.)

How many posts
in October:
in November:
in December:
in January:

(use labels for the following)
How many posts
about books:
with links:
with pictures/photos:

Sidebar: Do you have:
a labels section: YES / NO
a Kumamoto links section: YES / NO
other blogs: YES / NO
(including at least 2 blogs from other classes in the WinK community: YES / NO )

Comments (look in your dashboard):
How many comments are there on your blog?

Here are two more sites where you can practice reading online. Remember to copy the text and paste it into rikai.com Also, it's a good idea to paste the text into Spreeder and read it through once very fast, before reading more slowly.

Here are the sites: 410 Reading Exercises, and Classic Fairy Tales.

For students who want to improve their vocabulary, there are two main ways:

1. Extensive reading
2. Learning from your own wordcards (or an online flashcard service such as V-Flash or iKnow)
3. Working through vocabulary textbooks

Each has its own special characteristics and advantages. Learning through extensive reading may not feel very satisfying, because we don't know exactly what we are learning, and learning may seem very slow. On the other hand, extensive reading allows us to meet the same words many times, and we can pick up vocabulary without much effort. Also, words that we have picked up through extensive reading are not easily forgotten.

Learning from wordcards takes some determination, and for many people it seems very troublesome. However, it has the big advantage that it allows us to learn many words in a short time. Because we notice that our vocabulary is growing, this way of learning can be very satisfying. The most important thing to remember with this way of learning is that it works best if you do lots of repetitions at the beginning.

There are lots of good vocabulary books available. For serious students who want to build their vocabulary to 6000 words and beyond, however, the Vocabulary in Use series is generally recommended. The two chief attractions of this series are that the words are carefully chosen and the ways the words are used are also taught thoroughly.

For students who want to improve their vocabulary, there are two main ways:

1. Extensive reading
2. Learning from your own wordcards (or an online flashcard service such as V-Flash or iKnow)
3. Working through vocabulary textbooks

Each has its own special characteristics and advantages. Learning through extensive reading may not feel very satisfying, because we don't know exactly what we are learning, and learning may seem very slow. On the other hand, extensive reading allows us to meet the same words many times, and we can pick up vocabulary without much effort. Also, words that we have picked up through extensive reading are not easily forgotten.

Learning from wordcards takes some determination, and for many people it seems very troublesome. However, it has the big advantage that it allows us to learn many words in a short time. Because we notice that our vocabulary is growing, this way of learning can be very satisfying. The most important thing to remember with this way of learning is that it works best if you do lots of repetitions at the beginning.

There are lots of good vocabulary books available. For serious students who want to build their vocabulary to 6000 words and beyond, however, the Vocabulary in Use series is generally recommended. The two chief attractions of this series are that the words are carefully chosen and the books also teach thoroughly the ways the words are used.

I just found a nice site for children's books like Harry Potter, Lemony Snickett, etc.

Have you ever read Usborne books? Usborne is perhaps my favourite publisher for children and young people, so over the last 2-3 years I've been trying to find as many of their books as possible for the PUK library, and now we have quite a collection.

Most recently I got some books in the Totally Lucy series. I read one of them in about an hour last week. It was kind of similar to Jacqueline Wilson or Meg Cabot in style. I don't think I'll be reading all of them, but I recommend them to English dept students and more advanced students in science.

But people probably know Usborne's Young Reading series best. Most of the books in the series have 1000-2500 words, so it's easy to read them in a short time, but they're more satisfying than most other books of similar length. And the illustrations and binding are always excellent.


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When we read books in English it's good to read a wide variety, so that we can find various types of book that we like, and get a wide range of information and ideas.
But it's also good to read "narrowly". That means that we read many similar books. When we do this, we find that many of the same words and expressions, and also themes, are repeated. That means that with each book we can read a little more fluently and maybe go deeper.
There are several ways to read narrowly. We could read a famous story, such as Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, in various editions. Another way is to read books by the same author, preferably in the same series. This is what Yu seems to be doing. Look at her reviews of Take a Good Look, Lizzie Zipmouth, The Suitcase Kid, and Sleepovers, all by Jacqueline Wilson. This is a great way to get to know an author. Each book is also quite long, so Yu is doing a lot of work and getting lots of valuable input!

Today I read the Fox and the Crow, one of Aesop's fables. A fox was out for a walk, when he saw a crow sitting in a tree, with a piece of cheese in his mouth. The fox thought: "That cheese looks delicious. I want to eat it." So he hatched a cunning plan. He stood below the tree and spoke to the crow: "You are so beautiful!" The crow was very happy. Then the fox said: "And I'm sure you must have a great singing voice." So the crow started to sing, and as she did so the cheese fell into the fox's mouth. The moral of the story is: "Don't be fooled by flattery".

As usual, I'd like you to read an English book and write about it this week. But instead of working on an essay, I'd like you to read 2 extra books and write about them. In other words, you should read 3 books and write about them.

As usual, I leave the choice of books up to you. If you have lots of time, you might want to read a long book. If you are very busy, you should read very short and easy books. Please write a separate short post for each one. If possible, please take a photo and insert a link to information about the book (e.g. on amazon.co.jp).

How was the V-Check test? I recommend you take it twice a year until you graduate, to see how much your vocabulary is growing. As a guideline, you should aim for a vocabulary of at least 6000 words before you graduate.

Many people have quite a big vocabulary, but they have gaps at the lower levels, usually the second thousand words. These are the most important words so you should try to fill this gap as soon as possible. Take a look at the LDV list!

In my classes of November 21st and 22nd, let's all take the V-Check vocabulary diagnostic test. Diagnostic test means that it helps you to check your own vocabulary size. I will get the average result for each class, but I won't know who got what score. This is not used for assessment, but for research and for planning teaching.

Please use your GMail address to register. And please be sure to enter the correct class code when you take the test.

Do you like cats? If so, please take a look at this post! (Please write a comment if you have time.) And please post your own cat pictures, linking to any other interesting cat posts!

A friend of mine who's a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University has made a company that makes software to help Japanese students test and learn vocabulary. So today let's take a short test to estimate our vocabulary size (students only please, not class auditors). Please visit Lexxica and register, then take the V-Check test. When you take the test you need to enter the class code that I will give you in class.

Related to the previous post introducing websites related to chocolate, don't forget that there are some interesting books about it too.

My favourite is the Usborne book, The Story of Chocolate. We have this in the PUK library. There are also two other books with the same title, one from Dorling Kindersley, and the other from Black Cats.

Another book, Does Chocolate Grow on Trees?, features chocolate but also talks about other things. And, of course, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is always interesting!

I've just found some interesting links related to chocolate. If you're interested take a look!

First, the Cadbury chocolate site. Cadbury is Britain's most famous chocolate company. I recommend the "Make chocolate in our virtual factory" game.

The biggest chocolate company in the USA is Hershey's. Take a look at some of the recipes.

Oxfam has a site called Chokky Central that tells us about how chocolate and chocolate biscuits ("chokky bikkies") are made, introduces fair trade, and has interesting quizzes.

A good site for interesting short passages for reading is Penguin Dossiers. It has articles about, for example, Christmas, Chinese New Year, soccer, James Bond, Christina Ricci, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc. They are quite short and reasonably easy to read.

It's difficult to read quickly if you don't know most of the words. Rikai can help you with that. To use rikai, it is best to open 2 tabs in Firefox. In one tab, open an article from Penguin Dossiers that looks interesting. Select and copy the text. In the other tab, open rikai, and paste the text into the window. Then press Go. Move your mouse over any words that look difficult.

Most people read slowly out of habit. Spreeder ("speed reader") can help you do that. Paste the text from the Penguin Dossiers article into Spreeder, and change the settings to about 240 words per minute and chunks of 3 words. Then concentrate as the words appear on the screen. Don't worry if you cannot read all of them.

If 240 words seemed too fast, move the speed UP to 300, and read again. Then go down to 200, and finally back up to 240. Probably it won't seem too fast. Remember you can read 3 times at 300 wpm in the same time it takes to read once at 100 wpm.

After sending your attendance email and writing your 十分は十分 post, it's time to try to finish your collaborative essays. Work together. Call me to your desk for help with grammar and comments, etc. Remember you should correct as many grammar and spelling mistakes as possible before the deadline. Check out the Orangoo spellchecker.
For phrases, check out the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online.

Checklist:
spelling
grammar: subject, verb, 3rd person singular present "s", past/present
paragraph: does each paragraph have a clear topic? at least 3 sentences?; no returns in the paragraph?; 2 returns after each paragraph?
links
pictures

Ai likes pineapples. I like mango.

I went to the shops and bought some apples and some bananas.

I like fruit very much. I like all kinds of fruit, but my favourites are blueberries, raspberries, mango, and pineapple.

Today is the last class in October, and soon the semester will be half over. After sending your attendance email, and writing your 十分は十分 quickpost, let's look back at the first few weeks of the semester and think about the remainder of the semester.

Many of you have little experience writing in English. And maybe typing and using a computer are difficult for you. So many people have not been able to write very much. So I have set a minimum requirement:

3 posts a week, including one book report.

Now, 4 weeks have passed since the beginning of the semester, so you should have written at least 12 posts + today's quickpost.

(In addition, my guideline is that you should write on your blog on 3 different days a week, i.e. class day and 2 other days. Sometimes, when you are very busy, this might be reduced to 2 days a week.)

Remember that the 3 posts a week rule is a minimum. Since it is quite easy to write 2 posts during each class, 3 posts a week is probably not enough for you to really improve your English. Once you have become accustomed to blogging, most of you should be able to write more posts or longer posts.

Also today, we will talk about pictures, and about links and labels.

Reading lots of English books to learn English, and then blogging about the books, is becoming more and more popular in Japan. I believe it is one of the best ways to learn English. Here's a site I found recently. We can get lots of good ideas for reading here.

Some important points about the collaborative essay:

1. The essay should be collaborative. That means that 2 (or more) people work on it together.
   You should both post the same essay in the end.
2. You should discuss all aspects of the essay together: content, grammar, links, paragraph structure, etc. Check each other's work. Think about grammar points such as singular/plural, past/present, etc.
3. The essay should contain many links, at least 3. Of these, at least one should be a pininthemap.com link, so that people can find the place easily.

Finally, remember to link to your partner's essay (or partners' essays)!

1. First thing, as usual, is to send me an attendance mail, using the subject writing4-1 and the content written on the whiteboard, and then write a 十分は十分 quickpost.

2. Next, please comment on at least 5 posts from members of the WinK community. You can follow the links from my blog or from the WinK site or from the new WinK Hits blog, or follow a chain of links between lots of student blogs.

3. Now let's talk about the next assignment. First check the class calendar to see when it's due, then consider your schedule with the campus festival approaching. And remember that book reviews are due every week as usual.

The assignment is to write a collaborative essay of at least 5 paragraphs about Kumamoto, containing at least 3 links, at least 1 of which should be a map. I'll write more details of how to do this in my next post.

Today, let's spend more time exploring WinK and interacting with other members.

There are 3 good entry points to WinK: my blog (see Featured Blogs in the sidebar), WinK Hits (a new blog by a graduate of KGU, linking to many interesting posts), and the WinK site. Please use these to visit many blogs, and write a comment on at least 10 posts.

Then, please work on your blog sidebar. You need at least a block of Kumamoto links and a block of links to other blogs.

Hi everyone,
Sorry about the confusion with the rooms and computers. The computer rooms are in great demand, so everybody hoped that our small class would move out of the big room. I hope you'll think of our new room as a nice, cozy place to study!

Piro's blog is very nice!

It can be very annoying if people leave comments on your blog that are aimed at selling something. These are called "spam". To avoid spam, I recommend the settings you can see in these screenshots. If you do this, when people comment on your blog, they will have to enter some letters into a box. This stops robots from leaving comments at random.

1st 20 minutes: attendance email + 十分は十分
The subject of your email should be writing4-2.
Today's message is exploring WinK.

I the rest of the class we'll be exploring WinK (Weblogging in Kumamoto), visiting, reading, commenting, and linking to other blogs. Have fun!

Write a blog post about Kumamoto. It could be a sightseeing spot, a place you like, a shop, food, anything connected to Kumamoto! Check the calendar for deadlines, etc.

Sometimes I will choose a student's blog, or some other blog, and write some comments about it. Maybe you can learn something new from looking at the blog. And sometimes I might have a suggestion for the blog I'm commenting on.

The first one is Aya's Blog. I would like to draw attention to Aya's use of Labels. She uses "Book Review" for her book reviews and "Blog" for diary-type posts. She has a list of labels at the bottom of the page, so that we can read all her book reviews, for example.

One little problem is the "Book Review" heading at the top of the sidebar, because not all the things under that heading are book reviews. Can anyone think of a better heading?

In this class, my priority is helping students who have had basic problems with GMail or Blogger, and if necessary I will spend most of the class giving individual help.
Students who have set up their blog without any problems have several things to do, so please don't waste time! And please feel free to wander round the classroom, asking questions and helping each other.

For the following instructions, I recommend that you sit in pairs and read them together. Then student B can watch and help while student A follows the instructions. Don't rush! Then student A can watch and help while student B follows the instructions.

1. Get ready for the class by logging into GMail. After you have logged in, open a new tab or window, and go to beta.blogger.com. Then open a new tab or window and visit my blog (pukman-gu.blogspot.com). In this way, you can check or send email, write in your blog, and check my blog very easily without losing your place. Try not to use the back button in your browser.
   
2. Write a short post about some topic that interests you. Try to finish this in 10 minutes. View your blog in another window or tab.
   
3. This class is part of the Weblogging in Kumamoto (WinK) project. Please take a look at some of the blogs made by students at KGU. You can find them at the WinK site, which you should open in a new tab or window. (Go to the Feeds or the WinK blogs temporary links section.) Look at some of the designs the KGU students use, and also how much they have written.
4. Now customize your blog. Go to the Template section in your dashboard. Change colours or fonts, or add page elements, to express yourself through your blog.
5. Now go to the WinK site again, and visit the WinK blogs temporary links section. Check that your blog is listed. If it isn't, copy your blog URL and then go to GMail and send me an email. The subject should be be4. Inside the email, paste your blog URL and write your name.

Good luck! Of course, I am happy to help as time allows, but the most important thing today is to make sure that everyone has mastered the basics.

Hi, everyone,

An important part of the course is reading and linking to blogs in your own class and in other blogging classes in Kumamoto. So you need a list of other students' blogs. Please visit this temporary list. There are many, many students in different classes, so it's possible I have made some mistakes. If your blog is not there, or if the link is incorrect, please email me as soon as possible. When you email me, be sure to use the correct subject so that I know which class list to work on.

When I have the full, corrected list, I'll post it on the official WinK site.

Hi, everyone, great to meet you. I was surprised to see so few people taking this class, but I think we're going to have fun!

A few words about this blog. This is my teaching blog, and I use it in addition to my personal and research blogs. Until last semester I used a different blog for each class; now I use this Blogger beta blog for all of them. To see posts connected to your class, click on "me4".

A big advantage of blogs for a class is communication. So I hope you'll link to each other's blogs to create a blogging community, not only in this class, but also in my Faculty and in KGU. Bye for now.

Please send me an email through GMail.

The subject should be writing4-2 or writing4-1, depending on which class you attend. (Please remember to always use this subject when you email me. And no spelling mistakes, please!)
Today's phrase is "customizing my blog". (Please add your name, too!)

The first assignment is to write a 3-paragraph review of a book or movie. You can write about the same movie or book as before, but be sure to write 3 good paragraphs. Each paragraph should have 3 or more sentences. Remember NOT to press RETURN within the paragraph, but press it twice between paragraphs.

In the 2nd class, the first task is to customize our blog. You may like to change your template, or change some of the colours. You can also add things to the side of your page, such as links to sites or other blogs.

Basic English 2 classes are held in standard classrooms, so we won't make heavy use of blogs. But I will sometimes post some important information here, so you should visit from time to time. And if you want to make your own blog, tell me your address, then you can communicate with other students who are blogging.

You should check the class calendar (available from the sidebar) from time to time. I will tag messages aimed at all BE2 students "be2". Special information for each group will be tagged "be2a" or "be2d".

Here are some screenshots of the GMail sign-up process. Take your time, and be careful not to make mistakes. Remember that GMail has millions of users so, for example, "taro" is not an acceptable username. If your name is Taro Miyamoto, you might try "taro.miyamiya".

Hi everyone and welcome to Writing 4! This course will be quite similar to Writing 3, with some differences.

First of all, the course is based around blogging. Probably, you can all type faster and write more than you could in the 1st semester, so you can enjoy blogging more and make your blogs more interesting.

Second, as in the first semester, you should write weekly book reviews.

Third, we will also have regular writing assignments. But there will be more variety in the assignments. We will do some work exploring and explaining Kumamoto, and we will try to use some multimedia. We will work in pairs or small groups sometimes. I will try to link some of your activities to those of the Modern English 4 students in the Faculty of Letters at PUK, so you can share ideas with them.

Last semester, I generally used different blogs with different classes. This semester I am doing everything on this blog. The most important messages to Writing 4 students will be marked "wri4". But you should read as many of my other posts as possible, particularly those marked "teachertalk". Also, I have created a class calendar, with dates of classes and assignment deadlines. Remember these are deadlines: if you do the assignments early, you don't need to worry about them.

Finally, I'm going to ask you to create a new blog on Blogger beta for this class, linked to a GMail account. It may be a little inconvenient at first, but the features are much better than the original Blogger, and it allows you to change colours and the appearance of your blog easily.

Hi, has everyone seen Kana's photos? They're very nice. Hey, don't forget to give the photos names, Kana!

Did you notice Akicyann's post about writing essays? She found a site that gives lots of advice in Japanese. Check it out if you have time! I particularly liked this page on essay structure.

We're going to use Blogger beta. Go to www.blogger.com and choose the Blogger beta command at the top of the page.
Then choose "Create a blog".
You will be taken to Stage 2, which is naming your blog. The blog title is the words you want to appear at the top of your page. You can use any letters (upper or lower case), spaces, etc. Use your imagination!
But the blog address (URL) is not so free. Please DON'T use SPACES, UPPERCASE LETTERS, !, ?, commas, or any other unusual symbols. Just use lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens. (Only lowercase letters is easiest to remember.) But remember that there are already millions of blogs. If you write something very simple and short, that URL probably won't be available.
After you have input your URL, click "Check availability". If that URL is already taken, choose one from the list of suggestions, or try a new one. Be patient!
When you have a blog title and URL, type the word verification code and press continue.
Choose a template. Don't spend too long deciding because you can choose from a wider selection later.
Then write your first post! The purpose is to test your blog, so make the post very short. (You can edit it later.) Press "Publish".
Choose "View Blog in a new window". Can you see your blog? Write down the URL that you can see in the address bar. This is your blog address to tell me and your friends.

The service we will use for blogging in this course is Blogger.com (http://www.blogger.com). Blogger.com is owned by Google, and is very popular worldwide. If possible we will use Blogger beta, because this is much better than the original Blogger.com.

Before we use any kind of web service like Blogger.com, we have to sign up. This means we tell Blogger.com who we are. The most important thing we need for this is an email address. Your university email address is not ideal for this, because you may not be able to use it when you are outside the university. So we will use a webmail service called GMail, also owned by Google. You will use this email address when you sign up for Blogger.com, and when you sign up for any other web service.

The most important thing to remember is:

• You must write down your GMail username and password! You need this to check your mail and to use Blogger. If you forget other passwords, you can usually get a new one through GMail. But if you can't use GMail, things will be very difficult.

And two more things to remember: sign up means to become a member; sign in means to log in as a member to use the service. So you only sign up once, but you sign in every time you want to use the service.

Our main activity in Basic English 4 is blogging. A blog (web log) is a kind of online journal that anyone can read. It's a good way for you to write (in English) about anything that interests you. Because everyone in the class will have a blog, you can read all your friends' blogs, too. So blogging is a good way to communicate with everyone.

To enjoy blogging, it's important that you write often. If you write often, you will learn to use the blogging software, you will become a faster typist, you will think faster in English, and you will communicate better with your classmates. Then blogging will become more enjoyable and you will learn to write more naturally. So, for the first month or so, you need to blog on at least 4 days each week (including the day of the class). A key phrase for your blogging is "十分は十分": if you can find 10 minutes to use a computer, that is enough to write a post. At the beginning, don't worry how much you write each time. And you can write about anything: what you did last night, your hobby, a difficult lecture, a TV programme you watched yesterday, etc.

Another key phrase for the course is: "If it isn't written down, it didn't happen." That means that if you attend a class but don't write even one blog post, that is the same as being absent. And if you do a class activity but don't write about it on your blog, that's the same as not doing the activity.

Don't forget that you can blog from any computer with an Internet connection. Just visit www.blogger.com and enter your username and password.

I'll tell you more about the course in another post. For now, just remember: 十分は十分 !

This is my first post on the new Blogger beta. The only change I can see is the addition of labels, or tags, and that is a really big change! I encourage all students to create a blog here, and use the labels imaginatively!

Let's create a list of suggested labels. Of course you can use others, too, but having a standard list to start will help everyone organize their posts. My ideas:

• books (for book reviews)
• vocabulary (for wordlists, or any posts about dictionaries, Visual Thesaurus, etc.)
• quickpost (any post you finish in less than 10 minutes, e.g. for "十分は十分" posts at the beginning of the class)
• personal (anything you write about friends, what you did at the weekend, etc.)
• essay (any major writing assignment you post to your blog)
• task (any small assignment you do in class, e.g. playing a game and reporting your result on your blog)
• photo (any post with a photo and a proper title -- NOT "xht2345677.jpg")
• link (any post that includes a link to another blog or web page)
• classlink (any post that includes a link to another blog in your class)
• winklink (any post that includes a link to a blog in another class or another University)
• otherstudy (any post that discusses your other classes)
  

Any more ideas? Remember, you can use several labels in one post.

In addition I will use some special labels. The most important one is the special label for your class. Posts with this label will include instructions for what to do in class, homework assignments, information about exams and what you need to do to pass the course, and so on. You need to read all of these. Another label is "teachertalk". This is general advice for all the classes I teach.