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

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.