Assignments

Blog

If you want to build a professional, online identity, you need content. This semester, you will create a Wordpress blog and post regularly, about once a week, or 12 posts minimum. Ideally, your blog should be something relevant to your professional interests. For example, if you want to be a sports writer, then your blog should primarily be about sports, or even better, a subsection of sports (like college sports).

You will be shown in lab how to set up a Wordpress blog. If you already have a professional blog and would like to continue developing it, let Professor Carlson know and we can work something out.

Your blog will be graded twice in the semester, as noted on the Calendar. Your first six posts are due midway through the semester, and your second six posts are due toward the end. Your blog will be graded on the following criteria:

• Frequency and consistency of posts (are they on a schedule? Are they spaced regularly or posted all at the last minute?)
• Writing, mechanics, grammar
• Use of hyperlinks, multimedia
• Linked to social networks, personal website
• Posts around a topic area: do they fall within one or two subject areas? Are these subject areas relevant to your professional interests?
• Length of posts: generally, 400-600 words. Are longer topics broken into multiple parts?

List of Student Blogs, Fall 2013

Assignments

Throughout the semester, you will have a variety of assignments, many of them coming directly from the online lab videos. Lab assignments will be graded on completion: if you turn them in on time and do what was asked, you will get credit. Grading criteria for other assignments will be explained closer to assignment due dates. The Calendar will be updated throughout the semester with new assignments; you will also be given reminders in class, through email, or through e-Learning.

Late work for assignments will NOT be accepted.

Personal Website

Half of your course grade will come from a personal website that you will design throughout the semester. Details about what is required will be noted on the course website. You will turn in the first draft of your personal website in Week 9. Your instructors will evaluate your work and provided detailed, written feedback within 3 weeks. The second draft of your personal website is due during Week 15. You are expected to make improvement, based on feedback from your instructors, as well as to add to it significantly.

PDF of the guidelines for the personal sites. (652KB)

Sites created by past students.