Monday, October 15, 2007

E-tivity 2


Exploring the blogoshpere

According to wikipedia the blogoshpere is "...the collective term encompassing all weblogs or blogs as a community or social network. Many weblogs are densely interconnected; bloggers read others' blogs, link to them, reference them in their own writing, and post comments on each others' blogs. Because of this, the interconnected blogs have grown their own culture." Last week we read about the blogosphere and started contributing to a blog. Now we're going to try to get to know this ‘culture’ a little better.

Sarah

Purpose: To search the Internet for blogs that interest you in order to become aware of how large and varied the blogosphere is. To start analyzing some of the characteristics of blogs as a genre.

Task: Search for blogs that might interest you by going to Technorati and searching for a word, e.g. “rugby”, in blog posts, in tags or in their blog directory (please choose blogs in English). Read some of the blogs. Choose at least two that interest you. Come back to our course blog and write a post about the blogs you have found. Give us the urls and explain what you like about the blog and why you would recommend others visiting it. For example, I put in the tags 'language learning' and came up with a blog called the Linguist, which I found interesting.
Start considering how blogs are written and how links are used in blogs. What kind of language is used (formal, informal, vulgar, elegant)? How do bloggers make use of links in their posts? At the end of your post, write a few sentences about your initial observations of the styles used on the blogoshpere.

N.B. Give your post a label indicating your group, e.g. Group A, Group B, Group C, etc. This way, when you want to find all of the other messages in your group, all you have to do is click on the label and they'll all appear.

Respond: Read the post of the other members in your group and go visit at least one of the blogs they have suggested. Then come back to our course blog and reply (using the “comment” button) to the one(s) you visited giving your impressions.

Timeline: Friday, October 19 (task), Tuesday, October 23 (respond).

(photo source)

7 comments:

Giovanna S. said...

Hi Sarah!

We talked yesterday during the lab lesson. I couldn't attend last week and I couldn't talk to you before. I just want to remind you that I won't be able to attend the lab lessons on Wednesday, because I already have other university lessons. I'm very sorry and I hope that it won't be a problem if I will do the activities at home.

Moreover, I know that there were some changes in the groups and I'd like to know if I'm still in group J, as you wrote in the blog on 10/08. As you told me about last week activities, I didn't send comments to the members of my group, and I only introduced myself, so I still haven't interacted with them.

Thank you in advance for your help!!

Giovanna Simonato

Sarah said...

Dear Giovanna,

I do apologize for not responding sooner. I am in Montreal and I have found it more difficult than expected to access the Internet. Your non-attendance should not be a problem so long as you manage to keep up with the work. I see you've managed to do e-tivity 2 so it looks like you can!
For this e-tivity we will maintain the same groups. Then I will see how they are working and only change them if necessary. In any case, should I do that, I'll let you all know. It looks like your group is not terribly alive in well so I may very well switch you around for e-tivity 3.
If you have technical problems with e-tivity 3, let me know.

Sarah

Giovanna S. said...

Dear Sarah,

thank you very much for your reply and all your help!

Giovanna S.

Giovanna S. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Giovanna S. said...

Hi Sarah!

I'm very sorry to write you again, but I have a problem with my group. I can't understand who the members of my group (J) are. At the beginning of the course we were five students, but if you click on the link 'Group J Blogs', you see that now we are only two members (Valentina and me).

How can I respond to the other members for e-tivity 3?

This was also my problem with e-tivity 2 (as there were only two students who had done the activities, I only commented on their posts).

Moreover, I don't know if next Monday I have to come to the first or the second group, because I couldn't attend the first speaking lesson.

Thank you again for all your help!!

Giovanna Simonato

Giovanna S. said...

Sorry...I've just clicked on 'Group J Blogs' and we are three members. Anyway, we are not five members...

Giovanna Simonato

Sarah said...

Dear Giovanna,

I keep an eye on everything that's done. According to my records, there are currently 7 of you, but Elisa Rossi, Luca Sgarbossa and Alice Violato did not complete e-tivity 2. However, Federico Fiorentin and Eva Premrl were added to the group the last time we had lesson in the lab, so there should be four of you: you, Valentina, Federico and Eva (an Erasmus student). It's fine if there aren't 5 of you and easier for you if there are only 4 :-) Anyway, I'll keep an eye on things and if people don't do e-tivity 3, I'll consider switching groups around.
Hope this helps at least a bit.

Sarah