Supplemental Readings
Trends in Social Networking sites
Google Trends and Insights for Search pick up internet usage data and display it according to your choices. This graph shows that in 2009, more women than men were interested in using social networking sites.
Blog
A 'blog'—short for 'web log'— is an online personal journal. Blog writers cover a variety of topics, including commentary about other sites, world events, personal news, industry news, arts and letters. Some blog writers choose to invite comments from their readers, creating an online conversation much like a forum.
Recent trends show that women and men use blogs in similar and different ways. According to PEW Internet's Who's Online survey, 74% of men and 74% of women in America use the internet. That is equal! Usage is less equal but close around the globe. For example, a larger share of women than men use internet banking in several European countries, according to Eurostat's International Women's Day 2010 report. Regardless of the stats, when searching for women-owned blogs, you'll find thousands on every topic. Google trends shows that women use social networking sites, which include blogging, more than men.
To get acquainted with women and blogging and gender differences in the blogosphere, please review the Gender and Blogging Readings. A few are listed at the right.
Blogging to learn
When you take possession of knowledge and transform it into something meaningful and useful, publishing that knowledge makes it your own and shows me where you are in the learning process. In this course you will use a blog to publish the following:
- Progress on projects
- Resources that support project research
- Project writings
The construction of learning continues as I (your guide) and students (your peers) provide feedback within the blog or forum. I will score your weekly posts in the Gradebook; be sure to check the comments I leave.
Learning outcomes
As a result of the following activities, students will be able to:
- Achieve a level of understanding regarding personal lifestyles and how choices can effect the future.
- Declare personal principles, policies, or intentions for future use of technology.
Scoring criteria
Posts are due Monday mornings and are worth 5 points per week (50 points total). Scores are awarded based on these criteria:
- At least one post per week recaps the struggles and successes of meeting the week's project expectations.
- At least three resources are added to the Links area and are visible in the sidebar.
Activity Instructions
Online readings and examples will demonstrate how society interacts with technology. Students will provide online journal entries of their own interactions with technology by installing, modifying, and logging progress of the Activism projects using WordPress, a free web log (referred to as a blog). This blog is to be installed during week 1. Blogs will be used to document everything you do for the course; from brainstorming, experimenting, and writing, to promotion. Add notes related to who, what, when, where, how, and why of your 5 projects:
- What worked, what didn't?
- Who did you read about that helped complete your work?
- What did you get excited about?
- What challenges remain to resolve?
- What technology did you use to complete you projects?
Much of the documentation needed for projects can be posted in your blog.
Tutorials
- WordPress.org or Wordpress.com
- Free Blog software configured to work on the ONID server. Provides privacy via passwords. WordPress for Beginners.
Getting Started.
5-Minute Installation - Wordpress.TV
- View How To videos about Wordpress.com or .org.
1.1 Set up your Blog software
For this course, I want you use WordPress, an open source blog web application. It is free, well designed, powerful, and provides all necessary functions for presenting your projects online.
You have three choices for set up (do one):
- Use OSU's free WordPress blog server space to launch your blog.
- Recommended for students who have not taken CS 101.
- Sign up using your ONID userID and password.
- Set up the account using your first and last name, so that your blog address is blogs.oregonstate.edu/firstandlastname.
For example, if I created a blog for myself, it would http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pamvanlonden/.
- This is a requirement; I sometimes have up to 100 students, so I need to track you all by first and last name.
- Good choice if you don't want to use your blog after graduation.
- Example
- Use WordPress.com's free server space to launch your blog.
- Recommended for students who have not taken CS 101.
- Set up the account using your first and last name,
so that your blog address is firstlastname.wordpress.com.
For example, if I created a blog for myself, it would pamvanlonden.wordpress.com.
- This is a requirement; I sometimes have up to 100 students, so I need to track you all by first and last name.
- Once you have confirmed your account and logged in, update the password to a strong password in the Users->Your Profile area (scroll down).
- Good choice if you want to use your blog after graduation.
- Example
- Install WordPress.org's web application on your ONID server space.
- Recommended for students who have taken CS 101, CS 195, or CS 295.
- Login to your ONID account and click on Web Database.
- Click activate database.
- Print the page to keep a copy of the database name, database userID, and database password; they are different from your main ONID credentials. You'll need them for the next step.
- Follow WordPress' Famous 5-minute Installation.
- Good choice if you don't want to use your blog after graduation.
- Example
Already have a Wordpress blog from another course? You may use it for this course as long as:
- The blog title uses your first and last name.
- You can use the Pages for your projects and the Posts/Categories for the weekly blog posts.
- I can find your weekly post without confusion.
1.2 Write a New Post.
- Login to your blog (you may already be logged in).
- Click the arrow on the Posts menu to reveal the submenu.
Edit gives you a list of posts to update. - Add new will give you a blank post to write in.
- Tags allow you to add keywords that describe posts.
- Categories build the menu of post topics.
- When you get to the Editing or Add screen, be sure to review the tools available. Click on theses tools to see how they work: Bullet, Numbered List, Link, Spell-check, Kitchen sink, Paste from text, Paste from Word, Undo, and Indent (great for bulleted lists).
- Write something quick about your blog setup experience.
- Click Publish.
- Click View Site (next to the site name in the banner area).
- How does your first post look? Do you need to make corrections?
- To edit, click on one the of the following options:
- My Dashboard link at the top
- Edit link near your post
- System Admin link near the login link (usually in the sidebar).
- Notice that your viewing address is different from your editing address. Submit only viewing addresses to the Gradebook.
1.3 Name your Blog site.
Login to your blog (you may already be logged in).- Click on the Settings->General menu.
- Update the Blog Title of your site so it uses your
first and last name. - Update the Tagline of your site to identify this course and the purpose for the blog.
- Click Save Changes.
- Update the Blog Title of your site so it uses your
- Explore the other Settings menus and make changes that meet your needs.
1.4 Read about settings.
Read the WordPress Getting Started articles by Lorelle to help you modify settings.
- Discussion Settings can be updated in the Settings->Discussion tab. If want people to comment, then turn settings on and off depending on your interests.
- Choose whether everyone can look at your blog or just me in the Settings->Privacy tab.
Check the Wordpress FAQ pages for more help.
1.5 Create Categories for future Posts.
For each project...
- Click Posts->Add New and write about your initial ideas about the topic for that project.
- Assign it a Category
- Scroll around to find the categories box. Drag it up to just below the publish button.
- Create categories for each project: Research and Database Development, Activism Plan, Financial Analysis, Education and Information, Promotion.
- Post your weekly updates about projects using these categories.
- Some themes do not display individual categories until a Post is assigned to them.
1.6 Redefine the Uncategorized Post Category to say Set Up.
- Click the Posts->Categories menu.
- Assign blog-related (rather than project-related) posts to the Set Up category.
1.7 Add Pages for future projects.
Wordpress Tips and Descriptions
Saving. When you add Posts or Pages in your Wordpress blog, did you publish them so they show up live? Or did you save them as a draft?
Post and Pages are different
A Post refers to a news or blog article in Wordpress. Posts should be categorized by topics you define. These Categories of articles/posts can be searched and listed separately in the Sidebar. Posts are also archived by month. They can be edited under the Manage->Posts tabs in the Wordpress Dashboard.
- What are Categories and Tags? (worpress.tv)
A Page is a regular web page and has it's own menu set, separate from the Categories and Archives of Posts. A Page can also have sub/child pages which are indented under the main Page name in the Sidebar. They can be edited under the Manage->Pages tabs in the Wordpress Dashboard.
A Link refers to a list of web addresses (links) you want to track. Links should be categorized by topics you define. Categories of links display in separate lists in the sidebar. They can be edited under the Blogroll tab in the Wordpress Dashboard.
- Project Pages will display in separate menus from Posts or Links based on the theme you select.
- Make Pages for the Research and Database Development, Activism Plan, Financial Analysis, Education and Information, Promotion projects using the Pages menu (as opposed to the Posts menu).
- You must add some text to the message box and title before it will display in the menu.
- Publish each Page.
- Note for later: When it is time to add your updated writing to these pages, be sure to edit it rather than make a new introduction page. This eliminates having redundant intro pages.
- Note for later: In week 5 of the Culture Site project, and for other projects, you'll want to group additional pages using the Page Parent function.
- Your final work will be added to these Pages later.
1.8 Add a resource link to the Link list.
- Click the Links->Add new menu in the Sidebar.
- Click Add Link and a type the following article information in the fields provided:
- Name: End Users Shaping Effective Software (EUSES) Gender HCI
- It's a great resource which you may need for your upcoming research.
- Address: http://eusesconsortium.org/gender/gender.php
- Description: Type the copyright information, and if you have it, the author's name: ©2006 EUSES.
- Name: End Users Shaping Effective Software (EUSES) Gender HCI
- Does it look like this when you view the page?
- End Users Shaping Effective Software (EUSES) Gender HCI
- If not, use the Link Editing Icon to make adjustments. The link should not look like this:
- Assign the Link a Category.
1.9 Update the Design.
- Choose a theme from the Appearance->Themes menu that suits your style and meets the requirements.
- Click on the Appearance->Widgets area to add these widgets if they do not already show up in the Sidebar menu when you view the public site:
- Pages
- Categories
- Links
- Meta (so you can login from your blog rather than going into Wordpress.com first).
Click View Site and confirm that you can see these items in your
blog.
- Pages show in a Sidebar menu.
- Horizontal is optional but when you have subpages you'll need to see them all (vertical menus do not usually show the submenus).
- Categories for Posts show in the Sidebar menu.
- Link Categories show up in the Sidebar menu.
- The login link shows up on the Sidebar menu.
- Text is legible; not too small and not white on black.
- Sorry; it creates too much eye fatigue.
- Main column is wide, which allows you to write more and scroll less. It also allows graphics to fit better.
- Pages show in a Sidebar menu.
- (Optional) Add Delicious links to the sidebar menu.
- Click the Appearance->Widgets menu.
- Add the RSS widget to the sidebar.
- Type these values in each field:
- Widget Title: Delicious
- Login: gendertechnology
- Number of Links: 3 to 5
- Tags: gender technology
- Click the Appearance->Widgets menu.
1.10 Clean up.
- Delete the default Hello World post.
- Click Posts->Edit to see the list.
- Find the Hello World post.
- Rollover it to see the delete option. Click it.
- Confirm the deletion.
- Delete duplicate pages and posts you might have made while experimenting.
1.11 Submit the Project link.
Submit the link to your blog using the Submit Projects link at the left.
- Copy the blog address: it will look something like this:
http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pamvanlonden or http://pamvanlonden.wordpress.com or http://oregonstate.edu/~vanlondp/blog.- It will not look like this: http://ws320.wordpress.com/wp-admin/options-general.php
- I want just the address for the public view of your blog.
- Paste the address into the message box provided in the View/Complete link in the Submit area.
- (Not the file upload field.)
- Click Submit (not Save).
- Click Check Scores->Gradebook to see if a ! shows up in the list of projects. If so, you've submitted properly.
- When I score a project, the ! will be replaced by a number.
- Click that number to read my comments. Do this every week.
- Each week I will score and comment on blogs in the same Gradebook row in Bb.
Criteria to meet by the end of week 1
By the end of week 1, these items should be completed:
- Blog account is active.
- Weblog title is Student's first and last name (update in Settings).
- Tagline is modified; usually the name of the course.
- Theme is updated (does not use the default colors/banner/design) (step 2.6).
- Theme widgets are updated so Post Categories, Pages, and Links show in the sidebar (step 2.6.2).
- Pages for each project are listed (add a short sentence to each so they will show up in the menu list).
- Post categories are defined (add a sentence to each post so they will show up in the menu list).
- At least one Link is visible and listed under a newly defined category so it'll show up in the menu list.
- At least one Post for week 1 and one Post for week 2 relate to the blog setup process and/or gender and/or technology.
- Proper grammar and spelling are required every week; no text-message language will be tolerated.
- Address of the blog is submitted to the Gradebook (using the View/Complete link; click on Submit Projects at the left).