Weblog Assignment

To use the links please consult this page on the web at: http://people.clemson.edu/~pammack/lec323/weblogassignment.html

The assignment is to keep a weblog (also known as a blog) or online journal discussing the reading and issues from this course.  You are encouraged to include links to interesting web sites in your blog.  You must provide the professor with the address of your weblog by Jan. 28 and hand in a printout at the end of the semester.  You should write to your weblog at least once a week and the final version that you hand in (everything you have written through the semester) should be at least 2500 words.  It will be graded on whether you ask interesting questions and provide thoughtful analysis.  This assignment is quite flexible; you can write about what interests you so long as it has something to do with the class and you at least occasionally mention the reading.  The professor's blog (Hist 323, Hist 491) will have links to all the student blogs and you are encouraged to read and respond to what your classmates write.

The easiest way to start a weblog is to use a commercial weblog server.  My weblog is on Blogspot but the disadvantage of Blogspot is that if you want to fancy up your blog you need to modify html code.  To set up a weblog on Bogspot just go to  http://www.blogspot.com/  and follow the steps or you can follow more detailed instructions on how to set up a blog on Blogger.  Blogger and Blogspot are two sides of the same organization: if you tell Blogger you want them to host your blog (rather than putting it on some other computer) it appears on Blogspot.   So long as you don't sign up for any of the advanced features Blogspot is free.  Other places that will create and host a blog for you for free are http://www.pitas.com/ and http://www.crimsonblog.com/

If you prefer, you write a blog on your Clemson web space.  You can use weblogging software like Moveable Type or have Blogger publish to your Clemson space or you can simply write a web page using Mozilla or Netscape (instructions) or even Microsoft Word (using the save as html option) and save it to the public.www directory on your U: drive on the campus network (if you use a lab computer or a computer connected to Resnet the U: drive will show up just as if it were another drive).   If you don't use blogging software make sure each entry is dated.  If you email me the name of the file and that it is on your U: drive I can make the link.  The address of the page you write will be http://people.clemson.edu/~userid/filename.html, substituting your userid and the filename you gave your page when you saved it.

Blogger/Blogspot help pages:
overall list of help topics
how to make a link
how to make a headline

For more information about what blogging is see:
The Art of Blogging part 1 and part 2
Weblogs: A History and Perspective
All the News That's Fit to Blog
Weblog Ethics
The Blogging Revolution


Examples of Weblogs:
Relevant History (technology and the future, by a historian)
How to Save the World (economic issues)
Andrew Sullivan (a well-known conservative political blog)
Baseball News Blog
Doc Shazam (a blogging resident in emergency medicine)
Fragments from Floyd (photographs and personal reflections from rural North Carolina)