MaxLighthouse

Some of these rules are new, but most of them are things you’ve already read in this blog or heard from me. In any case, read them and believe them.

1. Read every message I post. Every one of them. Ignoring posts is the same as not listening to the teacher when he’s talking, and I know you are not going to be that rude. This leads us to the next New Rule:

2. When you read each post, leave a message in the comments section. Every time, every post. This will tell me that you read it and it will tell me when you read it. In your comment, tell me in  10 - 25 words what my post was about.

3. Do all blog assignments ON TIME! If you are behind because you came into the program late or because you have fallen behind, you are still expected to do all new assignments on time. If it is Week Eight, DO the Week Eight Assignment. It’s your job to catch up on weeks 7, 6, 5 and whatever on your own time, but STAY CURRANT.  Don’t stay three weeks behind because you fell three weeks behind. That makes no sense whatsoever. If you came into Lighthouse late, all past assignments should all be completed within three weeks of your enrollment in the program.

4. Every time you get information from another website, blog or news item — you must include a link to the original source.

5. Do not copy and paste from another site without including your thoughts, observations and conclusions on the material. I am not grading the writer of the other website, I am grading you. You gather information in order to learn, and your thoughts, observations and conclusions show me what you are learning.

This is what real blogging is about: you read and learn, then you share that learning with others.

6. Keep your blog clean and uncluttered. If I wanted to look at a mess, I’d look at my desk. Be careful when you copy and paste that you did not copy a bunch of extra junk from the original page. If you did, you can always clean it up by editing your message.

7. Use the tools on your writing page. Indentation, bold-facing, italics, leaving blank lines between blocks of text — all of these things can make your blog more readble and better organized.

8. Make the text you write distinct from the text you have pasted in from my blog. I should be able to see what my assignment was and tell it apart from what you wrote in response.  The best and easiest way to do that is for one or the other to be indented.

9. Similarly, text that you quote (or paste in) should be clearly differentiated from your own words.

Both 8 and 9 are easier in some “Presentations” than others. When I was reading this blog, I liked how the indentation created a “box” for the text. Scroll down on that page and notice the “Strengths” assignment — the blogger posted the test results, but after each strength description, she put her response in a text box. It looks great, it’s organized and it makes her work/writing stand out.

Here’s a popular, professional blog – notice that what he writes is against the left-hand margin, he links many words to more information as he tells his story, and when he quotes from other writers and/or other websites, he used boxed text. It looks good, and most importantly, it helps the reader understand what he’s reading.

I liked that style, so I chose this current presentation for my blog because it, too, boxes the text. When you look at other people’s blogs, you may see things like that. If they work, use them. Not all presentations work equally well.

10. DO NOT show up with no work done because you “didn’t understand” what you were supposed to do. You are not helpless. You can figure things out, you can find information and, if that doesn’t work, you have four different ways of contacting me and getting help or explanations.

11. If you do not have internet access, you know you have other alternatives. I will not accept it as an excuse. I have three students who do not have internet at home, and every one of them has used it as an excuse for not getting work done. Yet not one of them has come in here to use one of the Lighthouse computers or the computer I set up in my office for student use. The same applies to people who say “my computer stopped working” or “our internet was down.” People are very good at getting what they want. If you want to do your work, there are many ways for you to get it done.

12 Use conventional spelling and grammar. This isn’t MySpace and you’re not text messaging.

13. Get used to it. You will be doing more reading, more synthesizing of ideas from multiple sources, more critical thinking and more writing. That’s learning, and it is learning how to continue learning long after you’ve left school.