08 RSS Lab

We are going to work through more exercises allowing you to explore RSS feeds and related tools.

Class held on 09/29/2008. Student notes are available on this page. Possible questions are available on this page.

Class structure

1. Go through “At beginning of class” information
2. No lecture today.
3. Work on exercises.

At beginning of class

On your own

1. Check who is doing class notes for today — and change your sign-up date. We're not going to have any lecture today so there's nothing for you to write about. Sorry!
2. Bring your print out of the search tool data analysis assignment to me at the podium.
   • I do not yet have a key to this assignment. I don't know what the answer is. I hope to discuss this next class.
3. Go to your grades on the SiteMaker page.
   • I have added a menu choice “Basics/Grades” that allows you to access your grades from anywhere within this wiki.
   • From the SiteMaker grade page, do the following:
     • Choose “Add Grade Record” and then input (and save) your uniqname.
       • Within a couple of days I will input your assignment grades (from the data gathering assignments) here so that you can see them.
     • Add your analysis assignment under the “Add Wiki Assignment” menu choice.
   • I have not yet graded industry reports, notes, or questions. I will have these graded by next class.
4. You can check to see if I have recorded any grades for you on the SiteMaker page.
   • All blog entries, industry updates, notes, and questions are points out of 10.
   • I have several printed blogs for which you have not entered information yet.
   • A “9” grade on a blog is what I would call a “normal, high-quality, well-written, informative blog entry.” A “10” means that you exceeded this standard. Your entry was somehow more informative, more insightful, more engaging (don't discount this — I very much welcome reading an interesting well-written entry with a good story integrated into it) than my expectations.
   • If you get a “10” on a blog entry, I want you to copy your blog entry from your wiki to my wiki. Create a page with the same name (i.e., “blog:XXX”) but it should be in the class blog. Do this as soon as you see your grade. Thanks.
5. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting with most of you last week and discussing your term projects. I'll be checking your wiki home page in the version as of the beginning of class.
6. Go over any other announcements you might have missed since last class.
7. Check who is doing industry updates for next class.
8. Check the start page for any blogs you might be interested in that you might have missed.
9. From now on you don't have to “turn in” blogs with a piece of paper. You simply need to record the page within the SiteMaker page. I will be able to see that the page doesn't have a grade and will grade it (with a goal of the next class for the rest of the semester).

I'll go over

1. A little feedback about this class compared to last year
2. Feedback about blogs
   • it's versus its
   • inurl versus site
   • good examples posted
3. Upcoming assignments
   • blogs (8 total; 4 by fall break; be sure to refer to this page of blogging guidelines)
   • exam (in many weeks)
   • term project (2 more mid-term status reports; one coming up in 2 more weeks)
4. Industry updates
   • Google update: Tim Muir