Humanities 375 Spring 2011
Curtis
Instructions for posting your “Tour of Paris” project to the blog
1) Write up the project in a Word (or equivalent) document so you have the chance to edit and correct any spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors. (Word, however, will probably mark all French terms as incorrectly spelled! Ignore it.) This way you will also be able to cut and paste your text from the Word document directly to the blog. You should have three separate sections: the 500-word text, the images with captions, and the bibliography. Integrating the images into the text will cause trouble when you try to post.
2) Print out your project and hand in a paper copy to the instructor in class on Thursday, February 24. Don’t worry if the images are small, low resolution, or in black-and-white in the printed version. She will go to the website to admire them in living color. Be sure that the printed version has your name on it.
3) To post your project you will need to be added to our blog “A Tour of Paris” http://atourofparis.blogspot.com. (This blog is separate from the course blog, to which you cannot post, but are welcome to comment on entries.) You should receive an e-mail this week (at the e-mail address you provided in class) which invites you to the blog. Click on that link and follow the directions. You do not need a Google address to sign in – just type in your entire e-mail address including the @ sign and what comes after.
Once signed in to blogspot.com you should be able to post your project. If you have not received an e-mail message by Friday, send a message to Jason Lahman at jasonlahman@gmail.com. If you never provided an e-mail address, then send it to Jason or give it to him in class.
4) To add your post, go to the dashboard page: http://blogger.com/home.
5) Click the “new post” button on “A Tour of Paris” blog area. You will see a place for “Title” and a big box for your project. The software is fairly straightforward and allows you to do lots of things: adding links, pictures, film clips etc. All of these are represented by icons at the top of the box. The title for your post should simply be the name of the neighborhood or monument, e.g. Latin Quarter or Cathedral of Notre Dame. Do not write a fancier title as it will be harder to find the posts.
6) To start, cut and paste your short 500 word essay. The blog will automatically save what you write every minute or so, but to be on the safe side you should click “save now” at the bottom of the page every now and then to be sure. Read through it one more time to make sure there are no errors. The post will automatically include your name at the end.
7) Post your pictures by clicking on “insert image” icon at the top of the box. This will allow you to search your computer for the jpegs etc. that you have collected. You can then cut and paste the short captions under the images.
8) After you have posted the last image, type BIBLIOGRAPHY under the last caption and post your print and web sources by cutting and pasting at the bottom of the page.
9) If you have found any clips on Youtube etc. (or have your own clips) related to your monument or neighborhood, feel free to share these at the end of the entry as well. Type in FILMS and then use the film posting option up at the top of the page to add these. (This is optional.)
10) Try previewing your entry by pressing “preview” at the bottom of the page to see what your entry looks like. Sometimes there are gaps, spaces etc. that show up due to problems with the coding. If you can correct that, fine, but don’t worry too much about it. We want this to be FUN and not too time-consuming. (You should spend more time researching and writing your project than posting it!) When you are sure you are happy with your project, click on “Publish Post” and you are done.
11) E-mail our TA, Jason, at jasonlahman@gmail.com with any and all of your technical questions, and he’ll do his best to get right back to you. But if cyber-disaster strikes immediately before the project is due, the most important thing is to print out your project and bring it to class, which will ensure that you get full credit for having finished it on time.
12) To read the posts, just view the blog at http://atourofparis.blogspot.com. We’ll be setting up some sort of voting system soon to determine the top five projects after they have all been posted. Fabulous projects will earn the esteem of your peers and a small (very small) prize! (Not, alas, a free trip to Paris.)
