www.stripgenerator.com

Welcome to Stripgenerator by loidi

With Stripgenerator you can create your own comic strips online and publish them. You can embed your comics in your blogs just copying  the code that is given and pasting it on the new entry. For that purpose you need to register first. It's free and very easy to use. We're going to use this tool to revise the content of some of our English lessons and at the same time you will see that writing can be fun too. Create your characters and invent a story. You can publish different episodes of the same story weekly or monthly and have some followers!

BLOGGING

A little bit of history

The term "weblog" was born  on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog", comes from the words  "we blog" or "weblog" and it can be used both as a verb or a noun. The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. One of the earliest bloggers is Justin Hall who began personal blogging when he was at College back in 1994.

After a slow start, blogging has rapidly gained in popularity. Its usage spread during 1999 and the years following. Since 2002, blogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their role in breaking, shaping, and spinning news stories, a news source and opinion and as means of applying political pressure.The impact of these stories gave greater credibility to blogs as a medium of news dissemination. In 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political consultants, news services, and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming. Blogging was established by politicians and political candidates to express opinions on war and other issues and cemented blogs' role as a news source. President Barack Obama acknowledged the emerging influence of blogging upon society by saying "if the direction of the news is all blogosphere*, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding”.

The Blogger's Code of Conduct

Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.

Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.

Consider eliminating anonymous comments.

Ignore the trolls (those who send an email or newsgroup posting with the intention of provoking an angry response)

Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.

If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.

Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.

*blogosphere: 

The collective community of all blogs is known as the blogosphere. Since all blogs are on the internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked, through blogrolls, comments, linkbacks (refbacks, trackbacks or pingbacks) and backlinks. Discussions "in the blogosphere" are occasionally used by the media as a gauge of public opinion on various issues. Because new, untapped communities of bloggers can emerge in the space of a few years, Internet marketers pay close attention to "trends in the blogosphere".

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Blog

10. Because you stopped learning anything new years ago and it’s about time you started again. I’ve learned more via blogging over the past year than I learned in the preceding several years!

9. Because it forces you to do your "homework"

8. An important reason: Because this is how you are going to learn in the future!

“This is the difference represented in the shift from traditional classroom based learning and network learning. The idea of the latter is that learning occurs when the learner immerses him or herself in a community of practice, learning by performing authentic tasks, learning by interacting with and becoming a member of the community.” (Stephen Downes)

7. Because if you don’t we’ll think you’re lame (sorry, probably too strong but that's the way people think, without filters) and don’t know how to do your job.

“What can you know about a professional who doesn't blog his or her work? How do you know they are competent, that they have the respect of their peers, that they understand the issues, that they practice sound methodology, that they show consideration for their clients? You cannot know any of this without the openness blogging (or equivalent) provides. Which means, once a substantial number begin to share, there will be increasing pressure on all to share.” (Stephen Downes)


6. Because it will change your life.

“there is something that happens to a person when they hit that "publish" button - you cross a threshold - you move from consumer to producer - you put your intellectual neck on the line and I really think that you aren't the same person after that.” (Mark Oehlert)

5. Because you’ll hook up all over the place.


“all learning professionals need to exchange ideas with others, to test their ideas, to question their assumptions, to learn from each other in ways that come with dialog. Blogging is great for forming networks based on weak social ties.” (Bill Bruck)

4. Because learning is conversation and that blogging lets you have more and better conversations (Harold Jarche)

“The lack of formality and the ease of cross-referencing other blog content or references means is great to accelerate discussion and promote broader thinking and understanding.” (David Wilson)

3. Because Professionalism is more than consumption, it is contribution. (Rovy Bronson)

2. Because it’s “a swap meet (Sp. mercadillo) for the mind.” (Nancy White)

1. Because your job depends on it.

“If for no other reason than your job is changing, and you might want to be engaged in the process of what your new job will include.” (Brent Shlenker) and “They don't get what blogs are about and possibly never will. We just need to encourage them towards retirement.” (Barry Sampson)




All this may serve as a good prologue to our next and last activity of this course: Blogging. You can know more about blogging in your wiki. Just click and start working!

 "firstdayatschool"