Blogging in English: September 2022

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Week 3 - Presentation of Blog Post #1

Today you will present Blog Post #1 in class! Have you made all corrections? Kevin sent corrections to your email.

Blog Presentations #1 - Tuesday, Oct. 4

This is your blog! Present without reading, please! Practice in advance, know how to pronounce all words, and speak with feeling!

Last week, most students posted their blogs on time. Thank you. Students who did not, please to post on time or a little early so I can make corrections.

When you present, please try to ...
1) Present without reading; look at your classmates
2) Tell the blog title and the blog post title
3) Point out your Blog Description (I may ask you to make some changes)
4) Present Blog Post #1

* Remember, you must make corrections to your blog as soon as possible after Kevin shows you the mistakes.
** When you write, try to write specific details. You will be able to write more, with more sentences and longer sentences, if you find the specific details in your topic. Remember to use the 5 senses!
*** About blog length: you must write more than 200 words for each blog post. If you write less than 200 words, you will have trouble next year in graduation seminar.

Blog Post #2 is due next week (Oct. 11).

Verb Forms Practice

Verb Forms 2022

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Week 2 - New blog & first blog posts

Today, we will ...

1) Check out your new blogs
2) Think about how the blog will look on different devices*
3) Write good blog descriptions**
4) Make edits to posts already written before next week
5) Prepare for presenting the blog post next week; you should try to present without only reading
6) Do some more HTML practice
7) If time, we may do a writing exercise about irrelevant sentences and some more grammar practice.

* Nowadays, people look at websites on PCs, tablets and smart phones. It should be viewable by all of those, so you need to check how it looks on various devices. However, the home PC will be our default view, so please be sure it looks the way you want it to on a PC. I will be evaluating your sites from my office PC, so please consider the PC view!

** It's good to have a brief introduction to your blog in the heading of your blog. That's at the top, just below the title. To type this, you go to Settings, then Description. Click Edit. This description of your blog will always appear at the top, so if someone starts to view your blog in the future, they don't have to go to your first post to find out about you and your blog theme. Everyone should make a blog description here!

Re. presentations next week:
When you present your blog posts next week; don’t just read them; look at the class and try to talk like you're talking to your friends. Below are some of the things you will mention when you present:

1) titles - blog title and post title
2) description
3) URL
4) summary of Blog Post #1

If you want to, you can comment on the background or template

More HTML practice

HTML Tags Worksheet

HTML Tutorial Code (this is the same as on the HTML Practice blog post)

HTML Cheat Sheet - a simple HTML guide

Color Picker

Jamboard

Irrelevant Sentences in Paragraphs

More Grammar

Present Perfect: Simple and Continuous (British Council）

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

More HTML Practice

Please open 'Memo Cho' on your school PC. Kevin will show you how to make a very simple HTML document using only HTML code.

You will need these images for HTML practice. Please download both images and save them on your desktop.

HTML Practice
1) Copy the code below.
2) Paste it onto a blank Memo Cho page.
3) Save it on your desktop as Test2.html

<html>

<head>

<title>HTML Document Tags Practice</title>

</head>

<body>

<center><h1>Making Web Pages (Size 1 Header)</h1>

<h2>Making Web Pages (Size 2 Header)</h2>

<h6>Making Web Pages (Size 6) Header)</h6>

</center>

The horizontal line below is created by using the "HR" tag.

<HR>

<H2>Text in an HTML document</H2>

The appearance of text on a Web page is mainly determined by settings in the browser. However, some changes can be made using tags. A tag is a "command" or specification in an HTML document; a tag is enclosed in "greater than" and "less than" symbols (< >). Text can appear in <b>bold</b>, <i>italics</i>, or both <b><i>bold and italics</i></b>. It can also be <u>underlined</u>.

<p>

HTML allows fonts and font sizes to be specified. Font sizes from <font size="1">one (the smallest) to </font><font size="7">seven (the largest)</font>can be designated (size 3 is the default). Also, <font face="helvetica, arial"> a particular font can be indicated, </font>but the font must be present on the user's computer.

<p>

Line breaks are determined by the size of the font and the width of the window on the computer. It is possible to make a line break using the<br>"BR" command<br>where desired. The "p" tag<p>creates a space between paragraphs. Note that a

line break in the source document does not create a break when the document is viewed in a browser.

<p>

Information can be put into a table. Tables are a little complex, but they are sometimes handy.

<p>

<tr><td></td><td>Column 1</td><td>Column 2</td><td>Column 3</td></tr>

<tr><td>Row 1</td><td>Yuriko</td><td>Rie</td><td>Ikuko</td></tr>

<tr><td>Row 2</td><td>Akiko</td><td>Chisato</td><td>Yuka</td></tr>

<tr><td>Row 3</td><td>Risa</td><td>Kevin</td><td>Santa</td></tr></table></center>

<p>

Bulleted and numbered lists can be made. This is an unordered or bulleted list with three items:

<BR>

<UL>

<LI> beer

<LI> wine

<LI> sake

</UL>

This is a numbered list:<P>

<OL>

<LI> beer

<LI> wine

<LI> sake

</OL>

<hr>

<H2>Links</H2>

A useful feature of HTML documents is that the author can create links to other places.

<p>

This link takes the user to another document called <a href="test1.html">Test1</a> located on the desktop, just like this document.

<p>

<b>Other Web Sites</b><br>

It is also possible to link to other web sites connected to the Internet.

<p>

Here are some links to some interesting sites:<br>

<a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/">The Japan Times</a><br>

<a href="https://onelook.com/">OneLook Dictionary Search</a><br>

<p>

<hr>

<H2>Graphics and Color</H2>

<IMG SRC="Oceanic_Whitetip_Shark.jpg" ALIGN=LEFT

HSPACE=6 VSPACE=3 BORDER=0> Graphics are made using a draw or paint program, scanned

from hard copy, or downloaded. The most common types of images are the JPG, GIF, and PNG. The photo on the left was saved in JPG format.

<p>

By default, the background color and the color of the text are determined by settings in the "preferences" or "options" menu of the browser. However, colors can be set for the background and for the text. Color names can be used for <font color="black">black, </font><font color="white">white,

</font><font color="red">red, </font><font color="green">green, </font><font color="blue">blue, </font><font color="yellow">yellow, </font><font color="magenta">magenta, </font><font

color="cyan">and cyan.</font> (Note that on a white background, white text is not visible).

<p>

Colors can also be chosen using color codes. For example, the instruction FONT="#000000" makes the text black. For a list of the codes for 216 colors, check out the <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/colors/colors_picker.asp">HTML Color Picker</a>.

</body>

</html>

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Fall Week 1 - Goals for Fall Semester

Welcome back to the Blogging in English Seminar 2022! I hope you had some fun this summer! My summer was like this ...

Summer Intensive Course 2022

How about your summer?

Goals for the Fall semester:

1) Make a new blog with a new URL and design.

* We will not use the practice blog for blog posts in the fall (but you can use it to try new things).

2) Write 5 blog posts (about 250 words is good; no less than 200 though)*

* The blog theme stays the same all semester, but each blog post should be interesting and unique!

3) Organize your writing *

* Think about your organization before you start writing. When you finish, read what you wrote and delete repetition and extra words. Move sentences to the place they belong. Put a space between each paragraph.

4) Have correct grammar *

* You can write first and fix later, but you must fix it! Fix misspelled words, wrong verb forms, and be careful of subject-verb agreement. Remember that every sentence needs a subject and verb.

5) Fix your blog posts immediately after Kevin sends you his corrections.*

* If you wait, it means you don't care about your blog, which is kind of sad.

Your first blog post is due next week! (Sept. 27)

About presentations ...

When you give a presentation, it's OK if you make speaking mistakes. However, you should research the pronunciation of words you don't know in advance.
Use your presentation time to become a better English speaker. That means 'don't just read!' Have your ideas organized and speak from notes instead of reading. Have good eye contact and talk to the class as if you're speaking to a friend. You will probably make mistakes, forget some things, have some pauses, etc. But that's OK because it's practice for speaking in front of a group. When you get a job in the future, you will be happy you got used to making presentations without just reading.

You are Communication majors! Let's get skilled at communicating in English!

___

Grammar Practice - Present Perfect Progressive exercise

Ex: Kevin has been teaching at Tsurumi University since 2010.

___

Please send me your new blog URLs!

Now let's talk a little about internet browsers and the code HTML In preparation for this, please find and open 'Notepad" (メモ帳). (Go to "Programs', 'Accessories" and click on 'メモ帳'.)

Kevin will give you a copy of Tsurumi Review 52. You can see an example of a graduation report by Kevin's student. However, I will not be teaching this course next year. Good luck with your new teacher! Unfortunately, I have reached my 賞味期限.

To Do:

1) Make a new blog

2) Make your first blog post.(due Sept. 27)

3) Send Kevin your blog URL
4) Think about how you can customize your blog to match your theme

Saturday, September 17, 2022

HTML Practice #1

What is HTML code?

When you use Blogger to make a blog, you don't really need to know HTML coding. You just type in the white box, and if you want the text larger or a different color, or if you want to add a photo, it's easy to choose those features from the menu at the top. Before Blogger, we had to code with HTML code.

Please log in to Blogger (practice blog) and make a new blog page. Your post title can be HTML Practice.

On the blank page, type: This is the Blogging in English class

The interesting thing is that browsers (like Firebox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, etc) can't read this text. The Blogger program turns your typed words into HTML code. The browser reads the code, and when you look at the page, it looks like you expected (hopefully!)

If you want to see what the code looks like, change from the Compose view and click on the HTML view at the top left of the page.

Go back to the Compose view.

Now let's check to see what happens to the code if we make a small change. For example, lets change the words 'Blogging in English' into bold letters.

Look at the HTML view again. Can you see the new coding?

In the early 1990s, when the Internet was just starting out, we didn't have programs like Blogger to make HTML code for us. We had to type the code directly into a text file (but not a Word document). If we typed the code correctly, our web page could be read by the old browsers of the day, and our web page looked like we planned.

Nowadays, most web pages are not made with only HTML coding, but you can still do it. Here's an old html example:

Strawberry Pop-tart Blow-torches

Here's a more recent one:

Ba Ba Dum

If you right-click on the page, then choose 'View Page Source,' you can see the HTML coding.

___________

Even though we don't really need to understand HTML code these days, it is sometimes helpful to know some basic things. If our web page on Blogger doesn't look exactly like what we want, we can check the HTML code and see what the problem is (sometimes!)

Also, if we want to embed a YouTube video, it's helpful to understand where to put the HTML code.

So ...
Please open 'Memo Cho' on your school PC. Kevin will show you how to make a very simple HTML document using only HTML code.

Next, please download the image below and save it on your desktop. Keep the name "pikachu". Notice that this is a png file. There are also jpg files and gif files for images.