WSBlog Bedtime + Best Biblio's and PFs

Eight years I plugged away at chronicling, filtering, modelling, showcasing, recycling, reflecting, and reviewing in posts for students on the Writing Studio Blog (WSBlog). During that time, I learned a lot about blogging with students, and there have been several satisfying advances in Blogger blog affordances as well, for example the advent of pages, and the threading of comments on posts.

Blogger renamed widgets gadgets, and baked many new ones in, which made them easy for casual bloggers such as English-as-an-additional-language learners to use. The link roll on the WSBlog has grown to almost a page in length, and the label cloud, to almost a page and a half (actual size). Embeddable external-source gadgetry like Cluster Maps and Flag Counter indicate[s] that the WSBlog had over 7,000 (perhaps not unique) visitors in the four years up till November 2014, and that there have been well over 18,000 page views since August 2010.

Though I'm relatively certain that those aren't the largest numbers in the blogosphere, they're large enough to reflect on with a certain degree of satisfaction. Regrettably, however, RSS services that colleagues and I had adopted to concatenate feeds of independent learner blog entries for inclusion in our teaching blogs went the way many free or inexpensive services do, and workarounds never quite made it back to the stage of single feeds to display posts from multiple blogs in now standard RSS gadgets–so much to do, and so little time to do it.

Before I put the WSBlog into suspended animation (from which it might snore itself awake from time to time), I'd like to do one more little bit of showcasing–this time not for students in successive cohorts, but rather for those in classes which finished meeting last month. They sat exams on January 28, 2015.

To wrap things up for now, I'd like to point out to class members and their near-peers a few of the best bibliographies–modified APA-style lists of books that individual students reviewed, and the most reflective portfolios (PFs) in pages that students added or linked to their blogs.

• Students, please remember that if you aren't logged in to your university accounts, Google documents and spreadsheets stored on the university site will be invisible. 

• Please also note that for the PFs themselves, the writing before, between and after the iframes was more important than the activities and progress represented within the iframes.

Without further adieu, ...

Best biblio's (book listings):

1. Takahiro's, 
2. Nana's, and
3. Rina's (includes a good first go at a movie listing, too); and 

Best PFs:

1. Misaki's
2. Miri's and Nana's (tie), and
3. Kazuyo's.

Many thanks to all!

[445 words]

Survey findings: Best comments on essays

Here is a snapshot of findings from the survey today about comments from classmates on your essays (2-02a).

Screenshot of digest, 2014.11.19, 18:50:27:
Click for a closer look.

Thank you for your cooperation!

[22 words]

WSBulletin 2-02 (Fall 2012): Book Reviews & Revised Essays

A couple of quick comments already this a.m., and follow-ups (reminders), for everyone:

pab said...  Hello R...,  All book reviews this semester need an opening quotation to spark readers' interest, and an APA-style reference at the end.  Cheers, PB  December 13, 2012 ...	Everyone: Please review WSBlog posts with the labels "quotations" and "references," especially: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2010 Quotations and references for book reviews
pab さんは書きました... H...,  You and your group mates need to rewrite your essay in the _third person_, without "I," "We," or "You" [in main clauses]. Cheers, PB  2012年12月13日 ...	Example (from 1C, Dec. 12): Version 2-03a (draft): We chose this actress because she ... and .... Version 2-03b (revision): The reasons we chose this actress were she ... and ....

If you have concerns or questions about either the on-going book review assignment, or the current movie review assignment, please spell them out in comments on this post.

[170 words]

Book Reviews: Factors to Consider

This post is to remind you how factors work in your Proto-Portfolio spreadsheets. The screenshots below show example factor scores for book reviews (BRs) completed at various times during first semester.  

Screenshot 1 shows what the factor score would be for 12 BRs, if you did two each month. Screenshot 2 show[s] the factor score for 10 BRs completed early in the semester. Screenshot 3 shows the factor score for the same number of book reviews (10) completed late in the semester.

The same factors apply on 2nd semester spreadsheets:

• Each BR completed during the 1st two months counts as 1.50 BRs.
• Each BR completed during the 2nd two months counts as 1.25 BRs.
• Each BR completed during the 3rd two months counts as only 1 BR.

So, if you have time to spare this summer, it would be a great idea to get started reading books and writing reviews for 2nd semester.

Screenshot 1: 12 BRs – same number every month

Factor score = 15

Screenshot 2: 10 BRs – early in semester

Factor score = 14.25

Screenshot 3: 10 BRs – late in semester

Factor score = 10.75

[190 words]

Best Essays: Self-Assessments

This post recap's a message sent to viewers of the Best Essays: Self-Assessments workbook. In square brackets toward the end of the message are a couple of minor revisions (a clarification and a correction).

Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:59

Best Essays: Self-Assessments

Hello everyone (§§1A & 1C + assistants):

Thank you for your cooperation yesterday in submitting self-assessments of your best essays to date, especially those of you who submitted the Best Essays: Self-Assessments form only once. I closed the form for additional markup and sorting this morning.

On the left most spreadsheet in this Google workbook (sheet 1: 2011-12_1st-20110601), I've marked redundant entires with dark blue backgrounds across rows. Red backgrounds in individual cells flag failures to follow instructions when entering data, for example:

- more than the last five digits of student numbers, 

- blog titles or URLs instead of blog handles, and

- line returns within paragraph text entries.

Please note that most of those undesirable and unnecessary line returns within paragraphs are residuals of copy and paste clippings _from paragraphs on your blogs_, many of which still contain large numbers of undesirable and unnecessary line returns within paragraphs. So please revise previous posts, and remove unnecessary line returns within paragraphs. Then remember to enter line returns only between paragraphs, and then to enter two, to create white spaces between paragraphs.

Most important, however, are the entries that I've flagged with green backgrounds, which reflect growing awareness of distinct qualities of your own writing. In a nutshell, among the qualities you've mentioned are:

+ audience appeal,

+ ease of understanding,

+ grammatical accuracy

+ grammatical complexity,

+ informativeness, and

+ self-expression.

Please review items 8 and 9 (important qualities, columns J-K [at present]), and tell us in class next week (June 8, 2011) of any other qualities of your or your classmates' [and] peers' writing that you are able to distinguish from this data collection, or through links in it. Please also prepare to identify the topics of the weakest paragraphs in your best essays, and explain what their weaknesses are.

Thank you again for your cooperation. PB

If you have concerns or questions about this message, please spell them out in comments on this post, or voice them in class next week. Thanks.

 [382 words]

Blog Visits Rebound

In a post some time ago (2009.10.23), and in a follow-up comment later on (2010.01.15), I reflected on a two-thirds drop in year-on-year blog visits logged by ClustrMaps, from 3891 to 1297, 2007–2008 to 2008–2009. That may have been due to shrinkage of my blogosphere.

Yet in 2009–2010, there was a rebound to more than half the number of the first year visits on record. This graphic from a Google spreadsheet shows reversal of the downward trend:

Year-on-year blog visits logged by ClustrMaps

I'm looking forward to finding out whether the increase from 2009 to 2010 continues from 2010 into 2011.

[101 words]

Writing Studio Bulletin: WSB 2-01 (Fall 2010) - BRs

This bulletin contains reminders about book reviews for 2nd semester. If you have concerns or questions about the content of this bulletin, please spell them out in comments on this post.

Click on the graphic representing classnotes (above) to get a closer look.

[43 words]

Peer-to-peer comments survey

Thank you again for your responses to my questionnaire about peer-to-peer comments on essays. By the time you read this, I will have invited you to view the underlying spreadsheet and data collection, but as of this morning (Tuesday, November 16, 2010), I stopped accepting responses.


Now I would like to encourage everyone to browse all of the responses, especially those to free response items 8-10 (currently in columns I-K). There you should look, in particular, for common qualities and types of comments that you, your classmates, and your peers appreciate, and ways that you all like to respond to each another.


While you are browsing the entire data collection, there are a number of points of interest and concern to which I would like to direct your attention. I have flagged a few of those points with colors that I've explained in the Color key (currently column M). I'll also explain some of them here.


First of all, you need not be concerned about responses in column B or F that look like dates (B2-B10, F2-F10). Those early responses came in before I realized the spreadsheet automatically changed responses like 1-5 and 6-10 into to a date format that displays 1/5/2010 and 6/10/2010, respectively. Anyone who plans to create surveys with Google Forms should remember to reset formatting on columns for responses like that from "Normal" to "Plain text."


Second, URLs are critical for internet research and formal written references. Even for less formal computer-mediated communication, it is essential to provide URLs pointing exactly where readers of your writing expect to go when they follow links that you give them.


However, in columns C and H there are a few URLs that reflect searches within blogs (for labels) rather than pointing directly to essay posts, for example:

• ....blogspot.com/search/label/essays

There also are a number of URLs that lead directly to comments, bypassing essays proper, for example,

• .....blogspot.com/2010/10/my-language-learning-experience_24.html#comments

There even are a couple URLs more detailed than that, for example:

• ...blogspot.com/2010/10/essay-2-02a.html?showComment=1289352477130#c7270187716401701175

Next you may notice a number of text clippings in columns D and G that include Japanese characters. I believe that the owners of blogs they use for an English writing course are doing themselves, their classmates, and their peers a disservice by leaving their blogs set to display Japanese. So I urge you all to set your blogs to display English most if not all of the time (except perhaps when you are tweaking blog settings), in order to provide yourselves and each other with ample opportunities for English reading as well as writing in this course.


As with URLs, research and written references depend upon accurate and complete data collection from various resources. Yet also in columns D and G are a number of clippings that omit the comment authors' names (blog handles), date stamps for those comments, or both.


Although those omissions are not a major problem for a simple survey such as this one about peer-to-peer comments on essays, the data collection and referencing habits that you start or develop in the Writing Studio will make a difference for future writing assignments and business tasks. It is quicker and easier to get the information readers need or want, and to record and share it accurately once and for all, than it is for you or anyone else to retrieve that information over and over again.


Last but not least is the matter of communicating your ideas in free response items not only clearly and completely yet economically, but also accurately. Machine translations, by and large, fail to produce accurate reflections of anything longer than words or phrases, or other than short simple sentences. So by all means, avoid dependence on machine translations; write short simple sentences that you can check yourselves.


Anything else that you are planning to post (that is, other than brainstorms, quick comments, or quickposts), you should check for grammar and spelling faults in a word-processing program – before you post it. Examples without explanations, or before brief explanations, also may fall flat. For a counter-example, please see: "Second, …" (above). If you approach surveys like this one for coursework as you might approach an online job application for a full-time position in a prestigious company or an important organization, I think you'll have the right mindset for online writing.

[722 words]

Where had all my comments gone?

As I was updating my Proto-Portfolios the other day, I got a strange feeling that the numbers of comments I'd sent out were much lower than they should be (row five). Indeed they were. Although I expected to have missed counting a few odd comments here and there, the total displayed in cell 5K turned out to be off by over a hundred!

What was the problem? I'd been doing my best to remember to toggle the follow-up comment option ON, whenever I started to write a comment on someone else's blog. When that option is ON, before you preview or post, it looks like this if the page display is in Japanese.

Comment window: "Follow-up comments ..." ON

Not only do I get a copy of my out-going comments sent to me by mail, to collect and count monthly for entries on row five [of] Proto-Portfolios spreadsheets, I also receive mail notification of answers to questions or responses to suggestions that I post in comments on other people's blogs. Mail notifications include links that make it easy to follow-up on follow-ups. Forgetting to select that option a few times a semester wasn't the problem.

The problem was searches that I'd used to retrieve mail messages to remind me of comments on other people's blogs were missing a large proportion, more than 80%, of previous comments from first semester. A typical monthly search started like this:

Search terms from English notification message

Today it finally dawned on me why that kind of search had missed so many recent comments. Such searches failed to retrieve mail reminding me of comments that I'd left on blogs whose owners set them to display in Japanese. Sifting through All Mail archives by hand, I discovered numerous automated mail messages with Japanese lead-ins that had been slipping through my searches.

The following search, using the Japanese message lead-in, turned up over a hundred more comments to add to Proto-Portfolio tallies for first semester.

Search terms from Japanese notification message

Granted, it may be possible to refine each of those two searches with additional words or characters, for example, "... new comment [on]" (blogs set to display in English). Nevertheless, I'm satisfied that combined search results reflect the bulk of comments of which I've elected to get follow-up mail notifications.

The key to gathering info. automatically for entries on row five of Proto-Portfolios is still the same: Remember to switch follow-up comment notification ON before posting comments on classmates' and peers' blogs. The same is true for following up easily on written exchanges started or continuing in comments on blog posts: Switch follow-up comment notification ON before posting!

[442 words]

Please check out the Gadgets sheet ...

... in the Gadgets, Pages, and Settings page of the Writing Studio Blog. I updated it today with instructions and URLs for setting up your own Class Feeds.

I suggest putting one or both of those feeds at the foot of your blogs, where you'll be able follow recent blog posts by classmates and peers during summer vacation. On the Design (layout) page of your blog, you can click on Add a Gadget, and find the Feed gadget tool in the Basic collection. However, you need to make sure to plug in entire URLs from the Gadgets page of the spreadsheet. They're long, and complicated, so copy and paste them carefully into your new Feed gadget(-s).

I also want to remind you that, starting Aug. 1, you'll be able to count posts and get extra credit for early book reviews in your Fall semester Proto-Portfolios (Aug. - Jan.). Blog on!

[150 words]