First draft instructions will be out this afternoon

I am working on the last details of the instructions for the first draft of your writing assignment, which will be due Friday evening, March 28. Stay tuned.

daVinci1 is cooking

The Connotea group daVinci1 is starting to cook pretty good. Their group library in Connotea is building up, and judging from discussions in the Webcourses discussion area, they have some good ideas for their spec sheet.

How to proceed

You each now have your question.

The writing project will be a paper (first draft, then final draft) in which you state your answer and why... backed up by solid scientific information.

The solid scientific information is what you must now hunt down in Nature and Science, bookmarking in Connotea if the article is really good for your paper. Talk over your hunting strategies etc. inside Webcourses discussions, in your group's private discussion group.

You won't be writing a textbook, so don't get carried away, but be free with discussion and hunting interactions. Kibbitz, coach and gab about finding information.

Next Monday I will release the specific guidelines and instructions for writing the first draft, so do your hunting this week.

If you can come up with one or two good sources, bookmarked in Connotea with an SFX link that works, you will be in great shape. Help each other find one or two good sources.

Let's go.

These groups are now activated in Connotea

Our writing activity will occur in Connotea and Webcourses, so you will belong to a mirror group in Connotea that corresponds to your Webcourses discussion group. Here are the groups that are full in Webcourses and completely activated in Connotea:

In Webcourses            In Connotea

---

Da Vinci 1daVinci1
Da Vinci 4daVinci4
Connotea column links to each group's library

---

The following two groups are full inside Webcourses, but some members are not registered in Connotea yet.

1. Da Vinci 2, Sarah not on Connotea
2. Younger Dryas 2, Austin and Evan not on Connotea.

Which makes this a good point to remind you: no more points are available to you for the writing assignment unless you are part of Connotea. There are only 11 of you that have not gotten to this task, so get it done ASAP.

Here is the list, in no particular order, of all Connotea groups that have at least one student activated:

18. daVinci1
19. daVinci2
20. daVinci3
21. daVinci4
22. daVinci4a
23. YoungerDryas1
24. YoungerDryas2
25. YoungerDryas2a

Join a writing group! GO FOR LAUNCH

Time to join a writing group!

Look for this Connotea icon on the home page. It is the entryway for the writing/bookmarking group signup sheets. Double check the questions we selected and then find a group dedicated to that question.

As soon as you click to sign up, your Da Vinci or Younger Dryas group's private discussion area will automatically appear. Look in "Discussions related to the writing assignments" in Discussions. There are already two postings for you to read and act on. We will be grading your participation in the private discussions.

Also, look through the Writing module, especially the March-April schedule (item 1.3), Connotea catchup (item 4.3), and the blurb on how I will add your username to a Connotea group that corresponds to your WebCourses group.

Deadline for group signup is lunchtime, Monday after vacation. After that, we are going to proceed forward. If you miss this deadline, your grade for the writing project will be kaput.

Writing groups signup almost ready...

I am just fussing with ticky-tacky details now. I expect to activate signup sheets tonight! I will announce here when they actually ARE ready to roll.

Also: I have typed up a writing tasks schedule sheet for the next two months til the final exam.

Stay alert!

Writing groups: sneak preview

I have set up a sneak preview of the questions we will use for writing groups. Take a look at the Writing module, item 5.1! Signups will begin maybe Wednesday afternoon or so.