Now that our course is beginning, let’s take some time to get to know each other. Please write a blog post introducing yourself. Let us know what your interests are–academic, extracurricular, professional–and what makes you interesting. We’re going to start the semester with posts at approximately 350 words (approximately one typed page), so aim for that. You might consider it a draft of the bio you revise for the appropriate audience and purpose to add to your OpenLab profile or your ePortfolio, so it can do double or triple duty.

A few guidelines and instructions:

• You need to have an OpenLab account and have joined our Openlab Course to complete this assignment.
• If you do not yet have an OpenLab account, please sign up for one, and take advantage of the help materials related to signing up. Remember that you can choose any username you want, and it won’t display publicly except in the URL for your profile. You can also choose a display name that can be different from your user name. That’s how you’ll appear any time you write something or appear in a list of members.
• Once you have an account, sign in and navigate to our course profile and click on Join Now below the course avatar. You are now a member of our course on the OpenLab. Welcome!
• To write the post, click on Course Site on the right side. Then click on the (+) at the top of the screen.
• Follow the blogging guidelines for the course.
• To get credit for writing this introduction (your first homework assignment), be sure to choose the category Introductions  on the right-hand side of the screen when you write your post. Just below the category options, feel free to add any tags you think reflect your post, or to choose from the tags that others have already added.
• Where it reads “Enter title here,” add an interesting title that interests your readers in what you have written.
• As I just said above, on the OpenLab, you are known only by your display name. That means that in your introduction, you do not need to identify yourself by your proper name. Please only include your proper name (first or first and last) if you feel comfortable doing so.
• Similarly, you may include a photograph of yourself if you want, but it is not required. Consider your privacy and do what makes you comfortable.
• You can link to any site, on the OpenLab or anywhere on the Web, so if, for example, you have your own blog, or did work for another class, project, club or ePortfolio on the OpenLab that you want to call our attention to, feel free to link us to other sites by highlighting the text you want to become a hyperlink and clicking on the button that looks like two links of a chain; you’ll then paste your link into the box that appears.
• As you draft you might occasionally click Save Draft on the right side. When you finish composing and proofreading your post, click the blue Publish button on the right side. If you need to make any changes, be sure to click on that same button that now read Update.
• If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this post and I’ll respond to you that way (even if you don’t have an OpenLab account yet, you can still add a comment below).
• This post is due by Sunday night, February 1st.

Feel free to comment on each others’ posts–this is a great way to connect with each other and to familiarize yourself with the features of the blog. I look forward to getting to know you through your posts!

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