You may have noticed that your online participation in this course contributes 10% of your final course grade. To compute this portion of your grade in the past, I’ve counted every blog post, every bookmark, every tag, every comment, and arrived at a participation score for each student. This fall, I’d like to try something a little different.

I’m asking you to review your online participation in this course, compare your participation to that of your peers, and assess your contributions to the learning community. Give yourself an online participation score between 0 and 10 points. Email me with your score and a justification (not more than a paragraph) by Wednesday, December 9th.  If I think your score is reasonable, given your justification, I’ll use that as your online participation grade.

When assessing your online participation, please focus on three areas: blog posts, bookmarks on Diigo, and the collaborative timeline. In each of these areas, I usually asked you for specific contributions — posts that responded to particular questions, or bookmarks about specific topics, or tags and comments that fit certain parameters. As you look over your contributions to the course, keep these requests in mind. Also consider how your online participation contributed to the learning of your peers in the course.