Template: As I was thinking about how to design the blog for our course, English 15S, I thought about how I wanted you, my students, to experience this abstract space. Most importantly, it needed to be functional: I wanted a clean design with easy-to-navigate interface. Nothing too cluttered or clunky, so that you could easily FIND the relevant information when you needed it. The Picture Window template allowed me to choose a fun background to keep the space engaging, while being sure the text would be easy to read and clearly the focus of your attention.
Title: Because this is primarily an informational blog, I felt a title that simply oriented readers by way of the course name itself would be best. It would be corny, don't you think? for me to name it "The Fabulous Arts at Penn State Plus Writing Wooot!"
Color: I thought about this year--this difficult Penn State year--and knew that while I didn't want the blog to look *too* official, I did want to employ the Penn State blue/white colors as a gesture of pride and support for our institution.
Font: I am a font junkie and searched for a long time to find the perfect one for the blog title--one that would suggest both professionalism AND fun. This is a course that emphasizes the arts, after all, and I happen to think the arts are fun! I want YOU to think the arts are fun. I think the "Rock Salt" fit the bill, for the title, but I changed it to something less fancy for the post texts because again, I don't want to distract you with anything TOO shiny. ;)
Pages: I chose to use separate pages for the information along the top of the page. I didn't want to put that important information into a post format, for fear of it getting lost as the blog got updated. So I made them all separate, static and clearly identifiable. I included my treatise "Ten Things to Never Ask/Tell...." because I believe deeply that you all should read it and digest it and share it widely. It is that important. Similarly, I included a "Who is Your Instructor" page that is longer than the usual Blogger "About Me" sidebar because I felt like it would be important for you all to feel like I am a real person with a life and interests outside of class. I want you to feel like I'm approachable, but I'm not worried about my teacherly ethos because I think the casualness of that page is balanced by the seriousness of other documents, like the Syllabus. There is a separate page for each section's blogs so that we can all easily find each other when the time comes to start posting and reading and commenting.
Sharing/Finding: I included subscription tools, a search tool and an archive so that you can easily get the information I post.
Links: I included a list of important writing resources because this is a writing class. I will also be putting up links to arts/cultural events soon.
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