Test Blog for 1st Annual Block 06-07

I am experimenting with an alternative to my online course. There I can ask you questions and get personal replies that are private and personal between us. Here I can ask questions for class discussions, and we can all read and respond to each others thoughts. If I like the way this works, we will need to figure out how to grade it. So let's start here with this discussion exploring ways of grading participation in this discussion. There are several questions that need to be answered first.

1. Are these mandatory assignments - that is if you choose not to participate, do you get a zero?
2. If they are mandatory, what percentage of your grade should they be?
3. If they are not mandatory, how should we count them? Extra Credit? If so, how much extra credit is fair?
4. There is a third possibility, and that is that those who opt in, get credit, and those who opt out, are not penalized for not participating - we would still need to decide how much credit those who are in would get.
5. If we do #4 above, would we require the other students to do something else for that same portion of credit, or only have to do some percentage of the course requirements total?

OK...I think that is enough to think about - You all have been part of my online course requirement at the other setting, so I am particularly interested in your thoughts here. Please be sure to give a first name and a period so I know who to give any credit to I might give for responding to this between now and start of Annual Block 2!

Please comment before 12/21/06 at 11.55 pm if you want your comments to possibly affect your grade! Thank you.