Unit 3 PLATO Reminders

This should have gone with the previous post about Unit 3, but I didn't want that one to grow any larger.

See PLATO Hints under the Doc Sharing tab for some additional information about how to begin with PLATO. Choose Technical Notes in the drop-down menu, and click the Go button. This is the shorter form.

1. Use the following web address to access PLATOWEB: www.platoweb.com.
2. If the system asks for an account number, it's 51310.
3. Enter your PLATO ID name (first initial last name as jdoe), the group name which is SCC, and your assigned password. To begin with you have no password; you'll need to create a password for yourself once you?re logged in.
4. Click the Send button.

I assume you'll be doing most of this work, if not all, at home. As you first move into PLATO, you'll encounter requests to install plug-ins and other related files. Please do so as asked and then move on. You will also need to allow pop-ups from the PLATO site.

If you use some version of Vista and are still using IE 7 as your browser, you'll need to update to Explorer 8.

Or move over to Firefox or Chrome.

There're five sets of lessons we'll be looking at in PLATO:

• duComp1A
• duComp1B
• duComp1C
• duComp1D
• duComp1W

Begin with duCOMP1A, and we'll see where you need to go from there individually. I can track where you've been in PLATO and how much time you've spent there. Most of all, I am very serious about your being able to manage your writing abilities both from the ideas you generate to the paragraphs you write to the mechanics you use.

You will need to spend at least two hours a week on these exercises, more if I detect repeated problems in your essays?and different if I see that you're successfully blowing through the first few sections on subjects and verbs.

Should you ever be on one of our campuses, you'll be able to work on PLATO in most any of the labs at any of SCC's four centers.

Unit 3 Update and Reminders

If you haven't read the Unit 3 Update under the Doc Sharing tab, download and so immediately. This is our syllabus for Unit 3 as are all the updates from here on out.



Click the Go button, of course, after you've highlighted "Unit updates."

The three key elements of this unit, and what makes it so critical to your success in this class and your long-term improvement as a writer, are the usage of SmarThinking (ST), the work you'll do with the PLATO exercises, and the fact this is the first assignment where I'll be issuing a real grade on your A1 assignment.

To get your essay into ST, all you have to do is

1. Go to the Online Tutoring link under the Course Home button in the side panel.
2. Click on the SMARTHINKING - Online Tutoring Access link in the middle of the page.
3. If you are ever asked for a name and a password, use the same combination that you use to get into out online system.
4. On the next screen that comes up, go to the submit your writing section. For the subject, select Essay Center.
5. 
6. Next you'll be asked to fill in a few blanks.
7. Most importantly, you need to check two of the following.
   
8. 
9. For this first go-round, please choose Grammar & Mechanics and Sentence Structure.
   
10. Finally, submit your work to the ST tutor for evaluation.

I would strongly suggest you get this first submission into ST no later than Monday, the 21st. Feel free to do a second submission to ST after you've worked on the issues the ST tutor will point out.

In fact, I strongly recommend a second submission. With the second effort, check Introduction/Conclusion and Main Idea/Thesis.

Turn into me all of you drafts along with your ST comments. Your final draft should be labeled so and be the first thing I see.

Unit 2 Reminders

Though I meant to pick up a suggestion from your answers to the ten questions so that I could customize what I wanted you to do with the personal narrative in Unit 2, I frankly ran out of time to do justice to such an activity for most of you.

As I mentioned in a more recent communication on our class blog,

If I don’t say something like “Please tell me more about this in your Unit 2 A1 assignment,” what you’ll want to do for U2A1 is tell me a story about yourself. Make it about some incident that helped you become who you are today.

Then there's all the other stuff I have in the syllabus and in and under the Personal Narrative tab in our course's shell.

Excepting Unit 5, which has no A1 assignment, your A1 is due the last day of the unit by midnight. Everything else is due two days before the end of the unit. For this second unit, that'd mean your addition to the discussion activity should be in by midnight the 11th with the A1 narrative essay in by midnight the 13th.

For Unit 2, I won't be too rigorous in this regard but will be more absolute in the future. Scheduling events this way allows me to grade/review your efforts for all of the secondary bits of the unit over the weekend so that I can turn my full attention to your unit A1 essay Monday evening.

All for now--and remember turning in something early if you've really worked on it is always a good thing.


David