7: Become a Citizen of the World

1. If you are still working on setting up your blog or writing your autobiography, KEEP ON TRUCKIN'.

 2. Do this assignment only if you are completely and 100% done with your autobiography.

The Assignment (Read all of this first!)

Here we are in Cedar County, Iowa. Every day I hear someone complain about how boring it is and how there is nothing to do here. But there is a whole wide world out there with a lot happening and it is your job as a citizen to learn about it. It used to be harder to learn about what's going on in other parts of the world, but now it's as easy as clicking on a hyperlink.

Being a citizen of the world really isn't as hard as it sounds. All you have to do is keep yourself informed about things that are going on in other places. News feeds and blogs make that extremely easy. For the next couple of assignments, you'll be using Google applications to discover information from all over the world.

**First, you'll need to make sure you know your Google Account information. Some of you have been having trouble. If you are one of the people who has lost their blog or had other technical difficulties, now might be the time to create a Gmail account and use your other email account as a back-up (in case you forget your password or something.) Please let me know if you need help with setting up a new account.

**Next, check out Google News. This site shows the top stories from around the world! You can use your Google Account to personalize the settings. Just scroll down the page and click on your preferences for news. Then whenever you are logged in to Google and you visit the Google News page, your settings will make sure that your preferred news stories show up. After you've set up your preferences, read some news stories. Get familiar with the layout on Google News. Notice that there are main headlines, but below those headlines are links to hundreds of newspapers that give their take on the same story.

**Finally, it's time for you to blog.  

Question: What do I blog about today?

Answer: Any news story that catches your interest. Maybe a story on the coming "Snopocalypse" or the SuperBowl or Egypt.

Question: What should I include?

Answer: Definitely include a link to the news story you are writing about. Then you should have one paragraph that summarizes the news story and another paragraph explaining how you feel about that news story. Is there some action you think people should take? Is there something you wish you could do? Are the people in the story doing what you would do? Should they do something differently? Blogs are personal--show us your personality as you write about a news story. When you share your ideas about what's happening in the world, you become a citizen of the world.