How To Create A Blog

How to step up your blog!

1. You will need to create a gmail account outside of your iastate.edu address if you don’t already have one. Make sure you log-off of your cymail before trying to log in with the other account.

2. Go to www.blogger.com

3. Once you log in, find the “New blog” button on the left side of the screen.

4. Create a name for your blog and a URL.

We suggest using your name for the URL but the title of your blog is up to you. Please keep it appropriate.

5. Choose a theme. Make sure you choose one that is not distracting from the message you will be sending with your blog posts. For those who are internet savvy, there is a option for a custom theme of your choice. Make it your own!

6. Make sure you go to the top right corner once you are done creating your blog. There you will find a drop down tab with your name. Select the link to your Blogger profile and then choose edit profile.

7. Create your profile as you wish. Please upload a photo of yourself at the bare minimum. Make sure it is just a photo of you by yourself or have anyone else in the photo cropped out. You don’t want to misrepresent yourself. Keep it appropriate! For those who want, there are plenty of places to share more information with us and your fellow section-mates.

8. Send your blog URL to Kaylene AND Dane for us to compile a class list so we can all follow one another for the blogging assignment. For reference, our emails are kivos@iastate.edu and daneb@iastate.edu.

Peer Mentors

This week we talked about other peer mentoring groups. I thought Megan and Cory did a great job. I liked the activity we did and they had great discussion questions that went with it. Doing the activity helped me compare and contrast other peer mentor groups with the one that I am in. It helped me see that there are a lot of similarities because one of the main reasons for a peer mentor is to assist and help others fit in or answer their questions. The group also usually consists of similar groups of people, whether it be the same major or the same financial situation. There are a lot of differences between peer mentor groups though, like what their meetings consist of, how frequently they meet, or even how personal their meetings get. I think that the Hixson program allows freshman to become friends with the students in their recitations and with the advisers and peer mentors. I think that this is one of the main reasons for peer mentors at Iowa State. I know that I was very nervous my freshman year and it helped to have that small class to go to where I was able to discuss with classmates and learn about campus and things that were not part of my curriculum. I feel that I have grown tremendously since my freshman year and I think that Hixson was part of the reason. I am excited to be a Hixson peer mentor next year and help the freshman get accustomed to college life and to help them feel like they belong here. That is what peer mentors are for!

Diversity Diversity

Denise Williams came during class this week and she was great! I went to her diversity session one Friday about a month or so ago. I was excited to hear that I would get to experience it again. We watched the video, "N*gger W*tback Ch*nk" (I think that is how you spell it) and it really is a funny video about stereotypes about asians, African Americans, and hispanics. Denise asked the question, "why do we all get the joke?" We all the get the joke because in this country, we care more about money and advertising and being better than everyone else. Money should not be the most important thing in the world but people use stereotypes to advertise and they make money off of it. Every commercial is filled with ten commercials and sometimes there are more commercials and advertisements than there is the actual show. Some tv shows have a lot of stereotyping in them. Everyone sees commercials and billboards that word gets around and soon everyone thinks this advertised statement is true but it is only a stereotype. It is shared among friends of friends of friends and becomes wide spread! Denise also brought up a good point about stereotyping and how to somewhat overcome it and if people could do this, we could get past all of the stereotyping.

Whenever I meet someone or see someone walking by, I am always stereotyping people. Everyone does it unconsciously and some are worse at it than others. I am going to work hard on not stereotyping people and when I do stereotype someone I am going to ask myself "why did I think that?"I think being able to ask myself this question is going to help me be a better peer mentor. If I am able to not stereotype someone at first glance then I will be able to be a better person and a better teacher that will not show a hint of resistance if my stereotyping is negative. I will also be able to have a better experience and let my mentees have a better experience because I will be more relaxed and open.

Ethics

This week we talked about ethics. I learned a lot from Easten's and Alex's lesson plan and also from the book. I learned that it is not recommended to become friends with your mentee, but it depends on the situation I think. I can see how becoming friends with them could shift the atmosphere in the class room. It could cause problems and the person that you become friends with might not look at you like a teacher and might not take you seriously. That could cause a lot of problems. Another thing we talked about was that if there is a problem, or past experiences that went bad, with a person, it is better to talk to them face to face and probably one on one, not in front of the whole class. You need to tell them the truth and be honest about your feelings. The other option would be to ignore the situation all together which won't solve anything and the problem will continue and it will probably ruin the experience for others. Or, you could egg it on and make the situation much worse, this would be the last thing I would do. If I have a problem with a student or another peer mentor next year, I will confront them and make things better because there is nothing worse that feeling awkward around people you have to spend a lot of time with.

Digital Storying Telling Project

This week, we had a work day for our digital storying telling project. Our true life video is going to be really good and informative. It is short, fun, and to the point on very diverse topics about important things freshman should know. I think that this video is going to help inform the Hixson freshman next year in getting comfortable with campus and using its resources. Since us peer mentors have gone threw the experiences of being freshman, we know what it is like to be a small person in this very large campus and it can be overwhelming at times. We had our own thoughts and fears and things that we wish we would have known coming into college. These ideas might be the same as a lot of the incoming freshman next year. The video will also be a good introduction to the video that they are going to have to make during the semester and will help give them ideas on what to do (or not to do) in their own movie. I was an actress in the video and I know that there were some problems getting everybody together on the scheduled time, but we were able to find a different day that worked for most people. I think we got the filming done on time and now all that is left is the editing. I think that our movie is going to turn out great because we have such a great group of peer mentors! :)

Resources

This week was Christina's and my turn to lead class.  It gave me great insight in how our classroom is going to work next year. It also made me realize how hard it is to wait seven seconds for everybody to think about the question and come up with an answer. The silence is kind of awkward for a while but I think that it will get better and become less awkward. Teaching our lesson plan that we thought would only take 20 minutes was an eye-opener because it took way longer than we had estimated. In reality, our lesson plan was way too long because we were not able to ask more of our discussion questions, but it would be a perfect lesson plan for a 50 minute class period! I think as a peer mentor, we should know most of the resources here at Iowa State because it is important for your students to feel comfortable going to you and knowing you will have the answer (most of the time anyways) or be able to refer them to the right place, but always being willing to sit down with them and look with them is a good option; it will help you bond with your student and also learn something new! I also like Amy's idea about bad versus good experiences with resources. Just because you have a bad experience with a resource doesn't mean it is going to be that way the next time, so just being open and willing to give your resources more than one try will help one stay more open minded and probably be more willing to refer someone to that resource.

ISCORE and Etiquette Dinner

I attended the first-generation students experience session at the ISCORE conference. I thought it was a good session because it had real students sharing their experiences, but I do have one comment against it. They talked a lot about how they did not know how to do anything like sign up or apply for scholarships and how they did not have any friends and they felt like they did not belong at Iowa State. First, I think almost everyone that goes to some new place and feels that way when they first get to Iowa State. My dad went to college but he is not a computer person and he was not able to help me with anything, we were both in the dark. When I got to Iowa State, I had the same feelings and anxieties like the first-generation students experienced. I was shy and did not feel like I was able to connect with the people on my floor. I did not feel like I belonged at Iowa State and some days I still have that feeling. This session made it seem like first-generation students are the only ones that experience that so I am a little unsure about the session.

The etiquette dinner was awesome! I think it was a really good idea because it will come in handy when going on a dinner interview especially because they are becoming more popular. I thought the food was great and so was Ardy Rohr (I hope I spelled her name right). She was very helpful and informative. I also like how she gave us tips about interviews that her daughter has recently experienced. I still don't like that you can't mix your vegetables, rice, and chicken together but I guess I'll have to suck it up for my interview! But until then, I'm still going to mix it all! Yum!!