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Persuade Me

Persuasive Techniques in Advertising

Advertising is designed to persuade the buyer that wellness can be attained by purchasing their products or services. Check out this interesting article on How Advertising Affects and Persuades Us.

When you advertise you are informing a potential buyer of what you have to offer. This information needs to persuade the buyers to take action, to go out and buy your product or try your service. Advertising is built to be persuasive and influence potential buyers.

The persuasive strategies used by advertisers who want you to buy their product
can be divided into three categories: pathos, logos, and ethos.

Pathos: an appeal to emotion.
An advertisement using pathos will attempt to evoke an emotional response in
the consumer. Sometimes, it is a positive emotion such as happiness: an
image of people enjoying themselves while drinking Pepsi. Other times,
advertisers will use negative emotions such as pain: a person having back
problems after buying the “wrong” mattress. Pathos can also include emotions
such as fear and guilt: images of a starving child persuade you to send money.


Logos: an appeal to logic or reason.
An advertisement using logos will give you the evidence and statistics you
need to fully understand what the product does. The logos of an
advertisement will be the "straight facts" about the product: One glass of
Florida orange juice contains 75% of your daily Vitamin C needs.


Ethos: an appeal to credibility or character.
An advertisement using ethos will try to convince you that the company is
more reliable, honest, and credible; therefore, you should buy its product.
Ethos often involves statistics from reliable experts, such as nine out of ten
dentists agree that Crest is the better than any other brand or Americas
dieters choose Lean Cuisine. Often, a celebrity endorses a product to lend it
more credibility: Catherine Zeta-Jones makes us want to switch to T-Mobile.


Persuasive Techniques in Advertising Assignment

You are to create a visual representation of the persuasive strategies used by advertisers. Be sure to include examples of advertisements that represent all three categories (pathos, logos, ethos).

In your description of your work, please define each of the persuasive strategies, comment on which demographic the ad is targeted at and if you think that the ad was successful.

Success Criteria

* Three advertisements that represent each of the persuasive techniques (pathos,
logos, ethos).
* Successfully employed a multimedia or web 2.0 tool.
* Included a description of pathos, logos, and ethos.
* Commented on the targeted demographic for at least three advertisements (1 from
each category).
* Analyzed the ads according to the employment of these techniques.

Visit this site for 50+ examples of web 2.0 tools that you can use for your assignment.

The Exceptional Experiences Photo Contest - Do You Agree?

National Geographic held an exceptional experiences photo contest. Check out the winning photograph as well as the runner-up photographs and tell me what you think.

Do you agree with the judge's choice? Why or why not? Explain your reasoning in a post on your blog.

Link back to this assignment as well as the photographs on the National Geographic site.

Mrs. Dowker

P.S. How to Hyperlink (in case you forgot):)

Step 1: Copy the url web address of the page that you want your readers to visit.

Step 2: In your draft post (in blogger), highlight the word that you want your
readers to clik on as your hyperlink.

Step 3: Click on the little green globe icon under the title box, another box
should pop up.

Step 4: Paste the url web address in the box, and you're good to go!!

Always check to make sure that it worked:)

This photo made me laugh, Grant and Max though that it would be pretty cool to open up our door and see this!

S.O.L.E. Assignment

Self-Organized Learning Environments = S.O.L.E.



The Hole in the Wall Project

In 1999, Sugata Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other.



In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge.



I want you to watch a portion of this video about this experiment Hole in the Wall. You do not have to watch the entire video. You can start at 7:15 and stop at 14:55. You are welcome to watch the whole thing, but the key stuff I want you to see is in the middle Once you have finished watching this video, you have a task to complete. You will work in a group of three students to complete this task. You may use only one computer among the three of you. Figure out how that will work in a fair way, you will need to figure out seating and turn off all but one of your computers, sitting in such a way that you can all see what is going on with your computer monitor.

Your groups
Group A – Brinda, Mike, Chelsea
Group B – Chantel, Chevy, Sara
Group C – Adam, Jayce, Ambur
Group D – Cheyenne, Vaibhav, Jacob
Group E - Cindy, Will, Angie
Group F - Travis, Sheldon, Sean, Nolan
Group G- Elizabeth, Becky, Kya

Now you and your group members must choose a topic to research and become experts on.

Topics to Choose:
1.Cyberbullying
2.Plagarism on the Internet
3.Privacy on facebook
4.Your Digital Footprint
5.Teenagers and Sleep

Along with your group, research your topic. Pretend I'm not here. Help one another. The key thing I'm looking for in this task is that you REALLY understand your topic. The writing comes after great, in-depth research. While you research, save the web addresses of the really helpful sites you used. After you have a good grasp on your topic you will collaboratively write a post that is directed to your peers. You will post this assignment on your blog. Make sure you write IN YOUR OWN WORDS in a way that is appropriate and all conventions are followed (spelling, grammar, punctuation). Make sure to layout your work well, lots of white spaces, bold headings, etc. so it is easy and enjoyable to read. Remember, you are writing for your peers.

In your post, you must include:
-title of your topic
-a note that this is an assignment for class and a link to my blog, specifically this assignment
-names of all the researchers and links to each of their blogs
-3 or more great sources for information on this topic (hyperlinked)
-2 or more well placed, carefully selected images to help add clarity for your reader
-a description of what this issue is (think of "who, what, where, when, why, how" to guide your research and writing)
-a reflection on why this issue is important in the digital classroom
-a summary of how your readers (your peers) can use this information to make their own lives better (this could be in jot notes or sentences, but must be clear and easy to understand, it could be a list of tips for your reader)

Good luck and work well together!
Mrs. Dowker

Geography Assignment - Faces of Tomorrow

Hello 7/8D Bloggers,


It's time for another geography blog assignment to begin!

You have already watched the two amazing National Geographic videos about "The Seven Billion". Now, I want you to start working with these ideas.

In the video about the Most Typical Human, National Geographic created the face of the current most typical human, but also mentioned that that face will be changing in your lifetime.

For this assignment, I want you to do some research and analysis about this idea of the changing human face. You are going to make one post to answer the questions below. There will be 5 parts to your post (A, B, C, D and E). Each part should be written in it's own paragraph.

1. Post: Part A: First of all, I want you to look up the word "globalization". Once you've found a good definition, create a new post, link back to the definition(s) you found and then write a definition of globalization IN YOUR OWN WORDS, one that can be understood by your peers.

2. Next, check out "The Face of Tomorrow", an amazing art and geography project that addresses identity and globalization. In big cities around the world, migrants from many different countries gather and the average faces of those cities and countries tell a story. Visit the map page on this site and look at the average faces in different cities. You can click on different locations to see the average male and female faces, or go to the drop down menus at the bottom and compare average faces in up to four locations. Spend some time here playing around.

3. Post: Part B: Add to your post a description of how one would go about making these average faces (link back to any sources you used for information). In real life, how do facial identities change over generations?

4. Post: Part C: What did you notice while playing around with "The Face of Tomorrow"? Add to your post three points (written in full sentences) that you found interesting. (What does "the face of tomorrow" mean? Why do the differences in our faces give us a sense of identity? What surprised you? What did you expect?...)

5. Visit Face Research and play around with the dozens of faces there. You can select as many as you wish, and create an average of their faces. Play around until you create what you believe to be the "face of tomorrow". Once you've found it, save the image (right click and select "Save as", give it an appropriate title and save to your account).

6. Post: Part D: Add to your post the picture you created and write three reasons (in full sentences) why you think this average face best represents "the face of tomorrow". Make sure one of your sentences uses your new knowledge about the term "globalization". I want to see that new vocabulary word in

Geography Assignment - 1 in 7 Billion

Last week someone asked me how many people were there are the world. I thought that this was a great question, that you had read something and wanted to know more – this is one of the things that rocks about being a teacher.

I knew that I had read somewhere that we had just reached the 7 billion mark, but I wanted to research it just in case. Check out this world population chart, it is really interesting. When I was catching up on the blogs that I follow I came across this cool new series on National Geographic's website called 7 Billion.

Since we just started Geography, and because I think that it's pretty interesting I would like you to watch this video. There is audio, but it is only music so it isn't necessary if you don't have your own pair of headphones (I watched it twice, first just to soak all of the information up, and the second time to really think about everything that was presented).

I pulled these words below from the video. Read them again.

“But we don't take up as much space as you'd think.
Standing shoulder to shoulder all 7 billion of us would fill the city of Los Angeles.
So it's not space we need – it's balance.”

Assignment Part 1: What do these words mean to you? Please post on your blog, I want to hear your thoughts. Please come back and read what other students have posted, feel free to respond to their thoughts and opinions.

Get out your calculators and calculate the percentages based on the world population of 7 billion. Think about how do you feel about these statistics?

13% of us don't have clean drinking water
38% of us lack adequate sanitation

Calculate each percentage out of 7 billion-7, 000, 000, 000 and record your answer on your blog.

_____________________ people in our world don't have clean drinking water.

_____________________ people in our world lack adequate sanitation.

Describe in a post on your blog how you would feel if you were one of those people who didn't have access to clean drinking water or adequate sanitation.

Do you think that you are a typical citizen on earth? Do you represent the average person? Watch this video on the typical person and see if anything surprised you.

Check out this video, : Are You Typical?

Assignment - Name Knowledge

Good morning, Bloggers.

I would like you to research something very relevant to each of you - your name. You might already know a lot about why your parents chose your name, any history behind it, etc. - and you might be drawing a complete blank.

I would like you to do some research about your name and write a post telling us what you learned. As well, you are going to learn to create a hyperlink for this post (All you need to do is highlight the word or words you would like to hyperlink, then click on the little hyperlink icon on the top of your posting menu bar. Enter the web address of the site you would like to link to (include http://) (you can copy and paste for this). Once you publish your post, check to see that the link is working).

First, go to the website, Behind the Name. Open it in a new tab in your browser so you can still have my blog and your blog open. Search for your name. You can type in your name to the search bar or search alphabetically.

Another site that has lots of interesting information about names is Baby Names. Once you have found your name, you can click on "more info" and see a chart demonstrating how popular your name has been in different years. At the bottom of the "more info" page, you can fill out a survey about your name to help the administrators of the website enhance their information. You may do this when you are done writing your post.

Tip: Search your full first name, not a shortened part. For example, if you are Isabella, but everyone calls you "Bella", search "Isabella" to get the most information.

Find out the meaning or the root of your name.

Start a new post. In this post, you will answer several questions in full sentences. You may need to copy my text and fill in the blanks.

Start off your post by linking back to this assignment.

Behind My Name: ________ (fill in your name)

Before I started this assignment, I thought my name was ______, because _________.
I think my parents chose this name for me because __________________________.

After searching on Behind the Name (create a link here), I learned that my name means ____________ (use your own words here).

Some other interesting things I learned are _______________________ (maybe there was extra information, you learned the root of your name or where it comes from or who are some famous people with the same name, maybe you looked up your middle or last name).

I think my name does/does not (select one) suit me because ___________________.

If I could give myself a new name, it would be ______________, because _________________.

You may add any extra comments or reflections about your name at the end of the post.


For a bonus, look up the name of a character in a book, movie or TV show that you like and write about why that name does/does not suit that character's personality.

For a sample of how you can do a great job on this assignment, check out mine below.

Behind My Name: Lindsay

Before I started this assignment, I thought my name was original because I never had another Lindsay in my class while I was in grade school. I like the way it sounds and I'm glad that my parents chose to spell it with an 'a' instead of an 'e', ex. Lindsey. I also like my name a lot because it doesn't rhyme with much, so when I was little it was hard for other kids to make fun of my name. They usually got stumped, gave up and moved onto someone with an easier name to manipulate. When you're a kid, this matters.

I think my parents chose this name for me because my dad liked the bionic woman at the time, whose name was Lindsay Wagner. There was also a sportscaster who was named Lindsay as well that my father enjoyed.

After searching on Behind the Name , I learned that my name was originally an English and Scottish surname which was originally derived from a place name in Lincolnshire meaning "island of Lincoln" in Old English. Lindsay was originally given as a name for boys until the 1970s, when it became popular for girls, probably because of the American actress Lindsay Wagner (it worked for my parents). When I checked out other baby names sites the meaning behind the name Lindsay is uncertain, but it is often referred to as 'dark lake'.

Some other interesting things I learned is that it is mainly used for girls in North America. However in Scotland, Australia, and the American Northeast it is typically used for boys. Some famous Lindsays include the tennis player Lindsay Davenport and actress Lindsay Lohan (who I'm not really excited that we share the same name, she is a bit of a train wreck).

The year that I was born it was the 88th most popular name for baby girls (1979, yes – I was alive in the 70's). In 2009, it is the 524th most popular name for girls. I wonder if it will become more popular again?
.
I think that my name does suit me, I couldn't imagine answering to any other name. I feel like it is a strong, confident name, but still feminine and I like the way it sounds when people say it.

If I could give myself a new name, it would be Anna or Lauren because I think that they are beautiful names for girls. Who knows, if I ever have a daughter, maybe I'll use one of them for her?!


Please leave a comment at the bottom of this post when you have completed this assignment. Make sure you are logged in so I can easily access your blog.