Lesson+04-09-08

**Welcome to the first day of Creating Your Civic Identity!**

 * Objectives**

 Today you will: 
 * 1) create an email account that you will use for this and future online courses
 * 2) register at nicenet.org and sign into this class
 * 3) research historical and modern views of citizenship
 * 4) write your opinion of the roles and responsibilities of citizenship and post it on the message board
 * Step 1: Setting up your school email account**

 Although much of the communication in this course will take place on the message boards and blogs you will also regularly use email to contact other students and myself. You are also required to have a valid email in order to login into this class at nicenet.org.


 * 1) Many of you have already created a school email account through your mathematics classes and are encouraged to use that account for this class. If you __**do not**__ have an account proceed to the next step.
 * 2) Please visit [|yahoo.com], [|hotmail.com] or [|gmail.com] and follow the directions given to create your new email account.
 * 3) Write down the email address and login information (including password) and keep it in a safe place for future use.


 * Step 2: Register at nicenet and sign-in to "Creating Your Civic Identity"**

 Nicenet will be your classroom for this online course. Here you'll be able to conference (message boards) with other students and myself, follow and share links to daily lessons and topics, download documents and submit assignments.


 * 1) Follow this link or navigate to www.nicenet.org
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Click on "Students: Join a Class"
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Enter class key "T23Z260G93" to join Creating Your Civic Identity
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Complete the registration process using your school email address
 * 5) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Navigate to "Conferencing" > "Thoughts and Expectations 04-09-08" > read and post new message to "Thoughts and Expectations 04-09-08"


 * Step 3: Historical and modern views of citizenship**

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"> Time to begin learning about citizenship!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Click [|here] to read about //**classical republicanism**// and //**civic virtue**//. Be sure to take notes in your notebook as you will be writing about this shortly.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Next, click [|here] to read an exert from Alexis de Tocqueville's __Democracy in America.__ This reading focus's on Tocqueville's idea of //**self-interest**// in democracy as he witnessed it in the 1830's. Again, remember to write main ideas that are important to forming your beliefs.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Finally, click [|here] to watch a video presented by Scott Ritter (former UN weapons inspector who said that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction).
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Wasn't that fun ;-) Now sign-in to [|nicenet] and post your response to the conferencing topic "What does it mean to be a citizen?"
 * Congratulations, your done for the day! Smile and have a short party in your mind!**