Tuesday, January 20

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 1 of class. For those of you who are working ahead, Weeks 2 and 3 are also available! Go to the website for your course, and then click on the link that says "Week 1 Orientation." That is where you will find the list of assignments that are due this week, including the assignments that are due today, Tuesday. Please get to work on those assignments as soon as you can.
Class announcements. There will be class announcements like these every day, Monday through Friday. You can see the announcements each day at the course website, in Desire2Learn, or at the Ning. For previous announcements, visit the announcements blog. You can also subscribe to the announcements by email!

Ning blogs and comments. One of your Tuesday assignments is to post an Introduction about yourself in your blog at the class Ning. You'll be doing two more posts at the Ning later this week... and then, after the posting assignments for the week are done, you'll have a "Read and Respond" assignment where you'll be assigned some specific blogs of other people in class to read and comment on. That's one assignment you cannot do early, since we need to wait until everybody has had a chance to finish their blog posting assignments for the week, which will not be until the end of the day on Thursday. As a result, the "Read and Respond" assignment will be available starting on Friday - I'll let you know more about that later in the week.

Storybook Stack. Some of you are already working ahead and turning in Storybook assignments that I need to read and comment on for you. I do that in the order that the assignments are turned in, and the stack of assignments can get pretty big! If you want to check and make sure that I received your assignment, I keep a list of assignments in the Stack, which I've received but have not read yet. So, if you want to make sure that I received your assignment in the email, just take a look there and you should see your name listed. If not, please check with me!

Contact me if you have questions. For many of you, this may be your first online class, and you may have a lot of questions as you get started. I hope the information that I've provided at the course website will answer most of those questions - but if something is not clear to you, or even if you are just curious about something, please send me an email! Teaching these three online courses is my full-time job, so you will find that I am very accessible online, Monday through Friday. Especially if you have a question that is preventing you from completing an assignment, please get in touch with me right away!

January 20: Inauguration Day 2009. In addition to being the first day of the semester, today is also the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, a moment of American history happening right here and now. After Obama takes the oath of office tomorrow, he will join the ranks of America's presidents. Hail to the Chief!