Friday, February 5 - Sunday, February 7

HAPPY WEEKEND! This is the end of Week 3. The Week 3 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 3 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon.

New Ning Editor. As I mentioned in an email that I sent around Thursday night, Ning.com unexpectedly started using a new HTML editor for creating posts - I think you will like it better than the old one, since it is a "What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get" type of editor, but I know it's confusing to have things change on you all of a sudden. I've revised the Ning instructions based on the new editor - if I missed something important, let me know!
Week 3 blog posts. For the Responding assignment, you should be looking for the Week 3 essay and story - which means you may need to scroll down, because some people are working ahead. So, if you do not find somebody's Week 3 blog posts at the top of their blog, just scroll on down till you find what you are looking for. Also, one person - Kevin - is enrolled in more than one of these classes this semester, so if you are reading his blog make sure you find the posts for the class that you are in together with him.

Storybook Stack. On Friday, I should finish reading and responding to every Storybook assignment in the stack that is turned in before Friday at noon (contents of the stack); as of Thursday evening, I had gotten the stack down to just 10 Storybooks or so, which means I can definitely finish up the stack on Friday. So, if you turn something in before Friday at noon, my goal is to get comments back for you before the weekend. I don't do any grading over the weekend, so if you turn something in after noon on Friday, it will go into the stack. I'll start working through the stack first thing on Monday morning, in the order received. If you want comments back next week sooner rather than later, don't wait until Sunday to turn in your assignment!

Famous Last Words. Some of you have already discovered the Famous Last Words extra credit option. Given how crazy the semester gets for everybody, I highly recommend this as a nice way to just pause and reflect on how the semester is going for you. If your semester is like mine, every week flies by and you cannot even quite figure out where it went! By doing the Famous Last Words extra credit assignment, you can take a few minutes to just think about how the past week went for you and what you are expecting around the corner next week... while getting extra credit for it, too!

February 7: Laura Ingalls Wilder. Sunday, February 7, marks the birthday in the year 1867 of the American author, Laura Ingalls Wilder. I'm sure many of you may have read her series of books about life growing up on the American frontier, starting with Little House in the Big Woods, and you might also have seen the old Michael Landon television series based on that series, Little House on the Prairie. You can read more about the life and career of Laura Ingalls Wilder in this Wikipedia article. This photograph shows the Ingalls family, with Caroline (mother) on the left, Carrie and Laura standing, Charles (father) sitting, with Grace and Mary on the right (web source):

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Thursday, February 4

Today is Thursday of WEEK 3 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 2 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit until noon today. For those of you in Myth-Folklore or World Lit, Thursday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday.

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment before 11PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in later than 11PM on Sunday or on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it (contents of the stack). A couple of people wrote to ask why they had not gotten comments back yet: that is because the stack is first-come, first-served. About 40 or 50 people usually turn in their assignments on the day that it is due, which creates a kind of digital traffic jam for me in terms of reading and replying. I always get through the stack by the end of the week, but if you turn in the assignment on the due date or after the due date, you will end up having to wait a bit longer for comments back from me.

Week 3 Read and Respond assignment. The Week 3 blog commenting assignment is not available yet; it will be available starting on Friday, February 5. The blog commenting assignment is the only assignment you cannot complete early, because people will still be adding posts to their blog today, Thursday. At midnight tonight, the list of blog assignments will become available and you will have Friday-Saturday-Sunday to complete the blog commenting assignment.

February 4: Sri Lanka National Day. Today, February 4, is the holiday that celebrates the day - February 4, 1948 - when the island nation of Sri Lanka gained independence from British rule (India had gained its independence about six months earlier, in August of 1947). For those of you who are in the Indian Epics class, Sri Lanka is a place of special interest, because it is the legendary home of Ravana the demon king. You can read more about Sri Lanka in this Wikipedia article, and the image below shows a mountain, Sri Pada, commonly called "Adam's Peak" in English which supposedly holds the footprint of the Buddha (according to Buddhist tradition), the footprint of Shiva (in Hindu tradition) or the footprint of Adam (in Islamic tradition):

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Wednesday, February 3

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 3 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 2 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit (the sooner you can get that turned in, the better). Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday.

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment before 9PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 9PM on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. It usually takes me most of the week to return all the Storybook assignments; the sooner you turn it in, the sooner you will get comments back.

Storybook comments. When I send you back comments about your Storybook assignment, my comments will be inserted into your assignment and marked with ==> to make them easy to find. Please make sure you read the comments, let me know if you have any questions, and SAVE THE EMAILS. For each Storybook assignment I return to you, the comments will be something you need in order to complete the next assignment. So, make sure you read the comments and that you refer back to that email again later when you move on to the next week's Storybook task.

Working ahead. As always, I would urge you to try to work ahead this Wednesday - instead of waiting until Thursday to do the blog posts that will be due tomorrow, go ahead and do them today! There is no benefit to putting it off, and if you can get even just a day or two ahead of schedule, you will find this class so much easier to manage, I promise. :-)

February 3: Setsubun. February 3 is a holiday in the Shinto calendar, the "Bean-Throwing Day," which is part of the spring festival season. You can read more about this holiday at Wikipedia... even if with all the snow, spring seems very far away right now! The image below shows the holiday bean-throwing at Kobe in Japan:

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Tuesday, February 2

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 3 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 3 is on top. In Indian Epics, this week you will be finishing up Narayan's Ramayana, and in World Literature you will be reading New Testament parables. In Myth-Folklore, it's the Hebrew Bible, with a choice between the stories of Noah and Babel, or the stories of Samson and Daniel. If you have not turned in your Week 2 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit. (See note about that below.)

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the HUGE stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on or before 7PM on Saturday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in after 7PM on Saturday or on Sunday or on Monday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. I read the assignments in the order that they are turned in, so the later you turn in the assignment, the longer you'll need to wait to get the comments back. It usually takes me all week to get comments back on all the Storybook assignments people have turned in. In fact, this is the main part of my job teaching online: I spend about 30 hours each week reading the Storybook assignments each week and writing back comments. :-)

Tech Tip emails. Until I get through the Storybook stack, I won't be responding to all the Tech Tip emails people sent in over the weekend, but I'll get to that later in the week, I promise. Meanwhile, please feel free to go ahead and do more Tech Tips if you want. You certainly don't need to wait on my reply to your latest Tech Tip email for you to go ahead and do more of them.

Late Storybooks. (repeat announcement) Each week, the Storybook assignment is the only assignment that can be turned in late for partial credit. Since I cannot get all the Storybooks graded and returned immediately, it is fine with me if you turn in the Storybook late. If you want full credit (10 points) you must turn the Storybook in before noon on Monday. If you turn it in late, you can receive partial credit, as follows: turn it in on Monday after noon and you can receive up to 8 points credit max.; on Tuesday, you can receive up to 7 points of credit; on Wednesday you can receive up to 6 points of credit. If you turn the Storybook assignment in on Thursday before noon, you can receive up to 5 points of credit. No late Storybook assignments will be accepted after noon on Thursday.

February 2: Imbolc. In the Wheel of the Year holidays, February 2 is celebrated as Imbolc (sometimes spelled Imbolg), the cross-quarter day which is in-between the Winter Solstice (shortest day of the year) and the Spring Equinox (when the day and night are of equal length, with the days growing longer). Because the seasons of the year are opposite in the northern and southern hemispheres, when it is Imbolc in the northern hemisphere, it is the holiday of Lughnasadh in the southern hemisphere! Here is the Wheel of the Year showing the four main holidays at the solstices and equinoxes, along with the four cross-quarter days:

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Monday, February 1

Today is Monday, and Week 2 of the class is now over. Monday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Week 3 will begin officially tomorrow - and those Week 3 assignments are already available now if you want to get started.

Monday: last day to drop. Today, Monday, February 1, is the last day to drop a class and get a full refund. For more information about the academic calendar, visit the Admissions and Records Calendar: Spring 2010.

Storybook stack. As always on Monday, I will have a huge bunch of assignments in the Storybook stack that were turned in over the weekend or on Monday morning. The first thing I will do on Monday morning when I get to work is to update the list of items in the Storybook stack. So, after 8 a.m. or so on Monday, you will be able to check the contents of the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I will then start reading the assignments in the order they were turned in. Please do not go on to the Week 3 Storybook assignment until you get Week 2 comments back from me (and the same is true for those of you who have turned in Week 3 or Week 4 assignments - please do not go on to the next Storybook assignment until you get my comments). I'll be updating the stack as I make my way through the assignments! :-)

Late Storybooks. Each week, the Storybook assignment is the only assignment that can be turned in late for partial credit. Since I cannot get all the Storybooks graded and returned immediately, it is fine with me if you turn in the Storybook late. If you want full credit (10 points) you must turn the Storybook in before noon on Monday. If you turn it in late, you can receive partial credit, as follows: turn it in on Monday after noon and you can receive up to 8 points credit max.; on Tuesday, you can receive up to 7 points of credit; on Wednesday you can receive up to 6 points of credit. If you turn the Storybook assignment in on Thursday before noon, you can receive up to 5 points of credit. No late Storybook assignments will be accepted after noon on Thursday.

Monday: Your chance to get ahead. Although being able to set your own schedule is one of the biggest benefits of an online class, about two-thirds of the people in these classes are doing the assignments on the same day that they are due. Yet as the snow and ice showed last week, life is FULL of surprises. So please try to work ahead and that way you are ready for anything. Since you don't have any assignments due today, why not get started on Week 3 now...? You'll be glad you did!

February 1: Langston Hughes. Today, February 1, marks the birthday of the African-American poet, Langston Hughes, who was born in 1902. He was one of the luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance, and you can read about his remarkable life and career in this Wikipedia article.

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