Friday, October 29 - Sunday, October 31

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 10! The Week 10 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 10 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon.

NEW RESPONDING GROUPS. The blog responding groups have been shuffled around this week, so you should find some new people to read and respond to when you do the blog responding assignment for Week 10. If somehow I've accidentally left anybody off the list, please let me know. This is done completely at random, so you may be with someone you have been in a group with before, or you may have all new people - that is the magic of randomness!

Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. I've read and replied to all the Week 9 assignments turned in on time, but if you turned in a late Week 9 assignment, or an early assignment for Week 10, 11 or 12, it may still be in the stack. My goal is to get comments back to everyone by the end of the day Friday for assignments turned in before Friday at noon. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. If you want comments back before the weekend, make sure you turn in your assignment by noon on Friday.

NEW Recommended Tech Tip: Gmail Security. (repeat announcement) I just discovered a very user-friendly and extremely helpful, step-by-step guide to Google Security. I would highly recommend this as a Gmail Security Tech Tip for everybody to try, especially if you are not sure whether you have configured your Google account so that you can recover your password in case you lose access to your account.

Storybooks: Three-story option. (repeat announcement) If you are on schedule right now with the Storybook, turning in your third story for Week 10, you may decide to just finish the Storybook with just three stories. So, think about that when you go to add the new story to your Storybook for Week 10. If you do not need the 20 points for adding the fourth story and revising it, you can choose to conclude your Storybook with just three stories in it, making this third story your final story. Quite a few students choose to do this every semester, and it is fine with me! If you decide to finish with just three stories, here is what you would do: Week 10 Third Story; Week 11 Revise Third Story; (skip Week 12 and Week 13); Week 14 Revise Introduction; Week 15 Final Revisions. It's up to you, based on your personal preferences and the number of points you will be needing to get the grade you want (410 total for an A, 360 total for a B, 320 total for a C).

Week 10 Internet assignment: Extra credit option. (repeat announcement) The Week 10 Internet assignment is available now and in addition to the usual task of reading three Storybooks and commenting on them, there is an additional "extra credit" option where you can read three more Storybooks and comment on them for an additional 6 points. Last year a student suggested that I add this option for the next few weeks so that you have more of a chance to read all the Storybooks in your class, and that seemed like a good idea to me! So, in Week 10, and also in Week 11 and Week 12, you have the extra credit option of doubling up and reading more Storybooks for extra credit if you want.

HALLOWEEN. Here are some fun Halloween things from class! At the Ning, you can see Jeff in the Ghouls on Parade (video embedded below). You can vote on your favorite Halloween candy (thanks to Melissa for that PollDaddy Tech Tip!). And here are some Storybooks for your Halloween reading pleasure:

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Thursday, October 28

Today is Thursday of WEEK 10 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 9 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that UNTIL NOON today for partial credit. 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.

NEW Recommended Tech Tip: Gmail Security. I just discovered a very user-friendly and extremely helpful, step-by-step guide to Google Security. I would highly recommend this as a Gmail Security Tech Tip for everybody to try, especially if you are not sure whether you have configured your Google account so that you can recover your password in case you lose access to your account.

Storybook Stack. I've still got quite a few items left in the Storybook stack. If you turned something on Sunday, you should have comments back from me; if you turned something in on Monday or on Tuesday or Wednesday, it is probably still in the stack. You can check to make sure you assignment is in the stack here. If you want comments back from me by the weekend, please get your Storybook assignment turned in by Friday at noon tomorrow.

Storybooks: Three-story option. If you are on schedule right now with the Storybook, turning in your third story for Week 10, you may decide to just finish the Storybook with just three stories. So, think about that when you go to add the new story to your Storybook for Week 10. If you do not need the 20 points for adding the fourth story and revising it, you can choose to conclude your Storybook with just three stories in it, making this third story your final story. Quite a few students choose to do this every semester, and it is fine with me! If you decide to finish with just three stories, here is what you would do: Week 10 Third Story; Week 11 Revise Third Story; (skip Week 12 and Week 13); Week 14 Revise Introduction; Week 15 Final Revisions. It's up to you, based on your personal preferences and the number of points you will be needing to get the grade you want (410 total for an A, 360 total for a B, 320 total for a C).

October 28: The Philadelphia Experiment. Today, October 28, is the anniversary of the so-called Philadelphia Experiment in 1943... if such an experiment actually took place! Was it an experiment, or one of the great hoaxes of the 20th century? Did the U.S. Navy use Einstein's theories in order to render the destroyer escort USS Eldridge invisible - and when the ship reappeared, were there sailors actually embedded in the metal hull of the ship...? Was the ship then teleported to Norfolk, Virginia...? You can read more about this experiment/legend in this Wikipedia article - and it was also the subject of a 1984 film advertised in this poster:

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Wednesday, October 27

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 10 of the class. If you have not turned in your Week 9 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday.

Week 10 Internet assignment: Extra credit option. (repeat announcement) The Week 10 Internet assignment is available now and in addition to the usual task of reading three Storybooks and commenting on them, there is an additional "extra credit" option where you can read three more Storybooks and comment on them for an additional 6 points. Last year a student suggested that I add this option for the next few weeks so that you have more of a chance to read all the Storybooks in your class, and that seemed like a good idea to me! So, in Week 10, and also in Week 11 and Week 12, you have the extra credit option of doubling up and reading more Storybooks for extra credit if you want.

Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned something in before 7PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later 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. Remember: if you turned in a revision assignment, you don't need to wait for comments back from me to go on to your next story. Also, see Tuesday's announcements for additional information about finishing up your Storybook.

October 27: Birthday of Erasmus. Today marks the birthday in the year 1466 of the Desiderius Erasmus, one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance. You can read about Erasmus's remarkable life and career in this Wikipedia article. Of all the great thinkers and scholars in the history of the world, Erasmus is my own personal hero. One of his books in particular has been very important in my own life - a huge collection of thousands and thousands of Latin proverbs, with little essays about each one, called the Adagia. Erasmus is also one of the most important figures in the history of critical editions of the Bible in Greek and in Latin. Below is a famous portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger; along the edge of the book facing the viewer the letters read "The Labors of Heracles" in Greek (ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΟΙ ΠΟΝΟΙ = HERAKLEIOI PONOI), alluding to the amazing feats which Erasmus accomplished in his life as a scholar.

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Tuesday, October 26

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 10 of the class, and I've re-arranged the Quiz area in Desire2Learn so Week 10 is on top. This week's topic is fairy tales in Myth-Folklore, Boccaccio's Decameron in World Literature, and in Indian Epics you're finishing up Narayan's Mahabharata. Note: If you have not turned in your Week 9 Storybook assignment yet, you may still do that for partial credit.

Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned something in on Saturday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in 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.

Finishing up the class: Storybooks. As I've mentioned before, there is no absolute requirement about the number of stories in a finished Storybook, and based on your strategy for getting your points in the class, you can finish your Storybook when it has two stories or three stories or four stories - it is up to you! The Week 14 and Week 15 Storybook assignments are final revisions, so if you are stopping with just three stories, for example, you can skip Week 12 and Week 13 and go straight to the final revision assignments. Several people have finished the class already, and you can see that their Storybooks contain two or three or four Storybooks - it all depends on what you prefer! Amber (Greek Goddesses on Trial) finished up her Myth-Folklore Storybook with four stories; in Indian Epics, Dhara (A Disney Retelling: Karma) has two stories in her Storybook, Lisa (My Mystical Travels in India) has three stories in hers, and Lauran has four (Karma Dreams). Congratulations to these students for finishing up the class so early!

Week 10 Internet assignment: Extra credit option. The Week 10 Internet assignment is available now and in addition to the usual task of reading three Storybooks and commenting on them, there is an additional "extra credit" option where you can read three more Storybooks and comment on them for an additional 6 points. Last year a student suggested that I add this option for the next few weeks so that you have more of a chance to read all the Storybooks in your class, and that seemed like a good idea to me! So, in Week 10, and also in Week 11 and Week 12, you have the option of doubling up and reading more Storybooks for extra credit if you want.

October 26: Carlo Collodi. Today, October 26, marks the anniversary of the death in the year 1890 of the Italian author, Carlo Collodi, who is best known today as the creator of the the story of Pinocchio, the little boy made of wood. If you have never read the actual Pinocchio story, I highly recommend it - it's a surprising and beautiful and mysterious book, definitely one of the best books ever written for children, in my opinion. Here is Pinocchio in English online. You can also read an English version with the famous illustrations by Attilio Mussino online, which is the source for the image below:

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Monday, October 25

Today is Monday. Week 9 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 10 will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get a head start!

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. 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 be reading and reply to the assignments in the order they were turned in.

Extra credit. For those of you who would like to finish the class early so that you have more time available for your finals and end-of-semester projects in other classes, you can work ahead AND you can take advantage of the extra credit! If you can do all the various extra credit options each week for the next few weeks, it will allow you to skip a week or two of this class and finish up early. We have a full week off for Thanksgiving Break in this class (November 19-November 28), and it is entirely possible to finish up by Thanksgiving (Fall 2010 calendar). For those of you who have big end-of-semester projects or really difficult final exams, I would highly recommend doing extra credit in this class and working ahead so that you can finish up early and concentrate on the end-of-semester demands in your other classes.

Microsoft Updates and Anti-Virus Software. Every semester, I hear from students who have run into serious problems with viruses on their computers. Although it really does not affect your work for this class (since the work you do here is browser-based), it can be a big problem to have your personal computer out of commission. If you use Windows as your computer operating system, and especially if you use Internet Explorer as your browser, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that you update your Windows operating system with the latest security updates at the WindowsUpdate.Microsoft.com website. In addition, OU IT makes anti-virus software available to you FOR FREE. Just log on to the IT Store at ITStore.ou.edu, and after you log on, click on this Symantec Anti-Virus Software link to download and install the software for free. For additional help or if you have questions, call IT at 325-HELP.


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