Friday, December 10

THE CLASS IS NOW OVER. :-) Here are some final announcements:

First and foremost, THANK YOU for all the good work that you did in the class, especially on the Storybooks. Every semester I am amazed by the variety and excellence of the Storybooks that people create, and that was very true this semester! I had such a good time watching them evolve and reading all the stories. I even learned many new stories that I had never heard before, which is why I will never get bored teaching these classes: I get to learn new things all the time! So, thank you all for all the good work you did!

Grades: I have recorded the final grades in the Desire2Learn Gradebook, and those are the grades I have turned in for the semester.

Ning: Please take a last look at your comment wall at the Ning and at your blog to see if you got some comments in the last days of class. There might have been some people who left comments on your Storybook as late as this Friday.

Announcements: I have cleared out the Announcements email so you will not get announcements when classes start up again in the spring. So, if you are going to be in one of these classes in the spring, you'll need to sign up for that email list again.

I think that's it, but if you have any questions I have not answered here, let me know. Have a great winter break and if you are traveling, travel safely!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Thursday, December 9

Today is Thursday of WEEK 15 of the class. Thursday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT WEEK 15: (repeat announcement) Week 15 is different from other weeks, because it ENDS ON FRIDAY AT NOON. So, if you will be doing some Week 15 assignments to finish up the class, please be aware of this special schedule: all the final Week 15 assignments are due by NOON ON FRIDAY at the latest. No late Week 15 Storybook assignment can be turned in for partial credit. All Week 15 assignments - including the Storybook assignment, Internet assignment, Blog Responding assignment, along with any extra credit you want to complete - must be done by Friday, December 10, at noon.

Grading and points. (repeat announcement) As you can see in the Grading Information page, you need 410 to get an A, 360 points to get a B, and 320 points to get a C. When you get the number of points you need, you are done! If you can let me know when you are done with the class, I will record the letter grade for you in the Gradebook so that you can be sure you are finished with everything for the class.

Storybook stack. As of Wednesday at 5 PM, I had read and replied to all the Storybook assignments that were in the stack. As always, you can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment; I'll be updating the stack again first thing on Thursday morning - but I will be out of the office for at least part of the day on Thursday so I might not get comments back to you immediately. If you want points recorded in the Gradebook on Thursday, get your assignment turned by 5PM and I will make sure to read and respond to it on Thursday evening so you will know where you stand.

Evaluate.. and win an iPad. Today, Thursday, is the last day to complete the course evaluations available at eval.ou.edu. The evaluation will be available until 11:59PM tonight. Plus, they are giving away iPads to some lucky students drawn at random from the people who completed the course evaluations! So, if you have not completed the evaluations for your classes, please take a few minutes to do that today. Your feedback is really valuable to me... and it might turn out to be valuable to you, too! :-)

January 13 2012: Academic Technology Expo

I am pleased to announce that at OU's Academic Technology Expo on January 13, 2012, there were two student-led sessions on the topic of student web publishing, with students presenting the projects that they published online as part of MLLL-3043 "Mythology and Folklore" and/or MLLL-4993 "Ancient Indian Epics" in the Fall 2011 semester. The students provide a guided tour of their Storybook projects and tell you about their online course experience, as well as answering audience questions. Find out more about:

• creative writing assignments and semester-long writing projects
• using GoogleSites to create and publish websites
• using Ning for blogging and student-to-student interaction

Below you will find specific information about the sessions, with links to the students' online projects ... along with video of their presentations! The sound quality, alas, is not very good - but if you crank the volume up, you should be able to hear most of it.

Friday, Jan. 13: 11:45-12:15 in 155 Gould Hall

• Chris Harvey - Asian Fox Stories. Chris is a Microbiology major doing research in Dr. Michael McInerny's lab; he works with the organism S. Wolfei.
• Corry Parker - Finals Week: Death Notes. Corry is an Anthropology major. Look for characters from Mary's Storybook (see below) showing up here in Corry's Storybook - very cool!
• Mary Stanfield - Long Road Home: From the Hunters' Notebook. Mary is a Philosophy senior, Opinion Editor at The Oklahoma Daily, and GLBTF Vice-President.
• Elizabeth Oberg - It's a Shoe Thing (plus, Elizabeth is a veteran; see also - Esther: A Beautiful Purpose for Power and Devi & the Trimurti). Elizabeth is a senior Broadcast Journalism major, and she has taken 10 online classes (!) while at OU. She will graduate this May and hopes to find a job near her home in Austin, TX.

Friday, Jan. 13: 2:00-2:30 in 155 Gould Hall

• Kathleen Burns - A Town Called Diggory (plus, Kathleen is a veteran - see also: Tales from the Carnival), Kathleen is also an English Writing major and will be graduating this May.
• Mira Thomas - Siren, City in the Clouds. Mira is a newly minted graduate of the OU Anthropology department; she wrote her senior thesis on the archaeological evidence for Greek Amazons.
• Josh Samara - Rebirthed. Josh is a newly minted graduate of the OU English department, with a Writing emphasis.

If you are curious to learn more about the Storybook projects and these two online courses, you can find lots of information here:

• Course websites: Mythology & Folklore - Indian Epics
• Storybooks for Spring 2011: Mythology & Folklore - Indian Epics
• Past Storybooks: Mythology & Folklore - Indian Epics
• The Storybook Process (description of week-by-week assignments)
• Why Storybooks? (a slideshow presentation from October 2011)

If you have questions or comments and want to get in touch with Laura Gibbs, the instructor for these classes, you can use email (laura-gibbs@ou.edu) or - even better - use Google+ to connect with Laura and lots of other educators online: http://plus.ly/lauragibbs.

You can find more information at the
Academic Technology Expo webpage!

Wednesday, December 8

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 15 of the class. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT WEEK 15: (repeat announcement) Week 15 is different from other weeks, because it ENDS ON FRIDAY AT NOON. So, if you will be doing some Week 15 assignments to finish up the class, please be aware of this special schedule: all the final Week 15 assignments are due by NOON ON FRIDAY at the latest. No late Week 15 Storybook assignment can be turned in for partial credit. All Week 15 assignments - including the Storybook assignment, Internet assignment, Blog Responding assignment, along with any extra credit you want to complete - must be done by Friday, December 10, at noon.

Grading and points. (repeat announcement) As you can see in the Grading Information page, you need 410 to get an A, 360 points to get a B, and 320 points to get a C. When you get the number of points you need, you are done! If you can let me know when you are done with the class, I will record the letter grade for you in the Gradebook so that you can be sure you are finished with everything for the class.

Storybook stack. There are just a few items in the stack right now, and I'm trying to turn them around as quickly as I can so that you will be able to see where you stand to finish up the class. As always, you can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment. NOTE: I will be out of the office for at least part of the day on Thursday, so I will probably not be as quick on Thursday responding to Storybook assignments you turn in as I can be today, Wednesday.

December 8: Joel Chandler Harris. Today, December 8, marks the birthday in 1848 of Joel Chandler Harris, one of the most important folklorists of the American South, still famous today for his collection of "Uncle Remus" stories. You can read more about Harris in this Wikipedia article, and at this background page for the Myth-Folklore unit based on the stories Harris collected (some of you may have read those Brer Rabbit stories last week). The image below shows Brer Rabbit and Brer Tarrypin (the turtle) talking with the ladies in an illustration from an 1881 edition of Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings.

Tuesday, December 7

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 15 of the class.... YES: it is the last week of the class! For those of you doing the assignments for class this week, it is Alice Through the Looking-Glass in World Literature, with Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz in Myth-Folklore, while it's the Mahabharata review week in Indian Epics.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT WEEK 15: (repeat announcement) Week 15 is different from other weeks, because it ENDS ON FRIDAY AT NOON. So, if you will be doing some Week 15 assignments to finish up the class, please be aware of this special schedule: all the final Week 15 assignments are due by NOON ON FRIDAY at the latest. No late Week 15 Storybook assignment can be turned in for partial credit. All Week 15 assignments - including the Storybook assignment, Internet assignment, Blog Responding assignment, along with any extra credit you want to complete - must be done by Friday, December 10, at noon.

Grading and points. As you can see in the Grading Information page, you need 410 to get an A, 360 points to get a B, and 320 points to get a C. When you get the number of points you need, you are done! If you can let me know when you are done with the class, I will record the letter grade for you in the Gradebook so that you can be sure you are finished with everything for the class.

Storybook stack. If you turned in a Storybook assignment on Saturday or Sunday, you should have comments back from me and points recorded in the Gradebook. If you turned something in on Monday, it is probably still in the stack and I should be able to get to that today. As always, you can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment.

Pearl Harbor Day. Today, December 7, marks an important day in U.S. history: the attack on Pearl Harbor. I'm sure some of you have probably seen some movies about Pearl Harbor, perhaps even the great 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! which provides a documentary-like presentation of the events leading up to the attack from both the American and Japanese perspectives. A less well-known film that I watch every year is In Harm's Way, a 1965 film directed by Otto Preminger and starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, along with the great Patricia Neal, plus a wonderful performance by Burgess Meredith. The action of the film begins on the night of December 6... Highly recommended.

Monday, December 6

Today is Monday. Week 14 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, including the Week 14 Storybook assignment (see note below). Week 15 - the last week of the class! - will begin tomorrow - and those assignments are available now if you want to get started. Please read the following note about Week 15 and how it ENDS ON FRIDAY.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT WEEK 14 STORYBOOK: If you are turning in a Week 14 Storybook assignment, you need to do that on time; you cannot turn in a late Storybook assignment for Week 14. So, if you did not turn in the Week 14 Storybook assignment already over the weekend, you need to make sure you get the Week 14 Storybook assignment turned in during the grade period on Monday morning, before noon.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT WEEK 15: Week 15 is different from other weeks, because it ENDS ON FRIDAY AT NOON. So, if you will be doing some Week 15 assignments to finish up the class, please be aware of this special schedule: all the final Week 15 assignments are due by NOON ON FRIDAY at the latest. No late Week 15 Storybook assignment can be turned in for partial credit. All Week 15 assignments - including the Storybook assignment, Internet assignment, Blog Responding assignment, along with any extra credit you want to complete - must be completed by Friday, December 10, at noon.

Grading and points. As you can see in the Grading Information page, you need 410 to get an A, 360 points to get a B, and 320 points to get a C. When you get the number of points you need, you are done! If you can let me know when you are done with the class, I will record the letter grade for you in the Gradebook so that you can be sure you are finished with everything for the class.

Storybook stack. On Monday morning, I will update the contents of the stack, and I will start working my way through the stack based on the order in which things were turned in. As I explained last week, if these Storybook points might give you the points you need to finish up the class, send me a SEPARATE EMAIL to let me know and I'll move your assignment to the top of the stack. Meanwhile, you can always check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your assignment.

December 6: Saint Nicholas Day. Although "Saint Nick" is sometimes associated in popular tradition with the Christmas Holiday, the actual day of Saint Nicholas in the church calendar is today, December 6. In some countries, the Eve of Saint Nicholas (December 5) and Saint Nicholas Day (December 6) is an occasion for gift-giving. You can read more about Saint Nicholas and the festivities associated with Saint Nicholas in this Wikipedia article. The image below shows "Sinter Claes" on a wall in Amsterdam; the Netherlands is one of the countries where gift-giving is associated with Saint Nicholas: