HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 12! The Week 12 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and the remaining Week 12 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. Friday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Thursday.
Week 12 Responding: Check your groups. The groups for Blog Responding are basically the same as last week, but there have been some small adjustments, based on the folks who are finished with the class. So, before you do the blog responding assignment, double-check on your group to make sure you are responding to the right folks.
Gradebook Declarations. Some of you are under a lot of pressure at the end of the semester with projects and tests in your other classes. So please, if you do not have time to fully complete one of the assignments for this class, just skip it, and make up the points later. Read each Declaration carefully and do NOT make the Declaration if you have not completed the work. You need to check your word count and other requirements BEFORE you do the Declaration. The penalties for making false Gradebook Declarations are serious; if you are not clear about this, please check the Honor Code for this class. Your Gradebook Declarations need to be accurate and honest; the whole grading system in this class depends on it.
Storybook Stack. There are still some Storybook assignments in the stack (late Week 11 Storybooks plus early Week 12-13-14-15 Storybooks), and I am making my way through them in the order that they were turned in. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here. As always on Friday, I will do my best to get comments back before the weekend to any assignment turned in before noon on Friday. Anything that is turned in after noon on Friday will be added to the stack first thing on Monday morning.
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! It is fine with me if you decide to stop doing work for the class whenever you have the grade you want to receive. My only request is that you please let me know when you are done so I can know that it is time to record your final grade in the Gradebook.
Overview of Week 12 and Week 13 Internet assignments. (repeat announcement) For the Week 12 Internet assignment you will be commenting on Storybooks, along with an extra credit option to comment on Storybooks in the other classes again. Then, for the Week 13 assignment (available a week from today, on April 19), you will be voting on your favorite Storybooks for the semester. After you turn in your nominations, I'll set up a ballot so everybody can vote for the best Storybooks - it's not for a grade or anything, it's just for fun, and it gives the folks who have done really excellent work on their Storybooks a chance to get some well deserved recognition.
April 15: Leonardo da Vinci. Today marks the birthday in the year 1452 of the remarkable Leonardo da Vinci, who was a genius in math, science and engineering, as well as being a famous painter and sculptor. You can read about his remarkable life and career in Wikipedia. To see someone paint the Mona Lisa using the a very simple and primitive old art program, MS Paint, take a look at this YouTube video - it's mesmerizing!
