Friday, August 26 - Sunday, August 28

HAPPY WEEKEND! You have reached the end of Week 1! The Week 1 Read and Respond assignment (blog commenting) is available now, and all remaining Week 1 assignments are due on Friday or on Saturday or Sunday - please make sure you get started on those assignments soon. Also, Friday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Thursday.

Daily Announcements. If you did not keep up with the Announcements this week, check the Announcements blog to review the information covered in all the announcements this week.

Read and Respond Blog Comments. Now that everybody has had a chance to finish their blog posts for the week, the Read and Respond assignment for Week 1 is now available! I've put everybody into "blog groups" to get started. To find out just what you need to do for this assignment and to see who is in your group, visit the Read and Respond assignment page.

Proofreading/Storybook Assignments. I will read and reply to as many of the Proofreading and Storybook assignments as I can on Friday. To make sure that I received your assignment in the email, you can check the stack which lists all the email assignments I have received but have not yet replied to.

Get ahead this weekend! This weekend is the absolute best time to get ahead in this class, before things really get busy in your other classes. If you can do all the Week 2 assignments this weekend, that will give you a cushion of extra time that will make the whole semester much easier for you in this class.

Early Bird extra credit. The Early Bird extra credit is the easiest extra credit you can get. To take these extra credit points, you don't have to do any extra work - you just have to be one week ahead of schedule. So, for example, if you finish the reading and blogging assignments for Week 2 this weekend, you get extra credit just for working ahead. Now is the time to take advantage of that, and you can then stay one week ahead for the rest of the semester.

My weekend schedule. I check email occasionally over the weekend, and I will do my best to respond promptly to any urgent problems or questions that come up. In general, though, any email that you send to me over the weekend will wait until Monday morning, when I get back to work. So, please be patient: if you do not get an answer from me during the weekend, I will get back to you promptly on Monday.

Honors College Research Opportunities. This semester offers a fascinating list of research opportunities for Honors College students - paid research jobs, in fact: Honors Research Assistant Program. Visit the webpage for more information about open positions, eligibility, and the application process.

Friday Events on Campus. There's a free concert - Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Broncho and Chrome Pony - at 7PM on the East Lawn of the Union (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Friday and over the weekend at the Campus Calendar online.

Repeat Announcement: Charming Kitten. I'm sharing this announcement from Tim in the Myth-Folklore class: "I took these pictures of a kitten I just rescued. He made a visit to the vet where he got treatment for his ear mites, dewormer, vaccine, and all those good things. He is now healthy, happy, and in need of a home. As I already have three cats, I cannot keep him so if anybody would like this kitty please let me know." You can use Tim's Comment Wall at the Ning to contact him if you want to know more about this charming kitten! Here are two pictures:

Thursday, August 25

Today is Thursday of WEEK 1 of class. Thursday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Wednesday. You must complete the Week 1 Wednesday assignments if you want to remain in this class, so please make sure you finish up all your Wednesday assignments by noon today at the latest!

D2L Quiz Errors. The problem with some quizzes timing out (see yesterday's announcements) has been fixed. So, you should not be running into any problems but if you do, definitely let me know!

Ning FAQs and Tips. I want to call your attention to the list of Ning FAQs and Tips at the class wiki. You will find information there about managing your Ning blog and also about your profile page. If there is something you want to find out which is not answered there already, please let me know and I'll add to the list of tips!

2 classes = 1 Ning. As you have noticed, all of the online courses I teach are combined into one Ning. There are a couple reasons why I did that. One reason is very practical: I am paying out of my pocket to have the Ning be ad-free, so I preferred to pay just once, instead of having to pay for multiple Nings. The other reason is that it can be fun to see the posts pop up from all the classes, since you might see something - an image, a title - that gets your attention and provokes your curiosity! Starting tomorrow, Friday, you'll be able to do the official Read & Respond assignment, reading and responding to the blogs of people in your blog group (more about that in tomorrow's announcements), and in the meantime feel free to leave comments on anything at the Ning that happens to get your attention!

Thursday Events on Campus. There's a free "Midnight Breakfast" tonight in the Memorial Food Court, sponsored by the Healthy Sooners club (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Thursday at the Campus Calendar online.

August 25: Birthday of Walt Kelly. The American cartoonist, Walt Kelly, most famous for his Pogo cartoons, was born today, August 25, in 1913. You can read about Walt Kelly's life and career in this Wikipedia article. You might be interested to know, for example, that he worked at Disney and contributed to the classical animated films Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, and Dumbo! The image below is from his Animal Mother Goose book, in which Kelly illustrated the traditional Mother Goose nursery rhymes with animal characters (click here for a larger version of the image), as here, where "Little Johnny Green" is an alligator, and "Little Johnny Stout" is an elephant!

Wednesday, August 24

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 1 of class. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you forgot to do any of the assignments that were due on Tuesday. Please make sure you finish all the Tuesday assignments during the grace period. The Orientation Week assignments are required if you want to remain in the class.

D2L Quiz Errors. There are some problems with D2L for some users at this time; it is not clear just how many people are affected. You can get the latest information at the D2L Facebook page. If you are having trouble doing a Declaration, just send me the text of the Declaration in an email, and I will record the points for you manually. If you are having trouble with the Plagiarism quiz, send me an email and we'll figure out just how to manage that when D2L is not being so cranky - but go right on and do the storytelling assignment now! If you are having trouble with other quizzes that are not due today, move on to the next assignment and just come back to do the quiz later; I'm sure they will get it fixed soon. Fingers crossed!

Class announcements. You should be reading the class announcements every day. If you did not read the Tuesday announcements, please make sure you do that now: Tuesday announcements. There was important information in the Tuesday announcements that will help you complete your various assignments for this week.

Wednesday assignments. You have assignments due today, Wednesday, that will get you ready for the creative kinds of story re-telling you will be doing in this class. Please make sure you complete today's assignments; these first week assignments are mandatory and must be completed if you want to remain in the class.

Wednesday Events on Campus. There is an Arts Fair at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art this evening, Wednesday, 5PM-7PM, with pizza provided (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Wednesday at the Campus Calendar online.

Your announcements for the class. If any of you are involved in campus activities that you want me to publicize, please let me know. I'll be glad to include them here in the class announcements! Send me specific information about day-time-location, and also a link to a webpage or any additional online information you have about the group or activity. For an example of such an announcement, see below!

Charming Kitten Needs Home. I'm sharing this announcement from Tim in the Myth-Folklore class: "I took these pictures of a kitten I just rescued. He made a visit to the vet where he got treatment for his ear mites, dewormer, vaccine, and all those good things. He is now healthy, happy, and in need of a home. As I already have three cats, I cannot keep him so if anybody would like this kitty please let me know." You can use Tim's Comment Wall at the Ning to contact him if you want to know more about this charming kitten! Here are two pictures:

Tuesday, August 23

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 1 of class. You have some Orientation assignments that are DUE TODAY, Tuesday. If you have not completed those assignments yet, please make sure you complete them today. The Orientation week assignments are mandatory if you are planning to remain in the class. If you did not read Monday's announcements, you should probably do that now, too!

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 more blog 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. Although you do the other assignments for class early (and I strongly encourage you to work ahead as much as you can!), the "Read and Respond" assignment is something you cannot do early, since you 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.

Early Proofreading and Storybook assignments. As those of you who are working ahead turn in your Proofreading and Storybook assignments, I will try to get those back to you either that same day or the next day at the latest. You can check at this webpage to make sure I have received your assignment: Assignment Stack. I publish the list of assignments in the stack like that so you can check to make sure I have in fact received your assignment - if you do not see yourself listed in the stack, let me know so I can track down the missing email.

You can call me Laura. Really! As you've probably seen, I sign all my emails to you as "Laura," which is definitely what you can call me. I'm actually not a professor (just an instructor) - and since I'm going to be calling you all by your first names, it makes sense that you just call me by my first name also. :-)

Tuesday Events on Campus. There will be guided tours of Bizzell Library on Tuesday at 11AM and 4:30PM, as well as tours scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday (time/location/details). Find out more about this event and other events happening on Tuesday at the Campus Calendar online.

August 23: International Black Ribbon Day. Today, August 23, is the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, a memorial day designated by the European Parliament and observed also in Canada. The day August 23 was chosen because it is the date of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the alliance (which did not last long) between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. You can read more about the Day of Remembrance in this Wikipedia article. To my mind, one of the most profound examples of the combined terror of Nazism and Stalinism is the massacre that took place at Katyń, a forest near Smolensk in western Russia, where over 20,000 Polish military officers and other Polish prisoners of war were executed. At first, the Nazis blamed the crime on Stalin, and then Stalin blamed the crime on the Nazis, and only recently has it become clear that the executions were in fact carried out by the Soviet NKVD on Stalin's orders. There is a film by the great Polish director Andrzej Wajda about the Katyń massacre, and it is a very personal film for Wajda, as his father was one of the slain Polish officers. I highly recommend the film; you can read a review I wrote about it here to learn more.

Monday, August 22: Fall Semester Begins!

Hello everybody, and welcome to FALL SEMESTER 2011. I hope you had a great summer and that you will have an exciting semester ahead! In this online course, you have a week of orientation activities to help you get acquainted with the tools and resources you will be using this semester. Please get started on the activities soon, since you have some assignments that are already DUE ON TUESDAY. Here is how to get started:

Course websites. You will find all the information you need about the course assignments at the website for the class you are enrolled in. Just click on the website for the course you are enrolled in, and then click on the Week 1 Orientation link to find the list of assignments along with detailed instructions:

• MLLL-3043: Mythology-Folklore
• MLLL-4993: Indian Epics

You will see all fifteen weeks of the semester listed on the homepage of each course website, and you are welcome to work as far ahead as you want. So, if you have some free time now before your other classes begin, you could get a really good head start on the class. A few students are already working ahead on Week 3! GO SOONERS!

Desire2Learn. When you log on to Desire2Learn, you should see the course listed in "Fall 2011 Courses." If you do not see the course listed, check with me right away and/or contact 325-HELP so that you can get access to the course.

Assignment Stack. Each week there will be something you turn in to me via email, which I will then read and comment on. In the first week, for example, you will turn in a Proofreading Practice assignment. As you turn those assignments in, I list them in the Stack. You can always check the stack to make sure I have received your assignment. I work through the stack in the order that the items were turned in; I will try to get each assignment back to you within 24 hours, but if there are a lot of items in the stack, it can sometimes take longer. If you have turned something in and do not see it listed in the stack, please contact me so that we can track down the missing email!

Questions...? The first week's Orientation activities are designed to introduce you to all the class activities and procedures, so don't worry: everything will become a lot more clear as you work your way through the Orientation assignments. Meanwhile, feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the class that are not answered at the course website.

Howdy Week Events on Campus. On Monday you can get donuts and fruit on the South Oval from 8-10AM; pizza, sandwiches and sno-cones from 11:30AM-2PM, with a watermelon bash from 3-5PM in Walker-Adams Mall (time/location/details). Find out more about these events and other events happening on campus on Monday at the Campus Calendar online.

(image source)