Wednesday, November 20

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 14. If you have not turned in your Week 13 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.

Class Procedures and Reminders:

Storybook stack. If you turned in a Storybook assignment by 6PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now; if you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday it is probably still in the stack (you can check the contents of the stack to make sure I have received your email). Meanwhile, if the points for that assignment will give you the points you need to finish the class, send me a separate email to let me know, and I'll put your Storybook at the top of the stack.

Week 14 and Week 15 Internet assignments. The Week 14 Internet assignment is not available yet, but the Week 15 Internet assignment is ready to go for those of you who are working ahead. For more information about Thanksgiving and the Week 14 schedule, see Tuesday's announcements.

Storybook Ballots. (repeat announcement) I've tallied up the nominations that people turned in (thanks to everybody who participated in that part of the process!), and you can see the top nominations for each class here: Storybook Ballot Fall 2013. The ballot contains links to all the Storybooks which you can use to refresh your memory or look at any Storybooks you have not seen before, and maybe you will want to visit the Storybooks in the other class if you are curious. For each class, you will find the actual ballot for voting in Desire2Learn in Week 14. This is just for fun - not for points or a grade or anything. If you have a few minutes to spare, please vote for your own personal favorites! The ballot will be available until 5PM on Thursday of this week, and I'll announce the results on Friday. 

Saving Your Ning Blog. (repeat announcement) The class Ning will not be available after the end of the semester. That is because I have to pay for the Ning out of pocket and it has a maximum of appx. 100 students, which means I have to clear it out at the end of every semester.  If, however, you create your own writing portfolio, you can copy your best Ning blog posts in your portfolio. You can use Google's Blogger to create your own writing portfolio online, or you can create a new GoogleSite and/or you can use GoogleDocs to publish research papers and other long writing samples online. Having your own writing portfolio is a great way to document your best work in college! A portfolio can provide something both more personal and more tangible to go along with your resume, GPA, and transcript, showcasing your work in a more memorable way.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Featured Resource: Art Passions. The ArtPassions website is a beautiful collection of fairy-tale-inspired artwork from Arthur Rackham, Edward Dulac, Kay Nielsen, and many more.


Featured Storybook: The Princess and the Green Serpent. Elizabeth has just added the final chapter to this Storybook which retells one of the most famous French fairy tales of Madame D'Aulnoy. If you are fan of "Beauty and the Beast," this is a Storybook you will want to look at!


FREE Kindle eBook: : Myths and Legends Along the Rocky Range by Charles M. Skinner. Here is a link to the book at Amazon, and this blog post provides additional information about the folklore of the American West contained in this book.


Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is The basket that has two handles can be carried by two (an Egyptian proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. The world needs more handles!


Mahabharata Image: Today's Mahabharata image is Draupadi, the Pandavas, and Aswatthaman. You can see that Aswatthaman is bleeding after the diamond has been removed from his forehead.


Wednesday Event on Campus: The OU GIS Day Expo will take place from 10AM - 3PM in the Union Ballroom, showing GIS research and technology, with door prizes too! (details) Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

November 20: Universal Children's Day. In 1954, the United Nations declared November 20 to be Universal Children's Day, an annual holiday in honor of worldwide understanding between children, while also promoting children's rights and welfare. You can read more about the holiday at the United Nations website. The image below is a poster from the Unicef proclamation of Universal Children's Day:




Note: You can page back through older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed.