Tuesday, August 23

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 1, and you have your first Orientation assignments due today. Here is a link to this week's assignments, and thanks to all of you who have your blogs up and running now! It is exciting to see all these new blogs coming to life. :-)

Class Procedures and Reminders

Monday announcements. If you didn't get a chance to read yesterday's announcements, do that now: Monday announcements. You can subscribe to the announcements by email also; there's a subscription box in the right-hand sidebar of the blog.

Due dates. There are assignments due today, and the best strategy for this class is to stay ahead of those due dates instead of letting the due dates set the schedule for you. So, finish up the Tuesday assignments today, and then see if you can start on the Wednesday ones today also. You'll find the class much easier to manage if you are not racing against the clock to meet a due date.

Blog comments. As you can guess, there are lot of blog posts now with there being about 90 students total in the two classes combined. My goal this week is to leave comments on everybody's Favorite Places posts and on the Introduction posts, along with any other posts I can find time for. Later in the week, I'll be creating blog groups so that you can start meeting other people in the class and commenting on each other's stories and introductions.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Clarke's Third Law. Since there are a lot of science majors in these classes, I thought I would share this graphic with the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Find out more at Clarke's Three Laws.

Imagination Celebration. As you embark on this class, I hope it will be a great journey of imagination! Find out more about this Maurice Sendak poster at the H.E.A.R.T. blog.

BARE v. BEAR. I made this series of spelling posters to help people with spelling words where the spellchecker will not save you. Find out more at the Writing Laboratory.

Featured Storybook. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: Demigod Daycare. It is a special occasion at Demigod Daycare: the Muses themselves have come to tell stories to little Heracles and Perseus and all the little sons and daughters of the gods and goddesses.

Free Book Online: Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents for this delightful book. There's a free audiobook version of this one too!

Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is Bees gather honey from every flower (an English proverb). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. This is a good metaphor I think for liking all kinds of books and stories, gathering ideas from all of them which you then use for your own creations. :-)

Today's Video: A Bigger Definition of Creativity. I thought you might enjoy this video by a wonderful teacher who shares all kinds of great stuff online, John Spencer; you can follow him at Twitter.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat is fearless. Take risks: go out on a limb! You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Event on Campus: Join Kelly Damphousse, Dean of Arts and Sciences, for lunch in the Will Rogers Room in the Union from 11:30AM - 1:00PM (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

August 23: William Wallace: Today marks the death of William Wallace, the hero of Scottish history and legend, in the year 1305. You might know him from the Mel Gibson movie Braveheart. You can read more about Wallace's life and career at Wikipedia, which is also the source for this photo of a stained glass monument to honor William Wallace:

Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day.