Tuesday, January 24

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 2, and I've re-arranged the Modules area in Canvas so the new week is on top. If you have not done any reading for this week yet, you need to make sure you do some reading today. Here is a link to this week's assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Blog conversations. Sometimes you might get a comment at your blog that you want to reply to. You can use the "reply" to comment back to someone, but they might not know that you have done that; they will only get a notification if they clicked the email notification box when they left the comment. The best thing to do is to find the person's Comment Wall at THEIR blog and leave your reply there. That way they will get a notification for sure. You can find everybody's blogs at the Class Blog Directory.

Canvas messages. For those of you who are using Canvas a lot and want to send me a message via Canvas, you can do that, but I'd encourage you to send me an email instead. I will reply faster that way! Either way is good, though; I've configured Canvas so that it forwards Canvas messages to my email. You can also configure your Canvas notification preferences; here's how: Canvas Tech Tips.

Printing. For those of you who want to print pages either from the Myth-Folklore UnTextbook or the PDE Ramayana or the Narayan Reading Guides, there is a nifty trick you can use: just add ?m=1 to the address and you will see the Blogger mobile device view, which is much more clean and convenient for printing. Here's an example: King Dasharatha with the normal address, and King Dasharatha with the ?m=1 added to the end of the address.

Project Stack. As people turn in their Week 2 project assignments, I'll add them to the Stack, and you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Writing. I hope this class can be a chance for you to find your voice!


Reading. As you've probably already figured out, I like free books online: they are like free software for your brain.


Spelling. This is a word pair I have to stop and think about sometimes: CUE v. QUEUE.


Featured Storybook. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: Secret Life of Titans. The Titan brothers are immortal, of course, and in this Storybook you will learn what Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas and Menoitios are doing with their lives these days in the modern world.


Free Book Online: Today's free book is Sacred Tales of India by D. N. Neogi. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents. This is a fascinating collection of stories that are each connected with a divine ritual:


Words of Wisdom: Today's saying is Jove lifts the golden balances that show the fates of mortal men and things below (a saying from ancient Greece). Find out more at the Proverb Lab. The English couplet comes from the poet Alexander Pope's translation of Homer's Iliad.


Video: The video for today is Ravi Shankar on the Dick Cavett show. And yes, that is George Harrison who played a key role in promoting Ravi Shankar's beautiful music to new audiences in Europe and the U.S. Find out more here: When Ravi Shankar Met George Harrison.


Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cat has been watching those Carol Dweck videos: I don't do what's easy; I do what's hard. You can find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.


Event on Campus: Do you have young children? Know someone with young children? Spread the word about Art Adventures in the FJJ Museum of Art at 10:30 on Tuesdays (complete semester Art Adventures schedule). This Tuesday, it's Red is a Dragon:

January 24: E.T.A. Hoffmann. Today marks the birthday in the year 1776 of the genius fantasy author E.T.A. Hoffmann; you can read all about his life and career at Wikipedia. Among his many famous stories is The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which inspired Tchaikovsky's ballet. Here is a dance from the ballet as shown in the Disney film Fantasia:



Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.