Tuesday, August 22

Today is Tuesday of WEEK 1, and if you have not started the course and created your blog, today is the day to do that! Those assignments are both due today. Here is a link to this week's assignments, along with other important information about the class.

Class Procedures and Reminders

THANK YOU. I wanted to say a big thank you to all the people who have started the class and set up their blogs. You can see the live blog stream in Canvas (see the link in the left-hand menu)... there are lots of posts already, and there will be more to come each day this week!

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 assignment 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. 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. Then, next week you'll start commenting on each other's blogs, and there will be blog commenting every week for the rest of the semester. In the meantime, if you see a blog post in the blog stream and want to comment, by all means do so!

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Words from Mythology. Today's word from mythology is the name of the day: TUESDAY from Tiw, the Germanic god of war. So, Tuesday is "Tiw's Day," the day belonging to the god of war.

Storybook Archive. This project is from the Myth-Folklore class: If Dragons Took Over the World. In this Storybook, dragons have indeed taken over the world. Learn the story of the dragons' struggle with mankind in the lessons that Teaching-Claws-Firebreath shares with his young dragon pupils in Dragon History class.

Free Book Online: Today's free book is Fairy Tales from Far Japan by Susan Ballard. See the Freebookapalooza blog for links and the table of contents.

Story of the Day. Today's story is a jataka tale from India: The Elephant and the Dog, a story of animal friendship.

Video: The video for today is about another word from mythology: Labyrinth History & Walking. Find out more at this blog post.

Event on Campus: Congressman Tom Cole is holding a Town Hall Meeting at 5:30 PM in the National Weather Center auditorium (details). Find out more about other events at the Campus Calendar online.

August 22: Ray Bradbury. Today marks the birthday of the great American writer, Ray Bradbury, who was born on this day in 1920; he died in 2012. I recently re-read his book The Martian Chronicles and was amazed by the wild creativity of the stories — I had not read the book since junior high school, and I am so glad that I read it again. Here is the cover of the first edition of Martian Chronicles as published in 1950:

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