Thursday, January 18

Today is Thursday of WEEK 1. It's time for Introduction posts, and also an assignment I hope you will like, learning about Carol Dweck's "growth mindset" approach to learning. Here is a link to the Orientation week assignments.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Success Tips: Ask Questions. Please feel free to contact me with questions any time. If I happen to be online, I will write you back right away. Asking questions is how you learn... and it helps me know what things I need to explain more clearly about the class. So, no need to apologize at all: if you have a question, just ask!

Blog links and images. I wanted to remind everybody to make sure you are creating clickable links in your posts and also that you are uploading images instead of remote linking (hotlinking). For specific help with links and images, see these pages for more info: Links in Blogger (don't just paste in the http address) and Blogger Images: Always Upload (don't just copy-and-paste the image).

My comments. I'm working through the Favorite Places posts, and then I will move on to the Introduction posts which I'll be commenting on this week and next. It's fun seeing all the different Favorite Places! Then, next week you will also start commenting on the Introduction posts, meeting other people in the class; that commenting assignment will be ready for you next Tuesday.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. You will be learning about growth mindset today, so I wanted to share a growth acronym that Rosa made; find out more at her blog post: GROWTH: Grab Riveting Opportunities With The Heart. Making a "growth mindset" acronym or your own growth mindset motto is one of the extra credit challenges you can try later on:

Words from Mythology. Here's another word origin for you: this month, January, takes its name from the Roman god, Janus, who in turn takes his name from the Latin janua, a door or gateway. He had a face looking forward and a face looking backward, just as January is the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year. We also get the word "janitor" from janua, because "janitors" were originally doorkeepers, opening and closing doors. Find out more at JANUS.

Myth Video OR India Video: I just learned that one of my favorite TV shows, Battlestar Galactica, is now streaming on Amazon Prime... and there is an India connection: the theme song is based on the ancient Gayatri Mantra. Find out more here: Battlestar Galactica: Gayatri Mantra.

Proverb of the Day: Today's proverb is related to one of the key ideas of growth mindset: don't be afraid of making a mistake! They wouldn’t make erasers if we didn’t make mistakes. Find out more at the Proverb Laboratory.

Writing: I know a lot of you are science majors, so I wanted to share a cartoon from one of my favorite cartoonists, Tom Gauld: Science/Science Fiction. Science fiction Storybooks are very welcome in this class! :-)

H.E.A.R.T.: Here's a fun cartoon about technology and well-being: Tech-Meditation.

Growth Mindset: Now that you are going to be learning about growth mindset, I'll start including a growth mindset cat each day in the announcements. Today's growth mindset cat offers these encouraging words: You are capable of more than you think. Find out more at the Growth Mindset blog.

Video: Here's another video that I thought you might enjoy in the spirit of being brave and getting outside of your comfort zone: Be Brave for Education.

Event on Campus: There will be a talk tonight at 6:30PM at the Russell Center by Chelsea Herr: Restoration and Revival: Life and Work of Joseph Henry Sharp (details; more about Sharp). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

January 18: Kipling. Today marks the anniversary of the death in 1936 of the British author Rudyard Kipling, who was born in Mumbai, India in 1865 and who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. You can read more about Kipling's life and career in this Wikipedia article, and here's a link to one of my favorite Kipling books: Just-So Stories. He was also the author of The Jungle Book.

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