Wednesday, February 6

Today is Wednesday of Week 4. Here is a link to the Week 4 assignments. I hope you are enjoying this week's reading!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Go wild with your notes. In yesterday's announcements, I mentioned a weird-but-useful strategy for reading, and trying weird new things is good for learning. Likewise with notetaking: try new strategies, look up things online, be curious, ask questions! The more active your brain can be while you read and take notes, thinking your own weird thoughts, the more you will remember (see some ideas here, and see the video below).

Project Stack. If you turned in something by 4PM on Saturday, you should have comments back from me. I'll keep working on the Saturday assignments today and then I'll start on the Sunday items; meanwhile, you can check the stack to make sure I received your email.

Blogger and Google+. You may have seen a notice in Blogger about the end of Google+ comment integration with Blogger. I don't think any of you have Google+ commenting turned on in your blog (it's not something I ever used myself, even though I was a Google+ fan back in the day), but if you do, you need to switch over to the usual Blogger commenting. If you have any questions about that, let me know.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog Stream. Yesterday I shared Anhthu's Twine game, and today it's an animated gif by Tamiko, which is another Tech Tip option!

Comic Book On Reserve. Today's comic book is Heroes of Hampi: The Mythology of Kishkindha. And for more about ACK comic books, see the video below!

Free Audiobook. Today's free audiobook is a huge collection of Welsh fairy-lore: British Goblins - Welsh Folklore and Fairy Mythology by Wirt Sikes.

Featured Storybook. Myths and legends are often about "crimes" of some kind, which means a criminal court might be required, like in this Storybook: Celtic Creature Criminal Court Clerk. What will the court decree as punishment for fairy criminals like Willowflitter, Grumgottels, Rainwasp, and Moonsplatter?

Myth Video. This is a video by the Fountainheads about the story of Esther, a Bible heroine who appears in one of the Myth-Folklore units this week: Raise Your Mask Purim.

India Video. Those of you in Indian Epics who are reading the Amar Chitra Katha comic books might enjoy this video about ACK's founder, Anant Pai.

India Item. This is an article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed's linguistics blog: What’s the Fastest-Growing Language in the U.S.? You’ll Never Guess. Answer: Telugu, a Dravidian language of south India!

Writing. It's a communications paradox: A Brief History of Writing Technology.

And here's some advice from Robert Fulghum involving one of my favorite technologies: crayons!

Growth Mindset Cats. This cat is feeling creative: creativity allows you to express yourself.

Taking notes and being creative go hand-in hand: A Writer's Notebook.

Event on Campus. Here's a nice way to start your day: you can join in Gentle Yoga on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7AM-7:45AM from OU Fit and Rec (details).

Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 6: Manutius. Today marks the anniversary of the death of Aldus Pius Manutius in the year 1515. Manutius founded the Aldine Press of Venice in 1494, and thus he published some of the first printed editions of the Latin and Greek classics. Aldus was an innovator in typography, too; most famously, he invented the italic font! You can read more at Wikipedia about Aldus and about the Aldine Press. The image below shows a page from his 1501 edition of Horace; even though it is a printed book, it is designed to imitate the style and layout of a medieval manuscript:



And here's a fun animation of the press logo, a dolphin, done by Laura Aydelotte:

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