Friday, August 28

HAPPY FRIDAY! Today is Friday of Week 1, and you have reached the end of the Orientation Week: congratulations on all you have gotten done this week! The Orientation is all about getting ready for the semester to come, and in Week 2 the readings and stories will begin. I hope you will have fun with all of that!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Weekly schedule. As you saw this week, there were assignments due on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday — and then there are "end of the week" assignments, which you can do on Friday or over the weekend. So, if you have not finished up the final Orientation assignments, you can do that today or over the weekend, based on what is most convenient for you.

Catching up on announcements. If you didn't keep up with the week's announcements, you can always catch up on them afterwards; this link will take you to the most recent announcements.

Blog comments. I'm still commenting on the Favorite Places post (they are so much fun to read!), and then I'll start commenting on the Introduction posts; it usually takes me a week or two to read and reply to all of those. Meanwhile, the Week 2 Commenting assignment is available now, so you may be getting comments on your blog posts from other people in class too.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. There are so many cute pets in the blog stream; since we had dogs yesterday, here is a very adorable cat: this is Henry, from Katie T.'s blog post. :-)


Twitter stream. From Michael Crespin in OU's Carl Albert Center, I learned about this very cool Oklahoma Vote initiative, and I added it to our Canvas space, so now you can get all the information you need about registering to vote right there in Canvas! (It's down at the bottom of the menu.) You can find out more at the OUDaily.


And here's another cool item from OU that I learned about at Twitter: a LeanLibrary extension to help you with quick access to password-protected resources online:


Storybook. You got a chance to explore different Storybooks this week, and I wanted to share this one that uses Twine software to make a choose-your-own-adventure type of story: Mythical Monsters of the New World.


100-Word Stories. Today's microfiction story is an Aesop's fable, and it includes one of the gods of Olympus: Hermes! You can see the text of the story here: Hermes and the Woodcutter.



And from the coffee files, here's a fun one from Nick Seluk:


Speaking of superheroes, here are 10 Things We Can Learn From Superheroes:


And here are some thoughts from an OU professor, Jennifer Barnes, about imaginary friends: Parasocial Relationships.


August 28: Burne-Jones. Today is the birthday of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, one of the leading pre-Raphaelite painters. He was born in 1833, and you can find out more about his life and career at Wikipedia. He painted many mythological subjects, from both Greek mythology and also from the Arthurian cycle, like The Beguiling of Merlin:


Here's a video about the Briar Rose / Sleeping Beauty paintings by Burne-Jones in the Tate Gallery in London:


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