Art

Last night, I was browsing our blogs and came across some graffiti that Alessi has on his page. I left him a comment about how the graffiti reminded me of two people, one from when I was in high school, the other a Costa Rican artist, Juan Carlos, that used graffiti to bring together a downtrodden community. His gallery/studio is located on a quiet curve on the southwestern section of the road that circumnavigates Lake Arenal. My wife and I stopped there for coffee and a meal and left with a new friend and some of his art. Here it is.

Student Voices

Check out the video I posted to Watsoncommon. You can comment on my post or write about it on your own blog. Make sure you link to the video.

Snap Preview - A Cool Tool For Weblogs

Snap

Quote from the site: What is Snap Preview Anywhere? Snap Preview Anywhere enables anyone visiting your site to get a glimpse of what other sites you're linking to, without having to leave your site.

What I think: This is an aesthetically pleasing and efficient tool for weblogs. And it's free. I added it to my class page and my watsoncommon blog. I'm finding it very useful in avoiding clicking on links that I'm not really interested in. It provides a visual description in addition to the textual description. Try it.

This I Believe

We've read a couple essays and watched a short film that explore the question: To what degree are we responsible for taking care of others in our world? Now, you are going to start thinking about what you believe. Be sure to continue to read your classmates' posts about what they believe and how they're processing the pieces we've been analyzing. Next week, we're going to work on these statements and eventually create podcasts of them. NPR has done a series based on this idea called "This I Believe." Go to their site, listen to at least three that interest you, then write a post about them: what they said, what you think about what they said, and how it changes what you've been thinking lately. Be sure to try to link to the podcasts in your post.

A Commonplace Example

http://timtimestwo.blogspot.com/2007/01/reflection-on-week-of-rehearsals-with.html

Here's a great example of a commonplace post by Elise. She meditates on the following quote, which appears on a poster during her band rehearsal.



"Music speaks what cannot be expressed,

soothes the mind and gives it rest,

heals the heart and makes it whole,

flows from heaven to the soul."



P.S. I'm using a tool called Diigo to write this post. It allows me to be on a website, highlight something from the page, then click a "blog this" button that allows you to write about the website and pushes it directly to your blog page. I'm testing it. So far, pretty useful.

4 Generations

Today, Mr. Schauble forwarded this video-blog to the English department. I thought it fit right in with what we've been discussing in class and on our blogs. Please watch it, then create a new post discussing your reactions and ideas, and consider the short film juxtaposed with The Singer Solution To World Poverty.

The Singer Solution To World Poverty

Today in class we pieced together an essay by Peter Singer about what he thinks our role in the world should be (pretty much directly addressing both our essential questions). The activity in class focused mostly on identifying the way Singer uses critical thinking/universal standards to construct a convincing argument.
Tonight, on your blog, discuss your personal reaction to Singer's essay. Try to employ the same organized thinking, consult the handout on how to organize an essay response, and include at least one direct quote from Singer's essay. Then, browse classmates' (could be from my other soph. class too) pages and comment on one of their responses. If there's already a comment there, find a page without one.
Extra Challenge: Cruise the web for other blogs and/or websites that address these issues in any way, post the hyperlink and include a brief description of the site/blog. Also, make sure you've added a link list to your sidebar with all your classmates' blogs.

See What Other Students Are Doing

Since using online publishing and collaborative tools is new to us. Here is a one-stop resource with links to other student and teacher blogs. Click around and see what others are doing.

Welcome Sophomores

Welcome sophomores to our blogosphere. Please visit a post from my online commonplace book, describing some of the ethics and considerations of blogging. Here's another link to one of my older posts describing how to keep a commonplace. In your first few posts, you should try to articulate essential questions, as well as comment on the poems we read in class. Most importantly, start to pay attention to what's around and keep track of what you observe and ask questions about on your blog. Once you're set up, send me an email with your blog address.

Extra challenges: See if you can figure out how to add page elements, like counters, lists, and links. Also try to make hyperlinks within your posts.