In the course on Doomsday that I worked with last semester, the group of advanced honors students who contributed to this class demonstrated not only an incredible understanding of the theory and shaping of apocalyptic thought from a historical and literary standpoint, but they also showed an amazing sense of humor and sensitivity as they presented their projects to each other as the course ended.  The projects ranged from a puppet show, to a movie, to a short story, two documentaries, and an analysis of the political cartoons during a specific period in our history.

We used the course blog as a focus of weekly discussions/reactions to the readings by asking each student to create a post on one or two facets of the weeks’ readings as well as to respond to each others writings.  This not only prepared the students for the individual weeks’ discussions, but also allowed them to understand more deeply each others perspectives.  Additionally, they were encouraged to share with the class any articles, film clips, etc. that tie into the course’s theme.

It was my first time really understanding how to use categories well on a blog site for purposes of indexing the work of the students by name and assignment.  As blog admin, I had fixed categories of student names and readings, and I encouraged them to tag the posts as they saw fit in such a way as to see what common themes would emerge from their own writings.  I then installed a Tag Cloud widget which created a visual map of the tags they used, and the professor, students, and myself were pleased with the outcome and found it inspired some interesting observations.

In all, it was one of the most successful uses of classroom blogging that I had ever experienced, and am looking forward to a new semester when I get to continue this work with the same professor as she teaches a class on Sexuality and American Culture.

Here is a “reel” that I created of the students presenting their final projects to each other during the last meeting of the term.

Okay, if by chance you have looked at this site during the past couple of weeks, you would have noticed that I have been trying out all kinds of different themes (styles, layouts, colors), which, in Wordpress, is an easy thing to do.

I think I have finally settled on a theme – Ocean Mist 2.0 by Ed Merritt from the UK. In the tradition of the collaborative nature of the Wordpress community, the theme is free (but you can of course make a donation to the developer). The theme is easily customizable in terms of colors and banner images, and is easily hackable via the theme options.

Something to note is that thanks to a plugin called “Feed Wordpress” I can have posts that I enter on my Macaulay Eportfolio directly feed to this site. You can’t tell which ones they are, but when you click a post title that is feeding from my Eport, you will be directed to the other site.

I continue to work on the format, shape, and content of this site in the meantime…

Getting More Out of iTunes

Having just installed iTunes 9, I thought it would behoove me to actually look and see what the improvements are instead of just using the functions I always do in the same ways.  In fact, it was only very recently that I gave the iTunes Genius a chance and realized that it is actually a really cool feature that became available in one of iTunes more recent incarnations.

What I discovered is that in iTunes 9 is new the Home Sharing function, which allows you to actually share your music on 5 other computers over a home network.  Previous versions allowed you to stream music from one computer to another on the same network, but this one allows you to actually select individual songs that you want from one computer on your network and save them on another.  I’m sorry, but that’s cool.   Another great new feature is that you can arrange your iPhone or iPod Touch apps right on your computer screen when you connect your device to the computer.  This saves the awkward arranging of the apps icons that you normally would have had to do directly on the phone’s or iPod’s screen.  Not a bad feature at all.

Finally, there have also been some improvements to the iTunes Store which are going to be evident the moment you log in.

For more information, check out Apple’s site which gives a great overview of the new iTunes, or check out this video from the WSJ.

There is a caveat – it seems that there is an issue with the iPod Classic when using iTunes 9 in Snow Leopard.  I have not yet synched my Classic on 9, but I intend to see how it works on my desktop PC running XP.  This could get interesting.  I was thinking of selling my iPod Video on eBay, anyway, and getting the new Nano.  Just because.  And now I might have good reason…

So I’ve begun working with Dr. Lee Quinby’s course on Apocalyptic thought and literature entitled Doomsday.  I’ve created an eportfolio and it will include students’ writings and interactions.

The issue I have is how do I manage 10 students’ pages, each with 15 weeks worth of assignments? As it stands, I went for what seemed most logical: have them each create their own page (with a common page parent), and each week they will post their 250-300 word analysis at the top of the previous week’s work.  This should work fine, but might get a little cluttered especially since we are encouraging students to comment on each others pages.  After several weeks there will be a lot of scrolling in order to get to the comments section.  I’ve tried the “insert more tag” but it doesn’t seem to work on pages, only posts.

I just finished Mark Greenside’s book I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do), and was completely charmed by it.  I loved it, in fact. It is a funny, lighthearted read focusing on the author’s misadventures in a country that wasn’t his own in a language he never mastered. It is a bit like A Year in Provence, but differs from Mayle’s work because, as the title says, he never really “enculturates” himself into the village in Brittany – he simply continues to observe it as the permanent foreigner, never quite figuring it out. He is continually charmed by the residents of the Brittany village, and they, in turn, are charmed by him – even though they don’t really know what to do with him.  Any of us who have lived in a foreign country at one point in our lives or another will be able to relate to a bit of what Greenside is describing.  Sometimes the simple act of buying toilet paper can be daunting and you risk committing some form of cultural offense either to the other customers or to the cashier or shop owner, and even if you do speak the language fluently, you wind up bumbling your way through the simplest of tasks.  Greenside takes his “otherness” and describes how he employed it to his advantage, especially since he never fully trusts doing something the French way, and realizes that being an American in Brittany is ultimately not such a bad thing.

I’m just beginning to re-read Les nourritures terrestres for the first time in a long time.  And it is the first time that I am reading it in the leather-bound Pléiade edition.  It is an interesting experience since Nourritures kind of reads like a biblical text, and the Pléiade is much like a bible or sacramentary since it is printed on bible paper (papier bible) and has the built-in ribbons for bookmarking (in fact, when people see you reading from a Pléiade, they often think you are reading the Bible).  I’m wondering if the act of reading Nourritures in this format will change my experience of the récit itself…

“J’en arrivai à bannir de moi la sympathie, n’y voyant plus que la reconnaissance d’une émotion commune.
Non point la sympathie, Nathanaël, – l’amour” (156).

Break Out in Song! I always wondered what life would be like if we really did just break into musical numbers (as often happens in my head…). Now I know! I was glad I knew this was going to happen and that I had time to take my FlipVideo along!

My father was mayor in my hometown when he died in 1996.  One of his final acts dealt with procuring property of the defunct Giambrone Farm in West Long Branch through the Green Acres fund of the Federal Government.  When he died, the town council decided to honor him by naming the park after him.  It comprises several acres used for sporting events and recreation.  I posted this picture on facebook that I took this past weekend while we were there weeding the flowerbed around the sign, and got some wonderful reactions from people in my hometown.  I quote a former schoolmate, Anthony Fontana, who is now a father and soccer coach in my hometown:

Thanks to your father, my kids and many others have been enjoying the park and playing soccer there every chance they can get. The park was something this town needed desperately! [...] I coach both Rec & Travel soccer and have been for about 10 years now so we use the park quite a bit. [...]
In June Ocean Twp held their annual soccer tournament and asked to use the park due to an overload of teams that registered and they needed more fields. So they held a weekend tournament there which attracted many teams from out of the area and they played a total of 16 games! It was wonderful to see the park get all that attention and it was a great atmosphere. I wish you could have seen the crowds of families watching and their children playing. Your father would have been proud. I hung out with some friends just to watch and soak it all in. A great weekend of soccer!

I haven’t gotten around to posting this yet…  Here is my “expertly crafted” video taken from a rooftop on 55th Street and the West Side Highway.  What a view!

Shot using a FlipVideo Cam and edited in iMovie 08

Okay, I just started my attempt to read a bit of Aquinas’  The Treatise on Human Nature and cannot understand a word of it…  I’m trying to find information about what Aquinas said regarding conscience with regard to sin.  This will hopefully be part of my analysis about Les Nourritures terrestres (The Fruits of the Earth).