Below are the most recent 4 friends' journal entries.

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
othinn	1:08a	Killing the Semester, Stage 2: The Decapitation For what it's worth, I've submitted final grades. Good thing I checked the deadline for submission this evening. I thought grades were due at noon and was thinking I'd leave the arithmetic for the morning. They're actually due at 8:00 AM my time, so I figured I ought to submit them before I go to bed. The calculating is done, the grades have been submitted, and now I am going to bed. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
othinn	3:56p	What I'm (been) doing Drove to Denver on Sunday. (Yes, I did not call. To take advantage of a two-day, snow-free window, I left before I'd finished grading and spent Sunday evening in the hotel reading student essays.) Yesterday, I crossed the mountains and did a bit of grading. Today I have finished the grading and will need to calculate final grades, which are due tomorrow. My parents' 13 or 14-year old Samoyed was diagnosed with congestive heart failure about 6 months ago and really wasn't doing well yesterday. My dad took him to the vet and is currently driving 90 miles to see a specialist. I understand the desire to keep pets alive, but Samoyeds' have a 10-12 year life expectancy. The dog has had a great, happy, life and I'm really not sure prolonging his life is in his best interest any more. It's one thing to put him on medication, which they have done, but it's another to go to greater lengths when the medication starts to fail. If he was 10, I might have a different take on this, and I would definitely have a different take on it if he was 7 or 8. But 13 or 14? He's going to die sooner rather than later no matter what is done, so I'd rather not see him put through stress and pain to keep him alive for a few more months. It's started to snow, both here where I am and back at home. While I think they'll get more snow back home, they're getting ice, too, so I think I'm getting the better deal. It's the first winter in years that I've been back in Colorado, so this is nice. All that's missing is a Samoyed to take for a walk. Samoyeds—the only dogs I've ever had—and freshly fallen snow are a magical mix. I'd go so far as to say that a Samoyed is never so happy as when it's running through freshly fallen snow. At least the one's I've known. (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
othinn	11:01a	Sometimes you get what you deserve.... Why oppressors should never give the oppressed the means of liberation (Comment on this)
Friday, December 11th, 2009
othinn	9:49p	Killing the Semester: Stage 1 Today was the last day of classes, which constitutes stage one of bringing a semester to a close. This is, as I've come to think of it, as the stage in which one drives a stake through the semester's heart. Stage 2, which is the submission of final grades, is the equivalent of decapitating the semester. With decapitation is the fervent hope that the semester is done. I mean, staking and decapitation should do the trick, should they not? Unfortunately, sometimes there's stage 3, which is when the thing rises up and you have to whack it one or more times until you can burn the remains and scatter the ashes. All that said, I am looking forward to looking at what the students are going to turn in. For the theme-based advanced composition course, rather than ask the students to create a video that makes a point or argument, I asked them to create a video (drawing from their own written material to video clips, audio clips, and images found online) that engages a theorist we've been using as a framework for the class. In short, I asked them to create a video re-mix or mash-up equivalent of an academic essay. One of the questions we began the semester with is how digital technologies might be used to extend our notions of composition and academic work. As part of the assignment, I gave them three quotes: "First, we must learn to understand learning and work in new ways: Creativity is no longer the production of original texts, but the ability to gather, filter, rearrange, and construct new texts—symbolic-analytic work, articulations". — Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Datacloud "The terms mixing and remixing denote a basic process of digital media on many levels. From the technological convergence of different media, to the cutting, looping, editing, merging, and superimposing of multiple sources within the same media. My interest in how the process of mixing is analogous to thinking, and how digital technology (that enables more robust combinations of texts/images/sounds) facilitates our pursuit of knowledge. Yet the degree to which we “think by mixing” is a contentious topic in light of the traditional view of originality: whereas it is acceptable to “mix” from different source texts in traditional academic writing (with proper references, of course), it is problematical to remix a term paper." — Jamie O’Neil, “Mix/Remix as Epistemology: The Implications of the Metamedium, Digital Media" "Remix is the reworking or adaptation of an existing work. The remix may be subtle, or it may completely redefine how the work comes across. It may add elements from other works, but generally efforts are focused on creating an alternative version of the original. A mashup, on the other hand, involves the combination of two or more works that may be very different from one another." — Brian Lamb, “Dr. Mashup, or Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix" I've seen versions of their work and I am quite pleased. Most of the students have had little or no experience with MovieMaker or iMovie before we started working with them as part of the lead up to this project, and many of them have have far surpassed my expectations. (2 Comments |Comment on this)