tengrrl’s thoughts & news on teaching writing, literacy, and literature
June 21, 2005
A few months ago I wrote that I wanted an iPod for my television, so that I could load up everything and carry it around—and even more importantly if you’re as lazy as I am, change and load things up without monkeying around with the DVD player and the cases and whatnot.
Apparently such a thing exists: iPodlounge | First Looks Special: Nyko Movie Player. Still smallish, but I’m guessing that eventually you’ll be able to hook things up to your TV directly.
June 21, 2005
Apparently my Ideas section from last week’s Inbox was so exciting, someone borrowed it:
Digital Literacy Resources from NCTE
Now I know that on the Internet, it’s hard to hold onto your text; but couldn’t they have at least cited the source?
June 19, 2005
Cheryl is still giving me grief. She doesn’t care that it’s Father’s Day, and I have enough grief of my own to keep me hidden in the darkest corner of the room.
The problem with any event that I enjoy enough to write about is that I’m so busy at the event, that I don’t have time to write the travelogues until very, very late at night—when I’m usually far too tired. I always think that I’ll eventually get it done, but as the night creeps up on me (and it’s one damned slow creep in the UP), I run out of energy.
Cheryl says that my public demands me to produce. I may need Cheryl some day. That’s what she told me anyway. So that means that I better write or she’s gonna smack me up.
Those of you who know her, realize that she’s not even in the UP right now. She left almost a week ago. Her body left, that is. Her voice is well implanted in my head, and she has programmed it to switch on and narrate what will happen to me if I don’t write travelogues. I’d share what she says to me, but it’s too ouchy scary.
All this has led me to thinking about how I write these things in the first place. I have a black notebook that I carry from conference to conference. The masses are either frightened that I’ll divulge what I’ve written down about them or horribly entertained by my completely factual construction of our encounters in the past. Try as she might, for instance, Cheryl will never leave that bagel with cheese behind.
In the past, after the events are over each day, I sit up even later with my notebook, transcribing the day’s events. And that’s the problem. Days only have 24 hours, and in the UP, you are tricked into thinking that the night is younger than it really is.
So this trip, I’m trying something different. Not so much by plan, as by the fact that this is just how things have fallen out. CIWIC is over. Everyone has gone home. Really they left days ago—Tuesday or Wednesday. I’m alone with my notebook, reconstructing the past by backdating and posting all my notes as if I wrote when things really happened. Actually, I did write my notes when things happened. It’s the entries that I didn’t get to write immediately.
I imagine many ifs: if I had a lighter laptop and lots of wireless, I would write these things as they happened online, rather than saving them all in my little black notebook. But we can’t all be Sordid Boi at C&W.
In many ways, this world I’ve set up is very sad. Everyone else has moved off, moved on, and I’m sitting in a studio apartment up on the hill reliving the past. I thought that I would get called to help with ECAC, but not a word has filtered up to me. I’m not sure when or where I’m needed. Maybe I’m not needed anymore? I dunno. I’m sort of rethinking this whole thing. Maybe it was a mistake to stay on. It’s so much quieter when everyone is gone and you’re all alone.
I should take advantage of the quietness and get some writing done. I still have over 100 pages to write, and the number of available writing days is quickly dwindling. But it’s so quiet, the lonely kind of quiet. And it’s Father’s Day, and I feel terribly sad.
Tags: tengrrl’s travelblog
June 18, 2005
Just found that one of my lists is referred to in this Scholastic Newsletter!
June 18, 2005
Edited and posted a 9–12 lesson plan, Copyright Infringement or Not? The Debate Over Downloading Music.
Sadly, my other major accomplishment for today is that I didn’t lie back down and take a nap. I’m not the most motivated person, and between that and the fact that I don’t have office hours or anything, I’ve fallen into bizarre sleep patterns.
My inner clock is totally mixed up. I mean, it’s set normally for my body; but the problem is that my body doesn’t like anything like a normal time system. I’ve been up till 4 am the last few nights. Wake back up between 12 and 1 pm. I’m quite rested and all, but the problem is that between my odd schedule and the fact that it’s summer in the UP, I really have no sense what time it actually is. Could be 8 pm. Could be 2 am. No clue.
There’s no real problem with that I guess, since no one cares when I’m awake or what I’m doing. Hell, I’m not sure that anyone would notice one way or the other. I had been spending a lot of time chatting in IRC in the Blogshares channel, but apparently my point of view isn’t meshing with the people in power, so I’ve stopped going there and I’m selling off all my “assets” in the game. The whole series of events has reminded me how territorial the female gender can be. I’m only keeping a handful of things that have sentimental sorts of value—my own blogs and my ideas in the Lord of the Rings industry. Everything else I’ve sold off. I can’t get rid of artefacts, so I’m stuck with those. I wouldn’t sell off the LOTR artefact anyway. Who would sell “The One Ring”?
It was an interesting experiment while it all lasted. I enjoyed chatting with smart people who understood the nerdy things about technology. I guess I missed MOOs more than I thought. But it’s all over now, Baby Blue.
Tags: blogshares | English language arts | K12 instruction | lesson plan | ReadWriteThink
June 17, 2005
Edited and posted a 6–8 lesson plan: You Know the Movie is Coming–Now What?
And due to a momentary lapse of sanity, I bought listsoften.com (that’s Lists of Ten, not List Soften because I don’t think they’re soft at all, and not Lists Often because I haven’t written anything in like a decade or something). It just redirects. We are not sure what I have learned from this experience. Maybe that I need a life.
Tags: English language arts | K12 instruction | lesson plan | ReadWriteThink
June 16, 2005
Edited and posted two 3–5 lesson plans: Opening the Door for Reading: Sharing Favorite Texts to Build Community and Once Upon a Time Rethought: Writing Fractured Fairy Tales.
Tags: English language arts | K12 instruction | lesson plan | ReadWriteThink
June 14, 2005
The ideas in this week’s NCTE Inbox focus on “Exploring Computer Literacy.”
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
NCTE Inbox |
technological literacy
June 12, 2005
Apparently my new hobby is to install a piece of software each weekend. Last weekend, Gallery; this weekend, WordPress. Folks in the blogshares online discussion were comparing MT and WordPress, and I was inspired to try WordPress.
It was another easy setup, once the fantastic and fabulous Eric Crump gave me a mysql login. He didn’t even make me explain why I’m fiddling with WordPress when he already has Drupal installed. (It’s cuz I wanted to play, Eric.)
Installation was only a few minutes, but making it do what I want is another issue. I managed to get it to list my bloglines subscriptions as a blogroll, and I added a customized calendar. And I’ve fiddled a great bit over the weekend with the layout. I’m trying to figure out whether I can get it to do what I’m already doing with flat pages AND whether it will go beyond what I’m already doing in ways that would make the trouble of converting everything worth the bother. I’m told that I can easily import the Blogger entries that I already have. The biggest concern is managing the Lists of Ten and other resources that are outside of blogger but that would benefit from the RSS feed.
You can peek at my current status, but realize it is a very rough work in progress. I’m not sure yet, but after two days of playing, I do feel like I accomplished something. Even if I decide not to use it, I’ve learned a good bit about PHP and RSS in the process. Not bad for a weekend procrastination project (e.g., a project that’s real purpose seems to be to provide an excuse not to work on those 125 pages I’m supposed to be writing).
Tags: WordPress
June 10, 2005
Yes, okay, so I am a slacker. I am trying to catch up. See, here’s the
problem. I truly believe in a process-based approach to writing, for
everyone except me. My writing is supposed to be complete and perfect
before anyone reads it. So, in tengrrl world, all the travelogues need to
be perfect and up to date before I share them.
Dr. Cheryl Ball, gizmologist from Utah State Universe, says the following
in response, reformatted as a list of ten:
Based on this interaction, I was compelled to publish my travelogue
from the first day of CIWIC today. It’s okay. They tell me that they can get the blood off the keyboard, and I’ll only need a small transfusion. As if the pain of backdating things isn’t enough. Damn that vole killer.
Tags: tengrrl’s travelblog