Interaction in online courses

Origin:
1740–5 0; inter-  + act

interact. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/interact (accessed: June 13, 2012).

I like the division because it emphasizes the "act" part.

The first time a taught an online class with Blackboard I learned a couple of things about interactivity.

First, I had a student that had taken a class from me before. He sat at the back of the room and never said a word. I noticed that he was quite active on the discussion board. When I saw him at an art opening I remarked that he was more active on the discussion board than he had ever been in the classroom. I asked him why. His response was short. "I don't like speaking in public."

The second thing I learned was by accident. I had to be out of town for a conference and I posted an announcement telling the class that I would have limited access to the Internet but that they should continue the week's discussion.

My previous pattern of discussion board activity was to check on it hourly and to "encourage" the students by commenting on every post. Despite that, the discussion board was a pretty boring place with each student posting and then replying to my reply.

In fact I never looked at the discussion board while away.

When I returned to town on Sunday I opened the discussion and I was amazed. Without me constantly posting the students had begun to talk among themselves. The exchanges were interesting and numerous. Instead of interacting me with me, the students were interacting amongst themselves. Lesson learned. Teacher: do not dominate the discussion.

Yea, Huck, that's pretty much how I feel

SparkNotes No Fear Literature: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Chapter 4 

WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don’t reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don’t take no stock in mathematics, anyway.

That's pretty much the way I feel about mathematics.

My back, my garden, my grandmother

I've dealt with a sore back all winter. Not fun. Chalked it up to aging. Maybe it is. Anyway...

Yesterday I spent the whole day working in the yard and garden. I kept thinking that I will pay for this when I can't get out of bed next morning. 

I arose and my back never felt better.

I remembered my grandmother saying that if you don't feel good you need to grab a hoe and go outside and work. You know, I think she was right! Good ole granny medicine. 

My eldest cat friend and I ponder electric power

Eldest cat, fourteen, has an electric heating pad and she likes it. I don't blame her. Wish I had one, only me-sized. 

Just what does Gmail know about my university?

Gmail is pretty clever at placing ads next to messages--ads that pertain somehow to what is in the message. I've noticed recently that when message from or about my university show up that an add for the University of Phoenix appears. I wonder if this means that Gmail thinks that I might want to work at another place or that it likens my university with UPhoenix. Hmm. Well, yes.

Afghanistan Invasion Ten Years Later

Ten years ago. I vividly recall the moment when I heard that my bombs were raining on Afghanistan. I was working in the garden. A neighbor was playing his radio or TV loud enough that I heard the "news flash."

I stood frozen for a moment and then dropped the tool and screamed. I saw old friends and their children and grandchildren exploding, dying, suffering. I ran inside. Tears ran down my cheeks. 

I told my wife. We held each other. What else to do?

October: Time to Propagate Roses!

October is the month for rose bush propagation. And helping rose bushes multiply is easy. Look for a cane of goodly diameter, large enough that you will be able to push it or hammer it into the soil without the stem breaking, and yank the stem from the bush with enough violence that you pull a strip of bark from the mother branch. 

Flat cut the branch 4-5 inches above the tear (being certain to leave 2-3 stem segments between top and bottom).

Poke the branch, rip end down, into the earth. If need be, gently hammer the flat top of the stem to help the sinking.

(If the earth is hard, place a gallon plastic jug of water over the spot where you want to sink the stem. Make a small hole in the bottom of the jug and allow the water to seep into the earth and soften it).

Push the stem into the earth so that the earth remains compact around the stem (that is, do not dig a whole or poke a hole with a tool). 

Walk away. Forget about the bush-to-be until spring. 

While you have forgotten, the stem will summon energy to repair the damage and part of the energy will go to root creation. 

After a spell of warm days in the spring you should notice some growth beginning and the growth will continue until you have a nice new bush. 

If you do not see growth in the spring then you failed. Better luck next time.

Sweeping the Yard and Pulling the Sprouts

This is what my mother told me about a family obligation to take care of the yard during the time when she was growing up. The yard of the house was neat and cared for by sweeping leaves, twigs, or anything else from the yard to some other place. I forgot to ask where the other place was. Anyway, in addition to sweeping, everybody in the family understood that they shared a duty to pluck any growing thing that appeared in the ground. A blade of grass stood no chance. The yard was a point of pride.

The swept yard should not be imagined a field of dust. With care, the dirt was compacted by use. The yard usually had a tree and under the shade of tree a family spent time in the yard, the coolest domestic space available during long, hot southern summers. With her usual grace, Sharon Astyk describes the beauty and utility of a living, used packed-earth living space. 

Instead of attempting to grow grass or other ground covers in the hot south often on red clay, rural southerners would sweep and tamp down that clay until it baked hard as a rock, reducing dust tracking and making the space suitable for yard work. Houses, hot during the day, were abandoned and people moved outside to shaded yards where they could do the washing, cook, eat, butcher animals, and do other heavy work in the shade of trees.

I remember as a child our house in the city had a sparse front yard. The yard had patches of growth but it also had bare spots. Two large oak trees shaded the yard and maybe whatever grass the yard had could not compete with the oaks. 

Eventually the front yard was lush with St. Augustine grass. But that's another story.    


 

A search by Goggles

A search by Goggles
Originally uploaded by woodpainter

I love some of the similar images provided by Goggles. Some nice company for the Harrisburg courthouse. I wonder if these buildings are now introduced to each other.

2011-07-04 07.13.09.jpg

2011-07-04 07.13.09.jpg
Originally uploaded by woodpainter

When time passes and the weather gets hot lettuce is bitter and unappetizing. However, lettuce left the summer to go to seed is beautiful. Give lettuce its place and time and add some water and the vegetable returns beauty.

And so we spoke of the unexamined life

I met today with a a summer general education class. I like gen ed classes. They provide the greatest potential for reaching students. They also present challenges when a goodly number of the seats are occupied by students who have a commitment to a strict path to a degree that satisfies a yearning for money or another life desire.

With first-year students a discussion of what could happen to the in four years' residence. For so many students the first year of college is the thirteenth grade, something they do because a college degree is what comes next. Parents think so, friends are on board, somebody told them that a college degree is worth money in the world of work. Do not overlook the prospect of independence and fun.

Ask about any one of the usual reasons, ask if that is what put them here, and one notices a hesitation, as though the student is thinking about the reason for going to college for the first time. In thinking about the usual answers some students exhibit some embarrassment, as though the list is not impressive and even if it is true the reasons are selfish even by today's youth standards.

I will return

While thinking of the Osama photographs

Photographs reveal more than the subject. A photograph always speaks of the intention of the maker or the intention of the subject cooperating with the maker. Alexander Gardner’s Civil War “What Do I Want, John Henry?” speaks volumes on the social attitudes within the Army of Liberation . The decision of Roy Stryker to widely release only one image of the Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother series tells us about a sway from reportage to poignancy. The several views of Che talk to us about the cooperation of the photographer in establishing the fame of the hunters (everybody gets his chance).

So, I do not want so much to see the Osama bin Laden death photographs as I would like to see them and think about what they mean, to see if I recognize an emotion or an illusion. Or maybe myself.

But I am also content to wait for the release. After all, that will not be long. I can see them in the grocery store checkout next week.

Abbetor. Crabb's English Synonymes

It's the conversation, stupid!

At times I reflect on the digital humanities. A transformation is afoot. I ask myself "Just what is it that's going on here?" I don't know. But I get hints. I follow others who find the relatively new world called "digital humanities" a world of interest. We explore and talk to one another. Most of my talk is via Twitter. Some of it is marginalia scribbled in comment boxes of blogs. I listen to others via all of the media available, including digital media.

We digital humanities folks take pride in impressive accomplishments in finding and receiving content in new ways, via new tools.

What occurs to me is that the digital humanities movement is at a moment of conversation. As we converse, we discover. Our communications are pointers. We discover new paths. And we share maps of our journeys.

Is This Use Or Misuse of Media in Art History?

High School PE Taught Me How To Conjugate Verbs. Sort of.

Eleventh grade. A tough one. Acne. So on. Eleventh grade: English and PE classes and other classes I don't remember at the moment. English class was into verb conjugation. PE class was not into exercise because it was my turn for locker room duty--caged room with baskets to hold student stuff.

So. Back to English. We had a book with lots of examples of conjugations. Each example was presented in two columns, one singulars and one plurals. Hour after hour I stared at all the examples and tried to learn the conjugations. Memorizing all the examples was tough. I would stare, close my eyes and try to remember what the conjugations looked like, and then open my eyes to check. I wrote the examples over and over. I was making progress.

But. Test. An English test over these conjugations was coming up. In fact, on the particular day I am remembering the test was later that day.

While protecting the PE baskets I kept pouring over the illustrations and I knew that I was making progress but I also knew that there was no way I was going to get all of those things perfectly remembered.

I decided to stare at the illustrations, close my eyes and try to say the things. I knew that I would have to write the examples on the test, but I was grasping for anything that might help me remember.

Then I experienced one of those moments of enlightenment, one of those moments that comes close to proving that God exists and that God is just. Sort of. As I said the examples I suddenly realized that what I was saying sounded familiar.

I shout
You shout
He shouts

We shout
Y'all shout*
We shout

Damn. This conjugation thing is just a fancy word for how I talk. Everyday. All the time. I tried it out with other verbs. It worked. I looked at the examples in the book. I said the first person singular (another fancy thing) and then I was able to complete the whole example.

Why did nobody tell me that these things, these conjugated words, were nothing more than everyday chat? I had never heard of Molière, but I must have been as astounded and delighted as Jourdain. Without knowing what I was doing I had been conjugating as far back as I could remember. Amazing.

Gym ends. Returned stuff to students. Ate lunch. Took test. Aced it.

*I was reared in the southern United States. We had the advantage of having a regularly used, distinctive second-person plural pronoun.

How to annoy a person with a smart phone

Yesterday. Yes, it was yesterday. Yesterday I was watching a news report about Japan on my Android. All of a sudden the video froze and up popped a message. A message. Typed. "Incoming call."

Nuisance.

Dismissed the call and had to refresh browser to return to the report. Some people just got no consideration.

Massive tsunami devastates Japan - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

Massive tsunami devastates Japan - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Cat sleeping, purring

Cat sleeping
Me watching
Cat shifts
I put my head near
Cat awake
We stare
Cat paw out and touches my nose
Cat purrs

Dream. That is the important thing. Dream to change the world. Dream to end oppression. In a country. In a state. In an office.