Funny Blackboard Video

Readings for next Semester Post 1

I decided to blog some reading ideas for next semester's English 104 class. The theme, "What is an American," will be used again. Please feel free to suggest resources.

Potential Readings:

What is an American? J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur

What is an American? Time Magazine, 1948

What is an American? Harold Ickes

What is an American? Peter Ferrara, Associate Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law

What is an American? Edward L. Hudgins, CATO Institute

What is an American? CNN

The Circus People (Federal Writers Project) with video clip of Maude Cromwell, trapeze artist

To Kill an American (Video)

I will add some more later.

DMP 121 Movie Review of "Journey from the Fall" by Ham Tran

In DMP 121: Media Scriptwriting and Storyboarding, Dewey suggested we watch the film, "Journey from the Fall" written by Ham Tran. It is the story of Vietnamese boat people that fled communist China. It is brilliant, but the back story - or at least Ham Tran's telling of it - is incredible, too. In itself, it is a story.

Tran wanted to create a movie that would remain true to the struggles the Vietnamese people faced as they decided to either stay and suffer re-education camps or leave and risk death by starvation, dehydration, or pirate violence.

The stories he tells in his interview with the Asian Pacific Arts are excellent; he continuously revised the story to match the real details of the experience. He listened to the people who actually survived the experience, and revised the script daily.

Here are the two YouTube interviews with him:



and



I want to thank Dewey for suggesting the movie, but I want to thank Ham Tran, too, for telling a story that none of us ever get to hear.

The students were able to learn that some of the best script writing is done when we listen to the truth; when we pause and listen to the voices of those who truly know and not the ones who simply claim to know, we can create authentic representations of history.

Tagging Assignment

By popular demand (and Marc Bonanni's suggestion), here is my assignment on tagging and citing.

Tagging Assignment

Tags are used when written content is not available for a Google search. For example, if I write a blog post about cancer, all of the terms in the blog post are searchable through Google's algorithm. However, if I create a podcast about cancer, Google can not search the audio. Soooo....I create tags or words that people might put into Google to find materials on cancer (for example: Cancer, Ovarian, Health, and Disease). That way, if someone searches Google with the words Cancer, Ovarian, Health, and Disease, my podcast will pop up as one of the items in the list.

We can also tag documents. Let's say that in my blog post, I don't actually WRITE the word "health" but want people to find my work if they search Google using the word "health." I simply add "Health" to the tag line at the bottom of my post.

Application Activity: The Many Faces of Research

Step 1: In Google, type in "Web 2.0 and Education." Look at the top three responses and create an MLA citation for each one.

Step 2: In Google Scholar, type in "Web 2.0 and Education.” Look at the top three responses and create an MLA citation for each one.

Step 3: In Del.icio.us, type in "Web 2.0 and Education.” Look at the top three responses and create an MLA citation for each one.

Step 4: In Digg, type in "Web 2.0 and Education.” Look at the top three responses and create an MLA citation for each one.

Step 5: In You Tube, type in "Web 2.0 and Education.” Look at the top three responses and create an MLA citation for each one.

Step 6: In Slide Share, type in "Web 2.0 and Education.” Look at the top three responses and create an MLA citation for each one.

Step 7: Write a summary of your findings (one/two paragraphs).

Step 9: Write a 500 word essay comparing and contrasting the different sources found using this keyword search.

Step 10: Combine all of the citation on one page, and use MLA format to create a comprehensive Works Cited page.

Author: Beth Ritter-Guth, Creative Commons Non-Commercial with Attribution and Share Alike J

Lecture Notes for English 104 Hybrid November 29, 2007

Here is the podcast for our lecture notes :-)

MP3