Google Notebook for course plan?
I’ve used the Notebook in the past, but I never really found a good use for it. But today I’m considering it as a way to post the class plan online; you know, that part of the syllabus that the administration likes to believe that we’re content-centered enough to produce and then never deviate from, that hypothetical “this-is-what-will-get-done-in-class-on-April-3rd” thing that no good writing teacher could map as adequately as a content-delivery teacher could. I mean, tell a piano teacher that she’ll have to say what she’ll have a student do on a particular day three months from now.
But I digress. Google Notebook exports to Reader, which we’ll be using, and Documents, which we’ll be using, and it even exports as an html page, which is the one I like best.
Here’s a link to the exported messing around that I did this morning.
The thing that I was surprised by is that you can’t actually share the Notebook itself except as a collaborative document, and as into social networking as I am, that goes too far for me.
If anyone else is doing this already, drop me a line.
Do Strauss and Howe explain it better?
So I’ve been working on this chapter for a book about Facebook, and I’m focusing on how different age groups bring different ideas to the table when we’re thinking about what Facebook is good for. Specifically, in light of Granovetter’s work on weak ties and strong ties, we can see that those who only need and use strong ties will have different needs and desires when using Facebook than those who need and use weak tie connections.
But now I’m also thinking about work by William Strauss and Neil Howe, whose many books on generation typology claim that there *can be* generational typology. Is it less about weak ties and strong ties and more about the different ways that Silents, Boomers, Thirteeners, and Millennials think about the world and what we want from it?
PEW internet Generations Online in 2009 report uses Strauss and Howe’s categories.
Wired for Books: audio / radio
From Don Swaim’s radio show, interviews with poets and writers; other readings and files also available. Sponsored by Ohio University.
Direct link to Swaim’s interviews:
http://wiredforbooks.org/swaim/
Direct link to mp3 page:
http://wiredforbooks.org/mp3/
The 140-character-at-a-time novel
Diane always knows about the best stuff. A guy–Mike Diccicco–is writing a novel on Twitter starting February 5th.
Follow secretlifehamel on Twitter, or catch up at his blog:
http://secretlifehamel.blogspot.com
Teaching Literature website
Richard Beach of the University of Minnesota together with Deborah Appleman (Carleton College), Susan Hynds (Syracuse), and Jeffrey Wilhelm (Boise State) have put together a website for training student-teachers to teach literature. With pages and links to critical methodologies, practical questions and answers, and genre studies, this site is a real throw-down resource. A fantastic job, well balanced, and up-to-date.
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rbeach/teachingliterature/
