Monday, December 17, 2007

Check the Calendar for 6th Essay Spec's

Please check the course calendar for specification of the requirements for the sixth essay.

WSB-09: Next/Final Typing Trial Topic for 2007

I've posted the next and final typing speed trial topic for 2007 in the usual place on the Writing Studio Wiki. If you haven't visited the wiki recently, you should. If you haven't reviewed the wiki completely, you should - starting with News & Updates.

If you have yet to surpass the typing speed target for fall semester, you should practice:
  1. on topic, &
  2. with the tools in the wiki sidebar.
I hope everyone will pass this time around.
[81 words]

Friday, December 14, 2007

More Christmas Iconography

Here is a slick commercial video clip that I gleaned from Dr. Macenstein's representation (Dec. 13, 2007). It puts a techno-twist on a classic Christmas animation series by Rankin/Bass.



If you like it, check out the Rankin/Bass site, and look for the videos in the library, or at your neighborhood rental outlet.

[55 words]

WSB Bulletin 2-08: Let's Do the Math!

Posts on this blog passed the century mark (100 posts) in November. How about on yours?

100+ posts (more like 120+, starting in April) is a good benchmark for the total number of your blog posts to date. How many have you made? If you entered the Writing Studio fall semester, you already should be in the neighborhood of 75 posts out of 90 required for this semester.

90+ posts was the projection for Writing IVc (September 27, 2007); it is 150% of the requirements for Writing IIIc.

We're just a few weeks away from the end of the semester. So your current post count, and proto-portfolio, should include six essays (as of Dec. 21, 2007) of the required length (or longer), and should soon include:
  1. 18+ book reviews - longer than quick posts; &, do the math -
  2. 66+ other posts!
[Proto-] Portfolios comprising all of the above will be due 7 January, 2008.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Learning with Computers: 2nd Mindmap

This is the mindmap generated during second period on December 12, 2007. Please review it to make sure that the outlines you've prepared for your essays on Learning with Computers cover all of the main points (main branches of the bird map, and attached nodes):




If you have questions about this mindmap, how to use it to develop your outline, or how to cover all of the main points in your essay, please post your questions in comments on this post.

[81 words]

Learning with Computers: 1st Mindmap

This is the mindmap generated during first period on December 12, 2007. Please review it to make sure that the outlines you've prepared for your essays on Learning with Computers cover all of the main points (main branches of the bird map, and attached nodes):



If you have questions about this mindmap, how to use it to develop your outline, or how to cover all of the main points in your essay, please post your questions in comments on this post.

[81 words]

Learning with Computers: WinK Resources

As you plan and prepare your Learning with Computers essays for next week (due Dec. 21, 2007; see calendar), I'd like to ask you to review some of the resources available to online writers like yourselves who are Weblogging in Kumamoto (WinK). What follows is a fresh mindmap of the WinK community, including links you that can follow (on the nodes marked with tiny globes) to browse WinK resources online.

Please check out those resources, and add any of them that you have used this year to your outlines, along with any others that you've used from beyond the WinK community. You can go straight to the mindmap site by clicking on the title of this post (or this link). More detailed, and broader ranging mindmaps from classes on Dec. 12 will follow in separate posts.



[136 words]

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Wow! Get a Load of These Demographics.

Informative, powerful, thought-provoking.... What more need I say? After viewing this video, I would appreciate hearing your reflections on it in comments on this post. Enjoy!



[26 words]

WSB 2-07: Plagiarism - FINAL Warning for ALL

Plagiarism is stealing the writing, work, or ideas of other people, and presenting that writing, work or ideas as your own. Much to my dismay, this kind of stealing has occurred again and again in Writing III and Writing IV.

Until today, I have given students who plagiarized in posts on their blogs a single, individual warning. If they had plagiarized any part of a book review or essay, they got no credit for that particular assignment. When I found that one of the students whom I already had warned plagiarized again, I decided that he or she would get no credit for the course.

In a post on this blog that I pointed out and read aloud in each class on November 7, 2007, I wrote that plagiarism is "completely unacceptable", and "forewarned of a zero-tolerance policy" with regard to plagiarism (WSB 2-03: Problems and Suggestions, §3. Plagiarism, and §5. Wrap up; Nov. 6, 2007). Yet I found another plagiarized essay today.

So I have given the student who plagiarized part of her or his fifth essay the final individual warning. Moreover, he or she will get no credit for the essay itself. Here is the core of that warning:
I am sending both you and Mr. T... [the course supervisor] a snapshot of your blog ..., along with this clipping of the passage that I have highlighted in it, which is plagiarized. As I write below, I expect you to contact Mr. T... immediately to find out what to do about this problem.
  • Since it first became commercially available.... HDTV costs more than normal TV but is becoming more available.
(..., ¶¶ 1-2 [text details removed, pab])

That passage is not original; it appears on numerous other websites. For that reason, you will get no credit for your fifth essay.

However, that's not all. Part of the next paragraph in your essay (..., ¶1) is plagiarized, too, as indicated in bold in this clipping from Google:... [clipping removed, pab].

This is your last warning about plagiarism. If Mr. T... or I find any other plagiarized passages on your blog, you will get no credit for Writing IV this semester.

Please contact Mr. T... immediately for a more detailed explanation. If you cannot reach him right away at his office, please call his cell phone (090 ... [number removed, pab]).
(pab, personal correspondence, 2007.12.11, at 17:32)

I will give no more individual warnings. This post is a FINAL warning for ALL students in Writing IVc.

This zero-tolerance policy with regard to plagiarism in Writing IVc takes effect at 00:00 JST, Wednesday, December 12, 2007. There will be a 12-hour grace period in order to allow any student not already disqualified for repeated plagiarism to remove all plagiarized work from her or his blog.

As of 12:00 noon on Wednesday, December 12, 2007; if I find plagiarized work in any post, for any assignment, on any blog a student uses for Writing IVc (Sept. 26, 2007, to end of term); that student will get no credit for this course this fall semester. Moreover, if the course supervisor or any other Writing IV teacher finds plagiarism on any of your blogs for Writing IVc, this zero-tolerance policy will apply equally.

[541 words]

PS: If you have questions about this plagiarism policy, or how to make sure that you don't plagiarize, please post your questions in comments on this post.
pab, 2007.12.13
[+ 29 words]

Christmas Card

To view & listen to an interactive Christmas card from Ashland University (2004), please put on your headphones and click on the link below (opens in another tab or window):


Enjoy!

[33 words]

WinK in Perspective (Mind42)

In preparation for the next essay assignment, on learning with computers, I'm inviting you to explore (or revisit) all of the main sites linked to WinK in a Mind42 mindmap (WinK). To give you a rough idea what it looks like, here's a screenshot of what it looked like yesterday:


This post backlinks to an mindmap view of the Weblogging in Kumamoto network on a blog that I use for experiments and notes (pab's potpourri: Publishing directly from Mind42 (beta)). The title of the post there, like the one on this post, includes an enclosure link.

So clicking on the title of this post will take you to that one, where you can get a preview of a mindmap that Pukman and I are composing collaboratively. Then clicking on the title of that post on pab's potpourri will take you straight to our WinK mindmap. Please browse the main site you find with links there.

[155 words]

Thursday, December 6, 2007

TVinJapan02 (Writing IVc2)

This post includes an image of a concept map started in class to explore possible essay topics and sub-topics related to TV in Japan - the subject of the essays due by Sunday, Dec. 9, 2007 (WSB Bulletin 2-06).

Following the image (below) is a very rough outline derived from the concept map itself. You need not, indeed should not try to cover all of the topics in that hierarchal list. However, that rough outline should help you find topics and sub-topics related to those that you chose to write about, and may guide you in organizing your ideas into paragraphs for your essays. Please click on the image to view it in a new browser window.


Rough outline

science
| ????
| technologies
| | ????
| | broadcasting
| | | ????
| | | satellite
| | | local
| | | national
| | | cable
| | | | ????
| | | | MTV
| | | | stations
| | | | | ????
| | | | | MTV
| | | international
| | equipment
| | | ????
| | | displays
| | | | ????
| | | | color
| | | | | ????
| | | | | screen sizes
| | | | LCD
| | | | | ????
| | | | | screen sizes
| | | | B&W
| | | | | ????
| | | | | screen sizes
| | manufacturing
| | | ????
| | | domestic
| | cable
| weather
TV
| ????
| technologies
| programs
| | ????
| | international
| | domestic
| | local
| | favorites
| | weather
| | national
| | genres
| | | ????
| | | music
| | | | ????
| | | | stations
| | | comedies
| | | animations
| | | dramas
| | | | ????
| | | | docu-dramas
| | | sports
| | | news
| entertainment
| ????
| | ????
| | NHK
| Japan
| | ????
| | qualities
| | | ????
| | | entertainment
| | characteristics
| | manufacturing
visual noise
violence
[roughly 381 words (auto-count from Word)]

TVinJapan01 (Writing IVc1)

This post includes an image of a concept map started in class to explore possible essay topics and sub-topics related to TV in Japan - the subject of the essays due by Sunday, Dec. 9, 2007 (WSB Bulletin 2-06).

Following the image (below) is a very rough outline derived from the concept map itself. You need not, indeed should not try to cover all of the topics in that hierarchal list. However, that rough outline should help you find topics and sub-topics related to those that you chose to write about, and may guide you in organizing your ideas into paragraphs for your essays. Please click on the image to view it in a separate browser window.




Rough outline

technologies
| ????
| broadcasting
| | ????
| | programs
| | | ????
| | | dramas
| | | | ????
| | | | docu-dramas
| | | movies
| | | news
| | | | ????
| | | | educational
| | | animation
| | | | ????
| | | | Cartoon Network
| | | sports
| | | favorites
| | | | ????
| | | | dramas
| | | educational
| | satellite
| | cable
| | | ????
| | | Cartoon Network
| | | MTV
| | stations
| | | ????
| | | Fuji TV
| | | cable
| | | commercial
| | | | ????
| | | | Fuji TV
| | | | KKT
| | | | commercial messages
| | | | MTV
| | | national
| | | | ????
| | | | news
| | | | Fuji TV
| | | satellite
| | | local
| | | | ????
| | | | news
| | | | KKT
| | | non-profit
| | | | ????
| | | | NHK
| | | | | ????
| | | | | educational
| | | | | docu-dramas
| | | | | sports
| | | | | movies
| satellite
| LCD
| | ????
| | screen sizes
| colo(u)r
TV
| in
| Japan
| | ????
| | ????
| | qualities
| | colo(u)r
| | characteristics
| | | ????
| | | colo(u)r
| | | screen sizes
| | | commercial
[roughly 406 words (auto-count from Word)]

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

WSB Bulletin 2-06: Next Essay Topic

In addition to routine typing speed trials (the new topic is on the wiki, so practice up), and making comments on peers' recent essays, we'll be brainstorming (and outlining, if time remains) the next essay topic in class on Dec. 5, so bring your ideas about TV in Japan.
[49 words]
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