Do you know what day it is?

On the United Nations' calendar, it's the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and the beginning of the UN Secretary General's campaign for over two weeks of activism on related themes.

Image source: United Nations
End Violence Day

On the main page about the day, you'll find rationales for international activities and observations, alongs with facts and figures about violence against women and its consequences. There's more info. about the Secretary General's campaign here, including a poster on "school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) in [the] Asia-Pacific" region:

Image source: United Nations
School-Related Gender-Based Violence
(SRGBV)

On the Orange Day page is a call for business, governmental, institutional and social action. Want to find out what you can do? Grab the toolkit (PDF) and get started!

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A Timely Video from One of Larry's Bests Posts

Today is World Toilet Day!

The video below is one that I've just found in Larry Frelazzo's post: The Best Resources For Learning About World Toilet Day & The Issue Of Public Sanitation In The Third World. Watch and learn!

World Toilet Day 2012 - Official Animation Video

If that interests you, there are plenty of other resources you can check out in Larry's post.

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Paul Gilding: The Earth is Full! (TED Talks)

"It takes a good crisis to get us going. When we feel fear and we fear loss we are capable of quite extraordinary things" (Paul Gilding).

The words in the Wordle (the graphic just below the video above) come from the transcript of Paul Guilding's TED Talk. What kind of impression do they and the video of his presentation give you? Please let us know by add a brief comment to this post.


Sources:

• Video – TED Talks, February 2012 (retrieved 2012.03.05)
• Graphic representation of transcript created with Wordle

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World Water Day: March 22

The General Assembly of the United Nations made March 22 World Water Day in 1992 (IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, About World Water Day, 2005.02.10), and the World Water Day theme for 2009 is transboundary water (IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, World Water Day, 2009.02.25). To find out more about how important water is to people around the world, please check out either or both of these sites:

• http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday/
• http://www.worldwaterday.org/

Water drop graphic (above) courtesy of
William Vann's EduPic Graphical Resource for Educators.

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Did You Know? 3.0: Broadband for the Brain

Are you in ... [a] broadband backwash [bayou], or [a beach in] Bermuda?

Source: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8
(buencaminos, November 07, 2008)

Where would you rather be? Get a load of the new stat's in this video, and find out!

Blogged with the Flock Browser
Revised in Blogger

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Green IQ Game and Carbon Footprint Calculator

If you are an English language learner with intermediate or greater reading ability, who is able to tolerate a brain-numbing audio loop long enough to try it, you might play the Green IQ Game. It could teach you a bit about the impact your lifestyle has on the environment.

I learned of that game from a post on Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day blog (Test Your Green IQ, 2008.11.12), but I couldn't stand the music that started playing the moment I opened the game. So I won't embed it in this post. I removed a game like that from a previous post because it wasted bandwidth every time it loaded (Big Bob's Burger Joint..., 2008.09.04)) However, I will try [Green IQ] later with the speakers turned off. If you try it, please let us know what you think of it by leaving a comment on this post after you play.

If you're keen on a calmer, deeper, quieter, environmental consciousness-raising activity, you might try the the Carbon Footprint Calculator, instead. The Welcome screen in the calculator allows you to select a country (and locale) for comparison. Then on-site calculations based on your responses reflect impacts of certain human activities. The behaviors and preferences tracked relate primarily to housing and transportation, but also to fashion, food, shopping, and recreation.

Again, please feel free to share your reflections in comments here afterwards. I'd really like to know whether you find either the environmental issues or the language used (vocabulary, in particular) familiar or difficult to understand. I'd also like to hear whether playing the Green IQ Game or calculating your Carbon Footprint influences your thinking or motivates you to make changes in your lifestyle.

Blogged with the Flock Browser
Revised in Blogger

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Free Rice: website review

First of all, I'd like to acknowledge connections that enabled me to find this interesting website. In the mail queue yesterday morning was a weekly update message announcing over two dozen additional sites bookmarked by members of the LearningwithComputers (LwC) Group at Diigo, a group that the founder, Carla Arena, describes as "educators interested in sharing and learning about the power of technology" (Description, retrieved 2008.09.18).

That is just what I was doing as I browsed through the list of new bookmarks, after accepting an invitation to hookup through the group with Isabelle Jones, another member of the LwC. Interestingly enough, she had bookmarked a recent post on (one of) her blog(-s):

• My Languages: Free Rice is Going Multi-Lingual and Cross-Curricular

In that post, she updates her review of a wonderful site that she reviewed about a year ago (My Languages, Test Your English and Feed the World, 2007.11.18). FreeRice is a partnership project involving the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University (Cultivating Free Rice, 2008.09.01), and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP, FreeRice web phenomenon – games for a new school term, 2008.08.31). According to the WFP, the Berkman Center now provides servers for FreeRice, and works with the website's creator to develop new adaptive quiz content for the site. Thanks to generous support of various sponsors, for every correct answer to quiz items, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the WFP.

Quizzes now come in a number of different varieties. For example there is one on English vocabulary, and another of English grammar. What's more, as Isabelle points out in her recent post, there also are quizzes in other languages and subjects:

• French, German, Italian, and Spanish;
• art, chemistry, geography, and math (FreeRice, Subjects).

The FAQ explains that sponsers pay the WFP directly:

FreeRice does not make any money from this. FreeRice is simply a website committed to the cause of ending hunger around the world. While it is not a registered non-profit organization, FreeRice is run entirely for free and at no profit. All money (100%) raised by the site goes to the UN World Food Program to help feed the hungry. Sponsors make all payments to the UN World Food Program directly.

(FreeRice, FAQ, Does FreeRice make any money from doing this?
Is FreeRice a non-profit organization?).

There are options that you can set on site either to display a running total of your winnings, or a fresh tally every time you visit the site. However, the aggregate total probably works only if you use the same IP address every time you take a quiz.

Each correct answer not only adds to your contribution, but also cranks up the difficulty of the quiz items that appear next. A note on the Subjects page indicates"the difficulty levels for new subjects will become more exact as more people play." Though incorrect answers will lead to easier quiz items, they will not decrease your contribution. You can find monthly totals since the site's launch here, along with daily totals for the current month, ready and waiting to include yours!

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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!

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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.

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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
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"Somebody stole my...

... radio" (*) -

... no, bicycle -

... no, more precisely, -

... my bicycle seat!



____________________
* That line may be from a song performed by Nicollete Larson (Wikipedia). Though I haven't been able to track down the song or lyrics, in addition to the Wikipedia stub (above), I have found an online biography covering her musical career.

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Week's Assignments: Mega-Essay Project (1.3)

This post reiterates the tasks that I displayed in class today for classwork and homework assignments (due Oct. 12, 2007).

Kumamoto essays: Information questions and answers [classwork]

1. Preview three or more essays - not outlines - in blogs DOWN list (Writing Studio Wiki, §2.3).
2. Ask information questions about essays, or suggest additional information for those essays, in three or more blogs UP list in comments on those blogs.
3. Check your own essay for incoming information questions [and suggestions].

Kumamoto essays: Responses and revisions [classwork]

1. Answer questions from comments in comments on your own blog.
2. Transfer information from answers in ALL comments to ONE of your group member's essays.
3. Reorganize and revise all individual essays, as necessary, to suit additional information from comments on all group members' essays.

Kumamoto essays: [homework]

1. Add finishing touches to your individual essays.
• Add links (3 minimum).
• Add photos (3 minimum).
• Add other media:
• graphics,
• maps,
• music,
• slideshows,
• videos, or
• voice recordings.
2. Use NO copyright - “©” - material (without written permission [from owners])!

For further information, please review:

• The Group Thing: Mega-Essay Project (1.2);
• The Group Thing: Mega-Essay Project (1.1); &
  
• The Group Thing: Mega-Essay Project (1).

Then, if you have questions about finalizing your mega-essays, please post them in comments on this post.

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Website review: Introducing the People Tree

I'd like to introduce a socially and environmentally responsible fashion company, especially to students interested in business entrepreneurship [added, 2007.07.04]. The Fair Trade Fashion Company - People Tree is all about supporting independent producers, promoting fair trade, and protecting the environment (Mission Statement). I learned about the People Tree from a recent documentary on NHK TV.

Safia Minney, the founder of People Tree, calls her blog the People Tree. Most if not all of the snapshots in her recent post about establishing organic cotton farms in Bangladesh are from scenes shown in that TV documentary.

People Tree currently makes more than half of its clothing from cotton grown organically in India, and is now promoting organic plantations in Bangladesh, too, where most cotton fabricated comes of non-local sources (Poisoned any farmers recently, darling?). The Organic Cotton page explains both problems related to cotton that isn't grown organically, and benefits of growing it organically.

A little over a month ago, representatives from People Tree took part in World Fair Trade Day celebrations in Tokyo. Events included a fashion show including Vogue fashions crafted from organic cotton (World Fair Trade Day - May 12). To find out more about how fair trade influences children around the world, please check out the World Fair Trade official web site for 2007.

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