iblog.stjschool.org

While you read…Brave New World

Using the format of a blog, comment at the end of each reading session on both the substance of your reading and its effects on you.

Record pages or sections on which you are commenting. Record your impressions of characters, events, conflicts, descriptions. Record responses to your own questions. Record questions about the novel as you read. Respond to course focus questions.

Make sure you take the time after, during, or before each reading session to make an entry into your blog. 10-15 sentences per reading session might be enough.

Make each entry interesting, personal, intelligent. Avoid retelling the story or simply “dumbing-down” the text. Write posts that engages your readers in critical thinking, enhances their attention span, and fills them with speculative awe.

Write several short posts per week, once a day at least. Write longer posts when your mood strikes you. Tag each post before publishing. Use categories such as the following to keep your responses organized:

Utopia
Community, Identity, Stability
Science and Technology
Conditioning
Soma
Sensual Pleasures
Religion
Family Life
Death
Skinner
Kohlberg
Piaget
Erikson
Freud
Adler
Thoreau

Track the posts you make and the comments you send and receive in a spreadsheet. Try to spend no more than 15 minutes on the computer per class. If that isn’t enough, do more work at home or during spare time. There is a need for quite, concentrated reading time during your day. Here we go.

Tags: ability, blog, Brave New World, form, impressions, novel, parent, question, record, Religion, response, use
Posted in English 20

Hamlet: Final Response

Choose a focus for your final response to Hamlet.

Synthesize alternative points of view, (include links to sources: your posts, STJ blogs, etc.).

Review your responses throughout our study:

• Thaw, resolve, adieu…
• Hamlet Getting Started 2
• Is Polonius a Good Father?
• Hamlet: Before Act 1 and 2
• Why read literature?

Writing tips:

• Outcome-Illustrating Verbs
• Voice and Structure(Student blog will win $10,000 Scholarship)
• Did I mention keep a keen focus?

Trackback.

PS: “To thine own rubric be true.”

November 9th is the “cut off” day for submission of my marks to the office.
Any assignment to be (re)submitted for grading must be “in my hand” before 2:00PM November 9th.

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, English 30, Hamlet, keen focus, literature, resolve, rubric, scholarship, submission, thaw, verbs, writing tips
Posted in English 30

Student blog will win $10,000 Scholarship

One blogger chosen by “the internet” will win $10,000 US scholarship … for keeping a blog.

As the ratio of high school student blogs I read to the number of college student blogs I read approaches infinity, I think it a good time we troll a few of the best college bloggers in the US.

All STJ student bloggers have been involved in assessment of one another’s blogs since the beginning of STJ iblogs in 2006. I’m certain we’d pick a deserving “Final Four” from the list of 20 finalists.

I’m curious to know for what blogs STJ bloggers vote.

Submit your comment (or trackback) here with a brief reason/detail/example justifying your vote for the $10,000 US scholarship.

Consider our recent emphasis on structure and voice: How are these college bloggers defining themselves through voice? What structures/patterns do successful bloggers adopt? What role do comments play in the development of the blog?

Yaaar, there be pirates in one of the blogs . . . but don’t let that influence your vote.

Tags: blog, bloggers, Blogging Tips, CTS 10, detail example, English 20, English 30, final four, good time, iblogs, infinity, Information Highway2 INF0220, pirates, scholarship
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Do’s and Don’ts

Most of us have had, or will have, reason to confront another person and express a lot of anger that we have been storing up. In your blog make a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” about this type of confrontation. Then think of a confrontation you have already experienced. How many of your “do’s” and “don’ts” did you follow? If a similar situation were to occur, how would you handle it this time?

Tags: anger, blog, confrontation
Posted in personal psychology

Hamlet: Getting Started

Hamlet raises many questions that you may recognize from your own life. Thinking about some of these issues will make your experience of the play more interesting and rewarding. Discuss some of the following questions in your blog or the forums. Record in your blog any ideas you find interesting or thought-provoking. When you begin to read and discuss the play, refer to your responses to these questions and keep track of any changes in your opinions, or any surprises you find.

1. We all have procrastinated about something important that we had to do, sometimes disappointing other people and often disappointing ourselves. Why do we procrastinate?
2. Most people have purposely “played the fool” at some time. Why do people do this? If a person for some reason plays the fool or pretends to be disturbed for a long time, do you think the person eventually can become truly disturbed?
3. Isolation and loneliness are feelings common to most people at one time or another. Sometimes external circumstances create this situation, and sometimes people deliberately withdraw from those around them. What can friends or relatives do when someone has purposely withdrawn and chosen to be alone with his or her problems?
4. Disillusion is a common experience of growing up. We find that people in the adult world whom we once idealized are less than ideal, and that situations we considered innocent are actually corrupt. How do young people encountering the “real world” for the first time handle these discoveries?
5. In Shakespeare’s time, insane people were regarded as sources of entertainment. What is our society’s attitude toward mental illness?
6. What is the difference between “taking revenge” and “getting justice”?
7. Privacy is highly valued in our society. How would you feel if you found out you were “under surveillance” at school, at your job, at home, or among friends because of some change in your behaviour?

Having thought about this wide variety of topics, you are ready to explore Hamlet.

Tags: adult world, attitude, blog, discoveries, English 30, external circumstances, feelings, fool, Hamlet, isolation, job, loneliness, long time, mental illness, real world, relatives, shakespeare, surprises, surveillance, taking revenge
Posted in English 30

Leaving STJ? Take your blog with you.

1. Dashboard–>Manage–>Export
2. Save the xml file to your disk/USB.
3. Start a new blog at Wordpress.com or Edublogs
4. Dashboard–>Manage–>Import–>Wordpress
5. Done.

You could start your own blog on a shared server, but for true blog freedom, master your own domain and install WAMP MAMP or LAMP and Wordpress yourself.

I don’t plan on “pruning” the server database till the fall, but export before you leave in June.

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, dashboard, freedom, mamp, server database, xml file
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Prepare for English Language Arts Finals

For those in the midst, or looking ahead at finals in my LA classes(9, 10-1, 20-1, 20-2, 30-1, 30-2).

Consider the outcomes we’ve tried to achieve.

Enhancing the artistry of communication has been a strong technical focus. Skills mastered include using online blogging tools, Word Processing, Spreadsheets, even graphical enhancements using Photoshop or audio/video podcasting tools have been included where time permitted and initiative taken. Participation on an online forum has generated a myriad of useful tips/reminders, questions/answers. There will be no speadsheets on the final, the use of Word will be necessary for English 30.

Each course has been structured around Focus Questions and related questions: English 10, English 9.

Emphasis on social networking, peer review/support/criticism has been critical for developing critical thought and reflection for writers defending an idea.

Each course has a reading list: English 10, English 30. Not every title has been studied intensively(or at all), but the proportion of attention paid to those pieces that were studied in class deserve the same level of attention on the final. Of course, those who choose additional literature from the list to focus on in the final deserve to have that initiative rewarded as well. If you choose to focus on Shakespeare, your audience gets tougher, I’ve noticed.

An English 30 paper looking at how the images/symbols/archetypes of Sophocles and Kingsolver relate to personal freedom to would be intriguing. Why not an English 10 paper discussing the threat of fanaticism by comparing the speeches of Mark Antony, Joseph Strorm, and Eamon De valera? What does Søren Kierkegaard have to do with every page you’ve ever read or written?

Extras, everyone should be able to link to Wikipedia for literary terms, difficult vocabulary, or just the odd or eccentric idea; can anyone incorporate the Hayflick Limit into their paper? Everyone has seen video and heard an mp3, but are any daring enough to Podcast their final essay? A carefully edited U2 mp3 snip, an embedded flash video of Ophelia Simpson, a slideshow?

The only limit is to abide the first line of every rubric you’ve ever attached to any assignment:

I _________________ honestly declare that the work is what I have done. In circumstances when I have quoted a certain authority, I have clearly indicated what is a quote and the author. 

A Blogger’s Code of Ethics contains truths far older than the phenomenon of blogging.

English 30s will have no access to internet, filesharing, etc etc. English 10s can have it all.

Tags: archetype, archetypes, artistry, audience, blog, communication, diction, English, English 10, English 30, english language arts, essay, Final, focus, focus question, focus questions, freedom, iblog, idea, image, images, language, language arts, Limit, literature, Man, participation, process, question, reading list, reality, right, rubric, self, shakespeare, Social, stj, Structure, support, symbol, Thinking, use, video, view, wit, writer
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Exptrapolation

The life which is unexamined is not worth living.
- Plato

Write a story in which a protagonist undergoes a transformation in the search for self. Have your character encounter basic questions about his/her identity.

Consider using the following images:

Tags: blog, encounter, English, English 9, form, iblog, image, images, language, letter, Man, plato, question, self, stj
Posted in Pingo Lingo

My Mother’s Kitchen

1. Use pencil crayons to draw a picture of your mother’s kitchen.
2. Put the oven in it, and also something green, and something dead.
3. Write a poem about your mother’s kitchen.
4. You are not in this poem, but some female relation – aunt, sister, close friend – must walk into the kitchen during the course of the poem.
5. Completed poems, with a suitable image(72 dpi, png, lightbox), should appear in your blog and trackback here.

A lesson on single point perspective. Hint: Tiles need an extra diagonal, too.

Tags: blog, English 9, image, images, poe, poem, poems, right, something, use, wit
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Fine Tuning the iBlog Engine

Recently updated a variety of themes. Sadly, a few had to be removed as they were not as “forward compatible” as I would like. Themes need to be coded in a consistent way for smoother integration of updates, plugins, widgets, etc. A few were just too goofily written, or beyond my skills and energy to update. Theme descriptions now emphasize layout, extra schemes, custom headers, and theme toolkits.

Microcontents received more attention. I’ve added the much demanded “quicktag” buttons to the edit form. But first . . .,

For some reason I have long struggled to determine, the occasional trackback is simple lost in cyberspace. You know you are a victim when the receiving blog never gets a comment yet the sending post says the trackback has been pinged. Once upon a time this was common to posts that were saved as drafts when they pinged and then later published. But recent bugs have led me to believe it is more a random function of the web server. Because the trackbacks are happening “in house” they happen more quickly than the server will allow. Trackbacks seem instantaneous, but they are not. They travel first to a holding pen to wait while the server does other things. What things? I have no idea, but the database shows an entry into a field where they wait to be cleared. When users ping multiple trackbacks quickly, or at least before those waiting have been cleared, the server spews them out as best it can. Then the odd one gets dumped.

Anyway, I’ve added a Reset Trackbacks field to clear the “Already Pinged” field. Works like a charm. I thought this fix would result in receiving multiple “human spam” comments, not the case. If the receiving blog already has the trackback waiting in moderation, a second one doesn’t get through. Oh, and the fix is written as a plugin I can easily remove if it proves unecesary after future core upgrades.

Comments now have a live preview. A few themes, Rin, even have quicktags in the comments. Looks doable for other themes. I wish I could code one plugin to fix all themes, but it doesn’t look possible. I’d have to delete the comment form from all themes and replace with a one-form-for-all, or edit each theme one by one. Both solutions are a chore. I can generate a list of themes by popularity and go from there, I guess. I’ve tried browser tools(Firefox), but the result is terrible, ugly, or overly nerdy and slows an already sluggish Firefox to a crawl on pages with multiple text areas. Deconstructing the Rin theme, led me in the direction I needed to code the microcontent renderer with quicktags. There was a real “Aha!” when it finally worked.

I couple annoyances still exist with the STJ gallery plugin, and the Image Manager plugin. Both use scripts that seem to interfere with each other. A tonne of code in the gallery plugin needs be updated to be compatable with Wordpress’s roles and capabilities. I’ve figured out a little at a time, POGE.

Oh, a super cool Lightbox plugin now exists in the Dashboard–>Plugins. iBox still functions for those students who coded their own blog headers. But Lightbox is the future, and simpler.

Tags: blog, bugs, core upgrades, custom headers, holding pen, moderation, random function, toolkits, trackbacks, web server, widgets, works like a charm
Posted in Site Updates

Microcontents Flourish at STJ Blogs (LA 9)

Thanks to a few bloggers for helping me work out the bugs in the microcontent code. Movie, music, and video game reviews appear to be the most popular. I still haven’t, yet, found a sure fire method of aggregating all the reviews – POGE. The FREEoutputthis.org looks promising.

Anyway, for the time being, trackback your microcontent posts here.

Tags: blog, bloggers, content, English 9, music, principle, stj, video, view
Posted in LA 9

Blogging About the News (LA 9)

Students can collect news headlines from a variety of RSS sources using their blog as a news aggregator. Writing about the news is one of the more common uses of a blog throughout the blogosphere. Bloggers blend fact and opinion, rant and satire, sarcasm and criticism, objectivity and subjectivity, style and substance. By reading and commenting about the news we learn two things: something about the news, and something about the blogger.

Trackback/pingback your posts about the news here.

Tags: blog, bloggers, English 9, something, use, variety
Posted in LA 9

Catch one of these on your tongue (LA 9)

The snowflake blog deals out an assortment of writing ideas. Students can pick from a variety of prompts. Try not to make any two posts the same.

Send a trackback.

Tags: blog, English 9, iblog, idea, stj, variety
Posted in LA 9

Random Ideas (LA 9)

For a while now, every STJ blogger is faced with a “Random Idea” each time the begin a new post. Well, there should be dozens, hunerds, towsands of such posts in our blogosphere by now.

Trackback your “Random Idea” posts here.

Tags: blog, English 9, idea, random idea, stj, wit
Posted in LA 9

An Exodus Within(RS 25)

Sophie was introduced to Aristotle. Ideas no longer belong to a realm of their own, but somehow the idea is within the thing. Aristotle could explain this by talking of sculptures and stone.

Review what was said earlier about Plato and art. Discuss Aristotle’s take on the place of ideas and art.

Search for a thumbnail of an art work from the Louvre.

STJ School Forum : The Garden Party : Sophie's World
STJ School Forum

Can you make 50 identical cookies? in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, dpottle, 2009-12-09
Wow this looks very confusing

Cookie Quotes in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, zelliott, 2007-06-20
We can only buy cookies in the 4 oz. tubes, industrial sized cans will take up to 3-4 business days.---- It's up to you to find the source of this quote, maybe this next one is a better clue.Blue, you're my cookie!

Cookie Quotes in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, Kesela, 2007-06-16
In case no one is understanding this, what you're supposed to do is take a famous quote, and substitute the main subjesct with the word cookie. Go, run amok.....

Cookie Quotes in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, Kesela, 2007-06-15
To Cookie, or not to Cookie...-Hamlet

Cookie Quotes in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, croth, 2007-06-15
Song Title by Croth and GfraserCookie Back - Justin THit me cookie one more time - Britney SpearsCookie Eater - Nally FurtadoCookielicous - Fergie

Cookie Quotes in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, Kesela, 2007-06-15
"The perfect cookie is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life."-Katsumoto, The Last SammuraiCommandeer. We're going to commandeer that cookie. Nautical term-Jack Sparrow, POC IBut why is the cookie gone?!-Jack SparrowStop blowing holes in my cookie!-Jack Sparrow

Cookie Quotes in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, croth, 2007-06-15
Eat the Cookie (Kiss the Girl Little Mermaid) By Croth and GfraserThere you see itSitting there across the wayIt don't got a lot to sayBut there's something about itAnd you don't know whyBut you're dying to tryYou want to eat the cookieYes, you want itLook at it, you know you doPossible it wants you tooThere is one way to ask itIt don't take a wordNot a single wordGo on and eat the cookieSha la la la la laMy oh myLook like the boy too shyAin't gonna eat the cookieSha la la la la laAin't that sad?Ain't it a shame?Too bad, he gonna miss the cookieNow's your momentFloating in a blue lagoonBoy you better do it soonNo time will be betterIt don't say a wordAnd it won't say a wordUntil you eat the cookieSha la la la la laDon't be scaredYou got the mood preparedGo on and eat the cookieSha la la la la laDon't stop nowDon't try to hide it howYou want to eat the cookieSha la la la la laFloat alongAnd listen to the songThe song say eat the cookieSha la la la laThe music playDo what the music sayYou got to eat the cookieYou've got to eat the cookieYou wanna eat the cookieYou've gotta eat the cookieGo on and eat the cookie

Cookie Quotes in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, Kesela, 2007-06-15
Are beings made of more than cookies?-Amos Hart, Chicago (Mr. Cellophane)Geoffry Chaucer's the name, cookie's the game-Geoffry Chaucer, A Knight's TaleWhat is History, but a cookie agreed upon?-NapoleonI'm sorry, I don't speak cookie-Count Olaf, Series of Unfortunate EventsKlaus: You're not getting a cent until Violet turns 18.Count Olaf: Oh really? Says who?Klaus: The cookie! Look it up!-Series of Unfortunate Events

Cookie Quotes in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, Kesela, 2007-06-15
All that you know is at an end. - The "Silver Surfer" in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver SurferSo: All that you know is at a cookie.

Optical Illusions in The Garden Party : Sophie's World, zelliott, 2007-06-12
What is the reality here? Where does it start or better, does the picture even start? Does it end, if so, where?

Tags: aristotle, Believing is integral, blog, Explain, iblog, idea, plato, realm, Religious Studies, Sophie, stj, Truth and religious community, view, wit
Posted in Religious Studies 25

An Interpretation of Hamlet

(30-1) For hundreds of years, scholars have written about problems of interpreting this play. Complete any of the following statements and develop your thoughts in an entry in your blog. Trackback, SVP.

• What puzzles me most about Hamlet’s behaviour is . . .
• I don’t understand why Shakespeare included (didn’t include) . . .
• My first impression of _________ has changed because . . .
• I’m not sure whether . . .
• There seems to be a contradiction . . .

(30-2) In your blog, write about a time when, under pressure, you acted in a way that surprised you.

Tags: blog, change, diction, Hamlet, interpretation, shakespeare, State, use
Posted in English 30

When the basic needs are met, then what?(RS 25)

Today we asked if there was something all humans strive for after all needs have been met. Of course, only a philosopher can imagine a world in which all needs could be met.

But there must be something to the question asked of Sophie: Is there something else that all humans, all times and all places, need?

Maslow can help.

Tags: Believing is integral, blog, iblog, Man, Philosopher, question, right, something, Sophie, Sophies World, stj
Posted in Religious Studies 25

“These are Aliens, Dad!”

Some have noticed that some otherwise regular discussions in class eventually turn to a discussion of, um…, ahh… well …, poop.

The inspiration of such mudtimes no doubt erupt from experience with my three growing boys aged 6, 4, and 2. Several days may pass without reference to “it.” But when the subject rears its ugly head, we usually are moved by good humour.

Today I added a “Spelling Bee” widget. My efforts were sincere, scholarly, and academic. Here’s what I saw for my first word:

I’m going to get a book and settle down to a good read.

Out.

Tags: amazon, blog, discussion, iblog, inspiration, no doubt, Pedagogy 2.0, reference, stj, wit
Posted in Pingo Lingo

English 20 Final Exam 2.0

Search the net, search blogs, search your mind. Synthesize, hyperlink, blockquote, and trackback.

Your writing should be a synthesis of the 5 paragraph essay AND a blog post.

Refer to one or any texts from your course: Macbeth, BNW, Can. Lit., Film, News, or other online media.

Your question:

What does it mean to be human in an engineered world?

Time: 2.5 hours
Submit a printed copy to your teacher and a trackback to this post.

Tags: blog, English, English 20, essay, Final, macbeth, Man, paragraph, paragraph essay, print, question, synthesis
Posted in English 20

Looking for News

Try the following suggestions to increase your daily intake of news feeds.

• Surf the latest headlines from all over the world. Results are based on google search rankings, the larger the font –> the more hits in google, I recall. Headlines link to an array of news organizations.
• Aggregate a few headlines from, say, cbc.ca/rss in your own blog sidebar.
• Create your own online newsreader at bloglines.com or google reader.

Add your own suggested news feeds or feed aggregators in a comment or trackback here.

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, CTS 9, English 20, google, Hypermedia Tools INF01070, iblog, Information Highway2 INF0220, Pedagogy 2.0, result, sidebar, stj, view
Posted in Pingo Lingo

In the News(CTS bloggers)

CBC RSS feeds. Browse the many RSS feed categories. Select at least one to be added to your blog’s sidebar.

• Copy(right-click or control-click) a feed url from CBC RSS feeds.
• Go to Dashboard–>Presentation–>Sidebar Widgets–>Add RSS widgets.
• Drag RSS widget to your sidebar.
• Paste the url into the RSS widget.
• Save and view site.

Tags: blog, bloggers, Blogging Tips, CTS 9, dashboard, English 9, Hypermedia Tools INF01070, Information Highway2 INF0220, Man, presentation, right, sidebar, view
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Personal Universe Lexicon

To construct your Personal Universe Lexicon, start with a new post. You may wish to construct the list with pen and paper first and transfer it to your blog later. Begin by following these instructions:

Write down as many words as you can then sort the words into the categories outlined below. Complete each category. Write as quickly as you can.

Categories:

• 16 words of each of the five senses (16 x 5 = 80 words). The words must mean, suggest: taste touch, sight, smell, and hearing. For instance, desiccated or frozen might suggest touch to you, or birdsong hearing.
• 10 words of motion. The words must mean, suggest motion to you. They do not necessarily need to be verbs. Baby could be a motion word for someone, for example.
• 3 abstractions. Such as love or freedom or truth.
• 7 anything else. Any word with meaning to you that does not fit into the other categories.

All the words on the list must

1. have significance to/for you
2. be specific; that is the word must not be “bird” but “robin,” not “tree” but “aspen.”
3. sound good to the ear.

Use no adverbs. Use no plurals.

Keep track of the words with your blog. Move them around each other in the list every day for a week. Choose one word at random from the list; write what the word(s) sparks, what the juxtaposition of words builds for you.

Trackback/pinkback your list to this post.

Tags: abstractions, blog, Blogging Tips, CTS 9, English 20, English 9, freedom, lexicon, Man, pen and paper, significance, universe, use, verbs, wit, Word Processing INFO1030
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Creat a Sitemap for your blog

Write a page(not a post). Title it Sitemap.
You’ll find the code here that you’ll need to paste into your page.

Enter Sitemap as the Page Slug.
Disable Comments and Pings.
Publish.

Go to Dashboard–>Options–>DDSitemapGen.
Enter the same Slug, update.

Add the link to the sitemap via your theme’s menu or sidebar or add a Pages widget.

Tags: blog, CTS 9, dashboard, Information Highway2 INF0220, map, sidebar, theme, Word Processing INFO1030
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Pingback Trackback of the Canadian Outback

English 20(Chem)
Your task is to complete Writing Activity 1 from my canpoets blog.

Just following those instructions will not be enough, however.

Your assignment will not be complete until a “trackback” or “pingback” appears in the comment section on my Writing Activity 1 post.

I’ll have a bag of cookies on standby. Cookie of choice to STJ blogger(s) who completes a pingback trackback of the Canadian outback.

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, Canadian Poets, English, English 20, iblog, poe, poet, stj
Posted in English 20

What happened to the animals in BNW?

What happened to the animals in BNW?

• Suggest a brief history of “pets” up to AF632.
• What attitudes do people have towards animals?
• Why are there no “conditioned” animals as pets?
• What are the attitudes towards animals on the reservation?

Consider our society. Are pets necessary? Why?

Oh and I have a searchable BNW etext with a growing blogroll here.

PS. What is lupus? Who, in BNW, has it? Why?

Tags: attitude, attitudes, blog, Conditioning, history, iblog, Science and Technology, Skinner, Society, stj, Utopia, wit
Posted in English 20

Audio Posts (But not quite podcasts, yet)

Or rather, Audio in Posts.

They’re not iTunesey podcasts, yet, but they’re simple enough.
Your mp3 file must be less than 2MB and uploaded to your blog in the normal way.

Go find the menu in Dashboard–>Options–>Audio Player.

Read the check boxes, the third check box will automagically change your mp3 links in your posts to embedded flash players. Easy-peezy.

Look at wmcauley’s mp3 links.

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, change, dashboard, English 20, English 9, Hypermedia Tools INF01070, iblog, Information Highway2 INF0220, stj
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Flickr Plugin works, again.

Flickr changed how you access your images in early September. So I’ve updated the plugin. You’ll need to have an “API Key” and a “Shared Secret”, now.

It is a good idea to put images on Flickr instead, or in addition to, stj servers. Flickr badges are cool, too.

Do not activate the Flickr plugin if you don’t have a Flickr account. You lose the ability to browse your blog’s upload folder while Flickr plugin is active, I still don’t know the fix.

Look here, see if you can find a fix, too.

Tags: ability, blog, Blogging Tips, change, Graphic Tools INF01040, group, idea, image, images, Photo Albums, stj, Troubleshooting
Posted in Pingo Lingo

iBox for your images

Click the images.

Before iBox

After iBox

Want to know how?
Start a thread in the forum, “How to iBox?”. When three STJ bloggers post, let me know and I’ll join in with the secret.

Tags: blog, bloggers, Graphic Tools INF01040, Hypermedia Tools INF01070, iblog, image, images, Information Highway2 INF0220, stj, wit
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Here’s an idea that could snowball!

Find a “copyright-free” etext online at, say, Project Gutenberg or here or here

Start a new blog.

Parse your etext into manageable chunks and insert into your blog.

Add graphics and organizers. Edit theme. Voila.

Look at Castle of Otranto and The Jesuit Relations and the History of New France as examples.

Search for works by the following at Gutenberg:
Austen, Jane
Barrie, J.M.
Brontà«, Charlotte
Brontà«, Emily
Dickens, Charles
Burroughs, Edgar Rice
Carroll, Lewis
Chesterton, G. K
Christie, Agatha
Twain, Mark
Collins, Wilkie
Connor, Ralph
Conrad, Joseph
Corelli, Marie
Defoe, Daniel
De la Mare, Walter
Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir
Eliot, George
Galsworthy, John
Haggard, H. Rider
Hardy, Thomas
Henty, G. A.
James, Henry
Jerome, Jerome K.
Joyce, James
Kingsley, Charles
Kipling, Rudyard
Leacock, Stephen
Mansfield, Katherine
Maugham, W. Somerset
Maupassant, Guy de
McClung, Nellie L.
Melville, Herman
Montgomery, L. M.
Moodie, Susanna
Moore, Clement Clarke
Nesbit, E.
Oppenheim, E. Phillips
Potter, Beatrix
Sabatini, Rafael
Scott, Walter, Sir
Shaw, George Bernard
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Sinclair, Upton
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Stoker, Bram
Swift, Jonathan
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Trollope, Anthony
Wallace, Edgar
Walpole, Horace
Wells, H. G.
Wilde, Oscar
Wodehouse, P. G.
Woolf, Virginia
Yonge, Charlotte Mary

Tags: Arthur, blog, Christ, CTS 10, Dick, element, English 20, English 9, history, Hypermedia Tools INF01070, iblog, idea, Information Highway2 INF0220, Man, Manage, peace, right, stj, theme, use, Word Processing INFO1030
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Bloggiest start to the bloggiest year ever.

What a funny word, “bloggiest”. Should I say it is a “most bloggy” start to the year? Does correct English matter in a blog?

All students I teach have begun a blog, of sorts. For the most part, I’ve insisted the content of the blog must be school or course related, the myriad responses to Macbeth fit this category. Other responses are more like “snowflakes”, snowflakes is my term to describe the phenomena of no two responses to the same prompt being identical.

I aggregate(not related to the term aggravate) RSS feeds from each class to aid in tracking down assigned work. Each student has a spreadsheet I term the Data Collector that averages rubric scores and totals moderated comment feeds, too. I then collect the Data Collectors periodically to determine scores to enter into GradeLogic. The data collectors serve a dual purpose, a foundation to build a grade obviously, but a powerful device to bring a landslide of peer pressure and collaborative assistance on the lazy, slower, or reluctant bloggers. Those that finish first have always shown a willingness to “share their secrets” with others.

Students are also instructed to collect and deposit appropriate comments on each other’s blogs, too. It is proving to be a fine art to learn to comment. Last year I found the aspect of commenting to be more valuable than the creation of the posts. Comments must contain evidence of critical thinking, I said, not simply “gladhanding”. If you troll the blogs you’ll notice the biggest difference right now between a veteran blogger and a newbie is the quality/quantity of appropriate comments. Students complete work earlier to benefit from positive/any attention from peer “commentors”. Any student who doesn’t get their blog post done on time, gets punished by receiving low or no rubric scores from their peers. However, unlike class discussions, the very nature of blogging allows anyone to catch up at any time. The students themselves seem to have an unofficial pecking order for who writes the best comments. They have internalized their own standards for what they will accept as a comment on their blog and are very persuasive at convincing each other to measure up. A few students are positively verbose and comment on all they can. Others choose fewer responses yet measure their words very carefully. Those that finish writing a post early, are left to hustle remaining students.

The grade 10s are shifting their attention to Keyboarding modules for a while, although I keep prodding them about “Turing Tests”. iGod is our most recent fascination.

The grade 9s get their prompts from Mrs. Fraser’s class then I help them become a bit more tech savvy.

The Grade 11s are in the midst of Macbeth and may see no reprieve for at least 2 more weeks, I figure. The more traditional assignments I’ve used for the last 14 years are as appropriate in a blog as they have ever been in my class. Doing it with blogs is just so cool!

Tags: blog, bloggers, class discussions, content, creation, critical thinking, CTS 10, difference, discussion, English, English 20, English 9, God, grade 9, iblog, logic, macbeth, peers, purpose, response, right, rubric, stj, Thinking, use, wit
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Remember how simple childhood can be?

Tags: blog, Graphic Tools INF01040, iblog, Photo Albums, stj
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Been searching CSS/HTML/PHP code? Try this.

• HTML as Image

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, iblog, image, stj, Structure
Posted in Pingo Lingo

IV. ENGLISH 10: The Three Questions

ENGLISH 10 Comments only SVP.

Scour your notes, “google” your minds, attach a comment with an idea, impression, concept. Make references to literature, film, philosophy, history, psychology, business, politics, etc.

Respond to these questions on your own blog AFTER reading:

• “The Three Questions” by Leo Tolstoy
• “The Three Questions” by Jon J. Muth

1. When is the best time to do things?
2. Who is the most important one?
3. What is the right thing to do?

Tags: blog, English, English 10, google, history, idea, Leo Tolstoy, literature, philosophy, question, reference, Respond, right, wit
Posted in English 10

I. ENGLISH 10: What are the greatest challenges to our survival?

ENGLISH 10 Comments only SVP.

Scour your notes, blogs, “google” your minds, attach a comment with an idea, impression, concept. Make references to literature, film, philosophy, history, psychology, business, politics, etc.

Keep your comments brief, 10-50 words. Comment as often as you like.

What are the greatest challenges to our survival?

Tags: blog, challenges, English, English 10, google, Great, history, idea, literature, philosophy, reference, survival, wit
Posted in English 10

Flickr is now enabled.

If I could figure out how to use Flickr smartly, so can you. Flickr is “third party” to snowotherway. Read it’s terms and conditions carefully. You are only invited, not required, to enable an account with flickr, but . . . what fun.

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, CTS 10, iblog, stj, use, wit
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Moving, Graduating, Take your blog with you.

In your dashboard, under ‘Options/Reading’, you need to check that the number of posts under ‘Syndication feeds’ is set to At LEAST the number of posts in your blog, and that the feed is set to ‘Full text’ before saving it as an .xml file.(look for the xml link in browser bar or meta somewhere in your theme header/sidebar/footer)

In your new blog at “wordpress.com” or “edublogs.org” for example simply import the .xml file and you are back in business.

Sadly, once you are no longer a student at St. Jerome’s your blog is gone. (Usually I don’t get around to cleaning things up until the fall, though).

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, dashboard, footer, sidebar, theme, wit, xml file
Posted in Pingo Lingo

ENGLISH 30 Creation vs Destruction? (or somewhere in between?)

ENGLISH 30

Read Greene’s “The Destructors”

Discuss anything you wish on your blog after giving the story full consideration.

Synthesize into your discussion of the the story some/many/any ideas from:

• Universal ideals

• Personality or Character

Tags: blog, creation, discussion, English, English 30, idea, Ideals, Man, personality
Posted in English 30

New Widgets for Widget Enabled Themes

Quick SMS has evolved into “Snow-Mobile.” It’s still a cell phone text messenger, though.

Created a “Snowblower.” Look at snowflakes for a demonstration.

Enjoy.

PS. Thanks for your patience, if dropping Quick SMS borked your theme with a fatal error it’s not all that fatal. Click on “Sidebar Widgets” in your Dashboard and all is well again.

Out,

D. Sader

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, dashboard, iblog, sidebar, stj, theme, wit
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Hotlinking Images? We have all done it. Warnings!Warnings!Warnings!

When adding an image to your page on iblog.stjschool.org with a link to an image on another site, you may get unexpected results. This is called hotlinking: when images appear to be embedded on your page, but are simply linked to someone else’s page.

Advantages: no bandwidth or disk quota used from your account because you are not storing/delivering the image here.

Disadvantage: many “smart” sites forbid and display a 404 error. Some may just limit to a finite number, say 5 visits per day. Unscrupulous sites will surprise your visitors with a redirected hotlink path to images you didn’t want to show. YIKES! Hence, HOT- linking, as in play with fire? … gonna get burned.

The ethics of “hotlinking” can be equated to the ethics of stealing an image without the original author’s permission. Look for a “you are forbidden” message. But that’s not all, a web server can simply detect a hotlinked image and replace it with anything they like. Be warned, if I can program the snowotherway server to refer all attempts at hotlinking to a 404.html file, so can any other. Judge wisely, test and retest a “hotlinked” image before committing it to publication. Unscrupulous webservers fight this “theft” in unscrupulous ways, so be very careful.

Now, a smart web host, like snowotherway, will use server settings to eliminate the practice of “hotlinking” into your file folders to “steal” our bandwidth. And, no, I won’t refer redirects to “unscrupulous” images.

Commercial sites like Amazon.ca, and imdb.com, may even encourage the practice of hotlinking for obvious commercial reasons. But they are huge, have tonnes of bandwidth, and they may profit if you follow an image from their site.

Conclusion, a human is the only judge of what a picture image on the ‘net looks like. No computer or software can actually “see” an image. So be warned, what you tell another site to deliver in an image to your web page, may not be what your visitors get.

Out,

D. Sader

Tags: amazon, blog, Blogging Tips, iblog, image, images, Limit, Man, publication, reason, result, stj, use, wit
Posted in Pingo Lingo

Found snow mold

I have noticed some themes generate error messages under certain conditions. I am trying to fix code so broken themes, widgets, and plugins work perfectly.

The most popular errors in the server logs are when widgets are used to display content you haven’t created yet. For example, including a recent comments widget in your sidebar, before you actually have any comments will result in an error message. I included a Links widget in PingoLino, but I didn’t have any links, hundreds of errors.

Trying to sort out which errors I need to pay attention too, and which errors are merely the result of carelessness is tougher than I expect.Feed validator helps.

If you notice errors occurring in a particular theme, widget, or microcontent, let me know ASAP. Show me while you are at school.

When activating a new blog, don’t be in a rush to delete the default Mr. Wordpress links or Hello World posts or comments. Having empty posts or comments or empty Blogroll causes errors to be reported as well. Most errors vanish after content, links, categories are added to your blog.

I’m certain you’ll see a rash of bizarre behaviour if you allow anyone else to be an administrator, author, contributor of your blog, I did in testing. If user A and user B both administer the same blog, all links/content appear on the pages they are supposed to, but when user A tries to Manage Links or Posts, only A’s posts and links appear and can be edited. This merely confused me, causing momentary panic, then confusion. Add users to your blog at your own risk. Do not make them Administrators, unless you know what you are doing and why. Anything you actually delete from your blog is gone. But stuff can be hidden in very many mysterious ways. Take care.

D. Sader

Tags: blog, Blogging Tips, content, iblog, Man, Manage, result, sidebar, stj, theme, use
Posted in Pingo Lingo