Here's an article that appeared in the New York Times today about professors who are using blogs, social networking sites and the like in an attempt to "humanize" themselves for their students. Some also see this as a response to websites like Ratemyprofessor.com. The article's interesting, but doesn't really discuss what these sorts of issues mean for graduate student instructors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/fashion/20professor.html?pagewanted=1&...

There's been lots of talk about "Free Rice" lately on my poetry listservs. Have you all been doing this?

You build your vocab by playing their vocab game; they donate the money from the on-screen advertisements to the United Nations World Food Program: www.freerice.com

I've been trying to get a better picture of the places where the Wellton 26 go in The Devil's Highway. I made this map--if you click on many of the yellow pins, there is a picture of the town or the place. Viewing it as a hybrid (which shows satellite pictures and human landmarks) really gives a good picture of the desolation of the AZ desert. (Note: Viewing the larger map (the link below the image) is key.)

If other people have found good pictures of any of the places mentioned in the book, I would love to add them to the map.

The founder of PostSecret is coming to campus November 1. In my RHE 309K, we talked about PostSecret quite a lot. As a community art project, it interestingly updates 60s and 70s mail art. I'm also interested in how it uses a blog as a public art space, and how it constructs its public.

Over the course of this semester, a few students have sent me YouTube links - or mentioned them to me - that they feel are relevant to the class topic (in this case, globalization) and class discussions. It certainly seems like a teaching moment. So far, I've been responding individually, but wonder if anyone out there has had similar experiences and if they've been able to take these clips that the students are finding and use them instructively in the classroom.

So I was preparing to start off class today with a brief warning about using Wikipedia as a source when I checked out the site's entry for "globalization."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization

I was struck by the number of "dubious - discuss" tags throughout.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Globalization#Dubious

In most of this section, the discussion centers around suggested wordings and rewrites, use of evidence, etc.

I will definitely work this into my class at some point in the next week or two, but wanted to know if anyone has used this feature of Wikipedia as a teaching tool.

I've been making constant use of PennSound this semester and wanted to remind everyone of its existence.

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/

If you haven't seen it already, this is an essay from the NYT Book section on how MySpace has changed the relationship between writers and their audience.

And just a reminder, if you use a .edu email address to register with the Times online, you get Times Select access for free!

A Space for Us

By PAGAN KENNEDY
Published: September 2, 2007

I first ventured onto MySpace this winter. After a few minutes of exploring, I clicked into a profile posted by a girl smashed on vodka. Her photo showed her slumped across her desk, blond hair fanning over her laptop. Here’s the most disturbing part of the story: I had found this kid by searching on my own name. She’d listed one of my novels, “The Exes,” as a favorite book. My God, was this my target audience? And if I set up a profile on MySpace, could I ask a booze-addled 17-year-old to be my friend? Or would I come off as a pedophile?

Derek points us to Mojiti, a cool way to add annotations (thought bubbles, text, effects, etc.) to YouTube videos. It's pretty easy to use, and could make for some interesting mashups.

Read/Write Web has posted a roundup of Web 2.0 tools for students, including free office suites, mind mapping tools, calendars, and bibliography creators. This might be a helpful list to share with your students in the fall.

Here's the whole article.