Strange days.

We are four class periods from the end, folks, and our lives have all been strange and dislocated lately. Consider this a briefest overview.

Blogging
I will amend the assignments I have given you -- and my own plans -- to accomodate your staggered ingress and egress to and from class:

1. Complete seven entries on your blogs.
2. Complete the profile section.
3. Link correctly to the rest of our class.
4. Comment on at least five other classroom blogs.
5. Add at least two other blogs (outside of the classroom) to your link list.

Midterm projects
We will continue to work together to focus these. You are responsible by Thursday for the following:

1. A completed and approved rubric.
2. Bringing materials with which to do project work in class on Thursday.

The final due date will be a week from Friday -- the last day of midterm week. I encourage you to complete and to submit your project as quickly as possible. Realize also that these projects must necessarily be smaller than they would normally be, as we are compressed by time and circumstance; however, also realize that this will be your midterm.

Wikipedia
The last thing we have time to consider this semester is Wikipedia. I am giving us a two-tiered assignment. We will discuss it more in class, obviously, but these are the basics:

1. Create your own autobiographical Wikipedia entry in the format of a normal Wikipedia biography; log whether or not Wikipedia allows your autobiography to remain posted.
2. Edit an existing Wikipedia entry to add false information; log the amount of time it takes for Wikipedia to notice and to correct your error.

You will have to save the HTML pages once you create/edit them to prove that you have done the work. I will give you a 3.5" disk onto which you may save the files. You will have to highlight and/or otherwise to indicate what you have edited and how.
We will compile a list of potential pages to edit together; in the meantime, here are my ideas and links to those pages:

1. The Doomsday Clock
2. Tenacious D
3. Niels Bohr
4. I Love New York (TV Series)
5. Battle Angel Alita
6. Andy Warhol

Other ideas (without specific pages):

1. NFL/MLB/NBA player biographies
2. Celebrities biographies
3. Religious symbols/texts
4. Comic book characters/creators
5. South Park and South Park episodes
6. Musician/band biographies
7. Song analyses
8. World of Warcraft and its myriad subgenres
9. Fashion icons/eras

TV case studies and The Truman Show response papers
I have fallen behind in my grading. I apologize. I will not have either of these two assignments graded this week, but I am focusing on them above my other classes; they will be graded by the time you turn in your midterms on Friday.

Next semester
Those of you interested in designing a truly independent study should speak to me individually.