Design Tests Complete

For students or anyone else coming to this weblog you should not that a few things have changes. Lots of trimming going on around here.

First off, there is a new weblog in operation over at Courses. This weblog will act as a loci for the courses that I teach. I wont be posting a lot to this weblog. In addition, the Courses weblog has a forum linked to it called Course Forums powered by the latest version of bbPress. Courses is feeding forum posts back into the sidebar from the forum area, which makes the Courses weblog a one-click design concept, which is what I was after and thus serves to replace reliance on WebCT Vista as a course manager. Both the weblog and the forum are up as opportunities for people to engage material outside the square-box classroom, and in an ongoing, depressurized way, given that the engagement is unevaluated for legal and technical reasons, that is until the operations are moved to my college’s own servers.

Over time, I shall be adding links to the course weblog on general material, so that it sort of behaves like the old courseweblog2 that has saved a few students already but no longer can because it has been wiped from the digital sphere.

Upgrade in Progress

So far I’ve been successful in upgrading this weblog to the newest version of WordPress. I deeply hacked my old theme. That’s why lots of links do not appear here.

Soon everything will be back in order.

New Media Weblog

The Tunxis New Media Comm weblog is now up and running at a temporary home. It’s the latest in WordPress technology, complete with widgets powering the sidebar information. There’s more to be done. The future should see a customized presentation but for now our own modifications should work.

Now to the widgets. I’m fairly comfortable modifying css and php code but would rather not. So, the new widget scheme is handy enough. The ability to configure a sidebar quickly will reduce the time for admin to work with people less familiar with the rear-end of the still complex world of weblog setup and management.

P.S.

We’ve found another use for the rotisserie. Keeps the kitchen warm.

Bush, Schools, and Bunk

Every time GWBush adds to the subject of schools. a whole host of writing follows, which basically cover all the same ground. Public school quality, choice, NCLB, alternatives. As I’ve said before, states can create all the choices they want for students and families but none of these will solve a core problem: the spaces where people live. A student subject to a poor-quality school may be bussed to a wonderful school in the pristine woods, but where will that student study and apply their knowledge?

No, performance isn’t fundamentally a school issue.

What needs to occur is a national movement to improve neighborhoods and cities so that they form a supportive space for learning and creativity to happen.

1. Troubled neighborhoods should be incorporated as economic entities by cities or states.
2. Local leaders should organize, plan, and manage neighborhood improvement, hiring local talent and workforce, putting efforts right into the spaces where quality of life can be improved. House by house, those who live in the area should the designers and the builders.
3. Connecting these areas to the life of the region would happen naturally.
4. Schools, in this context, would attract teachers, parents, and would naturally improve because space would improve and children would be a part of the activity.
5. Economic output would increase. Regions would explode. People would have work.

Nothing will work until the people who live in neighborhoods are provided the opportunity to build things themselves, from the inside out.

If I were a mayor or a president, this is the kind of plan I would encourage.

Provide not the choice to move to another school. Provide the choice to change the very ground.

Text Message Novel

John Timmons sends along this notice on text message novels

His messages, and the replies — roughly 1,000 altogether — are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in regular SMS traffic.

Macbeth and Plot

Francena tells me that some of the students today addressed Macbeth’s plot. This could be interesting. We could deal with plot at several levels–the typical events of a tragedy which call for the fall of a great man, a formula which lays down the pearls of the “plot line.” Tragedy gives us a sense of what “should” happen (1.1 is already significant in this regard). Although, by doing so, it might set a tension between what should happen versus what we wish would not happen. Or we could deal with significant events as they arise as we read. For example, we meet the witches in Act 1 and Duncan getting the story of Macbeth’s military accomplishments just after in scene 2. Which of these scenes is more important in terms of plot? And why should we care? Does the news provided Duncan “propel” MacBeth into his meeting with the witches? Does Scene 2 accomplish something else?

For the Shakespeare Students

Those fine folks coming to the weblog looking for notes on Shakespeare will find matter here soon. And I want to thank Professor Dwyer for taking time away from her own schedule to help get people started. Shakespeare isn’t easy to get into on such short notice and so she deserves lots of thank yous. I think she has plans to open up Macbeth on Wednesday, which is a fine idea.

One of the first things you want to do when coming here is to understand that the link above is not a departure to the BBC for laughs. There’s a reason for it. It’s a first lesson in context, which partly has to with your understanding of what Shakespeare himself knew. Between ours and Shakespeare’s time is vast amount of time and historical happening.

More soon to come, as soon as I get out of this painkiller cloud.

Pain Highs

I want to thank everyone for their wonderful help and offers of aide and support. I hope I deserve it and have the opportunity to help anyone who needs it in the future.

There’s lots more to be said about family and friends.

At the moment I feel a bit like a rodeo clown at the sharp end of a bull. The surgery went well, and I have no idea when, where, or how long it took. I can’t remember anesthesia being given. But I do remember waking in the recovery room with Iago in my throat. Something about Othello being tricked. Anyway, the pain is incredible, but it’s a pain I can deal with, so much more bearable that the deep and slimy pain of an intestine knuckling its way out of my abdomen.

The surgery taught me and the surgeon a few things. He informed us that there were in fact two hernias, one on the left and one on the right and that these were congenital. He caught the second via the laparoscopic procedure. He claimed that I walking time-bomb, with threats to testicles and all kinds of other bad things, this after years of heavy stone work, rock climbing, weight lifting, fence building, light construction, carpentry, child-making, and other day to day functions of life.

The first cars I drove as mine were a ’69 Buick Lesabre and a 57 Chevy four-door (too bad). These cars were broken but functional, high-mileage vehicles, and fun. They worked as long as you didn’t fix what had been fused over the hole or crack. That’s how I’ve felt for a long time, that something wasn’t quite right in the lower regions. Like a squeak deep in the engine that you just live with. Yes, this tangible pain is a better kind of pain.