Fun in the Summer Sun ... Intellectual Style

Today is kick-off day ... the Great Summer 2012 Independent Study has begun!  My kids are at a camp each morning this week, my early morning run is done, and here I sit ready to work.  My type-A, organized self jumped right into the pool waters of work by ... making a plan for my work!  (I can see my good friend and fellow planner Jennifer nodding her head and laughing ...)  So, here is my plan ...

Reading and Reflecting:  Read four new media texts and reflect here about each of them (I actually have already started this -- see my first book reflection).  I have ordered the texts I am considering from ODU's wonderful inter-library loan, so I will finalize my choices when the books arrive.

Production:  Create my own website that represents me professionally and as a scholar and brings together the different sites I create and use with my teaching.  Here is what I need to do ...

• Finalize my multimodal assignment on my Google Site for my Introduction to Genres class
• Create my Wordpress.org site for my AP English class
• Learn how to use BuddyPress and set up my class discussions
• Create an Othello page to house the acting assignment, including the introductory video I made at DMAC
• Apply Susan Delagrange's rhetorical theory of wonder to this site by ...
• Creating custom rotating header images so the site has a randomness that generates curiosity
• Link resources within these custom images to create a chance for students to navigate on their own pathways and direct their own learning
• Think about how to make the overall design less print-layout driven
• Think about how to add "cognitive weight" to my links
• Set up the overall skeleton structure of the site so that I can add to it with my students so they can be co-creators of our online classroom

(By the way, I used my coding knowledge to: add custom sizing to my first picture which for some reason did not have any height and width coding originally, resize my second and third pictures, and adjust the right-hand border of my pictures so the bullets did not smush up against the sand castle picture and the borders were consistent on all.)

Image sources:

"Beach Reading"
"Margarita"
"Another Sand Castle"