Learn and Live: 2007

March 26, 2007

Survey of the Blog Project's Effectiveness

How effective is the blog project? Help your teacher find out by answering the online survey available at http://www.saksaksinagol.com/surveys/menu.php. Please be honest with your answers. Although your responses will not affect your blog project grade in any way, your non-participation in the online survey will result in my not signing your clearance form.

Login Instructions

Your username is your family name and the initial(s) of your first name, all in lowercase and with no spaces in between. For example, Elmer Montejo's username would be montejoe; Juan Antonio de la Cruz's would be delacruzja; Norren-mae Cañete's would be canetenm .
Your temporary password is elmermontejo.
IMPORTANT: You can take the survey only once. Once you submit your responses, you cannot retake the survey anymore or change your responses. So, reflect on your answers before clicking on the Submit button.

February 11, 2007

Max Schulman's "Love Is a Fallacy"

Read Max Schulman's "Love Is a Fallacy." This should bring back—a bit, I hope—some rationality into our hyped celebration of Valentines Day.

January 31, 2007

Login Problems

Some students have reported having trouble logging into their Blogger accounts. The following pages may provide some help or explanation:

January 28, 2007

Assigned Topics

NOTE: This page will be updated regularly.

Freshies

January 15 - January 21 — none

January 22 - January 28 — none

January 29 - February 4 — Reflections on Teachers and Teaching (NOTE: This topic is for those who have been accepted in teaching posts for the Know Your School Day.)

January 29 - February 4 — Reflections on Running a School (NOTE: This topic is for those who have been accepted in non-teaching posts for the Know Your School Day.)

January 29 - February 4 — On Being Taught by Students (NOTE: This topic is for everyone else.)

February 5 - February 12 — What the Stars and the Sky Tell Me About Life

February 13 - February 19 — A Love Affair with M/V Doulos and Books

Sophies

January 15 - January 21 — none

January 22 - January 28 — none

January 29 - February 4 — Reflections on Teachers and Teaching (NOTE: This topic is for those who have been accepted in teaching posts for the Know Your School Day.)

January 29 - February 4 — Reflections on Running a School (NOTE: This topic is for those who have been accepted in non-teaching posts for the Know Your School Day.)

January 29 - February 4 — On Being Taught by Students (NOTE: This topic is for everyone else.)

February 5 - February 12 — What a UP Student Is Not (NOTE: We're used to defining or describing things in the positive. This time, let's try defining or describing a student in the negative.)

February 13 - February 19 — (NOTE: Two required entries for this week.)

Read Max Schulman's "Love Is a Fallacy" and write a summary. Your summary will count as one entry. The title of your summary should be "A Summary of Max Schulman's "Love Is a Fallacy"".
Write a 500-word reaction to Max Schulman's short story. This will count as another entry.

Seniors

January 15 - January 21 — none

January 22 - January 28 — The Problem with Men/Women Is That...

January 29 - February 4 — Reflections on Teachers and Teaching (NOTE: This topic is for those who have been accepted in teaching posts for the Know Your School Day.)

January 29 - February 4 — Reflections on Running a School (NOTE: This topic is for those who have been accepted in non-teaching posts for the Know Your School Day.)

January 29 - February 4 — On Being Taught by Students (NOTE: This topic is for everyone else.)

February 5 - February 12 —
(Read and react to the following two-stanza poem by Sara Teasdale. Pick your own title, but make sure your entry complies with the 500-word minimum.)

The Look

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.

-- Sara Teasdale

February 13 - February 19 — (NOTE: THREE required topics for this week. The third one will be announced/posted within the week, after our Valentines Day activity.)

How I Want to Be Remembered After I Leave High School
Love: An Act of the Will, Not of the Heart

January 27, 2007

FAQ: Frequently Answered Questions

Last updated on February 4, 2007

Why won't Blogger let me log into my account?

Before you become paranoid about being hacked, attacked by terrorists, or whatever, please take a look at the following pages and see if your problem has a solution:

The 500-word-and-5-entries-weekly minimum requirement is too much!

That's not a question.

Okay, okay. How do you suppose I could comply with the 500-word-and-5-entries-weekly minimum requirement for the blog project?

Stop wasting online time on online gaming, Friendster, or idle chatting on IRC, Yahoo!, or MSN. Instead, write your blog entries. A suggestion that has always worked among my other students: compose your drafts daily (write them on paper) and upload them to your blog over the weekend. Typing and editing your posts online shouldn't take you more than an hour or so.
You may even type and edit your drafts at LEADER.net.

How do I count the number of words in a post I'm about to publish on my blog?

Try the online word counter at WordCountTool.com. Copy the text from your entry onto the Word Count Tool form, then click Submit. You can also try using the word counting function of your word processor (most word processors have the function).

But, Sir! Renting computers in Internet cafes is very expensive. We come from poor families. What should I do?

Seriously, this is a very sensitive issue. For some families, 15 pesos is expensive. For most others, it is affordable. But, I trust that you are creative enough to find a creative solution. I'm sure you've already thought of a solution, but, according to Einstein, "If there's a better solution, find it."
A handful of students have shared to me their experiences in resolving this issue. Some have asked for help from their classmates who have computers at home. Some have taken up my suggestion (writing daily drafts and uploading during weekends). Some have chosen to go to cafes with faster Internet bandwidth—small bandwidth translates to longer wait periods for uploading and downloading, and, therefore, higher rental.

How can I avoid plagiarism in my posts?

If you have to quote text from a source, enclose the quoted text in double quotation marks and cite the author, title of the work, publisher, place of publication, year of publication, and the pages on which the quoted text appears. Do not quote any source without attribution; that is, do not quote anything without mentioning the source.
The simplest way to avoid plagiarism, however, is to write only original blog entries.

What will happen to me if I post entries that I copied from elsewhere?

I will recommend you for immediate expulsion. The University of the Philippines upholds academic honesty and integrity. Plagiarism is one of the high crimes that UP punishes with immediate expulsion.

Duh! Are you that smart enough to detect that I plagiarized my entries?

Computer forensics is not a science exclusive to forensic scientists. If I suspect plagiarism in any of your works, I might conduct comparative analysis of the suspected entry and your other previous writing outputs.

You have not assigned a topic to write about for this week. Do I still need to write 5 entries for this week, or just 4 entries?

Just 4 entries. But, if you write all 5 (or, maybe more than that), I won't mind. If a topic has not been assigned, you still need to post entries to your blog.

When is the deadline for our entries?

The deadliest deadline for the blog project is some time before the end of the school year. The weekly cut-off is every Monday, as it is on this day that I will collect all new entries that you posted for the week.

I have posted only 3 entries for last week. Will I get a failing grade?

YES! Kidding. Seriously, you will not get point deductions for failing to post 5 entries for any particular week. But, if at the end of the semester your blog does not reach the required number of total entries, you will get point deductions.
If, for example, you posted only 3 entries this week, you can still make up for the other two entries by writing 7 entries next week.

I have some questions about how to use Blogger. To whom should I direct my questions?

Visit the Blogger Help pages to check if your issue is addressed there. Or, join the Blogger Help Group and post your Blogger-related questions there.

Sir, you're so cool!

That's not a question. Next question, please.

I have a question about these questions.

That still isn't a question. But, do send your questions to me by e-mail.

January 20, 2007

List of Bloggers

Is your name here?

Freshies

Bartlett & Villamor

Sophies

Benton & Palma

Seniors

Gonzalez & Tan

January 16, 2007

Nick Joaquin's "The Summer Solstice"

Read Nick Joaquin's "The Summer Solstice".

January 14, 2007

My E-mail Address

elmer DOT montejo AT yahoo DOT com

Anybody started posting yet?

January 8, 2007

Engram's "Short Story Elements"

While Learner.org's "What Makes a Good Short Story?" identifies setting, point of view, plot, character, and theme as the essential elements of the short story, Judith A. Engram adds one more: conflict. Her notes on the elements of the short story may be accessed at http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/engramja/elements.html

What Makes a Good Short Story?

Several pages on Learner.org explain—in very easy-to-understand terms—the elements of a short story. Hop on to What Makes a Good Short Story? to read the full text.

The pages discuss the following topics:

Guidelines for Blogging

The blogging requirement for our class is very easy to comply with. It's not even as scary or as daunting as you think.

Post at least five (5) blog entries each week. If you write one entry everyday before you go to bed, this requirement should be easy to comply with.

Four (4) out of the five required entries will be on topics of your own choice. One entry will be on a topic assigned by your instructor; the topic will be announced through your instructor's blog at http://elmermontejo.blogspot.com.

From time to time I may require that you write on more than one specific topic. In such cases, the required topics will be deducted from the total required; that is, if this week you are to write on two topics, you will be left with three more topics of your own choice.

If you have limited access to Internet facilities, you might consider writing your drafts on paper first. Then, on Fridays or Saturdays, go to an Internet cafe and upload your entries in one go.

Each blog entry should be at least 500 words. It's very easy to go beyond this minimum, but I won't mind if you go beyond 500 words.

Feel free to comment on my or your classmates' blog. Your comments should be substantive, though, and not just pranks or useless stuff like "hehehe" or "LOL".

If you notice any error—mechanical, grammatical, stylistic, factual, or whatever—on my blog, please alert me right away. You will receive extra points for knowing much better than I do. I'm not kidding. *GRIN*

If you have great ideas for our blogging project, please let me know. We'd like this project not just to be a worthwhile learning experience but also to be a fun, and enjoyable activity that you can continue doing even after you leave school.

I will post here the rubrics for grading your blogs soon.

Start Blogging in 3 Easy Steps

Step 1: Create a Blog

Go to the Blogger site at http://www.blogger.com and sign up for a Blogger account. If you already have a Blogger account, skip to the next step.
Log-in to your Blogger account and create a new blog. Your blog should have the following information:
1. Blog Title: your full name without the middle initial (e.g., Elmer Montejo)
2. Blog Address or URL: your full name in lowercase, without middle initial or spaces (e.g., http://elmermontejo.blogspot.com)
Navigate to the Dashboard and click the Change Settings icon for your new blog. You will be brought to Settings page.
1. On the Basic tab, provide a short description for your blog; include your full name, year level, and section in the description so that I can identify your blog easily.
2. On the Comments tab, make sure that your blog allows only registered users to comment. This setting is very important. We don't want strangers or anonymous folks, especially flamers and spammers, to post comments on our blogs.
3. On the Archiving tab, change the Archive Frequency to "Weekly."
4. On the Site-Feed tab, turn Publish Site Feed to "Yes" and Descriptions to "Full."
Take note that every time you change your blog settings, you will need to republish your blog to implement the changes.

Step 2: Announce Your Blog

Your blog is now ready. But, before you start posting your blog entries, e-mail the following information to your instructor: full name, year level and section, and blog address or URL. The links to your blog will be posted on your instructor's very own blog at http://elmermontejo.blogspot.com

You may also want to announce your new blog to your classmates. E-mail them your blog URL, too.

Step 3: Start Posting Your Blog Entries

Need I say more? Read the guidelines first, though.