Pingo Lingo

Month: September 2008

  • Why do we do what we do?

    Monday evening, after the kids went to bed, I sat on the couch watching “Terminator” immersing myself in my weekly paranoia about machines one day bringing an end to humanity. The gist of this episode, like the films, put the basic humanness of its otherwise innocent characters on a bleak collision course with a war…

  • LA 9 to Compare two films: Apples to Apples

    I’d like some help considering what pair of films we ought to study in LA 9. Keeping in mind our course focus questions, what pair of films should we study in class? Why We Fight vs. The Atomic Cafe Artificial Intelligence: AI vs. I, Robot Hoosiers vs. Rudy Godzilla vs. King Kong Close Encounters of…

  • Focus Questions for LA 9, English 10, and English 20

    After mulling over the possibilities of focus in my own mind, discussion in the STJ forums amongst students, and reflecting on literature choices from the first two weeks of class I’ve decide the following: Language Arts 9 will focus on “The Human Condition – In Search of Self.” Early course discussions emphasized relationships (family and…

  • “Is it bigger than a breadbox?”

    I asked a student, “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” today. Their blank look reminded me that the older I get, the further removed I become from the popular lingo of my students. I have no desire to immerse myself fully in the vocabulary of my students, but I can leech unto them the background…

  • While you read…Brave New World

    Using the format of a blog, comment at the end of each reading session on both the substance of your reading and its effects on you. Record pages or sections on which you are commenting. Record your impressions of characters, events, conflicts, descriptions. Record responses to your own questions. Record questions about the novel as…

  • Are your posts “readable”?

    I’ve added a bit of mumbo jumbo to the edit-post form to show readability stats. The function shows word/sentence count and: The Gunning-Fog index gives the number of years of education needed to understand the text. Short, plain sentences score better than long, complicated sentences. Based on words per sentence and “hard” words per sentence.…

  • Big changes in the Mac Lab

    The new MacPro server is set up and ready to go and each new iMac is lit up and rolling. Still a couple install bugs I have to sort out: like naming each computer(minor error at startup as Leopard assigns its own name). They should get you to the net and back. I’ve spent far…