Interesting photo

This photo of a woman's gravestone was taken by my wife (who granted me permission to use it) in a graveyard in Johnstown, PA, when she was visiting the graves of her parents.

What's interesting about this photo is that this woman, Carylyn Clark, is still alive--she was born in 1959--so she is currently 49 years old. What's also interesting is that her sister--who is 48 years old, is also included.

The woman also includes that fact that she was the "5 time PA. state baton champion," as evident in her picture holding one of her trophies.

I'm wondering why someone who is relatively young would have already created a gravestone for herself, as well as for her sister, as well as written part of her obituary that references her primary achievement in life as being a baton champion.

Perhaps she wanted to make sure that when she does die, that her gravestone has already been created so that no one else need to do that for her or spend the money on a gravestone. Perhaps she wanted to make sure that she will be remembered for being the "5 time PA. state baton champion," certainly no mean feat.

How people think about or cope with their inevitable death is always a complex mystery, but we do know that when Carolyn Clark does die, that she will be remember for what she was, "5 time PA. state baton champion"

Kate's Use of Small Group Blogs

In her Sept. 9 post, Kate talked about the idea of having small groups of 5 students create blogs, some that would work really well. This serves to foster collaborative writing that goes beyond just one student blogging, yet with five students, the collaboration should be manageable. It may also work better than a single class blog, which can become overwhelming for students if you have a large class. And, it fosters the use of small-group work.

Evernote for keeping track of items

Ray on The Tech Teachers was raving about the use of Evernote for keeping track of a lot of different material from the Web stored in notebooks. For example, if one wants to buy an item pictured on the Web, Evernote stores an image and information about that item in a notebook such as "things to buy" that can then be called up on a computer or iPhone. It can also be used to store pictures taken with a cell phone, for example, some notes taken in class or at a meeting.

These notebooks therefore serve as storage folders for use in storing material on the web--a nice features as opposed to storing them on a computer (in case of a computer crash).

This is an example of using Google Docs to create a post to send to your blog. One advantage of using Google Docs is that you and others can work on a document, particularly in terms of revising and editing a text, prior to moving it to a blog post.

As with Flickr, you need to go to Google Docs Settings and add you blog name so that it knows where to post.

Minneapolis

Minneapolis
Originally uploaded by Omr!

What is this building????

dinkytown door

dinkytown door
Originally uploaded by steve3607

As part of the Depicting Dinkytown project, we were trying to capture the culture of Dinkytown. One aspect of that culture is the subversive, anti-establishment nature of a college town culture that can be reflected in its graffiti. For example, Scott took a photo of a Wall Street Journal box with the word, "Lies," scrawled over the glass section.

Graffiti also reflects a tagging culture--the need to make statements about one's physical presence--that I've been here and am a part of this community.

This photo represents the kind of graffiti that captures different aspects of the Dinkytown culture--gang signs/tags, signatures, etc. that creates a collage of different group members.

Creating my blog

To publish my blog, I need to first create a post and then publish it so that my blog begins.