via Views: No Christianity Please, We’re Academics - Inside Higher Ed . Very observant piece by Wheaton Prof, Timothy Larsen. He first discusses a potential grad student coming from a secular institution. Young man received an F on a paper in which he used the Bible as support of his opinion of traditional marriage. I want to be cautious here. I haven't seen the paper. There are two thoughts that come to mind though: 1) I cannot leave who I am as a Christian at home. It permeates who I am. I have to be as consistent as possible with that philosophy, lifestyle, world view. 2) However, in an academic setting, sources abound. In a secular degree, care should be taken to exhibit a wide variety of sources. I did not get the impression this was done with this young man.  Larsen concedes the paper was weak, but not F weak. In another case with this student: When he asked for a reason why yet another grade was so poor he was told that it was inappropriate to quote C. S. Lewis in work for a

I watched the movie last night. Very good. Not as good as the real thing however which can be found here (part 1):

via UWM students unhappy about basketball trip - JSOnline . do you think they'd think twice about sending the MLS cohort? The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Association is grumbling about the decision to send the school's basketball players, staff and some guests on a trip to Italy next month. The association - the same organization that backed a $25 per student per semester fee to raise money to renovate the Klotsche Center or build a new arena - argues this is no time to be heading overseas while the Athletic Department has a deficit as high as $8 million. The trip is expected to cost $160,000. mmmm only $160,000. What in the world is going on here? I'm not even a student at UWM and this irritates me.

wow! From boing boing: Oil spill glows under UV light This isn't just for "woah, dude" value. Applying UV light to contaminated beaches is also a clever way to spot—and clean up—oil that might otherwise go unnoticed by notoriously flimsy human eyes. You can read more—and see more pictures—in Combs' photo essay .

This is part five of the book about the history of the Moravian church. Parts 1-4 . In chapter 4, we left the Unitas Fratrum struggling with their birth and organizational pains. This is rather a hodge-podge chapter. Few great names, few things to nail down. So it's difficult to retell. I think I'm going to start in bullet form and see where that goes. The next chapter is on John Amos Comenius. Wow! Now he is someone I think will be easy to write about, but in the meantime . . . Chapter 5 Theology The emphasis of the Brethren was on Christian living. They were not made up of theologians, but were often forced to defend themselves and their beliefs In writing letters and tracts , they often did become theologians. A focus was placed on Matthew 5:21-28 which in many ways necessitated a separation from the world. There is no true church. God has children in every church. Essentials - faith, hope, love. Faith includes basics of Christianity. Things merely useful - o

I'm refiltering through all the things I just browsed on the reader while gone.  Thought I'd blog my way through some of them. It was hard to miss that India plans to manufacture a $35 tablet computer . This is very attractive from an education standpoint. Instead of thousands to outfit a room, it can be done for hundreds. Of course, they don't have a manufacturer yet, and India is a land far, far away. Nick Norelli asks the burning question: Who would you eat dinner with? Invitation to the rich and famous?? naaaa. Speaking of food, Nathan Stitt has some fabulous shots of sushi and wine . I LOVE sushi (good sushi). I eat the ok kind anyway, but the really good stuff . . . mmmmmmm. Mark Stevens has a new persona as the sermonator . This may confuse me to no end as I already had a sermonator in my reader - Gary Carroll . If you are looking for a good daily devotional, George Marshall and team have one as does Roger Parrow . Kevin Sam has started a series on people leaving

I'm home! Great trip. Butterfly pix are below. If you want to see the boring CSI pix, then they are on the math and science page. Had a hard time getting on the net after we left the one hotel yesterday. Did a bit through my BB though. Heavy traffic. Couple of terrible accidents. When I got in my reader today, I saw this. Made me laugh. ht

I can't say I've been thrilled with the apps I've used or tried to use lately, but I have used the ereader successfully on the phone. Small but do-able. The WordPress app has been a complete disaster. FB is ok. Twitter has worked out much better than expected.Google - ahhh I'd be lost without it. Marc Cortez posted about Olive Tree today, so I went and did a BB Storm search to see how others felt about the application and the reviews were favorable. So, if you have a storm and want to give it a shot, here is the reader download , and here is a free download for the ASV . Not one I normally use, but it will let me get a feel for how it works on the BB. They've got quite a few other free offerings too. Some are single chapter, but many are full texts. There are other Bibles in this section. Some are sample texts, others have fewer notes, but they are there.

Photographers - these were all taken on my phone, so my options were limited. ;) If you'd like to learn more about the exhibit and butterflies, I've got links on my science page .

Came to Gainesville with Ron for a convention. We are at the Hilton across from the campus. Well that's what they said anyway. It is catty cornered from the very edge of campus. I scouted out the natural history museum which I hope to hit tomorrow. Here is the picture album I started. I'm using my phone, so no critiques on quality ;) It's the only one so far because the poor thing was overworked from tagging along on the passenger side and needed charging.

This is one of the very things I hoped to use Wimba for. Here is the training info if you are interested. You do have to sign up on the Wimba site. In addition to using Wimba Classroom and the podcasting feature of Wimba Voice for online instruction, did you know they can also be used for capturing face-to-face lectures? Learn tips and tricks of lecture capture with Wimba. Lecture Capture with Wimba This demonstration will not only give practical tips and tricks for successful lecture capture, but will also share numerous real-life examples of how schools today are already doing this. Date: July 27 Time: 12pm EDT Register: Sign-up Here If you can't make the time, sign-up to get an email with a link to the recording.

Other Summaries The work of John Wiclif made an impact on the priesthood, and John Hus made an impact on the Slavic peoples of Bohemia and Moravia. At their turn, they rose up against the church and national powers. Division was seen amongst the ranks though. There were those happy with small changes and those that want change to be total and complete. These difference were so great that those who had stood together fought each other. The loss of life was great. Hard fought for changes are minor. Chapter 4 - The Founding of the Unitas Fratrum Stage 1 - Men step forward John was born in Rokycana to a blacksmith in the very late 1300s. he graduated from the University of Prague in 1415 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1426. Did you notice a gap in there? Roycana was in a monastery for a while. He went on to receive his master's degree in 1430 and pastored The Tien Church in Prague. He had a reputation as a wonderful orator and fiery preacher. John Rokycana was named the Ultaquis

Gotta try this . . . ht

This morning's workshop was on Wimba which is a conferencing/teaching tool. This is more for individual sessions while Moodle was on setting up courses.  I'm still struggling with exactly the best way to set up a moodle course when I know most of the students don't have access to the internet away from school. I love that it keeps up with all their grades and they have ready access to those - if they can get to the net. I was thinking as we were going through the Wimba course today that one of the ways it might be used is for absent students. That would mean I'd have to do every lesson an extra time to get it on there. I was also thinking it could be used on those days when you walk in and a good number of students are out. You could just do a Wimba class while you are doing class and archive it to be viewed later. Lots of possibilities at least. Now that I have a Wimba classroom, if you'd like to participate in a class to see what it can do, I can set that up. Just

Secular Syria's veil ban – Religion - CNN.com Blogs . This showed up on my reader in two places today. Syria bans face veils at universities Absolutely amazing. In an effort to ward off religious extremism, Syria has banned the niqab for teachers and students in the university classroom. My thoughts here are two-fold. Will this be a freeing experience for women as they shed their niqabs for the classroom or will these women stall or stop their educations as they deal with religious life vs the secular one.

HG Wells writing competition demands handwriting, no science fiction; no one applies - Boing Boing . Handwritten manuscripts? No Science Fiction? Please. No wonder they got no entries. I handwrite as few things as possible anymore. I broke my wrist about ten years ago and I lost some legibility. NOT that I would be doing things differently today without that event, but it did push me to drastically doing more on the computer. That idea of creative writing being linked to writing by hand is a bunch of bunk. I write because you think.  I think because I write. Writing on the computer is still writing. And then there is the no science fiction. uhhhhh a contest in honor of H. G. Wells with no sci-fi entries? That's just wrong.

Menu Items (I'd link them, but they are just right up there) About Me Contact Me (moved) My Family (Moved) Reading 2009 (break out) 2010 (break out) Libraries Blogroll Related Blogs Reviews & Series (New) Books Library Moravians I know the books need authors, but I gotta get up from the computer! ;)

I'm making some new pages and the process involves actually looking at some of my old posts, like this one: From Inkspell I just happened on  Inkheart from Cornelia Funke several years ago. I reread it and am rereading  Inkspell in anticipation of reading the last book in the series  Inkdeath . She is a vivid writer. You can tell she reads extensively and loves books herself. Meggie, the young heroine, is trying to decide what books to take with her on an adventure. She’s looking in the book box that her father Mo has made her . . . But her old friends, the books Meggie had already owned before they had moved in with Elinor, still lived in the box, and when she opened the heavy lid it was almost as if half-forgotten voices met her ears and familiar faces were looking at her. How well worn they all were . . . “Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times?” Mo had said when, on Meggie’s last birthday, they were looking at all her dear old books again.

Getting the Not-Quite-Right Stuff From I Write Like - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com . This is great! The author puts passages from various famous authors in and gets some nearly hilarious results. Like I mentioned in my first post on this, my writing is incredibly multi-faceted OR this little analyzer is just a spin of the roulette wheel.

This is part 3 in the continuing series summarizing The Moravian Church Through the Ages by John Weinlick. Table of Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 The Crusades introduce so much to The Middle Ages - including a desire to expand. John Wiclif examines the structure of the church in light of Scripture and finds it lacking, and while he is able to escape persecution during his lifetime, he stirs the embers for others to follow. There is the Papal Schism and countries like Bohemia and Moravia are ready to throw off their Germanic and church related bonds. Men like John Hus are spurred on by desires to preach, write, teach in the language of the people. His challenges toward the church mean his death. Chapter 3 - The Aftermath The Cast Hussites The Holy Roman Church The Utraquists (also called Calixtinates) The Taborites King Wenzel Emperor Sigismund Queen Sophia (passing role) John Ziska von Troconow (Ziska) Prokop the Great The Setting Primarily Bohemia To lesser degre

All 16 UNC system universities will have a tuition increase. Some of them are mind boggling. Increases for 2010-11 (Thanks to digtriad for posting the chart. It helped me see the whole pix and not just my little corner of it.)

I said I was too tired, but thinking about it is not going to let me be. No particular order! These are the ones that I want to watch whenever they are on. Lord of the Rings Trilogy Princess Bride Dial M for Murder 12 Angry Men The Shawshank Redemption To Kill a Mockingbird The Great Escape Vertigo Planet of the Apes (Charleton Heston, of course) Casablanca Please read Nathan's list and tell us your own ;)

This is the first movie outing I've had this summer thanks to the rigor of grad school. So I meet a friend for lunch and we go into a theater with a million and a half children in it and laugh through most of the movie. Cute, cute, cute!

My dear friend Bible Monkey points us toward another blog that doesn't take comments. I've expressed my opinion on this before. I do not like blogs that don't take comments (or take them and NEVER get around to publishing them). Out of curiosity, I googled blogs without comments and there are a lot of opinions out there. Some go so far as to say these sites are not blogs. Others defend the practice. I don't know who these folks are. I just found them in the search and thought what they had to say was interesting. Some of them are OLD! Here's a post from Seth Godin - a no comment taker: I think comments are terrific, and they are the key attraction for some blogs and some bloggers. Not for me, though. First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way

A man with cosmetic horns implanted into his head was released from jail Thursday morning after allegedly attempting to attack his landlord with a car. This IMHO is sad. To want to change how you look so drastically that you resemble something from Narnia. HT

News: Technologically Illiterate Students - Inside Higher Ed . This is from a session of BlackBoard World. The new technological landscape -- particularly the trappings of Web 2.0 -- demands that a new line of distinction be drawn, Vacek told the audience; a line between computer users who can handle only basic programs such as word processors and search engines, and those who understand underlying structures and concepts that underlie modern technology, and how to think critically within them. And under such a definition, most of today’s students -- both college and K-12 -- do not pass muster, she said. The issue really is that we are teaching students how to use the actual tech, but NOT how to use it responsibly or the implications if they don't.

Career Advice: Using Library Specialists Wisely - Inside Higher Ed . Wow! By strategically planning assignments, classes and working with the librarian for very specific library instruction and help, this instructor saw a rise in library materials quoted. Very good story of using a valuable resource (or resources in the library and librarian) appropriately.

I certainly have taken a few test questions over the years when I should have drawn a bear instead of showing my total ignorance.

News: Creating the Perfect Instructor - Inside Higher Ed . Interesting article on what goes into making the perfect instructor. While this was done at the college level, I think it says a lot for us teaching secondary. The information was gleaned from 400+ submissions for Tutor of the Year. Rankings were given to qualities based on the number of times they showed up. What Students Most Value in an Instructor Great teaching 30.5% General positivity 28.1% Influential 11.5% "Edutaining" 8.1% Going above and beyond 7.4% Care for students 5.1% Self-awareness of learning 4.8% Assessment and feedback 4.2% So the first two are not so surprising. And I'm a bit surprised that "edutaining" didn't rank higher. That assessment and feedback ranked at less than 5% is eye-opening. I am fully aware of the fact that I'm an old student, but I love feedback and I take it to heart. I make changes based on feedback, and I am not a happy student when I get an assignment back

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 – John Hus: The Martyr of Bohemia It’s 1381 and Princess Anne of Bohemia had married King Richard II .  This bond between the two countries allowed for Bohemian priests to come to England to be trained and introduced to the teachings of John Wiclif. They returned home to add Wiclif’s thoughts to their arsenal. Czechs were ripe for reform. They’d been a minority in the Germanic area. And there had been conflict in Bohemia/Moravia between the Eastern and Western churches. Each church had vied for dominance. The Eastern church had a strong foothold. Ignored by Rome, the Eastern church moved in with Cyril and Methodius in the mid-800s. They translated scriptures into the vernacular, preached in the same and established popular church order. And by now, the Western church was German which did not sit well with the Czechs. The church is still terribly corrupt and being German on top of it, didn’t win them any favors. Charles IV was a reformer king in Bohemia. He establ

Thanks to  ECHURCH CHRISTIAN BLOG for posting this. This is a blog that's fairly new to me. I've just been reading it the past few weeks. So, I put in a piece of more formal writing (aka research paper) and got this: I write like Dan Brown I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software . Analyze your writing! Dan Brown! Please. At least he's a best seller. BUT I'll have to take back all that stuff I've said about him. Well, that's formal, but what am I like informally? i put in a shorter blog post that was still informative. I write like Stephen King I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software . Analyze your writing! mwhahahahahaha I knew I kept you all on the edge of your seats just waiting for another post. Wondering if I'd have the same kind of *luck* with another piece of informal writing, I entered another piece in which I talked about technology. I know you are all terribly surprised at the subject matter. I write like James Joyce I Write Like b

Old Spice Guy Makes Twitter Fan's Marriage Proposal [VIDEO] . Oh, this is too good!

I've been talking about my project for LIBS 6042 and it's the blog listed to the right. I wanted to make a podcast to put on the welcome page - it is a tech class - so I downlouded Audacity and wrote a script. Audacity is easy to use. I had an old set of headphones (I should say phone. It only has one ;) ) with a microphone that I thought I'd use, but the jack is a little small. I guess I'll have to find an adapter. I thought I'd just use the microphone built into the computer for practice and the sound isn't bad.  I'm just not happy with it. I've been taking antihistamines for several days and my mouth is dry. It's lacking mmmmm excitement for my subject.

Several of my subscribed feeds have focused to some extent on Mel Gibson. I'm not going to link any of them here. The man is vile and disgusting. I'm not sure I can watch him in anything again.

Here's a nice source: D-Lib Magazine: The Magazine of Digital Library Research. I've been reading some of it's archived articles. Good stuff if not a light read. Lots to think about in education and digitazation.

Too CUTE! Go to Snopes of all places to read more . . . Kulula.com

For all the little snowflakes out there, my friend Esteban ( The Voice of Stefan) is celebrating his 3rd anniversary as a blogger! Woo Hoo! BUT the real purpose of this post is to get you to go look at that potato chip he found and tell me what you think it is! Don't do it there. He wants no labels, but I personally love labels ;)

Table of Contents This book is very much like a small text book. Lots of little snippets of information that kind of jump around under a larger umbrella. As I mentioned in my previous post, it is out of print. I've linked some subjects to google books which offers an amazing amount of material and some of it is in full text form. Chapter 1 - The Late Medieval World Weinlick begins by discussing the very real and worthy work going on in church life prior to the Reformation. He mentions that sometimes we go back to Luther and stop, but men of faith were challenging the system before that. While there were many attempts at breaking away from the church, only two pre-reformation churches were still around to see the Reformation. Group 1 was the Waldenses from the late 1100s and the other was the Unitas Fratrum (1457). ( Renaissance ) In the 1300s we see a powerful papacy as well as a rising university system. The language was Latin in both cases and that made for easy movement from co

On June 9, 2010 a young woman left a message on at least one phone offering her baby for sale! Oh my! What did they accuse this miscreant of? contributing to the delinquency of a child. Yes, you read it correctly. mmmmmm I do hope they come up with something more befitting the crime. Woman Accused Of Trying To Sell Baby

oh my goodness! Toronto police officer follows through on threat to arrest G20 activist for blowing bubbles during a mass detention in Toronto's Parkdale community. Blowing bubbles! Which she put away! Police officer had and attitude and a half. Of course, I'm not sure attitude accurately describes what he had. Poor girl would have been better served to have hung head low and not said a word. Amazing HT

Leigh Anne Watts sent me this on FB:

Stanford is apparently such a great place to work that none of the faculty want to retire! Amazing. I do love to learn from the masters, but new blood is certainly appealing too. Stanford University confronts the graying of academia - San Jose Mercury News .

PDF designed for NC Students making multimedia presentations NC Students & copyright edited for testing Scribd: [scribd id=34390831 key=key-1lgsepkrzhpio380zsl5 mode=list]

Great idea! We typed an address in Manhattan to try the new feature out. With the Short URL feature turned off, our shareable URL for this address was “http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=41+11th+St,+New+York,+NY&sll=40.745612,-74.008065&sspn=0.010794,0.020707&g=41+11th+Avenue,+New+York,+NY&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=41+W+11th+St,+New+York,+10011&ll=40.734925,-73.997099&spn=0.002699,0.005177&t=h&z=18.” Ouch! When we navigated into Labs and checked the box to enable Short URL, it became a simple “http://goo.gl/maps/2cl8.” That’s much better. Google Maps Gets a (Much-Needed) URL Shortener .

This book was written in 1966, and it's by John R. Weinlick.  Looks like a church study course book with questions at the end of each chapter. I was hoping, because of it's age, that it would be available on Google Books. It had rated a page but that is even of an updated edition and there is nothing on the book there. No cover, not table of contents, no reviews. So, I'm thinking of blogging my way through this book - well, if grad school doesn't get in the way. I still have several papers to write for one class. The Table of Contents PART I - The Bohemian Brethren 1. The Late Medieval World 2. John Hus, the Martyr of Bohemia 3. The Aftermath 4. The Founding of the Unitas Fratrum 5. Life and Character of the Old Unitas Fratrum 6. John Amos Comenius PART II - The Renewed Moravian Church 7. The Renewal of the Unitas Fratrum 8. Herrnhut, Mother Community of the Moravian church 9. The Moravian Diaspora 10. Into All the World 11. The Moravian Church in America 12. The Morav

TexShare is a library consortium administered by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Member libraries share print and online resources, the purchasing of print and online resources, and staff expertise. TexShare and member libraries can provide services to any member library’s patrons. Their goal is to provide to the “intellectual productivity of Texans . . . emphasizing access to rather than ownership of documents and other information sources” (Mission Statement, para 3). Originally, TexShare was made up of a core group of public university libraries. They now have 694 public and academic libraries that come from public and private sectors. Membership is open to any public library that is a member of the state library system. In addition most college libraries can become a member. College libraries consist of technical institutes, junior colleges, senior colleges or universities as well as medical and dental units. Affiliate membership is also possible. A group of librar