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First Day of School, First Day of School!
Sep. 23rd, 2020 08:37 amMy online course that I thought was cancelled spontaneously generated four more students, so I am up and running today.
Already, I have two students with assignments pending. They are waiting for at least two more people to post and then they will be able to critique each other. I am already wondering how I can view their assignments, but I suspect that half of this first week will be a little like the first twenty minutes of a Zoom call where everyone tries to figure out how their mic works.... I mean, major learning curve for me since I've never used this particular program before in my life.
I will complain a lot, but I love this stuff? So, just ignore me for the most part.
Because I had thought that class was cancelled, I actually never entirely finished populating the lessons. In some ways, that's good. I can use those empty spaces to be flexible and add things as they come up in class... BUT, they terrify me, also, since I'm not actually that great at writing down the lectures? I'm much better winging it in-person???
To sum up: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Oh! But I do have a few things I can post about what I've been reading because I was catching up on some more short stories with an eye for upcoming lessons this last few days:
In my continued exploration of international science fiction, I've been watching a bunch of short films.
The short stories I read this last week were:
I'm sure you'll be getting similar lists from me from now on until class is over. The thing about the short stories is that I'm just going to be combing through the past Nebula nominees for stories (and then I will probably start branching off to other awards) that are good representation of things like plot, character, pacing, theme, etc., that are available on-line and that (where possible) have a podcasted option.
The short films are just things I'm offering to my students as fun ways to see what the rest of the world is doing with science fiction.
Already, I have two students with assignments pending. They are waiting for at least two more people to post and then they will be able to critique each other. I am already wondering how I can view their assignments, but I suspect that half of this first week will be a little like the first twenty minutes of a Zoom call where everyone tries to figure out how their mic works.... I mean, major learning curve for me since I've never used this particular program before in my life.
I will complain a lot, but I love this stuff? So, just ignore me for the most part.
Because I had thought that class was cancelled, I actually never entirely finished populating the lessons. In some ways, that's good. I can use those empty spaces to be flexible and add things as they come up in class... BUT, they terrify me, also, since I'm not actually that great at writing down the lectures? I'm much better winging it in-person???
To sum up: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Oh! But I do have a few things I can post about what I've been reading because I was catching up on some more short stories with an eye for upcoming lessons this last few days:
In my continued exploration of international science fiction, I've been watching a bunch of short films.
- "Intoxicant," directed by John Hsu / co-written with Duff Chung-Pu Hsiao, 35 minutes, (2008) https://www.viddsee.com/video/intoxicant/, 35 m, a Taiwanese short film about a online forum. The coolest part of this short film to me is the way Hsu envisioned the forum? It's kind of hard to explain, but it involves live action in a very early cyberpunk way? If you've got a free half hour, it is a fun watch. There are subtitles.
- “Welcome to Earth,” written and directed by by Daan van 't Einde, 18 minutes, (2019) https://youtu.be/Nen6uu4IlW4 This is a short film from the Netherlands which is about humanity's extinction, with a twist. Mostly in English, with a few subtitles.
The short stories I read this last week were:
- “Change of Life,” by K. Tempest Bradfort (Podcastle, May 2019)
- “Damage” by David Levine (Tor.com, Jan. 2015)
- “Hungry Daughters or Starving Mothers,” by Alyssa Wong (Nightmare, Oct. 2015)
- “Today I am Paul,” by Martin L. Shoemaker (Clarkesworld, August 2015)
- “Non-Zero Probabilities,” by N. K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld, Sept. 2009)
I'm sure you'll be getting similar lists from me from now on until class is over. The thing about the short stories is that I'm just going to be combing through the past Nebula nominees for stories (and then I will probably start branching off to other awards) that are good representation of things like plot, character, pacing, theme, etc., that are available on-line and that (where possible) have a podcasted option.
The short films are just things I'm offering to my students as fun ways to see what the rest of the world is doing with science fiction.