National Poetry Month and My Students Are Publishing

In honor of National Poetry Month I am featuring quotes by poets on my Almost Daily Quote blog. I am also going to do my best to write a poem a day for National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). I will keep these on my poetry blog. Any feedback is always welcome.

I am not the only one publishing this month. My students are at that point as well. Last week I got them to start typing up some of their assignments on Google Documents. Even with my prior rant on Google Docs, I still find the service to be very valuable. After my students write up their assignments I require them to add me as a collaborator so I can help them edit their work.

Then, this week, I had them join wikispaces.com. My class website is located there. After they join wikispaces, I have them join my class wiki so they can add their own content to it. Each student is provided with their own webpage. On that page, so far, I have had them write a brief intro (this was freestyle--no explicit instruction past no last names used). Then they were to type in "Table of Contents," "Portrait Poem," and "Memory Paper."

Then we went back to Google Docs. I showed them how to publish their documents as webpages and had them copy the URL. Then back to wikispaces, where I showed them how to link from their webpages to their documents.

Most of them have at least made a start on doing this and are at various stages of completion. But, if anyone is interested in taking a look and leaving a comment, please feel free. Please try to keep comments constructive, these are beginning writers.

Happy National Poetry Month!

Google Sometime Sucks

Maybe they have gotten just too $!&$*# big for their own $%^$#^ good.

I am trying, really trying hard, to sign my students up to Google so we can use Google Docs in my classes. Google, in a measure of corporate responsibility, has set up a program that if too many addresses are being set up from the same IP address too quickly, then no more can be added for about 24 hours. Ten seems to be the limit. I can live with that. I can use several different computers with several different IP addresses.

However, as a way to just annoy the @$#%$^& out of me, there is also something that makes me reenter info for a student anywhere from 3-20 times before accepting it. This is maddening. I recopy the passwords and type in the capcha word. Then I do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over... ad nauseum.

There is no number to call. There is no address to email. Google remains totally aloof from the problems its users encounter. It is not even slightly amusing. It is frustrating and aggravating. I doubt that anyone at Google will give a flying flip about the problems I am having, but wouldn't the universe be better place if they did.