And I’m now craving mock duck. And my all-time favorite food, xiao long bao.
How to get a new group of students comfortable talking in the classroom?
One idea: have the students each assemble a group of images that represents themselves and their interests. Have them post them to the ‘net and then introduce them to the class in a session during the first week. (Thanks for the suggestion, and the report of good results, Krystyn!)
And yes, when testing the idea out on myself, what was the first thing that came to mind in response to “what am I about?” Apparently that Rorschach invokes my favorite Taipei eateries and 飲茶 indulgences, among other inkblots. (See above.)
Back to the important stuff: I’m also going to use this image exercise to introduce the students to Flickr CC—and the notion of creative commons itself—as well as The Commons on Flickr as an archival resource, and then let them also use it as a way to explore the WordPress interface at umwblogs that they’ll also be using throughout the course.
CC, FlickrCC, The Commons, WordPress, all in one exercise. First week.
What I’m looking for now is a plugin that allows for better display of images within a post. I’m currently using WP-Cycle above, which is handy but also fairly linear and which crops the images significantly.
I’ve noticed that wordpress.com (as opposed to .org or our umwblogs current version of WP engine) has tweaked their gallery options to allow a “tiled” presentation (see below the text blab here) — does anyone know if there’s a decent plugin that will allow something similar for displaying galleries this way? I want to keep it within posts, or perhaps pages, but not something that’s going to transform the entire site into a photo page itself. Suggestions welcome, y’all.
Images via Flickr CC, links in order:
1. Chef Chu from Hong Kong – http://www.flickr.com/photos/blinkerfish/4391433404
2. Din tai fung‘s xiao long bao – http://www.flickr.com/photos/24305398@N00/123736453
3. A Taiwan shot, “Boss is always right!” – http://www.flickr.com/photos/papyrist/3987601150/
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