Bud the Teacher

    I’ve got eight students in my Journalism course.  They seem receptive to the idea that we can cover Longmont better than any other news source.  On Monday, they return with their first story ideas.  We spent today examining some hyperlocal sites out there that we might model ours after.  If we create our own, that is.  At first, I didn’t want to create a website — I wanted to use someone else’s.  But then I started fiddling around with some tools and realized how easy it can be.
    Of course, there are advantages to participating in larger community projects.  Could we submit original work to our site and to another one, though?  Could we still participate in sharing news with others in other venues?  Would there be copyright problems?   Does being a school change the rules at all? 
    Just thinking my way into the weekend.  If you know the answers, or have hunches, feel free to share them.

    Megan Freeman was one of the teachers in this summer’s CSUWP group.  She’s become a blogger since then, posting regularly to her poetry blog.  Yesterday, she posted this poem on the CSUWP group blog.  It made my day.  Heck, probably my week.  Read and enjoy.  I think this one should probably be a podcast.

Infection

I am going to breathe verbs
all over your chair
and pour beakers of adjectives
on all the desktops.

I am going to rub the pencil sharpener
with nouns no paper can resist
and hang contagious phrases from the ceiling.
 
Your notebooks will run a fever
and your pens will bleed dry
in an effort to keep up with your
Brilliant Ideas. 

Don’t bother washing your hands.

Antibiotics and tincture of echinacea
will only encourage me while
lowering your resistance.

This epidemic is airborne
spit-borne
piss-and-vinegar borne
and it doesn’t matter
what kind of immunity
you’ve built up
over years and years of
swimming around in
educational Petri dishes

because we are quarantined
and this condition is permanent
and the date to drop the class
was yesterday.