Course Websites: the Schedule

Since I began teaching at Wesleyan, I’ve experimented with different ways of presenting my course syllabus and materials. I began with the standard syllabus PDF and an implementation of Blackboard. But I quickly moved onto using WordPress to make a course website. Examples from last term: International Law and Africa in World Politics.  Note the “Schedule” page on those which includes a calendar I painstakingly made.  Kevin, our IT guy, kept telling me there is an easier way to do this with Google Calendar. And seeing the post below, I believe this could definitely be the case. I just might have to try it next term.

clipped from chronicle.com

Create Your Syllabus With a Spreadsheet and a Calendar App

In my post today, I’m going to show you how to use GoogleDocs and Google Calendar to create a dynamic calendar for a course. This calendar can be displayed as a web page or embedded in a course web site. Why would you want to do this? Well, if you’re happy with using a printed syllabus only—which is perfectly fine, of course—then there’s no reason for you to try this. However, the method I explain below is useful if you’d like a little added flexibility and efficiency when updating a course syllabus from semester to semester. Plus it’s kind of nice to have an online syllabus that will always show the immediately upcoming events and assignments for your course.

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Cote d’Ivoire Toxic Waste Trial

Thanks to Robin Turner for the link to this story.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

Trafigura accused over Ivory Coast toxic waste

Dutch prosecutors have accused multi-national oil trading firm Trafigura of illegally exporting hazardous waste to Ivory Coast in 2006.

The allegations came at the start of a trial in which the firm is accused of breaking Dutch export and environmental laws and forging official documents.

Lawyers for Trafigura in court in Amsterdam, 1 June 2010

Tens of thousands of people in Ivory Coast said the waste made them ill.

Trafigura rejects the charges. It denies the waste was dangerous, or that it knew the chemicals would be dumped.

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