History of Colonial Latin America

already taken:
brazil, nicaragua, Argentina

We’re only having 2 on-line lectures this week instead of our usual 4. They’re each about a minute longer than normal. There will be 2 quizzes — but they won’t be up until Tuesday morning. Good luck on your tests!

As people email me with museum requests I’m going to log them here so you can see what is taken. Email me now, before someone takes the museum you wanted to visit!

• Kimball Art Museum (Fort Worth) [Katia]
• Dallas Museum of Art [Mati]
• Dallas International Museum of Cultures [Alex]
• Mexic-Arte Museum [Josh]
• Meadows Museum at SMU [Claudia]
• Nasher Sculpture Museum (Dallas) [Julie]
• Amon Carter Museum (Fort Worth) [Priscylla]

The test question [due Monday Oct. 12 by 5pm] is the one from our sheet that begins … “why are some myths so sticky”. Don’t forget to paste in the grading grid from last time and pay special attention to the areas that needed work. For this question [like all of them] you need to combine specific historical details [on the myths] with an overarching thesis. Be sure the thesis is in the first paragraph or page! Good luck!

If you’ve been checking your grades on the WebCT gradebook, you will have seen a change recently. I changed from a percentage system to a points system, since a lot of students have told me they find it easier to keep track.

I changed the value of your Mann score to reflect the 240 point value of that assignment. I also just added the first of 3 class participation [CP] grades, based on a 65 point score. so 58.5 or higher [90% of 65] would be an A for class participation.

Heres the grading table from the syllabus, updated to show the new point system.

If you enjoyed the selections from Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico that we read today in class, here’s a link to the full text at the University of Virginia.

If you’d rather have the 1844 version I used in class,  you can get it here at Google Books.
The pages we read in class were [These are Prescott's pages in the 1844 edition] 3-16, 72-79, 83-90, 131-137, 241-246, 378-385 and 396-402.

If you missed class today, you should read the 1520 letter Cortés sent to the King of Spain, Charles V. Here’s the link.

The PowerPoint on Restall, Chapter 4, is up on WebCT.

Be sure to do the Google Earth quizzes before the Friday [10-2] deadline!

This Monday we’ll go back to our old lecture-quiz format. We will do at least one more Google Earth assignment, however!

Two types of downloading problems have caused headaches for students trying to get these files.
Because of this, I’ve pushed the quiz deadline back to Friday at 5pm.

Both problems have easy solutions:

1. When you are offered a choice between “open the file” and “save the file”, chose “save”. [This is almost always a better choice; running a file directly as a download is a good way to get a computer virus]. Once the file is saved, then you can click on it and run it.
2. Your browser may try to download these files as a “zip” folder. You need to over-ride that by changing the last part of the file name.
Make it “.doc” if it is a Word document.
Make it “.kmz” if it is a GoogleEarth file.

Instead of our usual set of four on-line lectures, this week I’m asking you to do the second Google Earth tour of the road from Veracruz to Mexico City. Just like last time, you’ll find the two files [one a Word doc; the other a kmz file to load in Google Earth] under “Class Materials” on our WebCT site.
You can run Google Earth in the library or in the University Hall computer lab. Also, it’s a free program to download at home, but it works best with a fast internet connection.
Later on Monday, there’ll be 4 short quizzes on WebCT over this assignment.

Here are three of the screen-cast tutorials I made for GoogleEarth for a previous class. I post them here in case you’re considering GoogleEarth for either the technology project or the independence project and wanted to get some ideas about what the program can do. If you’re interested, I’d suggest using it for both projects so you can take advantage of your increased knowledge of the software for the second assignment.