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25th February 2009


The lecture videos uploaded to my teaching site are currently down. The site (and videos) will be up and running again in April, when the new term starts. This is because the videos function primarily as revision materials for the predominantly second language learners on my courses rather than general information resources.


14th January 2009 - Best Wishes for 2009!


Belated best wishes to all for this new year. Given the current and evolving economic climate the Chinese symbol of the Ox seems appropriate. The Ox symbolizes hard work and fortitude, both of which will be required for most of us.

Apart from minor tinkering nothing much has changed here since October 2008. Most of the new stuff is being added to my official teaching site. I've been experimenting there with the upload of course lectures in Quicktime video .mov format. They are currently located at the URL below, though this will change at the end of the semester in Mid-February when the website will be restructured for the new 2009-2010 academic year.

http://web.me.com/somayama/Site/history_lectures.html

The plan is to record and upload the lectures for part 2 of the history and culture course and re-record all of the lecture content for part 1 (now that I'm more familiar with the technical ins and outs of lecture recording) so as to make available a set of at least 30 lectures covering Okinawa's history from the earliest times through to our present day. I'm thinking of condensing each of these 30 lectures to about 30 minutes each and recording and uploading them as audio podcasts. I've not decided yet.

Please note the changed e-masil address below.

Once again, best wishes to you all for this new year!


24th October 2008 - Added more Photos and Video!


I've been adding all kinds of stuff to this site and my official teaching site. Most notable are:

1) Photos are presented courtesy of Mike Lynch, a friend of mine and hobbyist photographer. The photos currently available are of the five gusuku of Shuri, Katsuren, Nakijin, Nakagusuku and Zakimi. Look for the links to these photo pages HERE. While you're free to view these photographs, of course, Mike retains all intellectual property rights to his work.

Mike will be taking and adding more snaps to this site in the coming weeks and months. He is in the process of setting up his own website where you will be able to purchase high resolution versions of everything you see here and much more.

2) Lecture videos - these are tough for me to put online since I'm effectively sticking my head up and out of the trench to get it shot off. Whatever. It's a necessary move forward in making the backup materials for my courses stronger, this website more ueful as an educational resource and, most importantly, as a means for me to review my own work and improve upon it. These are basically unediting fly-on-the-wall video recordings. I'm trying to go about my business without pandering to the camera.

The first video lecture is available from the link below. You will need Apple's free Quicktime software installed to view it.

http://web.me.com/somayama/Site/1-0.lecture_location_statistical-overview.html

Please remember that my official teaching website is always under construction as the course progresses and as readings and other supplementary materials for future lectures are decided upon. Typically, links to specific resources from here to there are usually to finished projects.


6th October 2008 - Lots of changes


As hinted at in the post below, I've been reorganizing the site around the structure of my history and culture teaching at Ryudai. It is now officially titled the Ryukyu-Okinawa History and Culture Website, which better describes the content, I think. The site is now subdivided into more organized historical periods from prehistoric Ryukyu to postwar and contemporary Okinawa. I've also begun to unify this site with my Ryudai course site, cross-linking between both. The idea is to gradually make the following kinds of information available to you as a one-stop-shop, if you will:

1) book and journal references for any given time period or theme. The location of books within the main Ryudai library is attached to most of them, so please disregard these unless you intend to visit Ryudai. The course site will often list required readings and supplementary reading, which should be useful for the more casual reader interested in getting straight to the heart of any given matter.

2) web links, of course, of which there are a vast amount. Please readers, let me know about good ones. Just because I make plenty of links to Wikipedia throughout does not mean I trust what is written there. I believe that the more diversely you read the better able you are to make a balanced judgement about what you believe makes most sense.

3) photographs. A friend of mine has offered to let me use a bunch of his images online. I'll provide a link to his webpage if anything tickles your fancy. These will appear over the next month or two.

4) video. I will begin video-recording my lectures this term . I intend to edit them down and make them freely available online, possibly via iTunes as a videocast.

Please let me know what you think. Personally, I think that these moves make the site more useful as an educational tool. The idea is to make it possible to do a complete two-part Ryukyu-Okinawa history and culture course online.


24th September 2008 - Apologies to you long-suffering viewers/readers


My apologies for infrequent (as rare as winning lottery tickets) website updates. The bulk of my time is spent organizing materials and physically preparing for classes that are a mix of history and/or communicative-type English things.

Over the past two years, however, the amount of English-related teaching work has dropped and I'm now doing far more history. This is more consistent with my career aims but it has been a real struggle earning enough money.

My objective has been to fully prepare a two-part course on Okinawa's history and culture from ancient times through to today that consists of thirty 90 minute lectures, complete with slides and other materials. I'm now more than halfway through this.

From mid-October of this year, when I kick off the first part of the course for overseas students at the International Student Center, the University of the Ryukyus, my intention is to video each of the classes and then make the lecture content available online as a podcast. There will be space on the website for reader/viewer comments and, hopefully, some debate will ensue about my interpretation of Okinawa's history.

This current website will be gradually reorganized as a complementary resource for the history and culture course, hence the change in name and separation into historical period.

Whether I offer the videos through this current website or through my official course website I'm not sure.

Regardless, if you're interested in getting a sense of what part one of the course entails and will eventually end up online please follow the link below (but bear with me, the site is currently under construction):

http://web.me.com/somayama/Site/URSEP_okinawan_history_%5B1%5D.html

That's it for the moment. Once again, apologies for the lack of updates.


the ryukyu-okinawa history and culture website © 1995-2009 john michael purves

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