Montage of screenshots of some webpages discussed in article

School

Magic Tools – MagicSchool.ai

MagicSchool is your AI assistant for all things teaching. We think #TeachersAreMagic – and we are on a mission to fight teacher burnout with Artificial Intelligence.

Limitations
May occasionally produce biased or inaccurate information
Only has knowledge up to the year 2021
Cannot search the internet or produce images (yet)

A large set of AI tools for teachers, I’ve only tried one so far. I wonder how they will make money. Sign up for fee is the only thing I can see. I’ve used ChatGPT is a fairly casual way, making crosswords questions and cloze procedures for H2P.

Kevin’s Meandering Mind | Generative AI and the Writing Classroom: WMWP Workshop

Overall, our intentional message was not “the world is ending so ban AI” but more, “this is our new reality, so how can we start to think of AI as a partner to help us as teachers and maybe help our students as writers?” and I think that theme really resonated with the educators who joined us last night.

Also from Kevin, Write Out: Gathering Sensory Details for Haiku which if the weather permits and we can get to the woods I’ll try next week.

Holiday rabbit hole

This

02 Mississippi River Sheet 15 Landscape

from Tom Woodward

lead to a collection of links including: Dan Coe Carto – The Community Library 2023—Rivers Revealed

Lidar (light detection and ranging) is a technology that uses laser light pulses to create intricate three-dimensional models of the earth’s surface. These models can be used to create stunningly detailed images of rivers and floodplains. These depictions often reveal previously unseen channels where rivers have flowed in the past and invite viewers to visually meander along these pathways through both space and time.

And some local data Scottish Remote Sensing Portal makes me wonder how difficult this would be, it would be nice to do from places I know.

Glow Blogs

I also spent a fair bit of time in the wet weather on Glow Blogs help. Although the classic editor is default on Glow Blogs, we are getting ready for using Blocks. I’ve been updating information and using the blocks editor to do so. I’ve tried all the blocks and am now a lot happier using it.

Featured image: a montage of screenshots of some of the lined pages, my previous script had a few problems with cookie banners, so this one used Safari & takes screenshots. Not as elegant and I think there are a few daft decisions, but it works.

Some links and interesting things I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks

Cardboard

I like using cardboard in school, some inspiration.

2023 C.A.M.P.The Cardboard CollectiveThe Warehouse

As a working artist, I engage with kids as co-creators, seeking to share knowledge and expertise in context as ideas unfold and discoveries are made. I also share the art research processes and methods I use in my own art practice, as we take on projects big and small.

Amber Dohrenwend, Artist – Cool Tools

Amber Dohrenwend is an American artist based in Marquette, Michigan. She constructs post-consumer cardboard sculptures, costuming and installations.

Blog | MQTCompass.com

Amber Dohrenwend build an art installation out of locally recycled cardboard strips.


Tech

FFmpeg Explorer!

A tool to help you explore FFmpeg filters.

My use of ffmpeg is very basic indeed, mostly taking images and making video from them. This is much more advanced. I remember trying to make a video grid. Altough that post claims a quick try it took me a while and gave me a real headach trying to expand the grid. FFmpeg Explorer has an example that shows you how with a click. (can’t recall where I got this one, but thanks)


TiddlyPWA — TiddlyWiki Storage & Sync Solution

Have you ever wanted to combine the power and customizability of TiddlyWiki and the convenience of a modern offline-friendly, encrypted, synced notes app? Now you can! With…

HT Joe I use TW a bit at a beginners level. This looks nice and the syncing is interesting.


Media

Take to The Streets | Eparapo

My daughter sent me this, nice.


Rear Window Timelapse – Jeff Desom

Meticulously assembled using After Effects and Photoshop, Rear Window Loop is a large scale projection that shows Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 masterpiece as a never before seen panorama.

We were watching a tv show about Hitchcock, reminded me of this video.


Worrying

Daring Fireball: Twitter/X’s Descent Into an Antisemitic Cesspool

Antisemitism is more than just a form of bigotry and hatred, it’s a millennia-old conspiratorial crackpot worldview. And Elon Musk is seemingly sinking into it.

Still the social network of choice by schools in Scotland.



The featured images is a montage of screenshots of some of the links. I’ve done that twice, so made an AppleScript.

Liked Identity as a product (Scripting News)
This is about a service that is sold to end users and developers. The users pay for the service, and developers invest in it. Once it’s up and running it will be the foundation for the web as an open platform for users and developers.

Users need storage. I have to provide them storage for their writing in Drummer, and in FeedLand for things like bookmarks, their personal feeds (ones they generate). Again, I have no interest in this. But I have to do it. And I am stuck paying for their files. They should be paying for them.

Though provoking post.

Cannot disagree, I like paying for things. If I had to pay for everything I probably wouldn’t use as many online services. That would be a good thing;-)

I guess another way is IndieWeb owning your own domain via IndieAuth. Might be too much for general adoption, but would be lovely. I’ve no idea if a multiplicity of identity provides would work?

montage of screenshots of pages linked in post.

Classroom

The hour approaches…

Maps

WordPress

Fun

Winding Chain - Triple Square Link with Wooden Spacers, 5½-inch Pitch, Wrought Iron, 1850s-1870s

I’ve not posted links for a while, these are some of the things I’ve found interesting in the last couple of weeks.

Technology

Education

Sounds

Nature

Featured image found with Openverse, attribution copied from the caption. Winding Chain – Triple Square Link with Wooden Spacers, 5½-inch Pitch, Wrought Iron, 1850s-1870s by Photographer: David Thompson is licensed under CC-BY 4.0

Bookmarked UK National Parks Sound Map (petestollery.com)
We are putting together a Google Earth Web sound map for UK National Parks. We are a group of researchers, passionate about listening and about how we, as human beings, relate to the sounds around us in our daily lives.

Another interesting audio project. Reminds me of the UK SoundMap from a few years ago. The map itself seems to be lost:( I blogged about that UK Sound Map and joined in with a few boos.

I loved the way the UK Sound Map project allowed anyone to join in by recording an Audioboo and tagging it.

The National Parks Sound Map is a bit more manual, you upload a sound and fill in a form. I just added one to see how it works.

Bookmarking this to remind myself to go through this presentation regularly.

Dropbox link in case twitter implodes!