Category Archives: enviable stuff

Links/bookmarks/likes

Talking about it isn’t good enough / But quoting from it at least demonstrates / The virtue of an art that knows its mind. // Seamus Heaney : Squarings

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Bookmarked A Following Page (aka some significant updates to my Blogroll) (Chris Aldrich | BoffoSocko)
The humble blogroll is long overdue for some updates in form and functionality on the open web.

Chris is rebooting the blogroll idea. I used to have one but it got lost when I moved from pivot to WordPress. We held on to the links in GlowBlogs. The idea of giving the blogroll more importance is attractive, but would bring a deal of maintenance with it.

It is always good to be reminded about OPML, I’ve found Chris’s indieWeb one useful as well as Aaron’s Feeds. I subscribe to both in inoreader, so when they add a feed I do too.

Is there a worry that the already depreciated Links Manager feature in WordPress will go away altogether? I think I recall discussing this with the developers working on Glow Blogs and the links technology in WordPress is old and doesn’t really fit with the way WordPress is developed now.

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Grist from the pinboard.

  • Creativity and digital technology So the digital is a less creative arena?

    Gardner and Davis suggested that the pre-packaged resources (no matter how vast) made available to young people through the Internet is limiting exercise of the imagination because (as Marvel has shown again and again) it is easier to repackage an existing idea than come up with a new one

  • A Selection of micro:bit Projects – Maker Space

    A lot of these projects involve connecting the micro:bit to other bits and pieces; such as buzzers, or LEDs. However, we start off with a really simple project which just uses the micro:bit on its own

  • The Case Against Automated Student Data Dashboards | EdSurge News

    We tried to inspire reflection, but it often happened separate from learning. At the end of the semester, we’d ask students about their strengths and weaknesses, and what they could do differently next semester. They would write down a few ideas, but were never asked to come back to them. It became an activity that yielded little impact.

  • Teachable Machine silly practical machine learning. Would be a good demo.
  • Educators in Indieweb twitter list Thanks to indiewebber Chris Aldrich for a interesting slice of educators on twitter.
  • Analyze | Webbkoll – dataskydd.net

    This tool helps you check what data-protecting measures a site has taken to help you exercise control over your privacy. Read more.

    One of the many links from the next one.

  • Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web – Neustadt.fr

    We’re quietly replacing an open web that connects and empowers with one that restricts and commoditizes people. We need to stop it.

    Lots of information and links clearly spelt out. Tempted to quote all of it, but just one more.

    Pay for services and content that you like, if you are able. If you like reading The Guardian, for example, consider subscribing. If your favourite YouTube channel is on Patreon, consider pledging a small amount per video. If you like services like Pinboard.in that charge in return for a useful service, buy it. There’s mutual respect when both the user and the service provider know what basic service they are buying/selling.

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Liked IndieWeb: The Book (Chris Aldrich | BoffoSocko)
For a quite a while I’ve been thinking about writing a book about the IndieWeb to provide a broader overview of what it is philosophically, how it works, how its community functions, and most specifically how the average person can more easily become a part of it.

This should be very useful. I’ve been trying various indieweb things for a while, but still find it tricky to understand and implement some of the technologies. There is a great wiki, but I think I am more likely to read through a book.

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Some things that have caught my interest over the last week:

  • Good Teachers Talk: Better Teachers Listen | Class Teaching The post is more interesting, to me, than the title.

    One way of achieving this identify shift is to come unprepared to a lesson! For example, working on a poem in English that neither the pupils nor the teacher have read before. In doing so, pupils begin to see that their identities can fluctuate from learner to contributor, thus giving them the confidence to enact this discourse themselves in the classroom and beyond.

    Which speaks to vocalising your process. I do that (I hope) in writing, but not so much in reading.

  • School walls are oozing with unhelpful growth mindset cheese…. | teacherhead

    Get these slogans blown up and laminated and plaster your corridors and walls in them… Bingo! Go Growth Mindset

    And

    Live it. Don’t laminate it. Stick that on a poster

    .

  • Developing a Proper Growth Mindset – The Educator Blog

    False Growth Mindset

    After the recent pushback on Growth Mindset this post suggests that there can be real Growth Mindset and “Many of the best teachers are already there”

  • Online training – Raspberry Pi We recently launched a new way for people to learn about computing with the Raspberry Pi Foundation: free online training courses, available to anyone, anywhere in the world!
  • How to Live Without Google Google trackers have been found on 75% of the top million websites. This means they are not only tracking what you search for, they’re also tracking which websites you visit, and using all your data for ads that follow you around the internet.
  • Physical Computing With Scratch | Raspberry Pi Projects

    The version of Scratch included with the Raspberry Pi has a number of unique features; one of the most useful is its ability to communicate with the GPIO pins (General Purpose Input Output). These pins allow you to connect your Raspberry Pi to a range of devices, from lights and motors to buttons and sensors. The original Raspberry Pi had a 26-pin header and newer models (B+, Pi 2, Pi 3, etc) have a 40-pin header, but this workshop will work with any model.

    I’ve generally failed with any raspberry pi stuff that involves extra hardware beyond a camera this might help.

  • Simple Scratch intruder alarm « Blog My Wiki!

    uses any old Raspberry Pi with Raspbian and some parts you’d find in a CamJam EduKit or similar: an LED, a resistor, a push-button switch, a buzzer and a Passive Infra Red (PIR) movement sensor wired up

    Looks like it might be a nice we project for school.

  • Fragmentum – A microcast from Adam Procter A new microcast. Glad to see a education one appearing.
  • Clips – Google Drive lesson plan to use clips to produced short, 30 sec, movie about a country.
  • Spreadsheets – Google Drive Resources for teaching spreadsheets. Year 5 (England)
  • iOS Keynote is so darn cool! – Learners Together: Teaching with Technology Animated presentations for six word stories.

 
Featured image: Got Links? | On some large road machine from Gila County AZ | Alan Levine | Flickr CC-BY

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“the chance of people replicating this in schools is very small. Carol Dweck told me that they don’t have a single example of a school successfully changing pupils’ mindsets.”

from: Weekend read: Is growth mindset the new learning styles?

I’ve not really paid much attention to Growth Mindset. I missed Carol Dweck the year she was at SLF but I remember a lot of excitement.

More from the post a quote from Carol Dweck:

“I was asked once, ‘What keeps you up at night?’ It’s the idea that my work – which was designed in opposition to the self-esteem movement – would be used in the way that the self-esteem movement is used.”

Interesting read and Carol Dweck will be a guest on the Tes Podagogy podcast on 18 October I think I’ll huffduff that for a listen.

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I think this is why I blog…

Yes, on one hand, it might help someone else learn a trick or an approach. Yet I think there is more- in the retelling of the making, I get to reflect more closely on what I did, how I went about it. Explaining it is for other people, but as much as a reflective practice for myself. I almost re-do the making, and often think about what I might have done better.

from: The Good, The Bad, and The Puppy (and some pondering on Making / Making of) – CogDogBlog

Even if no one is reading. Thanks Alan.

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Bookmarked Caution: Chromebooks – Gary S. Stager, Ph.D. – Medium (Medium)
I am often asked about the adoption of Chromebooks and have spent months agonizing how to respond. This article offers food for thought to teachers, administrators, school board members, and policy…

Fascinating article, I’ve always felt that I’d rather do interesting things on native appplication as opposed to a browser. I’ve not spent enough time with chromebooks to agree or disagree but plenty of provocations here.