Category Archives: wwwd

Mostly stuff to do with the classroom & Teaching and learning. Posts that fit with the site’s description: “Teaching, ict, and suchlike”

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Arrangement of tinker toys

Since I been trying out my.wordpress.net I’ve been thinking a lot about this.

Of course Alan has been there first: This is Not a Blog | wordpress as the new hypercard?

I spent a lot of time with HyperCard over the years1. Described as a “software erector set” and “programming for the rest of us” it was one of the inspirations for the web.

I used it for toys, tools and fun for pupils at school. I also made many utilities for myself. These did not need to be polished, just fit closely to my needs and tweak-able. For many years I used HC every day.

HyperCard could make mac application, but you could also run stacks (documents) in the application by itself.

Over the last few days I’ve been playing with my.wordpress.net which is a complete private WordPress in your browser. One of the limitations, at the moment, is that you get 1 instance per device/browser. I found that using Safari’s Add to Dock… feature, which gives you a single site application you can click and launch from the dock, allowed me to have several copies of WordPress that ran with a click. It began to feel a bit like HyperCard.

Like HyperCard you can edit the code while running. I mentioned here I was able to swap out the lyrics of the hello dolly plugin in a minute. Of course more complex things would need more skills, and php & javascript seem a lot more complex than HyperTalk to me.

The other thing HyperCard was great at was sharing ‘extensions’ external functions (XFCN) and commands (XCMD), similar to WordPress plugins.

At the moment My WordPress feels as it if useful for playing around, testing things quickly & safely and maybe making utilities for yourself.

I’ve already used it to explore a problem I didn’t understand, made a couple of test utilities and experimented with a them or two. This was much quicker than using the web.

I suspect that a ‘real’ single site generator app might give more options than Safari. One of the annoying things for me was that the open in New Tabs links in WordPress spawned windows all over the place. Switching from other apps became difficult. I got round that problem by asking claude.ai to create a simple plugin that switch all the links to same window. This now really reminds me of stacks.

Wondering

My WordPress makes it really easy to edit all of the WordPress files. That feels a little dangerous to me. I wonder if a better approach might be to have a wee plugin to add code when you need too. Sort of like functions.php in a child theme but theme independent. A system for JavaScript files could site in that plugin folder too? Both could be easily edited in the browser and keep me away from more risky files. I am pretty sure there are already plugins out there that do this.

Another application this reminds me of is TiddyWiki which I use to keep various notes. TiddyWikis are single html files. I have multiple wikis that run from the TiddlyDesktop: A custom desktop browser for TiddlyWiki 5 and TiddlyWiki Classic. I could imaging something similar for My WordPress.

Other things in the mix include:

  • WordPress Playground which I’ve not used for more than a few minute, I am not sure what the differences between the playground and my wordpress are? It looks like my WordPress is for longer term ideas.
  • Blueprints Blueprints are json files used to set up a WordPress Playground instance. I briefly tried Pootle Playground – WordPress Blueprint Configurator which easily produced a blueprint linked to playground and when opened started WordPress installed the themes and plugins I had added like magic. I think this would be a great way to share apps. Not sure if you can use it with My WordPress? yet?
  • Playground has a setting to set up a multi-site. That might be interesting in My WordPress…
  • Telex, Describe your idea. Telex will build a WordPress block or theme for you.

Finally:

Next up, we’re going to add peer-to-peer sync, version control integration, and cloud publishing so other people can access it.

WordPress Everywhere | Matt Mullenweg

Featured image Tinker Toys by Flood CC-BY-NC-ND

  1. My favourite piece of software, followed closely by SuperCard. ↩︎

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Your Browser Becomes Your WordPress – WordPress News

With my.WordPress.net, WordPress runs entirely and persistently in your browser. There’s no sign-up, no hosting plan, and no domain decision standing between you and getting started.

My WordPress is an interesting development. It allows you to have a totally private WordPress site in your browser. You could use this to test, develop or just play around with WordPress. It also looks like it could be used for developing an app just for yourself, or perhaps to export & share. There are a couple (via plugins) than can easily be installed, including an RSS ‘reader’. Everything is stored in the browser, limited to 100mb. I was surprised as I thought local storage was much smaller than that? I wonder where it is stored.

There seems to be ways to back up or transfer to a live site.

The obvious frustration might be if you make something useful it will be only on one device/browser but that might be balanced by the privacy.

It only takes a few seconds to set up the site and it feels fast.

It seems to emulates MySQL using SQLite

Looks like I have access to all the files. I tested this by adding a shortcode to the functions.php and it just worked!

I could also edit the Hello Dolly plugin, replacing the lyrics with the ones from Subterranean Homesick 

Blues.

Screenshot of my.wordpress.net, showing the file browser, editing a plugin and the test "Don't Steal, don't lift" showing in the dashboard of wordpress.

RSS

One of the Apps you can install is an RSS reader. This is the Friends plugin. I have briefly tried this before, but I think this is an opportunity to give it good test. I easily added a feed or tow. It did not work with scripting.com, I presume due to it being severed via http not https?

AI

Another suggested ‘apps’ is AI which allows you to connect to an AI if you have a key. I do not pay for any AI so do not have a key. By chance I installed Ollama yesterday, a local AI, I am not sure what I am doing just following Miguel Guhlin’s notes.

I spent quite a lot of time messing about with this and failing, I think because Safari is so uptight about mixed content. I did get it working in Firefox, but running into this problem means I can’t do anything yet.

So I think I’ll leave the AI assistant alone for the moment and play with other things.

Screenshot of the playground screen in my.wordpress.net shows a list of apps to install, backup and other options.

Other Things & Thinks

I am slowly thinking about how I could use this in a useful, or fun way.

  • Trying things out that I do not want to risk on a ‘real’ site and don’t want to set up a whole WordPress for.
  • Learning, especially quick tests & tries, themes, snippets, css etc.
  • ‘Apps’ that look interesting, but I don’t want to be public.
  • AI integration with WordPress. I’ve been experimenting with Telex a bit, wondering it will be incorporated in this.

I am sure there are more. The limits, at the moment, seem to be one site per device/browser. For little things this could be easily worked around using the offer:

Want multiple Playgrounds? Open temporary instances that reset on refresh.

More…

According to Matt Mullenweg there is a lot more in the works

my.wordpress.net has soft-launched.

Next up, we’re going to add peer-to-peer sync, version control integration, and cloud publishing so other people can access it.

and

Today, everyone gets a phone number and email when they grow up. That will expand in the future, everyone will have a domain and a WordPress. A part of the internet that you own.

from: WordPress Everywhere | Matt Mullenweg

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I saw a note from Sarah Honeychurch in an email thread about a problem with FeedWordPress, the plugin that makes the ScotEdublogs Aggregation work. This alerted Alan Levine who raised an issue and simplified the solution. Alan also had blogged about the problem, with his usual speed!

I’ve applied the fix and this post should test it out. Thanks Alan!

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Four men sitting in a pub, smiling and talking, with pints of dark beer on two small tables. Bob, Ewan, Me & Will at the Jolly Judge.

I was tagged by Mags Amond for

tagging you next for a #TeachMeet20 looking back / looking forward post @johnjohnston

TeachMeet, a meet up for teachers, self organised and designed to keep it grassroots. The Wikipedia page is not too far from the mark. Started 20 years ago!

So I looked back. I’ve 38 posts tagged teachmeet here. But if I search for TeachMeet I find 124 posts. Searching my Twitter export finds over 300 matches. So TeachMeet has been on my mind over the years.

What I was thinking about 10 years ago: TeachMeet10: time for a TM-Reboot in Scotland?

For me TeachMeet is part of one of the most exciting periods in my teaching life. My already well developed obsession with using technology in teaching had exploded with the internet, blogging, podcasting & RSS. Twitter was on the horizon. As a class teacher I was getting to go to conferences!

Ewan MacIntosh was the main instigator of the 2006 ScotEduBlogger meet-up. After the second day of e-live conference we were all heading off to the Jolly Judge, a pub with WiFi! So excited.

The development of TeachMeet has been well covered. Mags has done an amazing job, for example.

Looking Back

I started writing some notes about TeachMeet’s past, but didn’t get past some bullet points, I am going to post them otherwise this post will take the rest of the year. Views very much IMO.

  • I remember preparing like crazy for the first ‘real’ teachmeet. My name didn’t come out of the hat1. I did speak at the second SLF one. On first and speeding through my presentation in jig time.
  • I recall another SLF one when Ewan stopped a speaker for being commercial.
  • I loved the random picker idea and the no PowerPoint rule.
  • I remember a blog post or comment by Robert Jones to the effect that the main beneficiaries was on the speakers. I certainly learnt a lot by presenting, but also in helping organise TMs.
  • I remember not liking the idea of keynote speakers, when I read of the BETT events.
  • I never really liked the freebies from sponsors. I did enjoy the free beer and snacks.
  • In retrospect I think the TM I regret missing most was an outdoor one somewhere in central Scotland with, as I dimly recall, tents & camping.
  • I met so many good people. The initial jolly judgers, the second round, small TeachMeets that spread over Scotland, and the online folk. All were full of positivity, generosity & kindness. Some passed by, some I’ve followed for years.
  • The positivity. This may have been the main benefit to me. It felt like it was from the infantry not the officers.
  • Recently I read of the Twinkl TeachMeet: hated it, asked them to change the name, got nowhere.

Looking forward

TeachMeet withered somewhat in Scotland, I am not sure why. Maybe things bubble up for a while, serve their purpose and then don’t anymore. Different times might need different solutions. Pedagoo felt to me like an evolution of TeachMeet to some extent. Its domain has gone now. My fingers are far from the pulse of Scottish education.

I am probably not the best person to ask. When the name was being discussed I held fast to Scots EduBloggers Meetup. That lacked a bit of inclusivity and was somewhat shortsighted 😃.

To me TeachMeet felt as if it was in the same category as Blogging, Creative Commons, RSS, Open Source and other things that promoted freedom and sharing. Online interactions seem a lot less innocent now than they did then. I still believe these things are important.

Lots of educational CPD now seems to be in Teams or Zoom, this misses the serendipity involved in a face to face meeting and the built in talk to your neighbour TM principle.

Other, to me, important aspects of TeachMeet which should be carried forward include: a relaxed social feeling; the flattening of hierarchy; the centrality of classroom practice and fun. We could do without freebies; involvement of leaders in setting the agenda, although they are more than welcome to share their classroom experience and technology and services without classroom practice.

The most important for me would be the selection of speakers at random, hopefully with more speakers than spaces. TeachMeeters should be willing to go along to listen to others and open the opportunity to share if it arises. Not being guaranteed a spot might lead to more spontaneous presentations, serendipity and perhaps a reason to organise the next one.

Given I’ve now retired from teaching, I do not suppose I’ll be at another TeachMeet I will alway be interested in seeing how it goes.

Postscript teachmeet.scot

I have the teachmeet.scot domain. I don’t want to keep paying for it or hosting the inactive site2. I’d love to give it to someone else who would care for it in the right way.

  1. Probably just as well I was going to talk about RSS, possible not the most interesting subject to class teachers. ↩︎
  2. The site was set up to allow folk to ask for an account and then post events. At one point I hoped that folk could be encouraged to post reports or link to reports of events to create a resource of sorts. ↩︎

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After a few years of laying fairly fallow I’ve got a bit of time to work on ScotEduBlogs.

The site had chuntered on mostly under its own steam for a while. Mostly auto-updating, all I need to do was to keep the site & domain up and running.

ScotEduBlogs is a site that aggregates and shares posts from Scots Educational Blogs running since 2007. It also posts out links, for the original posts, to mastodon and bluesky.

I’ve retired from teaching this summer so hopefully have a bit more time to promote the site. I’ve just added a few sites into the mix:

I am hoping to find some more, these sites have certainly increased the diversity of posts aggregated.

Why

  • I think it is valuable to read the voices of educators at all levels.
  • I am doing this as a ‘hobby’ I like blogs and blogging.
  • It doesn’t cost much. I am not making any money from SEB. The domain, hosting and a bit of time I can manage.
  • I am fascinated by the technology, especially RSS aggregation and re-distribution.
  • I like reading blogs.

Can you help?

I’d like to add more voices to the site. If you know an educational site with a feed (Blogs or substacks for example) please let me know about it. If you blog about education send me your site. You can fill in the form or send me an email.

Please pass this on, I am a lot less networked than I was in the noughties.

One of the main problems with SEB that is run by me. Andrew McLaughlin pointed this out a while back.

this currently hinges on centralised moderators to update and organise the aggregator.

I cannot say I disagree. I’ve never turned down a request for addition other than sites that, don’t support RSS or ones that are not about education in Scotland. Having seem the number of spam pages that have been created on the teachMeet Wiki I don’t think automatic inclusion is an option. But there is a need for more involvement, I’ve had ideas about that, and am open to discussion.

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Ai generated picture of a AI bot talking to a human. Turned into a cubomania gif

A couple of days ago I saw a “guess the cubomania” challenge from Theo. I’ve had an interest in Cubomania in the past and played around with the idea a bit. After a chat with D. who gave me a few engravers I googled a bit and guessed, wrongly, Goya.

Next I thought to ask ChatGPT. It suggested it could match by image matching techniques, gave me a fairly obviously wrong first row and ran out of credit.

I then thought to ask Claude to make me an interactive page where I could drag things around. It made a couple of not very good attempts.

I was thinking about a better prompt, when I remembered and asked:

Could we use the whole image for each piece but ‘crop’ it with css?

Claude replied:

Brilliant idea! Yes, we can absolutely use CSS to create a “window” effect where each piece shows only its portion of the full image. This is much more elegant than trying to extract individual pieces.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

I was flattered1 and when Claude came up with another fail I decided to abandon AI and DIY. This turned out a lot better. I started by remembering background-position and finding interact.js . The last time I did any drag and drop I dimly recall some sort of jQuery and a shim for mobile/tablets. interact.js did a grand job for my simple needs. It was probably overkill as it seems to do a lot more.

Cubomania Solver

Partially completed sliding tile puzzle on a yellow background, featuring black and white sketch-style artwork. Some tiles are in place forming parts of faces and figures, while others are missing or scattered around the screen.
Screenshot

It is pretty simple stuff, but potentially a lot of fun, different images, making cubomania puzzles who knows. I did extend it a bit, learning about localStorage (to save any progress) and the dialogue tag. All without AI but few visits to HTML reference – HTML | MDN and the odd search.

I had a lot of fun with this, more than if I had just managed to get either of the AIs it to do the whole thing. What it did make me think of is that AI chat was useful for working out what I wanted to do and how to do it. I could probably have done that bit too all by myself. Usually I just start messing about and see what happens. This points to a bit of planning, or maybe typing some notes/pseudocode/outline might work for me when I am playing.

  1. See: The machine began to waffle – and then the conductor went… In the paper the title was Artificial Intelligence: The Technology that lies to say yes. ↩︎

The Featured Image of this post was generated by ChatGPT in response to ” I want an image of a chatbot character chatting with a person, friendly, helpful & futuristic.” It has been run through Cubomania Gif!