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short content: a post or status update with just plain content and typically without a title

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Meet the new BBC micro:bit | micro:bit

Now with speaker and microphone!
Same great features, easier ways to use sound and touch to get creative in the classroom

More features, including easy ways to take AI and ML into the classroom, will be released throughout 2021. Watch this space.

More details:
Working together on the latest BBC micro:bit

I’ve been using micro:bits for a few years now and these look like great additions, especially the sound in and out.

Given we have a good number in school already I doubt we will get new ones so having a bit of latest kit envy.

The illustrations on the page make the boards look gigantic.

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Scots Pine

We went for a walk over the Kilpatrick Braes to Loch Humphrey this morning. Arriving at the car part around 9am it was already pretty full. Covid has multiplied the number of people out and about.

Fox PrintsUp the road, a bit before we turn off to the fields and braes, a fox came out, gave us a look and pogoed up the road in quite a peculiar fashion. It left a trail of wet prints that dried in a moment. There was a heron close by moving around a boggy bit of field.

A bright sunny day with a slight breeze. Up the hill what must be the last butterfly, a red admiral I think, blew past. On the moor we saw a few grouse and heard the go-back, go-back, go-back call. We hardly saw another person until we rejoined the road to the loch.

We did see a bunch of young crows dipping and diving in the uplift in a joyous fashion.

The road was pretty busy, so we returned via the muir and woods rather than the road. Now a bit busier , mostly mountain bikers.

When we got back to the car park it was overflowing, I don’t think I’ve seen the place so busy before.

A few more photos on flickr

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You cannot connect with students or understand their learning if you can’t see them. And nobody can be expected to share ideas that are important to them to group of hidden faceless peers. If you want students to talk, you’ll need cameras on.

@Doug_Lemov on Twitter here.

A lot of good pushback on this in the replies. I certainly didn’t find the lack of camera a problem during our spring/summer lockdown. At that point Teams in Glow did not let pupils use cameras. I liked that as it meant I didn’t have to think about it.

Cameras off could help with privacy, bandwidth and possible feeling a bit more comfortable the teacher is not watching your every move and counting the toilet breaks.

 

Yeah, I think people somehow keep forgetting that there is literally a whole pandemic.

I don’t hear from a kid for a week and they pop back in and I tell them I missed them and am thrilled to see them.

“There was some stuff.”

Yup. Love you; glad you’re here.

Trina Parrish (@ArtTeacherMsP) here

Thanks to @macgenie the microblog stickers arrived in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 along with a nice card and message. Appreciated.

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A couple of days ago I noticed the webmentions from bridgy had stopped coming in to this blog. It took me a while but I eventually noticed that the icons an links to syndicated posts were not showing up on my posts.

Turns out (I think) that when sempress got updated the space for these links moved to the entry-footer.php file in the theme, I had a entry-footer.php in my child theme. I’ve not had the time to figure out exactly what was going on but removing my child’s entry-footer.php file has sorted it in the meantime. I now need to figure out why I had put it there in the first place.

I am again reminded about the technical debt in using IndieWeb technologies on this blog without the full understanding of what is going on.