I really like the iOS micro:bit app as do my class. I was intrigued by the data feature when it came out but had not used it. Delighted to see this:

Fetch MY_DATA

Selecting this option lets you retrieve data that has been logged during a data-logging session with the micro:bit.  This is only available with Version 2 micro:bits.

iOS App – Summary of changes in August 2023 update : Help & Support

I’ve been lucky, imo, to have been using an old 27 inch iMac as my computer in school since I started 8 years ago. Despite its age it has been a wonderful machine for me. Returning to my classroom last week I found it will no longer start up at all. No response to the power button. This was my Mac when I worked at the Education Computer Centre before being redeployed to the classroom.

Apart from my familiarity with Macs (going back to system 7) a Mac fits really well with a class all using iPads. The ease of sharing via Airdrop is probably the biggest advantage. It’s simplicity and the way it doesn’t depend on the cloud make it useable even if our internet connection is slow or down. I can quickly collect the pupils work via AirDrop and manipulate (print, combine, resize, assess, organise etc) it on my Mac.

I also prefer using the Apple productivity apps on an iPad but like creating & editing them even more on a Mac.

Large screen computers are rare in primary schools but I have been spoiled. We mostly use quite small laptops. I find these quite difficult to work on. If I use a trackpad for more than a few minutes I get pain in my shoulder and a couple of fingers go numb.

As we now only buy Windows machines in my L.A., I have access to a Windows laptop. However, my old fingers are Apple-trained. I am currently using a rather old MacBook Pro. I have the keyboard from the iMac plugged in, along with the mouse. I think I might just buy a cheap screen and add that as well. I can bring it home and make my Mac mini a dual-screen setup when the laptop follows the iMac.

Having used the MacBook for 4 days I realise how many think I’d added to the iMac (and have at home) that make my life easier. I am going to have to spend some time adjusting the MacBook to my habits. The ones l’ve particularly missed so far are:

  • FastScripts and the AppleScripts I run from it. These are pretty simple: resizing images, collections URLS from tabs to a list and the like.
  • HyperKey, that lets me run said scripts from the keyboard.
  • Various shell scripts, mostly for montage and combining images.
  • Alfred, as a launcher and clipboard manager.
  • I’d miss Rectangle if my screen was bigger.

All small things that I use without thinking and make my life simpler.

This week has certainly made me appreciate the technology I’ve been taking for granted. I also need to remind myself that in my time of teaching, I’ve gone from a couple of computers in a whole school without a network, to 1-2-1 iPads in my class today. Can’t complain!

montage of screenshots of pages linked in post.

Classroom

The hour approaches…

Maps

WordPress

Fun

Bookmarked Degenerative AI in education by Ben Williamson.

But what if, instead of being generative of educational transformations, AI in education proves to be degenerative—deteriorating rather than improving classroom practices, educational relations and wider systems of schooling?

I’ve read this a couple of time, and probably need a couple more.

I guess, like other technologies that have entered the classroom, we are very much in the hands of the powerful. We get the technology we are given. Usually at a low cost, but perhaps at a high price?

As a side note, Jetpack now offers to change the tone of what I write with AI. Here is the humorous rewrite of the previous paragraph:

Continue reading

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

A small example of the H5P Find Multiple Hotspots content type in Glow Blogs.

I was intrigued how these wee chicks survived given the number of dogs walked along this shore in addition to plenty of gulls & crows who I would expect to enjoy a plover chick dinner. Even the adults are quite hard to spot.

I am building a collection of H5P examples on Glow Blogs. I’ve also been using it to make some spelling crosswords, word-searches and cloze procedures for my class using the North Lanarkshire spelling word list.

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

Dropbox link in case twitter implodes!

ChatGPT discussion screenshot. Text in blog post.

I’ve read a bit about ChatGPT use in education, there is a lot about 1

I’ve been kicking the tyres of ChatGPT a little. Even on the surface it is quite interesting.

I have tried a couple of things that might be useful. One is to get some JavaScript functions for a little fun. It did what I wanted. The other was perhaps more pertinent to teaching.

I wanted to knock out a couple of simple cloze procedures, making up sentences is one of the more tedious tasks so I though I’d give ChatGPT a shot. I asked:

Me: can you give me sentences for 10 year old using each of these words feat
feet
mail
male
leak
leek
meat
meet

ChatGPT: Sure! Here are some sentences using each of these words:

"I am so proud of my little sister's feat of climbing to the top of the jungle gym all by herself!"
"I can't believe how big my feet have gotten since I was a baby."
"I need to go to the post office to mail this letter to my pen pal in France."
"My uncle is a male doctor."
"There's a small leak in the roof that needs to be fixed before it starts raining."
"I love adding sliced leek to my salads for a little extra flavor."
"I can't wait to have a barbecue and cook some juicy meat on the grill."
"I have to go meet my friend at the library in an hour."

So I needed to fix the spelling of flavor and asked, with typo,  as in the screenshot,  for another sentence for male. I got a list. I needed to adjust the one I chose to make the lion lazy too.

It was easy enough to paste that into an H5P Fill in the Blanks Content and get a cloze in Glow Blogs.

Diversion to Other Geeky Territory

The Fill in the missing blanks content in H5P takes text with the words you want to be blank surrounded by asterisks. Since I’d copied the sentences into a text editor to replace the quotations, I set the document format to markdown, selected the words and pressed ⌘-i.

Markdown Text Edit Italic animation

I then wondered if I could get ChatGPT to add the asterisks for me, so I asked: with an asterisk before and after each word. This it did, but as it typed then it seems that ChatGPT uses markdown, so as it typed the closing astrisk the enclosed word became italic. So back TextMate for me.