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.

montage of screenshots of pages linked in post.

Classroom

The hour approaches…

Maps

WordPress

Fun

It depicts two people in nomadic garb leading a demon, or Persian div, in chains between them. The female figure holding the chain to her face is painted to look nearly as ferocious as the captured div. The concept of divs as evil supernatural creatures of mysterious origin dates to pre-Islamic Persia, but they are also described in the text of the Qur'an. Divs in Persian literature and folktales are sometimes captured and forced to use their magic to serve a king or hero.

Featured Image: Demon in chains | Cleveland Museum of Art CC0

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 couple of links for the future of Glow Blogs & one that is useful now (go Gutenburg).

Block theme generator – Full Site Editing

Submit the form to create a .zip file with your own WordPress starter theme for full site editing.

Part of WordPress full site editing and themes – Full Site Editing

Full site editing is a set of new WordPress features that helps us edit all parts of our website: Block themes, template editing, site blocks, and global styles.

Go Gutenberg – Learn the New WordPress Editor

Find Your Way Around Gutenberg introduces a brand new writing experience for your WordPress-powered site.

We’ll show you how to navigate the new interface and save time while editing.

The weather outside is frightful, but I want to avoid the usual internet distractions.

A while ago I signed up for the Vmail newsletter. This is from VOLE.wtf and seems to be put together from stuff submitted by anyone!

One of the items was Wilderness Land a map of links generated from a google spreadsheet which leads to many rabbit hole sites.

Here are a few:

Featured image: Image from page 130 of “The Canadian field-naturalist” (19… | Flickr found via a search for Public Domain photos and the word Serendipity.

Another favourite source of daily serendipity is the dailywebthing daily pointers.

Mostly School and TiddlyWiki things.

Featured image, spider and young, my own.