Troy Patterson

Educator, Thinker, Consultant

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Moodle

On Friday, I upgraded Moodle as the newest version fixes an issue with the Lesson Module. Great. Except, the site crashed during the upgrade cycle.

Great! Time to do some research. I headed over the Moodle Forums to see if this was a known issue. Yep. Yep, it is. That led to a Bug Report. Here I got enough information to get some things running again. I tried deleting different plugins, and adding them back in. No full fix, but I had access to my site.

Then, I flew too close the sun. I used the “uninstall” link from the Plugins Overview page, and broke everything.

Drats.

I’ve been able to return access to my site. I don’t have everything fixed yet though.

I found an article on enabling “disable auto update” while installing. This involved uncommenting out a specific command in .config.php file. For me this was line 457:

$CFG->disableupdateautodeploy = true;

It is commented out. By uncommenting it (removing the //), it has allowed by site to update.

After doing this, I can uninstall plugins from the Plugins Overview page.

By deleting the // at the beginning of the line (those symbols comment out the line, which means that the program won’t run that command), the command is active and, tada!, I can complete the upgrade process.

So, a partial fix. I can now uninstall plugins, but I can’t install them. I’m going through to uninstall plugins that could be the problem, but I’m not completely convinced that this is going to solve the problem. At least the site is back up and available.

52 Frames Week 3

This week in the 52Frames photo challenge, Black and White was the theme. The bonus was to use film. I was out on the bonus. I had several black and white candidates that I took. I tried to get a shot of the trawler that was beached in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. I couldn’t get any good pictures there, but I did a lighthouse picture.

Ideally, I think that I could’ve gotten something with more contrast. I’m not unhappy with this one though. I think the pure white of the lighthouse and building works.

52 Frames

As noted earlier, I’m participating in the 52Frames Photo Challenge. This is my Week 2 submission:

An iron post in a river with the numbers (25 & 30) to mark the level of the water. Water is rushing by and blurred via a long exposure.

The subject was a new technique. I picked a long exposure to convey the power of the water. I like the framing with the water levels marked at 25 and 30 feet.

Running Your Own

Ben Werdmuller, who is brilliant, has a great write up, Running your own site painful. Hosting Nazis is worse. Seriously, this is a GREAT article. Please go read it (and then come back here).

He makes important points about social media, where your stuff is hosted, options for discoverability and more. He focuses on writers, but so much is equivalent to educators.

I’d say his wonderful article is relevant in two ways for educators:

  1. Parent/Community Communication
  2. Educational Resources.

Parent/Community Communication

Parent/Community communication is a challenge in education. All schools have a website and post to the website. However, people don’t generally know when or if to check the website. As social media took off, schools transitioned to posting on social media, mostly Twitter (now called X) and Facebook. Schools also posted to Instagram. Lots of schools also send out emails and texts.

As Ben Werdmuller points out, schools don’t have control over Twitter (X), or Instagram. So, while schools benefit from the audience of those social media sites, schools are also at the mercy of their decisions and plans. So, if a platform were to allow Nazis to post (and promote those posts) the school may be appearing to support those kinds of activities. However, this gets complicated as lots of parents/community members may use the site and maybe they do not see the Nazi posts. or maybe the site gets sold and goes out of business. Now schools have to redirect parent/community members to a new site(s).

A website based upon a domain that you own means that you have control over that. By owning a domain, schools have control over who gets to post and what things look like. However, that means that schools have to develop and promote the site.

Parents/Community members usually find other social sites “easier to use”. They really don’t have to do much. This is a big strength, and a big weakness. They may or may not see specific things. Facebook has gone through many periods where they were/are tightly controlling what people see, what gets promoted (thus seen).

Ideally, parents/community members would set up their own RSS feeds to follow. However, realistically, they aren’t going to do this. (Even though RSS is actually very easy to use. I personally use NetNewsWire). It is a mindset that needs to be developed.

So, schools post to websites, X, Facebook, and Instagram. They may be re-evaluating that as sites change, though given the amount of issues that have come up with Facebook and haven’t resulted in people moving away says that it would take a lot for people to actually move to another platform.

Educational Resources

I see similar issues with Educational Resources. Quizlet is a pretty popular flashcard creator. Recently, I’ve heard that they refuse to sign a DPA (Data Privacy Agreement). Thus, some schools are moving away from allowing access to the site. Some teachers are upset. They have spent years creating resources.

This is really part of a common issue though. Most educational resources need to collect money in order to continue to provide services. Thus, educational resources are constantly adjusting things to make sure that they can stay in business.

Long ago, I was talking to someone and used the phrase “you are always investing in someone – either yourself or someone else”. (I know this because that person repeated it back to me in a future meeting.) Lots of educators have bought into (via their time, and work) an educational resource or ten.

Schools also purchased a variety of resources through the ESSR funds (COVID relief). That money has come to an end. School budgets will be getting tight again. There is the possibility that schools won’t be able to fund all of the educational resources that they have over the last few years.

The alternative though is open-source. Open-source has the advantage of being controlled by the district. It is not free, there are some costs involved in hosting, configuring, and updating. However, it is much, much more affordable. Open-source software tends to not be as pretty as commercial resources. Plus, open-source software tends to be more powerful, but less focused. So, there is some learning involved by the teacher (you are always investing in someone – either yourself or someone else“). If educators would come together and create and share things, the effect could be extremely powerful.

So, what are some examples?

Both of these are open-source and powerful. H5P allows users to create Flashcards and much more. Both have platforms available to share work. Even more powerful for me is that both can allow students to create resources.

So, what’s going to happen is that some educators will switch from one commercial product to another. Teachers may be upset and frustrated that they have lost a bunch of work. They will then switch to another commercial product. That will work for a while until a business model changes, free accounts become too limited to be useful, or something else. They will get frustrated. They will move to the next product.

What a powerful world it would be if the students were doing the creating. What a powerful world it would be if educators took control of educational resources. What a powerful world it would be if educators were sharing, and adapting resources.

AI Training

I have shared my work, both writing and visual, openly for the most part. (There is a part of me that secretly hopes to publish something that becomes wildly popular and makes tons of money.)

I’ve been thinking about this lately in terms of AI. AI has scraped the web for data to create models. There are several lawsuits currently in place trying to resolve some of the issues around collecting and using data.

There are a couple of theories around the issue of collecting and using data to train models.

  1. Data used for training AI models is just like a human accessing the data. If a human reads something that helps inform the human moving forward. Likewise, AI should be able to “read” something and use that to create things.
  2. The data provider should have the right to approve or deny the use of that data. These rights would include payment if requested.

Jeff Jarvis falls into the camp that any data can be used for training. His argument largely falls into the bucket of this is how things have always been done and how humans have been doing things forever. Additionally, information is free, but the value comes from the expression and analysis of that information.

Others fall into the camp, the data is “stolen”. For things behind a paywall for example, should the AI pay a one-time fee to completely copy everything and use that forever? The structures that have been put in place were put in place long before AI was making a difference, but there has long been controversy around similar issues.

The AI providers have made an interesting argument that they can’t afford to pay for all the data. (Apparently, in many cases AI companies have used pirated copies of data.) That is, I can’t become a millionaire unless I get your data for free. (I need to find the link to this)

Anyway, my thoughts are a bit more emotional at this point. I create and share things that I intend for other humans to use (or me – because sometimes I search for something and find that I did the write-up on how to do it). I want to help people. Similarly, I’ve shared photos under the construct that people are looking at them.

So, I’m not sure how I feel about things that I’ve created being used to train an AI model. One could argue that the result of the training is used by humans, so it’s really no different. Yet, somehow, at least right now, it feels different.

Snowplow Parents

The New York Times recently posted an article (apparently a subscription is now required) about online grades and “Snow Plow Parents”.

What is a “Snow Plow” parent? According to Parent:

…a snowplow parent removes any obstacles in their child’s way. This type of parent does not want their child to experience any discomfort or problems, so the parent intervenes and fixes it for their child.

I remember “Helicopter Parents”, those parents who hover over their children. I remember that when my own kids went off to college, there were a few parents who actually moved to the college town that their kid was attending.

Snow Plow and Helicopter parents are related. Both take on way too much of their child’s life.

I found the article interesting and insightful. There is a definite bias early on in the article about the “dangers” of online grades being available for parents, which is balanced out later in the article. (Thus, it is important to read the whole article.)

Really, the article ends up focusing on the importance of students developing agency and responsibility. Oh, and how some parents are taking that away from kids.

Part of the advice is about making sure that parent’s connection with kids goes beyond grades:

…parents shouldn’t want conversations about grades “bleeding into every conversation you have with your kids. That does a disservice to your relationship, and it does a disservice to your child.”

A big focus of the article is about kids developing executive functioning.

“Part of executive functioning and personal management is understanding what’s the right time and place to have a conversation versus not. And so students do need to develop that,” she said.

The article even addresses a couple of interesting issues:

At its heart, the issue is that too many parents see their children’s grades as the ultimate reflection on themselves and their parenting.

and

There were kids, he said, who were “incredibly skilled at gaming the system” — grade grubbing rather than achieving anything intellectually.

In the end, the author admits that it’s not all negative.

… not every teacher I spoke to had a negative experience with online grade books. Some said that the technology made their lives easier and improved communication with some parents. Even the teachers who pointed out the unseemly behavior of some parents and students stressed that it wasn’t a majority who abused the system.

I find this an interesting time to be a parent (just like all the other ones in history). Parents today deal with social media, connectedness, information overload, pressure to be successful, and on and on.

I don’t think any of this is really new, but it is new for each parent. Also, the number of parents who are truly “Snow Plow” is pretty minimal (still makes it rough for those particular kids).

So, what about online gradebooks? These can be beneficial. However, it is also important to establish how grades work in the classroom early on in the year (or now). Set out expectations of when work will be graded. Communicate how grades are calculated. Take advantage of the power of the gradebook. I have found online gradebooks to have much more good than negative. The article even points this out. Remember, no matter what system that you use, you could have a lot of these same issues. Many of these are “people” issues, not technology issues.

If you are a parent of a child under 18, do your best. Help them grow. They’ll make mistakes. They’re human. Don’t be a Snow Plow.

Subscriptions

I’m feeling a bit lonely. But, maybe I shouldn’t? My subscriptions may have been broken.

I have subscriptions turned on, but I don’t really have anyone who subscribes.

Currently, I use Icegram Express to handle the subscriptions. This allows me to set up subscriptions so that people could get posts, no payment involved and you have to confirm your intention to subscribe. I do have a few people who seem to have filled in the “Subscribe” form, but have not confirmed.

Hm. I did have to set up DKIM and SPF for my domain a while back. It was supposed to be on, but, well, my hosting service messed that one up.

Anyway, I’d sure feel less lonely if a few people subscribed. I don’t do any real tracking, I don’t sell any information, etc. I’d obviously have an email address, but I’ve turned off any tracking (like whether the email was open or not).

There is a form to subscribe right there on the front page.

Weekly Review 2024-01

Seasons

It’s officially winter. Cue Snow from “White Christmas”. We got a bit of snow overnight and are expecting a few more inches during the day. Of course, this makes Hazel’s Herding Ball that much more fun.

Since I was expecting the snow, I took down the outside lights and decorations yesterday.

I also received my first email of the year to buy Portland Sea Dog tickets today. Baseball is coming.

Back to Work

Well, it was back to work today. Lots of my friends still have this week off. I’m good with getting back to work, but I do kind of wonder about having the time off. That would mean foregoing other vacation days or going longer in the summer. Everything is trade-off. Generally a pretty boring day. I cleaned up a bunch of administrative things.

We also reviewed a new Help Desk system. It looks really good, fully robust, and affordable.

New Year’s Day

Spent the day doing some cleaning and a bit of reading. Also went to my eldest daughter’s house to watch a bit of Fry and Laurie. I also spent a bit of time upgrading darktable. I updated to version 4.6.0. Everything seemed fine until I went to import some new pictures. Darktable would then hang upon rejecting the request to access other programs. Apparently, this just took a really long time to set. Upon leaving it run for a while (OK, I admit it, I was working on posting a bug report), the import menu showed up and all is right with the world (or at least darktable). I do have pictures on an external hard drive and probably should switch to a faster drive. Or, maybe I need to convince my wife that I need a new computer :-).

Flu Shot

I got my Flu Shot today (finally). I had to go to my doctor’s office due to insurance. Insurance covers the Flu shot, but only under medical. Most convenient places to get a Flu Shot, bill under prescription insurance. This led to a bit of frustration. However, I am now shot.

Giving Blood

I also gave blood again this week. This is usually a quick and easy process for me. However, this time they had to take two samples for Hemoglobin as the first sample came back slightly low. The second one was fine.

I hopped onto the table, and the needle was inserted. It felt different than usual. Sure enough, the Team Leader was called over. They asked if I was willing to try the other arm. Sure, I said. One of the other technicians stated, “You can’t use the other arm”. The Team Leader simply said, “Yes, we can” (didn’t confront the other tech). The Team Leader inserted the needle and everything was set. So I asked. The Team Lead rolled his eyes and said, if blood hits the bag, we can’t use the other arm. We wouldn’t be sure how much blood was taken. However, the Tech simply had squeezed the blood down to the bag, which is what he was supposed to do. She’s not in charge but likes to think she is.

So, I got a little bit of entertainment with my blood donation.

Posts:

Here is a quick update on other posts this week.

I posted a couple of extra things this week as I can post here and let that be a post on Mastodon. I like this workflow. I retain ownership of the material. I’m not dependent upon any outside provider, but get the social advantages.

Attribution

I recently read a wonderful post by Alan Levine – Cogdog on a picture that he had shared that ended up being used in an advertisement. I share almost all of my photos with the CC-BY-NC-SA license.


This breaks down to this:

  • BY: credit must be given to the creator
  • NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
  • SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

Alan Levine talks about a write up where he shared his images as CC-0 (Public Domain Dedication: essentially making them free for anyone to use in any way). One of his favorite pictures of him and Cori ended up being used in an Instagram advertisement for OMGYES (which is focused on intimacy and pleasure).

He reached out to the company and received a reply from a real person. That person, Rob, sent along an apologetic email. He had the image removed from all ads. Here’s the thing, Rob didn’t have to do that. Alan had shared the image in a way that legally allowed Rob to use the image. (Rob also added a note about Alan’s photography being “stunning”). So there are good people out there. Alan has since changed the licensing of the photo to CC BY-NC-SA.

Since I’m participating in 52Frames this year, I got to thinking about licensing. Specifically, what is NC (noncommerical)? So I did a bit more digging. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a detailed explanation on Creative Commons. Specifically, does an ad count as “commercial”? (To me, it’s obviously a “Yes”, but I’ve been around enough to know that sometimes the law is different than my logic.). After a bit more research, it seems that NC is pretty broad and covers anything that “incorporates a financial transaction”. The Smithsonian has a nice explanation:

Non-commercial use encompasses a wide range of exciting possibilities—including artistic, educational, scholarly, and personal projects that will not be marketed, promoted, or sold. Examples include, but are not limited to, presentations, research, tattoos, sixth-grade science fair projects, tablet backgrounds, free and ad-free apps, GIFs, holiday centerpieces, Halloween costumes, decoupage, inspiration boards, and shower curtains.

Commercial use is any reproduction or purpose that is marketed, promoted, or sold and incorporates a financial transaction. Examples include, but are not limited to, merchandise, books for sale (including textbooks), apps that will be sold or have advertising, periodicals and journals with paid subscriptions, TV programs and commercial films, advertisements, websites that sell images, and cause-related marketing.

So, it seems that choosing the CC-BY-NC-SA license is generally going to be right for me. On some of the photos that I submit, I may keep an All Rights Reserved on, but I’m guessing that will be pretty few.

52 Frames

I’ve joined the 52 Frames Photo Challenge. The idea is to take a photo a week that fits the challenge. The first week is a selfie. So, I have my assignment for tonight (since this is a weekly challenge, the first submission is due by January 7th).

I’ll link to my submissions each week as well. I’ll have to see if I can commit and keep up with the submissions.

I am looking forward to the challenges though. I enjoy photography and want to get better at it.

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