Troy Patterson

Educator, Thinker, Consultant

Author: Troy (Page 23 of 40)

Educator, Thinker, Moodler, Podcaster, Open-source advocate. Check out the world's longest running middle school focused podcast at https://middleschoolmatters.com

Oscar Nominated Shorts

February 5, 2020 / / 1 Comment

I had the opportunity to check out the Oscar Nominated Shorts for Animation and Live Action. Warning, spoilers follow. Unlike last year, this year was not all “gut punches”. Some of this year’s nominated films are funny. Naturally, there are some emotional ones as well.

Animation Nominees

Official Oscar Animation Nominee Page

  • Hair Love – Cute opening movie. A young girl and her Dad struggle with doing her hair. It ends with a bit of an emotional heart tug.
  • DCERA (Daughter) – Really powerful animation. This one was able to communicate so much with visuals. The story is definitely not a “Hallmark” story but powerfully told. The story is of a young girl (now grown) and her relationship with her Dad. This is my choice for Best Animated Short.
  • Sister – The story of a child from China and the sister that he never had due to China’s “one-child law”.
  • Mémorable – The story of a painter who experiences the world mutating to unrealistic objects. A powerful story that hit home for me. Well done, well told. A close runner up to DCERA, I wouldn’t be upset if this wins.
  • Kitbull – A pretty traditional PIXAR short. Well done. The story well told, but no new ground is broken. A very satisfying story.

Live Action Nominees

Official Oscar Live Action Nominee Page

  • A Sister – In a car at night, Alie is in trouble. She makes a crucial call for help. An interesting story that is nicely told. Somehow this one missed out on emotion for me.
  • Brotherhood – A hardened shepherd’s son returns home. This is not the prodigal son returning. The returning son brings a pregnant wife and obvious tension with the shepherd. The other brothers welcome the eldest home. The eldest is revealed to have some different intents than the Dad thought. The Dad realizes this too late. In a short, every moment is critical. I thought that this short didn’t take advantage of that.
  • The Neighbors’ Window – A young couple with children discover that the new neighbors across the street have no curtains and a lot of passion. The couple deals with the reality of getting older and the idealism of others/ the past. Their frustrations develop as they keep an eye (or two) on the passionate couple across the way. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side though. Based on a true story (left me wondering how much, which parts were true). My runner up.
  • Saria – two orphaned sisters fight against abuse at the orphanage. They participate in a revolt and escape. However, the powers that be recover them and return them to the orphanage. Disaster strikes as one of those returned miscalculate just how uncaring the workers at the orphanage are. My choice for Best Live Action.
  • Nefta Football Club – Two brothers come across a donkey wearing headphones in the desert (in this case, the difference between Adele and Handel is crucial). The oldest realizes the donkey has a valuable cargo but shares a slightly different story with the younger brother (telling him that it is laundry detergent). One little misunderstanding leads to a comical end.
Weekly Review

Weekly Review

January 21, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Well, obviously I’m not very good at the weekly review process. (It’s kind of OK, since no one is subscribed to actually read the weekly reviews).

I’ll try to do better. For now, I’ll try to catch up with an overview.

New Political Party?

With all the news and political bickering, I’m wondering if we might actually see the rise of a new political party. We currently have a lack of logic and reason involved in the political process. America has been through several political party revisions (though we alway pretty much stay with two major parties). These changes generally occur around a specific event. The Republican Party seems to be set as extremly isolationist (anti-immigration, racially divisive, etc). Given the changes in population, that doesn’t scale well over time. Will the Republican part go away? Will it morph into something else? It’s not going to happen soon, but, again, the separatist beliefs don’t scale well over time. The Atlantic has an interesting piece that relates to the Republican Party.

RSS

I remain a big fan of RSS. I really wish that more people understood what RSS is and how it could be used. Facebook is really an advanced RSS feed (where someone else controls what you see). Facebook has packaged things really, really well.

A good RSS feed can/could be extremely useful.

Mod_Security

I installed an updated version of Moodle and hit a snag. I got a Mod_Security warning. This is not an Moodle issue, but a web host issue. If you are updating Moodle and get this warning, don’t panic. Reach out to your web host and let them know. They can fix this easily.

Loss

There’s been a lot of loss for me recently. My father-in-law passed away. A close friend passed away after a long bout with cancer. There is much sadness. I’m choosing to try to dwell on the positives of knowing them and having spent time with them. There are times and situations that are tough, but I try to remember the positives.

Kids

I did get to go see my kids over the Holiday break. It was great to spend time with them. Both of them are wonderful, kind, bright, beautiful adults. They make the world a better place.

CS (Computer Science) for all

I’ll have more detail for this in a future post, but I went to conference on CSforAll. The State of Michigan is looking to implement this across the state and wanted a partner district.

All My Sons

I went to see the National Theatre Live Event – All My Sons. Although set in 1947, I thought that there were lots of parallels to today. The play, by Arther Miller, isn’t exactly a “barn burner”. It moves a bit slowly (especially the first act), but I enjoyed it very much. Sally Field was excellent.

Podcast

The Middle School Matters Podcast is still chugging along. Shawn and I were able to record another episode this week (before the celebration of life). One of the discussion points was the habit of saying “like, yeah”. I’ve noticed this quite a bit recently.

Self-Assessment in Moodle

Self-Assessment in Moodle

December 17, 2019 / / 2 Comments

I love the flexibility in Moodle. Usually, I can find a way to provide an experience for learners that meets our needs. Sometimes, these could be improved visually, but, usually, I can find a way.

Except.

I’m still not finding a way for students to do self-assessment cleanly. The idea here is that self-assessment is a powerful activity. Having students self-assess is just good pedagogy. Being able to do this through Moodle would be fantastic.

I have tried a variety of methods.

Quiz

Ultimately, this is the winner so far. The teacher creates a quiz with the rubric as the questions. This allows for a grade to be derived. The student can easily see his grade and his assessment. However, this certainly doesn’t look or feel like a rubric. This can also be visually quite lengthy.

Assignment

This is my second-place finisher. I can get incredibly close with Assignment. The only caveat is that students can not be in any groups. Here is the process:

Course must be set to “Separate Groups”

This is where the caveat of students can only be in one group comes in. If students are in multiple groups (e.g. they are in a first-hour group, and a self-assessment group), they will see the results of everyone in all of those groups. Thus, students would be able to see all of first hour. To combat this, one could make a class just for self-assessment.

Create an Assignment.

  • Give it a name.
  • Uncheck all Submission types
  • Uncheck all Feedback types
  • Set grading to Rubric

Locally assigned roles

Adjust the Locally assigned roles for this assignment only. Make each student a Non-editing teacher.

Adjust permissions

Make sure that students can NOT “Access all groups”

Questionnaire

Again, close with this one, but two issues come up:

  • No “score”
  • Groups remain an issue: students can only be in one group.

Database

This can be pretty. It is easy to limit to one student. However, no total score is generated.

Workshop

Workshop is geared for peer assessment. However, it is geared for the whole class. Part of the Workshop system is that the entire class moves from one phase to the next. There are five phases:

  1. Setup
  2. Submission
  3. Assessment
  4. Grading evaluation
  5. Closed

The entire class moves from one phase to the next. Additionally, you can restrict the activity by Group. However, this means that you would need to create the Workshop Activity, with all the settings and then Duplicate the activity times the number of students. So, if you had 98 students, you would need to Duplicate the activity 97 times. Additionally, you would need to reset the Group on all 97 of those duplicates. (Now you can automatically switch from the Submission to Assessment phase – which saves a ton of steps).

So, that’s a quick overview of our goal of having students self-assess. There doesn’t appear to be a simple way to make this happen.

Did the State Sell My Data?

Did the State Sell My Data?

December 16, 2019 / / 0 Comments

The sale of Instructure, the maker of Canas, to the Private Equity Firm Thoma Bravo, seems to include all of the data that Instructure collected.

The State of Michigan bought into Canvas to provide Edupaths (don’t worry, they got a great deal for three years*). I took classes through Edupaths. So, what happens to my data? Does Thoma Bravo now have a good bit of data about me?

I’ve reached out to the State of Michigan asking if they exempted our data from being collected and sold by Instructure. I haven’t heard back yet. If they haven’t/didn’t/don’t, Thoma Bravo has a great treasure trove of teacher data. My data would be included in that.

*Canvas was well known to always be peddling a “great deal” for three years. Their stated intention was to turn those accounts into profit by raising prices after three years. This short-sighted thinking always kind of bothered me. Let’s be honest about what things cost. It seems somewhat unlikely that the Canvas model worked out as planned (though it did work out – they were purchased for $2 billion) as they never actually made money.

Comics

December 7, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I find RSS very useful. I utilize Feedly to gather RSS feeds. (Basically, instead of going to a variety of websites to see if something has been updated, new updates come directly to the RSS feed reader. (This is kind of like Facebook but without the invasion of privacy and putting me in control instead of Facebook. Of course, this would mean that other people would have to set up a site to post their content. It would also mean that other people would have control of their content.)

Anyway, one of my categories is Comics. I enjoy reading comics. Usually, this is a late-at-night activity for me. I’ve used Dark Gate Comic Slurper for years. However, I noticed the other night that there were no new comics.

I waited a day (or two, it’s a busy time of year). In checking Dark Gate Comics on the web, I get a 500 error. Not good. Either Dark Gate is gone, or something is happening.

So, off I go to find alternatives. This is where I found Comics RSS. Comics RSS looks to have most of the comics that I like to read (I enjoy a mix of classics and modern comics). One advantage is Comics RSS is that each comic is on a separate feed. (Dark Gate Comic Slurper would create one feed with all of the comics that you picked). This will make it easier to add and delete individual comics. (This really wasn’t that hard with Dark Gate).

Comics are back. Now, I’ve got some catching up to do.

Buying an LMS

Buying an LMS

December 4, 2019 / / 0 Comments

It’s been an interesting week for LMS providers. Instructure (the owner of Canvas – an LMS (Learning Management System)) just announced that it will be acquired by Thoma Bravo, LLC, a private investment firm for a cool $2 billion.

This news follows closely on the heels of Schoology being purchased by Powerschool (which is also held by a private investment firm).

Keep in mind that private investment firms are designed to do one thing (hint, it isn’t supporting student success). Apparently, there are some smart people who are expecting to make a lot of money from schools.

I’ve written before about Canvas. They were working hard to increase their market share so that they could then raise prices to make money. This seems to be a very real part of the economy right now, collect as many users as possible and somehow figure out how to make money later. This seems to be the plan for many, many companies, not just LMS providers in education.

Powerschool acquiring Schoology makes some sense to me. Powerschool provides an SIS (Student Information System). Powerschool wants to be able to provide a full-featured solution for schools. Powerschool having an LMS as part of that is good marketing and could provide some economy of scale to schools.

However, I remain concerned about investing in a company that pretty freely acknowledges that they want to build things up so that they can sell it off for a profit. I’m not in education for a couple of years, I’m in for the long haul.

The purchase of Canvas makes less sense. (The selling of Canvas makes total sense). The Board acknowledged their goals by gaining customers at a loss to eventually make money. Canvas was losing money last I knew. In their Q2 report, they noted:

“We’re excited by our prospects for 2019 and beyond and we remain focused on executing on our strategy, which we expect will sustain our revenue growth, help us achieve profitability, and generate shareholder value.”

emphasis added by me

For the second quarter ending June 30, 2019, Instructure expects revenue of approximately $61.8 million to $62.4 million, a non-GAAP net loss of ($9.2) million to ($8.6) million, and non-GAAP net loss per common share of ($0.25) to ($0.23).

Emphasis added by me

So what does Thoma Bravo see in Canvas? From the Press Release:

Thoma Bravo will support Instructure as it increases investment in education technology innovation and expands internationally.

CISIon – PR Newswire

Readers of this site will note my passion for Moodle. Moodle is open source. They have a financial revenue stream that makes sense. They have passed on being purchased several times. Martin Dougiamas is pretty dedicated to open source (while still being able to support the project financially).

Apparently, I’m missing out on something. I need to create an LMS and lose a ton of money while gaining market share. Does anyone have many millions that they would like to lose?

Spelling Words

Spelling Words

December 1, 2019 / / 0 Comments

While I’m working on a full write up, I thought that I’d share a Moodle opportunity with you. Elementary teachers seem to spend a good bit of time on spelling words and tests. I thought that this could be streamlined.

Basically, this involves creating a gapfill quiz question (actually, as many questions as you need). Record the spelling word by reading it in the question text area (use the microphone button to record). Enter the letters of the spelling word in the Question text area (each letter goes between a square bracket), paste the entire alphabet in Distractors area (copy and paste the string below:) a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,o,n,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z

Duplicate the question, re-record the new word, replace the new letters for the new spelling word (between the square brackets: [ ] ) in the question text area.

*Note that I created additional blank spots by typing the opening square bracket [ and the close square bracket ] with nothing between them – if you add a space, students would need to type that space.

I have a full write up is currently in development.

Book Review Template

November 30, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Moodle has a variety of powerful features. One of the features is the ability to share. For example, if I (or a certain friend) create a great activity as a database in Moodle, that activity can easily be shared. So, let’s say that someone creates a Book Review Template. This Book Review Template allows students to, well, review books. Here’s the fun part, those book reviews, by students, can create a ranking, a review, and a video review.

As you can see in the example above, there is a rating, the genre is listed, a cover for the book as been included, the review is the main part.

If you have a Moodle install, you can use the zip file below to add this as a preset in your course.

Book-Review-preset-20191201_0135Download
  • Add a Database Activity
  • Give the Activity a name – (maybe Book Review)
  • Save and Display
  • Click on “Presets
  • Click on Choose File from the “Insert from a zip file” section

Remember that Database Activities are shown to the whole class by default.

Weekly Review

November 17, 2019 / / 0 Comments

What a week. Lots going on.

Washer Repair

The washer decided that spinning was completely optional. After a bit of Youtube searching, the issue came down to a couple of things. The easiest to fix was the lid switch. Given the symptoms (agitating but not spinning), the lid switch was the most obvious answer. That was replaced. I also learned that the motor puts out codes on the LED. That is, there is an LED light that blinks according to a variety of codes. With the lid switch replaced, I also needed to reset the motor codes.

This is one of those areas where things have changed drastically for me. Having the ability to search Youtube videos and find similar symptoms and experts resolving the issue is much more efficient and powerful.

No Coffee Until 08:49

Any day (that isn’t the weekend or vacation) where I don’t get coffee until 08:49 is not a good day. We had a network issue that required my attention to resolve. With a bit of work, we were able to get the issue resolved, but not until after 8:30. Thus, no coffee for me until 08:49.

Seed Room Project

My daughter presented me with an interesting problem. She works with a seed room. The problem is that people going to the seed room need to know if they need to go get the key or if someone is in the seed room. I designed a wonderful web page for her. Then, I realized that the page that I designed was browser, not server-based. Thus, the wonderful web page ALWAYS starts in the same condition. This doesn’t help her at all.

So, I need to go back to the drawing board on this one. I’ll need to create a database with the current condition and then adjust that. I didn’t see any quick and easy answers though.

Moodle Moot Japan

Chris Kenniburg was invited to present the keynote at the Moodle Moot Japan. Due to family obligations, he has passed on this opportunity. He would’ve done an absolutely wonderful job. I would be totally interested in presenting the keynote to the conference. (Maybe the recent awarding of the Particularly helpful Moodler will sway them to offer.)

Bathroom Remodel

We are currently in week 4 of the two-week bathroom remodel. There is progress as we now have a but installed and drywall. Tile should be installed this week.

Concert on a School Night

This last week we went to see the wonderful Brendan James. The concert was terrific. We went on a Thursday evening. I made a remark along the lines of “it sure would’ve been nice if you could’ve joined us at the concert last night” at a Friday morning meeting. One person responded, “Oh, it’s so hard to go out on a school night”. I was saddened. Going out and enjoying an evening should be celebrated and, well, enjoyed. Once the kids are gone, work should not be so overwhelming that one can’t go out and have a good time. Even on a school night. Heck, if you aren’t going out, staying out late and having a good time every once in a while- especially on a school night, well, I find that kind of sad. Enjoy yourself. Do silly things sometimes. Stay up late. Live. Love life. I’ll be going out on school nights.

Crochet Friends

We did a bit of work on Crochet Friends too. These make great gifts for adults and kids. Some of our friends who have found “forever friends” have traveled far and wide. Crochet Friends can bring great joy to many. Some use them like a “comfort animal”. Some just enjoy the heck out of them. There is still time to order for Christmas as well.

Weekly Review

November 10, 2019 / / 0 Comments

So, it’s been a while since I posted a weekly review. There has been much going on. My father-in-law passed away. That was an emotionally overwhelming experience.

My daughter has a commentary that she worked on with her advisor published. I remain proud of and impressed by both of my daughters.

As noted in a previous post, I was also honored with a Particularly helpful Moodler badge. I’ll admit that I was a bit surprised by this. I am glad that I can help though.

I presented on online security and some Google tips. I’ll be developing more online security material for my day job as well.

Some friends went with us to see John Heffron. He always does a great show. Go see him. Support live entertainment where you are.

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