Educator, Thinker, Consultant
Just a quick reminder that today is “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” Day.
While the Temptations version is the classic, I also really like the Was (Not Was) version. (Quick note, the Temptations was not the original. The Undisputed Truth put out the first version.)
It was the third of September
That day I’ll always remember, yes I will
‘Cause that was the day that my daddy died
Original Version:
Temptations Version:
Was (Not Was) version:
Well, I guess that I’m officially retired now. School has started and I’m still sleeping in. No alarm clock. No worries about security. No concerns about “did I tell so and so to do such and such”.
However, I still feel more like I’m on vacation rather than retirement. I’m still working through exactly what the days should look like.
I did apply for a couple of jobs. I applied to be a substitute at the beginning of August. I followed up a couple of weeks later. I was informed that “they’ll be looking at substitute applications in the middle of September”. I then looked at a different school district to sub. That district had a job for a “Technology Analyst”. Seemed vague in the job description. I followed up. I ended up going for an interview. The job is a basic computer tech. I would’ve loved helping teachers and students, but decided not to return to full time work.
So, I’m getting stuff done around the house. I’m learning more about photography. I’m taking more pictures.
I’m still looking for a part time gig. Or, some volunteer opportunities.
Columbia House to cease operations after 71 years.
Another “rite of passage” from my teenage years is hitting the dustbin. Columbia House’s Subscription Program is ending. (To be fair, I would’ve thought that this service died long, long ago.)
Columbia House regularly sent out free opportunities to join (actually, I think that joining cost a penny). Essentially, you would purchase a membership and receive some albums (in my case on cassette). For some reason, it seems that I got 3 or 5 albums free. The membership included the agreement to purchase a number of albums in the future. Every month, one received Columbia’s offers to purchase albums. This was the precursor to the AOL CD’s that would be arriving later on.
As a side note, I’m fascinated by the URL on this article (which has now been fixed. Originally it was this: (https://www.pastemagazine.com/article/cameron-winter-to-release-his-first-live-album)
This is a terrific write up about the state of email addresses. Specifically, this addresses email lists. Some nice history stuff:
Many years ago, people put their email addresses on web pages, personal or departmental. But then came along SPAM email lists, built from bots scraping valid email addresses across the web. In an ever escalating war, email addresses were scrambled and obfuscated with different methods, some using clever highlight and paste tricks tied to the web browser. If I try to paste directly into Apple Mail, I sometimes get scrambled garbage.
If you’ve been using email for any length of time, you’ll get a smile and may even say an audible “Amen”.
A free, open-source application for downloading and managing your Audible audiobooks
I’ve used this to gather up my Audible books, from, er, let me check here, 2014. I long ago left audible for other options.
I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, yes, it can time consuming to find documents in Google Drive (or your local storage, or any other online repository). It can be especially frustrating when Google Drive search fails to find a document (especially when you had all the right words of the title, but in a different order). It has always been amazing to me that Google Drive search stinks as much as it does (and Apple Mail search, WOW is that bad).
Anyway, Dr. Bruce Ellis makes the case that workers spend an inordinate amount of time looking for “stuff”. Again that frustration and time wasting is real.
This is not limited to Google Drive though. Email is also addressed.
Dr. Ellis provides some specific, tangible steps to get you started. This will still take time, but he does provide a system. If the system works for you, great. In real life, I think everyone has a “system”, but not a repeatable one. The “system” changes frequently and is dependent upon the day/mood/environment/etc. So if this inspires you to adopt a system, it is definitely worthwhile.
AI is going to be with us. It has already had profound impact on us (and our students). Educators are going to have a address the cognitive issues and underlying impact of AI.
Thus, educators are going to need to think deeply about AI and how to use it. This paper provides a touch point to think about.
Knowing when to say “I don’t know” is fundamental to human judgment, yet AI assistants offer a fluent answer to almost any question. In five experiments (N = 3,132; four preregistered, one direct replication), participants answered difficult questions and could always decline to respond. We engineered the questions so that AI advice was wrong, separating AI use from its accuracy. Merely having access to AI nearly eliminated participants’ willingness to suspend judgment, and this held whether the advice was actively requested or simply displayed. Consequently, participants answered more questions but were correct about a third as often as when AI was unavailable—yet their confidence nearly doubled. Incentivizing accuracy and penalizing inaccuracy led participants to seek and follow AI advice less, answer more accurately, and suspend judgment more often, though still far less than when AI was unavailable. As AI suggestions grow ubiquitous and unsolicited, they may not simply affect answer accuracy; they may even alter the metacognitive threshold at which people decide whether they know enough to answer.
Students are very much buying into AI as being personified.
Back to school time is going to bring lots of “screen time ban” discussions. Personally, I believe that this is a slightly misplaced discussion. The focus seems to be on schools and screen time. The major focus is on banning cell phones for students during the school day. Roughly 30 states , including Maine and Michigan, now have bell to bell bans for cell phones. Personally, I can fully support that.
However, I believe that the issue is much bigger than just schools. Yes, schools are a part of the argument. And sure, there are teachers and schools that are using screen time inappropriately. However, the bigger issue is parenting. I say this not sarcastically, but pragmatically, Parenting is Hard. Parenting has always been hard, and it’s not getting any easier.
A.J. Juliani makes points based on the Learning 3.0 framework. (I have mixed feelings about Learning 3.0.)
The arguments here again return to AI and the impact that it will have on students. This is worth a read and some pondering time.
This one is from McSweeney, so sarcasm is back on the table.
Every serious legal mind must inevitably face a fundamental choice: Read the Constitution and apply its words as the bedrock laws of the land, or transcend its tired text and interpret the super-secret invisible version that tells you exactly what you want to hear.
That will get you started.
When I was a kid, the magazine “Highlights” was pretty popular. These were often seen in schools and in doctors offices. One of the best features was a “Spot the Difference” called “Check…And Double Check”. Essentially, there were two nearly identical illustrations placed side by side. Your job was to find all of the differences between the two illustrations.
Who knew that Highlights would prepare us for AI in the future? The “find the differences” skill, now between what should actually exist and what makes an AI image is a great skill to have.
Here is an example:
Here are a few of the links that struck me recently (special shout out to Ben Werdmuller for the thought of posting links).
Almost two hours long, but it’s Trevor Noah and Cory Doctorow. Lot’s of interesting conversation. Yes, there is discussion about enshittification. But there is also lots of discussion about how we got there and what is the impact of lots of the technology trends.
Repetitor really only makes sense if the repetition is truly spaced. That’s why you should activate the “save content state” on your platform which will enforce a waiting period in between rounds (that you define).
Well, and then you can tweak more things to your liking:
This seems like a truly awesome development. Spaced repetition is a powerful learning strategy. This allows for spaced repetition to be used just about anywhere.
Just as a reminder, one could set this up in Moodle and allow the students to create their own.
Looking for an overview of the Fediverse? Want to know what the Fediverse is?
Instead of using a social media site run by one company, the Fediverse
is composed of lots of individual sites (Think email: a Gmail account can write to an Outlook one and nobody thinks twice. Same idea, just for posting and following.)
This is the fediverse: social media run by the people on it. Thousands of independent apps and communities that all talk to each other.
Corporations can join the network. They can’t own it.
No fine print. This is the whole print.
| Big social | The fediverse | |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns your account | The platform | You do |
| Your timeline | Ranked by an algorithm | Chronological, your follows |
| Ads & tracking | The business model | None |
| Switching is… | Start over from zero | Move, keep your followers |
| The code | Closed, proprietary | Open source |
I can strongly recommend reviewing this article. There are specific, actionable thoughts here.
To frame the problem, imagine your students involved in a Canva Edu project. Everything is going great:
TCEA has an interesting article entitled: Should Districts Block Canva? The K-12 Control Question – TCEA TechNotes Blog? This brings up a great question and perspective.
Whether it’s Google Slides, or other popular tools, anything with un-monitored chat or comment features is now a potential student attack vector.
Can your district supervise student use at the level you claim to parents, principals, and your board?
| District question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Can students share designs with other students without teacher approval? | This creates a private communication path |
| Can students comment on shared designs? | Comments can become messaging |
| Can admins view, search, export, and retain comment history? | Investigations require records |
| Can controls differ by grade, campus, group, or device type? | Younger students may need stricter limits |
| Can Gen AI tools and apps be restricted by role? | Canva now includes many Gen AI-connected features |
| Do controls work the same on iPad app and browser? | Monitoring may differ by device |
Before you decide, put these questions in front of Canva and your monitoring vendor:
This is a wonderful write up with great, specific action points.
Everything hits an expiration date. Sometimes we know when that it is, sometimes we don’t.
I’ve long known that my time at Cape Elizabeth was coming to a close. As of June 30th, I will be moving on my next phase. Careful readers may note that this is not the first time that I’ve done this. Last time, I was moving to Maine to be closer to my kids, and I still intended to work. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d be doing, but I was applying to Technology Director positions. This time is different though. This time, I’m going to take time to “work” for me.
So, what’s next? Well, I’ll be taking time to explore, learn, and practice photography. I’ve been enjoying my photography experiences more and more. I have so much to learn. One thing that I’m sure of is that photography takes time. Not rushing and actually seeing what is there is a crucial part of the process (for me).
In a couple of months, I’ll be signing up for substituting. I still like working with kids. Subbing will allow me to control my schedule, stay in touch with education, and learn more about my local community.
I’ve also looked into an opportunity to provide support for a Moodle installation. Currently, it looks like that is on hold, but that is something that I would enjoy. I may be reaching out to some previous contacts to let them know that I’m available to provide some support and resources if it would be helpful to them. I’ve got a couple of Annual Training Courses that are pretty much ready to go and can be customized to a particular school.
We’re really fortunate that a lifetime of hard work, careful planning, and saving have led to a situation where we should be financially solvent.
We are also looking forward to some traveling and experiencing other places.
Anyway, here’s to expiration dates and new experiences.
I learned about VocalCat from Doug Belshaw. Essentially, VocalCat is:
The decentralized link-in-bio that connects to the Fediverse. Share links, collect badges, and own your online presence — no corporation in the middle.
Features
- Link-in-Bio
Add unlimited links, organize them your way. A clean, fast profile page that works everywhere.- ActivityPub Native
Your profile is a first-class citizen on Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey and every ActivityPub platform.- Badge Collection
Receive and showcase verifiable badges from issuers across the Fediverse. Proof of achievement, decentralized.- Login with Mastodon
No new password needed. Sign in with your existing Mastodon account from any instance.- Auto-Boost & Relay
Consolidate your Fediverse presence. Automatically boost posts from your other accounts into one unified profile.- Open Source
Fully transparent. Self-host it, audit it, or contribute on GitHub. Your data stays yours, always.
I’ve created an account for myself, Troy Patterson on VocalCat, which you can check out.
I’m not sure yet how this is different than the About Me Page on my website. I’m going to guess discoverability?
Part of VocalCat is that you can display badges. That got me to thinking. I know that I have a few Moodle badges, but I don’t remember if I have other badges.
Anyway, here are the Moodle Badges I’ve been awarded. (This will also be useful for “future me” when I need to look for badges.)
The one below is not really mine. Shawn McGirr asked me to submit an entry into the H5P awards. I submitted the entry, Vocabulary Practice using Rebus Puzzles by Shawn McGirr as part of Middle School Matters. Shawn was a finalist. However, since I had submitted, my name is associated with it. To be clear, Shawn did the work and is deserving of the award.
If offered, always take the “Pie Judging” role on Pi Day if it involved actual pie. Today was six wonderful homemade pies.
It’s time to figure out what’s next, again. I’ll be retiring from Cape Elizabeth School department as of July 1st.
I still will need to do “something”. I’m just not sure what that something will be.
The last time I did “this”, Doug Belshaw encouraged me to strike out on my own. Obviously, I didn’t follow that advice then, but maybe now is the time. I’ve done some consulting before, but nothing recently.
Troy Patterson
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