Troy Patterson

Educator, Thinker, Consultant

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MoodleNet Thoughts

MoodleNet Thoughts

December 28, 2023 / / 0 Comments

I posted on Mastodon about the lack of feedback on Moodle Net. Martin replied asking for feedback. I’ve responded, but I thought that I would flesh out my thoughts a bit here.

I love Moodle and what you can do with it. I love that there isn’t a big money-making, data-sucking, privacy-invasive company running it.

A little background. I’m in the US. Specifically, I’m in K-12 education teaching and learning. Moodle is not super popular. There are certainly a few places, but Moodle is much bigger at the University level than K-12. There is much angst over Moodle. Quite simply, teachers find it “too hard”.

There are reasons that Google Classroom has taken over. It really doesn’t do much (thus, much less to learn for teachers). Google Classroom is essentially handing out worksheets and getting them back (another bonus, teachers understand the worksheet process).

When COVID hit, there was a rush for two things, video conferencing and an LMS. Zoom quickly captured the video conferencing mindshare. So much so, that even now it is pretty much the only game in town. Google Classroom captured the LMS market (note that it not an LMS but that doesn’t matter). It doesn’t even matter that it is not an LMS. The District that I was in at the time evaluated Canvas, Schoology, and Moodle (we had Moodle installed and were known internationally for our work in Moodle – due to Chris Kenniburg). The District chose to go with Schoology. It was “easier”.

MoodleNet

So this is one reason I was (still am) hopeful for MoodleNet. MoodleNet should be a great way to share resources, activities, etc. This means teachers wouldn’t have to create all their own material. This alone would make Moodle “easier”. Teachers could get started.

However, I do not find MoodleNet engaging. I’ve posted some things there, but I don’t get any feedback. There is currently no way to provide feedback. I can’t tell someone that I liked their materials or that I used it with changes. Hence. I reached out to Martin.

I don’t think that this needs to be overly complicated. I thought about ratings, 1-5 stars, adding how it was used, tags, and more. Really though, I think a simple comment box would be the way to go. Let users decide how to use it. Let users make comments. Provide a link back to the profile of the user, what date the comment was made, but otherwise, just free-form comments.

I am hopeful that that would provide a bit of social connections. It would provide the opportunity to provide feedback. It may encourage more people to submit resources.

cartoon books of various sizes.

Ownership, Anti-Ownership, and Deleting “Your” Stuff

December 21, 2023 / / 0 Comments

…or why you “bought” it, but don’t own it.

In the “good old days”, one went to a bookstore and bought a physical copy of the book (this also applied to movies). Once one had read the book, one was free to give that to a friend. Or, you put it on your bookshelf. Or donate it to a library. You also have/had the legal right to sell the book (in order to get money to buy more books – 🙂 ). The ability to sell the book is known as First Sale Doctrine.

In the digital age, that has all changed. Legally, when you “buy” a book (again, same for movies) through an online site, you are really just acquiring permission to access it. That permission to access the “book” (or movie) will have limitations. These resources are for your “personal, non-commercial” use only (i.e. you can’t share it, or in the case of movies, show it to a group).

The landscape has changed, but the expectations of many people haven’t. Yet, this is important to note.

There are a couple of recent posts that highlight this.

The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy

This is a lengthy read that has lots of great information. The article points out that not only do you not have the right to sell the book that you “bought”, but that your behavior can also be tracked while you are reading that book.

The article points out the additional attacks on public libraries as well. Specifically, publishers are fighting online lending.

PlayStation is erasing 1,318 seasons of Discovery shows from customer libraries

This is a pretty easy to understand write up. People bought movies through Playstation. Those that did so will lose access to them. Here is the notification:

As of 31 December 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library.
We sincerely thank you for your continued support.

Discovery would like people to subscribe to MAX or Discovery+.

Between the two articles, it is very clear that the rights to media have changed. If you don’t like this and would like to see different rules, reach out to your Congressperson.

Bright Moon through trees. The moon is bright behind a cloud. A couple of trees, barren of leaves are in the foreground.

Week Note 2023-12

December 12, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Blog Photos

I usually use Labnol as a great way to leverage Google Photos as a blog post image. However, occasionally, the service just doesn’t work. It’s a free service, so there is no real concern. This was the case with the last blog post.

I try to watch the space that I use with WordPress (a habit developed long ago). I also post several of my pictures to be freely shared (usually CC-SA-NC-BY). I had a picture that I wanted to use as the featured image, so I shared that image on Unsplash.

I also shared the image on PixelFed. PixelFed is a free, no-advertising site for sharing pictures. There are lots of great pictures shared on the site.

So, I have at least a few ways to share images. There are lots of wonderful images out there that can be used. (Please remember to attribute images and thank those who post.)

Dinner with the Family

I had a great dinner with the whole family. It is so wonderful to sit down and eat with my wife and kids.

Clocks

I’ve dropped off a couple of clocks for repair. One is actually a timer. The other is a clock with sentimental value.

The clock repair person was wonderfully typical Mainer. She is passionate about clock repair, and a wonderful person. We had a nice chat about the clocks and life in general.

Target

My wife and I headed out to Target for a bit of shopping. I was pretty gobsmacked by the number of empty shelves. This was on general stuff too.

Dog Showers

Hazel got the “zoomies” and with the rain, her backyard is pretty muddy. Thus, Hazel received a record three baths.

Christmas Lights

I put up Christmas lights right after Thanksgiving. I was thinking that maybe that was a little bit early. Then the temperature hit a high of 12 degrees on the next day that I would’ve been putting up lights. So, yeah, not too early.

Email

My favorite email that I received this week started like this:

“I apologize for the delay in my response as our team has been understaffed, and my time and focus has been limited to the most urgent tasks.”

Subtext, your email wasn’t that important.

Picture of a wooden fence. In the foreground are two small trees covered with snow. In the background are many trees covered with snow. Snow covers all the ground as well.

Week Note 2023-11

December 4, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Snowy Morning

Well, we had our first real snow this morning. That meant a little bit of shoveling this morning. It was really beautiful though.

The drive to work was incredibly beautiful.

However, the power also went out (later found out it was tree-related). Not only the power, but the cable went out as well.

Christmas Decorations

We got the tree up and decorated this weekend. The first task ended up un “pre-lighting” the artificial tree as the lights that are (uh, were) tightly wrapped around the branches failed to actually light up.

Cookies

Rm and D1 had a cookie-making session. Much fun and many good cookies were baked.

A1

We ended up going out to lunch at A1 on Saturday. This meant there was no need for dinner that night (save for a bit of cheese and crackers while decorating).

Flu Shots

I had a nice long call with our insurance as I was trying to get a flu shot. It turns out that our insurance covers Flu shots. However, they cover Flu shots through medical insurance. Most common places to get Flu Shots bill through prescriptions. So, I’ve made an appointment, but it will be a while before I can get my Flu shot.

Clocks

We have a couple of clocks that need to be fixed. I had tried to fix one, but it proved beyond my capabilities. Finally, we have found a clock repair shop. I’ll be taking the clocks this week to get repaired.

Thanks

I take inspiration from Doug Belshaw, whom I’ve met but I’m sure wouldn’t remember me, and Alan Levine for their blogging, sharing, and presence. I appreciate their work and sharing so very much.

Pixel Fed Feed

I’ve finally been able to subscribe through Mastodon to my PixelFed feed. It’s little things like this that end up bringing joy. It also points to the power of open-source and Activity Pub.

Weekly Update 2023-10

November 30, 2023 / / 0 Comments

CMTC23

I’m attending (and presenting at) Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference.

Presentation

My presentation was on H5P & Me (you can see it with the link).

I like where the presentation is at this point. I’ve presented this a few times with lots of changes. It is now at a point where there is enough flexibility with solid content.

AI

Well, if there was any question at all, AI is THE topic in education. I really should’ve presented on AI at this conference.

So, naturally, I attended a session on AI. It was fine. Nothing earth-shattering, but some good perspectives.

Of course, this is why AI sessions are so popular. There is more that we don’t know than we do. At least we think so. We’re really

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The offspring were both in the house. We had a great time.

Holiday Season

The Holiday season has kind of officially begun. That is, I decided to put up the outside lights before a full frost, frozen ground situation.

Search Creative Commons

Thanks to the wonderful Alan Levine (@cogdog), I can now type gcc in my URL bar (then hit the tab key) in Chrome to invoke a search of CC licensed images.

You can too.

https://cogdogblog.com/2021/12/forcing-google-image-search-cc/

(Please head over to Alan Levine’s site to read his write up. For me, I’m posting the actual search engine code needed.)

https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbm=isch&tbs=il%3Acl

H5P Presentation

H5P Presentation

November 28, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Check out my presentation: “Open Source H5P and Me” from the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference.

Description

Learn how to find, create, and share FREE interactive digital activities using the open-source project H5P. Interactive video, Word completion, Choose your own adventure, Cornell Notes, Dictation, Put images into order, Students identifying words, Students answering verbally, and more are possible.

Below is a quick movie of the slides. This will definitely make more sense if you’ve seen the presentation as I tend to use images and talk about things.

If you’d like to check out some of the examples of H5P, you can head over to the MasterMoodle Moodle site. Click the login button in the top right. You can create an account. Use the enrollment key of CMTC23.

Weekly Update 2023-09

November 16, 2023 / / 0 Comments

AI Art

I started another AI Art session. This one is with a “challenging” class of all 8th grade boys. We’ve had a minute to come to grips with my expectations.

Bronco

The Bronco had a voluntary recall. I scheduled the service a couple of weeks ago. We arrived to drop off the Bronco on the night before. Upon arriving at the dealer to drop it off, my wife waved me over to let me know that there was still cold air coming out of the vents (we’d driven far enough for the air to have warmed up). So, I left a note on the drop-off slip about the cold air.
I got a call at the end of the day. The recall was all set, but the cold air was the issue of the water pump failing. Bad news, the water pump is on backorder and not available until the end of the month. Then, we just did one last week under an “emergency” and got the part in two days (uh oh, now it sounds like a more common issue). The timing couldn’t have been better in one respect. Apparently, the water pump led to the loss of anti-freeze. So, because of the recall, I was able to get the issue addressed without major damage.

Battery

Since the Bronco is still in the shop, a spot is open in the garage. So, out I went to move my little old Focus into the garage for a nice warm overnight stay (yea, no scrapping windows). Er, except the Focus wasn’t starting. Being old and having experience, I knew immediately that the battery needed replacement. I pulled out the Mustang and gave the Focus a jump (confirming the battery issue).

In the morning, I jumped the Focus again and headed off the fix-it shop. Upon arriving, I asked if they had time to replace a battery. (Why not replace it myself you ask? I’ve had the battery replaced once and it is tucked under the vents and crammed in.)

Winterize

I took a day to prepare for winter. The patio table has been put away. The flower pots on the deck have been relocated to the shed. Markers to line the driveway for snow removal have been put into place. Heat mats for the steps out the back door have been installed.

Kennebunkport

Every once in a while, we like to head off to somewhere we haven’t been. Kennebunkport was the choice this week.
Kennebunkport was a nice visit. We found some nice shops and a wonderful beach. Since it is after Labor Day, there were several dogs running around the beach. There was a nice coffee shop, a vinegar shop, and more.
Kennebunkport will be on our return list.

Vault

The Vault was this weekend. Since it is after Halloween, the focus was Christmas (insert eye roll here). We ended up purchasing a bi-level tray for the kitchen and a serving tray.

Kitchen

The kitchen is finally tiled. After waiting overnight for the tile to fully dry, I reinstalled the appliances:

  • Dishwasher
  • Stove
  • Refrigerator
    D1 swung by to help me relocate and “nail” down the island. After having the island up on dollys for quite a long time, the island now seems low. I’ll get used to it, probably pretty quickly, but right now it just seems low.

I still need to clean up the cabinets and refinish at least one.

Voting

This November 7th was voting day for Maine. On the ballot were eight citizen initiatives. I made sure that I voted.

Shoeshine

Since my wonderful wife and I enjoy movies, I’ve subscribed to Delphi’s Screening Room. The latest movie available was Shoeshine (1946). This is an Italian movie with subtitles.

Snow

First bit of snow this morning. Not enough to “stick”, but counts as first snow.

Week Note 2023-08

November 6, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Week note appears to truly be a misnomer. This is the first one in a while.

Kitchen Redo

The kitchen floor was scheduled for this coming week. Monday night I got a text asking if they could start tomorrow. Well, no. There were plans for Tuesday. However, Wednesday was cool to start.
So, Tuesday night I pulled out the fridge, the dishwasher, and the stove. They showed up on Wednesday. Since we picked a smaller tile, there was a discussion about the tile that we had chosen. The tile is a smaller brick style. This takes longer to install; there is more of it, more spacing, etc.
The job was planned as a three-day job. Wednesday was the installation of the backer board and prep (mostly backer board, as I had leveled the floor and removed everything). Thursday was installing half the tile. Friday was installing the next half, well, almost as there was one corner that is a tight fit between the cabinets and wall to finish. So, no using the kitchen over the weekend. We did go to D1’s house on Friday, with friends, pre-planned. Then, we went to D1’s house again on Saturday to make and eat dinner. Rm went to D1’s house to cook up some soup on Sunday.
Monday, tilers finished grouting the kitchen. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow (Tuesday) to clean up and start putting the kitchen back together.

Picture of white, bricks on a kitchen floor

Breakfast and a Show

On Saturday morning, since I couldn’t make pancakes, we went out for pancakes. We went to a local spot. We sat at the counter. The counter faces the servers and the kitchen. There was obviously a mistake made in entering another order. There was lots of discussion. A server came to get our order. More discussion between the cooks and the servers. Next, our server went into the back area and came out wearing a coat. She then walked out the door. The servers were confused and concerned. (** I truly hope that she is OK and whatever she is dealing with gets resolved.**)

Breakfast was terrific, it’s always good. I got the 2-2-2 Riverview. 2 pancakes (big as my head), 2 eggs (over easy), and 2 slices of bacon.

Screen Door

I made progress on installing the front screen door. I had to create a transom to support the door in the open position so that I could install the door hinges. I made an error in failing to account for the spacing of the hinges. This was a quick adjustment, and now the base of the door is installed. (It’s also painted, not shown.)

Front door of a house. The screen door is missing the glass panel. A ladder is in front of the doors. There are three wooden steps. There is also a drill laying on the steps.

WordPress Auto-Generated

The kitchen floor renovation began on Wednesday and finished on Monday. Due to space constraints, one corner took longer than planned. Accustomed to at-home meals, the author visited a local restaurant for breakfast while the kitchen was unusable. They witnessed an unexpected incident involving a suddenly emotional server. Meanwhile, they made progress installing the front screen door, overcoming minor errors in hinge spacing.

Tragedy in Maine

October 27, 2023 / / 0 Comments

On Wednesday evening (October 25th), an individual attacked a Bowling Alley and a Bar & Grille. The individual used an AR-15, which has no other use than quickly and efficiently killing humans, to shoot a wide variety of innocent people. Currently, 18 people are identified as having lost their lives. 18 people who won’t be coming home. 18 people who won’t be hugging their family members. Numerous people won’t be sharing stories, laughs, or hugs with those 18 people.

Thursday, news was that the perpetrator had not been found yet. Androscoggin County has been placed in a “shelter in place”. Lots of schools and businesses are closed. My school is also closed.

We’ve been practicing active shooter drills for decades. We’ve ingrained into students that someone could show up and shoot up their school. We surreptitiously essentially told teachers that we expect them to be prepared to lay down their lives for our children.

A teacher in Virginia was shot by a six-year-old. The teacher is trying to sue the school district for negligence. The school district’s response is that this is covered under “workman’s compensation” since the event was, essentially part of the job description. (Yes, in reality, I understand that this is a lot of legal wrangling to prevent the school district from paying out millions of dollars, but the underlying argument still rings to the expectation that this could happen to teachers.)

I realized that my own reaction was very different than many others. I have lived a different life. For me, this has been somewhat of a constant since 9/11. Having lived and worked in Dearborn, MI, we were under constant threat of violence. I can’t remember the number of videos that I’ve seen of “patriots” driving around Dearborn threatening “those foreigners”. Nor can I remember the number of threats to come to Dearborn to do harm. (On October 12th, there was a threat to “come to Dearborn and attack Palestinians”).

Some of my friends and former students immigrated to the United States from places where wars were common and ongoing. So their lived experience was fear of losing loved ones.

How many school shootings have we had (58 as of the moment I’m typing this)? How many mass shootings have been in the U.S. this year alone (587 as of the moment I’m typing this)?

America is pretty much alone in the type of violence. We could do something. We actually had a ban on assault rifles at one point, but Congress let it sunset. Jared Golden, one of five Democrats to vote against banning assault rifles is now coming out in support of an assault rifle ban. We shouldn’t have to wait for enough Congress people to experience firsthand the pain of attacks by an assault rifle in order to pass legislation. We can vote for representatives who will take this issue seriously.

It’s beyond time that we take action. Get out and vote for sanity.

Letters being stamped onto a sheet using a hammer.

Not being Good is Great

October 25, 2023 / / 0 Comments

I really do wish that past me had learned this lesson. However, present me is trying really hard to implement the advice here.

When Kurt Vonnegut was fifteen, he spent a month or so working on an archeological dig.

*(A rather peculiar place for a young man that would one day grow up to become a tremendous writer of science fiction.) *

He once told a story of how he was talking to one of the archeologists one day over lunch and the archeologist was bombarding him with all of the typical getting to know you questions…

“Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject?”

Vonnegut told the archeologist that while he didn’t play any sports he was in theater, choir, played violin and piano and used to take art classes.

The archeologist was impressed.

“Wow. That’s amazing!”

To which Kurt Vonnegut responded…

“Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And this is where the archeologist said something to Kurt Vonnegut that Vonnegut would later say changed the trajectory of his thinking…

“I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

Here was how Vonnegut said the quote changed him…

“…I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

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