Educator, Thinker, Consultant
I happen to know someone who wrote a thing that is publically available as an Open Access article.
https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.20268
I’m pretty proud of the author. Give it a read.
An issue came up where an Athletic Director needed kids to be able to “book” a bus. The AD started out using Google Forms, but this quickly became onerous. Too much information to collect. Too many days to cover.
After describing what was actually needed, I suggested using Framadate. This is a really neat site that is privacy positive.
Framasoft will not use your personal data, except for statistical purposes (anonymized) or to notify you of a significant change in the service;
Framasoft will not transmit or resell your personal data (your privacy is – really – important to us) ;
So, I set up an example and shared it with the AD. Since the “time” field is just a text field, I was able to add additional information (basically the location). This creates a view where the parent can enter the kid’s name and then pick the dates they want to use transportation.
The Admin gets a full list of the responses AND can download a spreadsheet if needed.
There are several settings available as well.
This allows users to “change their mind” as plans change.
Potential Issues:
While Framadate was not truly designed to be used in exactly this use case, it does work really well. It is a great resource.
Good googly, moogly, I need to rename this thing. This is only post 14, while my weekly photo challenge is 45 images.
Last week was a tough week. The election did not go the way that I thought (hoped and prayed) it would. The next four years will be tough.
I won’t spend much time on this, but we did reach out to many people who will be even more intimately impacted than us.
The brush for our vacuum cleaner broke. No problem in this day and age of the internet and everything being available, right? Wrong. Much searching led to, well, nothing. The part simply isn’t available. I did find a phone number to actually call Kenmore, wait, did I just say a phone number? Yes, yes I did. No online opportunities here. I made the phone call, waited on hold, then got to talk to someone. They don’t have them, but may be ordering soon. So, I have an order placed and will hope for the best.
Apparently, “everyone” is leaving Twitter, er X, for BlueSky. I’ve had an account on BlueSky, but I don’t really post there much. The thoughtful Cory Doctorow recently posted about not investing in other platforms that lock you in. I don’t want to invest in another platform as well. Seriously, go read the write-up by Cory Doctorow, lots and lots of good stuff in the write-up. I don’t want to have to move stuff. I want control over my data and what is happening with it. Thus, I’m trying to follow POSSE.
POSSE is Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. Thus, I write here and then push those posts to Mastodon. Well, now I’m going to add BlueSky to that push. I’ve installed a plugin to make that happen, so we’ll see how much troubleshooting I have to do with that.
Oh, and I officially completely deleted my Twitter account. I had been holding off to retain my user name.
There was no podcast last week. There won’t be one this week either.
I’ve done a good bit of prep for winter. I’ve put away the table and chairs that were on the deck. The boat has been nestled away.
My wife has created some beautiful stained glass work. I’ve framed the latest one in an oak frame. I learned a bit about the framing process and hope to apply the knowledge in the future.
This was a wonderful weekend. We went to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the Portland Opera House. The original 1920’s version was accompanied by the Kotzschmar Organ. It was a fantastic experience to see the movie as it was originally intended, with an organ (or orchestra) providing the soundscape for the movie.
We also headed off to see Tammy Faye. This was Rm’s Birthday Surprise. We had a fantastic dinner and enjoyed the show.
I do note that “dressing up” doesn’t seem to be a thing for Broadway shows. I still like to dress up a bit and enjoy the show, but I was definitely in the minority.
The class that I’m taking is getting close to the end. I’m taking a class on Teaching the Exceptional Student for my recertification. The class is a remote class delivered through Moodle. I’ve completed most of the requirements, with a couple of weeks to go.
My streak on 52Frames has continued. I’ve now posted 43 pictures. Most of these are cross-posted here as well.
Driving in to work, I had the idea of reaching out to a couple of friends that I don’t see very often. The idea was to share a song of the day, something that I’m listening to that they may not be aware of. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe they wouldn’t want to be bothered or interested. Then I thought, but, ah, if they were willing to get it… So, I’m starting a Quote and Song of the Day project for my blog.
…And, after about a week, it is on hiatus. It seems that I’ve got a bit too much going on right now.
I was tasked with creating an Advertisement that would run in local movie theaters. This allowed me to refresh and expand on my Davinci Resolve skills.
All I can say about the Presidential race is that I can’t belief that it is a race at all. This should be so simply obvious.
Oh, Hi. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been able to complete 42 weeks of the 52Frames Photo Challenge, but here we are. This week, I really wasn’t sure of my submission.
I reached out to my mini-group, and they voted for the picture below. Their comments included that this one met the challenge better and was stronger in technical aspects: focus and centered subject.
I like the shell, but I was leaning toward one that told more of a story. This was my second choice.
I submitted the shell as I do agree that there is something missing about the lobster trap. I like the story, but I think that the framing could have been better.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Cory Doctorow has a wonderful write up about RSS (You should be using an RSS reader).
I’ve long used RSS to follow the news (and other things). I tried to look up when I started using RSS, but couldn’t find a hard date. Given my remembrances (and a quick search on Middle School Matters), I would posit that it was around 2008. At first, like so many things, I didn’t get it. However, I quickly learned that instead of checking a variety of websites, I could get an RSS feed to see only the things that changed. This saved me tons of time.
With the advent of Facebook and other social media, many people have relied on social media to provide news. That means being at the whim and decisions of Mark Zuckerberg or another billionaire.
In the meantime, I have continued with my RSS feed. I have many different categories that I follow, a couple are educational, a few are humor, a few are sports related, a couple are Apple related, and comics.
One of the main points for me is that I like to read the comics. As a kid, I loved the comics page. As an adult, well, I still loved the comics page. As newspapers started going away, I wanted to continue with the comics. RSS allows me to do that.
GoComics provides an RSS feed for their comics. Originally, I created a single comics feed. That was a bad idea as if I wanted to add or delete one, I had to recreate the whole feed. Plus, if something broke (remember that was the early days). Later, I learned to create a feed for each comic. Now I can add or remove a comic quite easily. I currently have 90 comics that “come to me”.
Personally, I use NetNewsWire as my RSS reader of choice (with Feedly to keep everything in sync). Read Cory Doctorow’s write up though, he has some additional suggestions and thoughts. (NetNewsWire has a long history. It is available for iOS, Mac, and iPad. It is open source, free, and wonderful).
RSS is even more useful now than ever. Mastodon and BlueSky both are RSS feeds. (Podcasts are RSS feeds unless they are locked up on a big company site – like Spotify or Amazon). Cory Doctorow makes a great point that many sites do have RSS feeds (though some sites are locked down behind paywalls).
Go read You should be using an RSS reader by Cory Doctorow. If you are interested in comics and would like my feeds, let me know. RSS is easy to share.
I’m a big fan of Fredrik Backman’s books. Every single book that he has written is awesome. (Not all of them are *easy* to read as there can be a great bit of powerful emotions included).
While checking to see if there was a new book coming out by Mr. Backman, I happened along a speech that he gave. This is four minutes of pure joy.
The 52Frames challenge this week is Panorama.
I stopped in Hallowell on a sunny morning. The sun was bright, but I like the clouds reflecting in the river.
I tried to use the Hugin plugin, but that wouldn’t open. I switched to the AutoPano Gigi plugin and successfully created the Pano. I’ll need to play around a bit more, but I can definitely see creating more Panomaras in the future.
Here are the slides that I’ll be presenting. I do not use slides as speaking notes, rather as a touchpoint. Thus, many of these slides may not be helpful on their own.
I’m presenting “Thanking Your Past Self – Documentation Tips” at ACTEM 2024: Empowerment, Equity, Engagement on October 10th at 1:00 p.m. in the Howard Auditiorium.
Troy Patterson
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