As is apparently tradition for me, I’m presenting two sessions at this year’s Powering Up With Technology Conference. (My first presentation at PUWT was … 2006? 12 years ago? Wow!) Rather than give long and difficult to type URLS for my presentations, I thought I’d share them here. (Yes, I am aware that “academicaesthetic” is …
Author Archives: theartguy
Will This Be Graded?
Let’s talk about assessment. … OK, now that I’ve scared off any random students who’ve managed to find my website, let’s have an honest talk about assessment. Grades in one form or another have been a staple of education for a very long time indeed. With the push to quantify school quality through standardized testing …
Scholar.Social: A Mastodon Network For Teachers
I wrote a short time ago about how I really liked Mastodon and thought teachers should give it a try. At the time I’d settled on a home server but lamented that there was no instance (each Mastodon server is called an instance) set up specifically for teachers. Well never fear, because scholar.social has stepped …
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Adam Savage’s “Sunday Sermon” at Maker Faire 2017
I’m growing more and more certain that everything Adam Savage touches turns to gold, even the things that fail spectacularly. For years, now, Mr. Savage has been giving a  short talk at the annual Maker Faire. They are full of inspiration, encouragement, and awesomeness. This year’s talk is no different. The giant ant he rides …
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Why This Site Is Self-Hosted
Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr (the list goes on…) are (or have been) extremely popular, in part because they’re free, but also because they’ve reached a “critical mass” of users. I know many people who only use Facebook because their friends and family use Facebook, for example. Separate from this is a trend known …
5(ish) Photography Lesson Ideas
Lesson ideas: Take 100 unique shots of the same item and/or in the same location. (The first 50 or so will likely not be so good. After that, students will be forced to think.) Photograph something being made (Lego sculpture, a meal, a painting, etc.) with the camera in a different location in regards to …
Test Quality
As I write this, a lot of final exams are being given and/or graded. Mine are actually due today, and internet use isn’t an option, it’s a requirement.
PICO-8 Progress
It’s been a few days since I Â started messing with creating content in PICO-8, so I thought I’d document my journey so far through the magic of bullet points. There’s a programming cheat sheet. Â This helps. There’s also a more detailed manual online, Â if you want to know everything. Â (This might not be the best …
It Shouldn’t Be Hard(er)
Taking a short break from long blog posts to give you this little tidbit I’m fond of saying. Note that this doesn’t specify who’s doing it wrong. Sure, it MIGHT be you, but it might be a student, administrator, or even the person who designed that bit of technology in the first place. Come to …
Getting Homework to Work, Part 2
Yesterday  I started documenting my efforts towards making homework enjoyable enough for my students to actually do it for a change. By the end of that post I’d set up a weekly assignment where students made a video series as if they were YouTube stars. There was a definite increase in participation and quality, but …