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 not universally easy to type, but it’s easier than, say, “o03Eil5s,” and people can get here from AaronBSmith.com … hm, maybe that’s the link I’ll share.) Keep in mind that…Continue Reading “PUWT18 Presentations”
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 in to fill the void! As the name implies, scholar.social is not JUST for teachers, but anyone involved in academics. The tag line they use is “The Mastodon profile that…Continue Reading “Scholar.Social: A Mastodon Network For Teachers”
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 in on is a bit of a bonus.
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 as POSSE, or Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. Like it implies, following a POSSE strategy doesn’t forego having and using the free social media sites that are so hip with…Continue Reading “Why This Site Is Self-Hosted”
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.
It’s been a few days since I 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. This helps. There’s also a more detailed manual online, if you want to know everything. (This might not be the best starting point, though.) YouTube Video tutorials abound, though the language in some is not safe for school. I will likely make my own tutorials once I feel I have enough…Continue Reading “PICO-8 Progress”
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 think of it, that last scenario has occurred more times than I’m willing to talk about. In any case, it has a kitty in the background.
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 I wasn’t quite done. Binge Watching Isn’t So Bad. I started by taking all of the homework videos submitted over the previous week and throwing them in a folder in…Continue Reading “Getting Homework to Work, Part 2”
I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve been experimenting with letting kids grade student work. The whole journey will take more time to tell than I feel comfortable putting in a single blog post, so I’ve split it into parts. I’m not at a point where I’d say I have a perfect system, but then show me an educator who does. If you don’t want something done, call it “Homework.” It all started with my homework. All year, my Media Arts students have been…Continue Reading “Getting Homework to Work, Part 1”
The more time I spend on Mastodon, the more I like it. It reminds me very much of the pioneer days on Twitter, but without all those issues of @ signs meaning nothing, retweets being something we had to copy/paste, not having a decent phone app… Never mind that. Mastodon isn’t even the subject for today’s post. I only bring it up because today’s little gem comes from something I saw ON Mastodon. I was intrigued, so I went and looked it up. Apparently PICO-8…Continue Reading “Game Design With PICO-8”