OTR Links 10/20/2020


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Why are we doing this?


It’s a question that every teacher has had to answer way more than once.

Because I told you so

It’s good for you

Both seem logical but they may well have worn thin as those are the answers often given at home as well. Well, at least around here.

It may well be that this question is being asked by parents of students who are doing at least part of their work online. Some, even more than that.

For those using Google products, Google has produced a TechToolKit for parents and made it available here.

In the document, it addresses:

Each of these sections can go a long way toward demystifying all the jargon that can come into play with technology use.

Photo by Niclas Illg on Unsplash

Now, it’s obviously Google-centric and not everyone works in that world or even solely in that world. It seems to me that this is a good model for school districts, schools, or individual teachers to use as they look to further communications between home and school about just what tools are being used to work with students.

There’s even a consolidation at the bottom of the document of a template that could be used in email communication to get the word out.

Does your district or do you communicate clearly in this manner with your parents? Do you have a similar resource to share?

OTR Links 10/19/2020


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My Week Ending 2020-10-18


My apologies for this post going out at 5am this morning. It was all operator error.

Here’s a summary of some of the things I learned and published this week.

Readings 

You can follow my daily readings as they happen here.  Below are a selected few, with commentary, from the past week.

Sunday

  • Could Microsoft be one of the companies that’s leading the way with its plan to let people work at home permanently?
  • I think that everyone should be monitoring global maps of the Corona Virus outbreaks. No one country can solve the problem by itself.

Monday

  • I’ve just given up and don’t look at the processes running in Chromium browsers any more. I’m a coward.
  • This is great news for teachers that are using Google Meet to have online classes with students.

Tuesday

  • Apple fanboys will get excited to sell last year’s iPhone and buy this year’s. Me? Pass.
  • An interesting and timely message about the difference between how the United States and Canada select judges for the Supreme Court. Maybe if we had more drama, we’d be more interested.

Wednesday

  • OK, more Apple stuff and how one authored explained the huge price and rationalized why it’s a good idea for the HomePod Mini.
  • I guess this is one thing that we don’t have to worry about here – paying for delivery of takeout. We just go and get it.

Thursday

  • This would really have been interesting. I watched the video and Alex Trebek did indeed look lonely.
  • You’d like to think that safety would be something that would need to be done before it’s available for sale. It’s done for cars; why not for tech?

Friday

  • Of course, nothing is ever resolved in the days of COVID. Now, there’s a change in change dates in the TDSB.
  • To quote my former secretary “Someone needs to be fired.”

Saturday

  • Sadly, I don’t see a conversation with my Microsoft friends in the new future. This would be part of the discussion.
  • I’ll probably test this and write a blog post about it. I can hum a tune with the best of them.

Blog Posts on
doug … off the record

My daily contributions to this blog are linked below. If you’re looking for a week in review for doug–off the record, you came to the right place.

#FollowFriday – October 16, 2020

https://wke.lt/w/s/5Tv6GY

voicEd Radio

On this week’s show, Stephen Hurley and I chatted about back to educational cages, portable classrooms-not, room design, changing, and awesome Grade 7 students.

The show is available here: https://voiced.ca/podcast_episode_post/flexible-agile-and-positive/

  • Paul McGuire – @mcguirp
  • Jen Aston – @mme_aston
  • Larissa Aradj – @MrsGeekChic
  • Kelly.McLaughlin
  • Diana Maliszewski – @MzMollyTL

Intro Song:

Dedicated to the month of October

All of the podcasts are archived here. The show is broadcast LIVE every Wednesday morning at 9:15 on voicEd Radio.

Technology Troubleshooting

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

For my birthday, my wife gave me a set of Jabra in-ear headphones. They’re perfect for dog walking and extremely well reviewed. They’re even higher rate than Apple Airpods whose claim to fame is active noise reduction. The Jabra features passive noise reduction and the reviewers rate it higher than the Apple product.

Apparently, Jabra is going to upgrade us all to active noise reduction over the air for no price. I’m excited to see if it actually makes the listening experience even better.

Fingers crossed.

Video of the Week

Recently, we lost one of the good ones.

Photo of the Week

Sometimes, you’re just in the right place at the right time.


Thanks for reading.

Please join me daily for something new and, hopefully, interesting for you. I honestly and truthfully appreciate your few moments reading my thoughts. Time willing, this summary appears every Sunday afternoon.

Be safe.

dp

This blog post was originally posted at:

https://dougpete.wordpress.com/

If you find it anywhere else, it’s not original.

Whatever happened to …


The PoP Shoppe?

Ramona Meharg of “I Wish I Knew EDU” fame sent me this picture Friday…

There was two things of note here.

First, her Hallowe’en fingernails.

Secondly, Lime Ricky from the PoP Shoppe. I hadn’t seen this is years!

Lime Ricky was actually my favourite flavour (it’s like drinking a legal margarita in public) from this place which was a business franchise in itself. You can tell that this is Canadian – our friends from the south might call it SodA Shoppe or those from way south the CokE Shoppe. I’m doubtful that Eddie Shack would have been involved that far south.

This throws me back to when purchasing fizzy drinks was an art. You didn’t just go into their store and pick up a cardboard case of one flavour. They had these neat red and white plastic carrying cases and you could pick and choose the ones that you wanted. I always got lime and I remember my dad always going for Cream Soda. You’d throw in some Cherry and then assorted others.

Then, all of a sudden, the product seemed to have gone away. But, Ramona found some for sale in Talbotville at Picard’s Peanuts (a favourite stop in itself when we’re in the London area) and was kind enough to share the picture. The Lime Ricky and peanut lead to a nice chat with Ramona.

According to their website, they are available for sale “everywhere”. Maybe I’m just going to have to look a little harder; these days we look for what’s on sale locally and pick up a case of cans. Would today’s kids even know how to get into a bottle drink with a cap on top?

How about you, dear reader, for a Sunday? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

  • Do you remember the PoP Shoppe?
  • Can you buy PoP Shoppe products where you live?
  • Do you have a favourite flavour?
  • At their website, they indicate the challenges for their company appeared during the “Cola Wars”. Of course, the two biggies in this war are Pepsi and Coke. Do you have a preference?
  • I suppose that one of the big advantages of moving to cans is that those that throw garbage out onto the road don’t break glass bottles. If you look carefully at Ramona’s picture, you’ll see that the top holds a twist cap. Before that, you had to have a device to pop the cap. Do you still have one? In the days before twist tops, beer bottles had to be popped open with this device that had a nickname. Do you remember the nickname?

Thanks, Ramona for sharing this picture and the link to the PoP Shoppe website. I was blown away when they indicated that they had 26 different flavours at one time.

This post appeared on:

https://dougpete.wordpress.com

If you read it anywhere else, it’s not the original.