My wife bought a Mac Mini toward the end of college that has been sitting in our basement pretty much since we went to Korea in 2009. I've been wanting to do something with it for a while and with Flickr changing its accounts, now seemed like a good time.

I was looking for photo sharing alternatives to Flickr, mostly because I can't afford a pro membership and I'm already over the 1000 photo limit being imposed in January. I came across [Lychee](https://github.com/LycheeOrg/Lychee/), which is essentially single-user, self-hosted photo management. (Check out their [demo site](https://ld.electerious.com/) - it's pretty impressive). My home photo collection could also stand being backed up somewhere more consistently, so my goal is to convert the mini into a self-hosted photo sharing site so I can continue to post out on the web and have a backup at home.

*cracks knuckles*

I set up in the dining room and got started.

I have to say, it was pretty amazing plugging in this computer, which hasn't seen use in nearly a decade, and watching it boot up as if I had used it yesterday.

Tonight's fun is transferring old photos from a much-neglected Mac mini and then installing Linux. pic.twitter.com/U4bbG7ShFp

—Brian E. Bennett (@bennettscience) November 15, 2018

Macs have [long-had web hosting built right in](http://www.macinstruct.com/node/112). Apache and PHP are included by default and it's easy to install MySQL for databasing. I was hoping to go the easy route and just use the default tools. LOL.

Lychee requires PHP 5.5+. The mini (late 2006 model) has PHP 4.4 and Apache 1.3 installed. No good. I started searching for [ways to upgrade both](https://jeromejaglale.com/doc/mac/upgrade_php5_tiger), but the recommended site with ported versions for old copies doesn't exist anymore.

So, I grabbed another Mac for more efficient Googling. There was also beer.

The command center is fully operational. pic.twitter.com/3ScrhI76da

—Brian E. Bennett (@bennettscience) November 15, 2018

The best option, I think, is to boot into Linux rather than OSX 10.4. So, I started researching Debian distributions that would work on older hardware. My plan was to wipe the entire hard drive and dedicate it to server resources. When I landed on the Debian wiki, they had a page specifically for older, Intel-based Macs. This line caught my eye:

The oldest Mini (macmini1,1) is typically the most problematic, due to bugs in its firmware. When booting off CD/DVD, if there is more than one El Torito boot record on the disc then the firmware gets confused. It tried to offer a choice of the boot options, but it locks up instead.

That's not good. I have two choices: I can partition the drive to prevent losing the entire machine or I can go for it and hope that the OSX recover DVD I have in the basement still works. (I'll probably partition, just to be safe.)

Luckily, two lines later, the Debian wiki notes that specific builds are now available which only include _one_ boot record, which solves the problem. [A quick 300MB download of the Mac-specific distribution](https://cdimage.debian.org/pub/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/) later and I'm ready to burn then disk image to a USB drive with [Etcher](https://github.com/balena-io/etcher).

Next steps are to actually do the Debian install.

an element is anything that needs to be learned or processed and the interactivity relates to how reliant one element is on other elements for comprehension.

Source: Element Interactivity in the Classroom

I was first introduced to working memory by [Ramsey Musallam](https://twitter.com/ramusallam) and I've pulled it out every now and then in workshops with teachers. The idea is easy to grasp, but hard to put into specific practice when planning.

I'd never heard of "element interactivity" either, but this is - hands down - one of the _most_ approachable descriptions of how to adjust planning and instruction to account for cognitive limitations with novel or complex material.

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_Featured image "Dandelion Seeds" flickr photo by thatSandygirl https://flickr.com/photos/thatsandygirl/34111155501 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license_

When taking the necessary in-depth look at Visible Learning with the eye of an expert, we find not a mighty castle but a fragile house of cards that quickly falls apart.

Source: HOW TO ENGAGE IN PSEUDOSCIENCE WITH REAL DATA: A CRITICISM OF JOHN HATTIE’S ARGUMENTS IN VISIBLE LEARNING FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A STATISTICIAN | Bergeron | McGill Journal of Education / Revue des sciences de l'éducation de McGill

Hattie's effect sizes are often thrown around as catch-all measurements of classroom methods. This reminds me of the learning styles discussions from several years ago. Both of these approaches have the same critical danger: reducing teaching and habits to single styles or single measures of effect is bad practice.

The idea of learning styles or effects on instruction are fine, but not when presented as scientific fact. A statistical breakdown of Hattie's effect sizes shows the clearly, as evidenced by this line:

Basically, Hattie computes averages that do not make any sense. A classic example of this type of average is: if my head is in the oven and my feet are in the freezer, on average, I’m comfortably warm.

Aggregating each category into a single effect size calculation disregards all of the other confounding variables present in a given population or individual. Learning styles has the same reductionist problem. In the mornings, reading works better for me. By the end of the day, I'm using YouTube tutorial videos for quick information. The style changes given the context and the idea of a single, best style ignores those context clues.

Use descriptors and measurements with care. Recognize the deficiencies and adjust for context as needed.

“We are helping them become more knowledgeable about what the digital landscape is like,” Mr. Hodgson said of his students, “so they can make choices about what they use and what they don’t use.”

Source: Google Is Teaching Children How to Act Online. Is It the Best Role Model? - The New York Times

The Times article on Google's "Be Internet Awesome" campaign does a great job of outlining why programs like this are needed, but not from companies who benefit from users within the program.

I tend to lean toward Kevin's (Mr. Hodgson) approach to teaching about the Internet: it's complex and you need to be aware of what you're using and why. The same is true for teachers. When I'm asked about apps or websites, I encourage them to read terms of service, privacy statements, and other conditions, especially if they want to use the thing with students.

Cutifying the practice of using the web wisely makes it exciting and easy to get into, but it's also easier to gloss over the deeper practices we should be teaching our students.

(Be sure to check out Kevin's blog for more of his writing.)

---

_[Conduits for Textbooks (and more!)](https://flickr.com/photos/wfryer/6997193539 "Conduits for Textbooks (and more!)") flickr photo by [Wesley Fryer](https://flickr.com/people/wfryer) shared under a [Creative Commons (BY) license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)_

Twitter made a UI change this week with it's card-styled link previews. It's subtle, but the changes have hurt accessibility and hurt the end user.

Twitter allows branded sites (anyone can do it, but brands use it the most) to create "cards" for links they post which include media previews, bold headlines, and a snippet of the article or post text. This gives the user a preview of what's in the link before they visit. The cards used to function like normal HTML `anchor` tags and included alternate text (the small popup when you hover your mouse) or showed the full URL of the link.

Since earlier this week, all of that is gone and it's led to some frustrating limitations.

First, headlines are cut off. And the alt text is gone from the mouse hover action.

[caption id="attachment_614" align="alignnone" width="312"]A shortage of what? Cold drinks?[/caption]

All browsers show URL paths in the bottom of the screen before you click on them. Twitter short links (t.co) would show first, but then resolve into the full path after a second or two. Not anymore.

[caption id="attachment_617" align="aligncenter" width="357"] Why is this less accessible?[/caption]

The top-level domain shows, but that's all. Does this link take me to the registration page? Or to the article? Or neither?

Really, Twitter is making it harder to know what you click on, asking you, the user, to trust them, the company, to show us what we need to know. This update does nothing to help the usability on a platform that has done little to increase transparency and improve the quality of the platform for users.

[video width="1440" height="900" mp4="https://blog.ohheybrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/twitupdate.mp4"][/video]

Aside from trying to be as productive as I can every day, listening - truly listening to people - has completely changed my coaching. Elena Agular talks about listening at length in The Art of Coaching (well worth the read, btw) and since I've made the conscious effort to listen first, I've seen fruits.

I stopped going in with preconceptions about progress or willingness to try new things. One unfortunate carryover from teaching is that I have expectations about specific teachers. So and so is hard to work with or this person will never change...I had shut down any possibility of working productively before I even walked in the room. Meeting people with the intent to listen rather than talk erased those expectations and allowed for positive conversations.

My ability to help people has increased. I don't limit this statement to technical help, which is certainly a component of my work these days. Asking questions and listening for context clues has allowed me to look beyond immediate problems and solve deeper issues, or at least identify issues to work toward solutions.

Summarizing the problem before offering solutions is critical. I stopped taking my computer to meetings with teachers because it leads to distractions. Or, if I do have it, I don't open it until we're working on a specific item. While we're talking, I have a notebook. I'm quietly making notes, looking for patterns and letting the teacher express their frustrations, ideas, or concerns without interrupting. I ask probing questions - "Why did you feel that way?" or, "What did [this thing] help you learn about your students' understandings?" - to draw out reflective thought. Before I start to talk, I take one minute to process my notes and state back, in my words, what they're experiencing. This catalyzes the rest of the conversation and helps us work together.

I can loop back to previous conversations and push toward growth. Since I have detailed notes (completely confidential notes) I can look back to previous meetings and probe next time we're together. Looping back to gently push toward growth on goals is easier because they're the teacher's own ideas. I'm there as a processing tool, not as the Owner Of Solutions.

In the end, I want to make sure I'm helping people in ways they want to be helped. I want to push them professionally by talking honestly about teaching - why we do what we do - to promote growth. If I can't understand what they're saying, it's a fool's errand.

Reflected Rocks flickr photo by Stanley Zimny (Thank You for 32 Million views) shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

Source: The role of the faculty in the post-LMS world (opinion)

I don't work at a university, but we're in the process of moving teachers into using Canvas in our district, so this resonates. I see two groups of people:

• those who already had material online and are struggling to work backwards (essentially) to fit items into Canvas.
• those who have nothing online and are struggling to make sense of what works well digitally and what doesn't.

The LMS is a weird stepping stone. I've had materials online for years, so I don't like the constriction an LMS brings to what I've done in the past, but I _do_ appreciate the streamlined data I can grab from the system (I need to write more on using Outcomes in Canvas later...)

For the second group, it's a great intermediate step and I'm already seeing people look for more online on their own. They want to push the system now that they understand it more. They're seeing the benefit if using the Internet as a whole and not limiting their courses to the flow in Canvas.

Striking the balance between structure and variety is difficult. I'm not sure the LMS will ever completely go away, but I can see the influence waning as skills develop and alternatives becoming more accessible to teachers.

Source: If We Don’t Allow A Redo, What Are We Teaching? – The Teacher And The Admins

Still in my standards-based grading vein, this is inevitably the biggest sticking point for teachers I work with.

"What do you mean they can retake the test for full credit?"

Mentally, we can agree with the argument that redoing work or retaking tests makes sense in the scheme of student learning. The hold up, I find, is more with the work involved in making those opportunities reliable and valid more than the mental exercise of finding value in the habit.

There are ways to allow students to reassess work that does _not_ include sitting an exam again, which opens more possibilities for authentic learning and demonstration of mastery.

Remember, though, that grades should not be used as rewards. Nor should they be used as affirmation, compensation, or validation. Grades should represent an honest report of evidence at this moment in time, nothing more. If we make them something more than that, we undermine the student’s maturation and any useful purpose for grading.

Source: Fair Isn't Always Equal: Three Grading Practices to Avoid

I'm working with several teachers on moving toward standards-based grading and we're starting to have conversations about grades themselves. I ask how they feel about zeroes, extra credit, completion, and makeup work. This article is a great primer and/or followup to those initial meetings.

Turning this around (also mentioned by [Will Dunn later in the thread](https://twitter.com/Willmdunn/status/1044592375526510593)), what would happen if we taught a lesson or went through an activity _without_ positing the objective and then have students state the learning as an exit ticket or closing discussion. What insight could we glean?

Intentions are important, but implementation is harder.

H/T to [Darren Burris](https://twitter.com/dgburris) and [Dan Meyer for showing up in my timeline](https://twitter.com/ddmeyer/status/1044426373425586176).

I've never heard of the Asch Experiment, but this video is worth watching.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA-gbpt7Ts8[/embed]

[Kaplinsky's article](https://robertkaplinsky.com/psychology-classroom-discussions/) gives some good classroom ideas on how to avoid groupthink in student responses, even highlighting the Desmos teacher view to anonymize responses (which _also_ works [outside of math](https://blog.ohheybrian.com/2017/04/desmos-in-science/).

During student teaching, questioning was the first thing my training teacher worked on with me. I was prone to asking, "Who knows..." which left the door open to zero responses. Moving to direct questions, "What is...?" or "How does...?" removes escape. I also recall another great post (I can't find it now) about leaving uncomfortable silence after asking a question. Letting several hands go up in the air allows for discussion as you can call on more than the first student.

Mixing Kaplinsky's ideas with leaving room for responses is a great way to help students feel comfortable with replying, even if they disagree with others.

[Read the original article here](https://robertkaplinsky.com/psychology-classroom-discussions/).

It's appropriate to write a back to school post nearly a month into the school year.

I took Twitter off my phone back in July in an effort to put my phone down more often. It had become too easy to lazily open and scroll when my interest waned. That bled into time with my kids, and that wasn't cool. I suppose I could have just "worked on my self control," but I'm more of a "pluck your eye out if it causes you to sin" kind of person. Cold turkey it was.

July bled into August which has raced into September. My phone is still Twitterless and I'm feeling more connected to my teachers and schools _here_. The social-edu world had eroded my sense of here-ness...I felt beckoned by people I've never met face to face. My desire to help and engage with the digital friends overrode the drive to get to know people here, now.

By extension, because I was online less, the blog has also cobwebbed up a little bit. I can't write volumes like [Alan](https://twitter.com/cogdog) but I don't want to lose steam here entirely. Finding a balance has been hard. I need to write for me.

The evolving role of coach has pushed me to talk less and listen more. I think that's why I haven't really missed being online. Wanting to write, up until this point, feels like more of a drive to not waste the space than to share insight. Or maybe it's more that sharing insight shouldn't be the driving factor of having space on the Internet. Hubris kills just as quickly as stagnation.

Now that we're back, I'm planning on listening a lot. I'll probably do some processing here, in prose, just because it'll help me work through my own habits and thinking patterns. But I plan on listening more than talking.

Twitter still won't be on my phone.

I've decided to fire up a new, static website to reflect on books I read this year. In all honesty, much of this is bring prompted by my grad school reading, but my reading list is also expanding for once classes are done and putting longer pieces together in response have helped.

Anyways, I have two up right now:

All books will be listed on the homepage, [sum.ohheybrian.com](https://sum.ohheybrian.com).

I'm in some grad classes right now and in one, we were assigned to discuss, "Does building relationships with students really matter?"

Prior to the discussion, we watched Rita Pierson's TED talk and read two articles: The Post on differences between white and black poverty and a piece from mic.com on white poverty in America. (Both links are to annotated copies of the articles.)

My unedited response to the discussion thread is below.

I must admit, I've started and restarted this post several times this week.

Of course building relationships matters. If we neglect to build relationships, we are missing a fundamental aspect of teaching and learning. Regardless of culture, our species is reliant on relationships with other members. We are predisposed to bond with other people from birth through death. Teachers are in the unique position of spending more time with students than anyone besides their parents, which leads to relationships in some capacity.

Fostering positive relationships will help lead to emotional and mental stability that students, especially students of poverty, are often lacking. We get into dangerous territory when relationships become the only support mechanism for the poor instead of improved services and social programs. In the Post article, the plan to open affordable housing in wealthy neighborhoods is only hindered by the free market and social biases. There is nothing stopping housing developers from lowering rent other than their own bottom lines. Poverty can be combated with solid public education, but to really change the landscape of American poverty, we need larger social change.

The support offered by teachers is critical, but so is support from school counselors and social workers. Since those services are underfunded (or nonexistent in some schools) teachers are left to figure it out on their own. Recently, the 'grit' narrative has taken hold, which is can lead to less obvious, yet counterproductive, results. Jensen (2016) and Kidd (2013) note that most poor families work more than their wealthier counterparts, so teachers encouraging students to get through their issues with perseverance and a belief that they can do better with harder work perpetuate the misconception that the poor are lazy. Students already working hard will be reluctant to form genuine relationships because grit places the blame back on the student, not by recognizing root causes.

Building positive relationships takes more than goodwill and a focus on mindset. Seeing students as people with real needs and real challenges is critical. Recognizing that our life circumstances do not reflect many of our students' builds empathy and allows bonds to form.

Our septic system needed to be upgraded, so we took the hottest weekend of the year (so far) to do it. My wife's dad and brother spent the day with me on Saturday digging large trenches to bury leach chambers. We redid all the plumbing. We plowed a new, larger garden and cut down some nuisance trees.

I've also learned about navigating the permitting stages with the health department. Good news is that I'll never need to do this again.

Earlier this year, I wrote up a really bare-bones blogging system I called [Pico](https://blog.ohheybrian.com/2018/04/pico-a-tiny-blog/). It's a Python app that reads plaintext files and publishes them to a website.

Well, something in serverland changed and now they're not loading. My experience with server configuration is nil, so I'm going to proclaim those two sites dead. It makes me a little sad, but they were also just proof of concept.

[The code lives on GitHub](https://github.com/bennettscience/pico). If you're someone who likes to poke, give a poke over there.

You might not have noticed (or you might have...who knows) but this site is now back on WordPress. I had shifted to Jekyll back in December for the speed and security of static pages, but I ended up writing less, and I didn't like that. So, it's back to WordPress.

_Most_ pages should be working correctly. There will definitely be problems with embeds (images, etc) and I'll be working through those over the next several weeks (years?).

Post categories and tags are also messed up and I'll be reindexing those as well. The search bar on the right works, so stick to that if you're looking for something specific.

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_Featured image [Monopoly](https://flickr.com/photos/randomwire/4219093814 "Monopoly") flickr photo by [randomwire](https://flickr.com/people/randomwire) shared under a [Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)_

I wrote this as a post to a discussion forum for grad school. It seemed fitting to post on the blog as well. It’s a response to a children’s story called ‘The Rag Coat’, in which a poor girl’s coat made of rags tells stories about everyone around her.

I’m not really a journaler; I do blog regularly, but it usually isn’t about life stuff. But, I always have a notebook with me. It’s a habit I picked up from student teaching, mainly for doing quick reflections on lessons I taught or observations of my host teacher. She really helped me establish a habit of reflection that started with pen and paper. Every year since then, I usually go through a full notebook.

They’ve become unofficial journals; memories elucidated by lesson plan ideas, to-do lists, and trip packing lists. I can pinpoint the spot in a notebook from 2013 when we moved back to the United States from South Korea. I’m reminded about recommendation letters I wrote for students who are now out of college (and some with kids of their own!)

There’s the notebook where the writing switches abruptly from a large project brainstorm to HR managers after I lost a job unexpectedly.

There’s a notebook with baby nursery lists as we got ready for each of our daughters.

Writing things down - even little things - has become my norm. It helps me connect with teachers, who see me as the “tech guy,” when they wonder why I still have paper and pen on hand. It bridges gaps caused by fear and apprehension of change.

I’m looking forward to finishing this year’s notes.

Featured image is History flickr photo by bennettscience shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

Campus Technology published an article last week about a biomed course that saw mixed results from flipped instruction. The full article is open access (CC-BY 4.0) and available to read. I’ve read and annotated the original article and I’m going to distill a couple of points from bot the published report and the CT article.

More of my life is run in plain text. I don’t really use word processors any more (other than Google Docs for work) because they’re heavy and not really compatible across various devices. So, I’ve gotten in the habit of writing in a text editor (Atom, at the moment) and syncing across devices with Git or Dropbox, depending on the circumstances.

I’ve also been trying to do more with Python rather than relying on JavaScript. I don’t always have an Internet connection, and you don’t need a connection to be productive with Python.

The third element in this perfect storm was looking at my site access logs. I moved this blog to Jekyll back in December mainly because I was running out of hosting space with WordPress. I don’t really know how to do crazy database stuff like Alan or Tom, nor do I need to. I also saw a ton of failed login attempts on my WordPress site (thank goodness for strong passwords), so I decided to go databaseless with the switch. It’s hard to hack plain HTML.

This is what birthed the idea for Pico.

Pico is a tiny blogging engine written in Python that reads plaintext files.

Jekyll is great for complex site structure, but it requires the site to be regenerated (pagination updated, categories and tags indexed, etc) each time you publish a post. What if you want something smaller?

Pico is written in Flask, a templating engine written in Python. The core is similar to Jekyll: a script reads data somewhere and renders it in templated HTML. The main difference is that Pico does that when the page loads from straight text files rather than rendering the site beforehand. The idea is that you can write a post somewhere with minimal markup and frills and have the browser do most of the work. Styles are minimal and the source files are kept to a bare minimum. It even has RSS!

You can see a demo of the site if you’re curious and grab the source and see some of the technical information on GitHub.

DSC_0146 flickr photo by bennettscience shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license