Blurts

For those interested in AI and AI applied to language challenges such as what are demonstrated in ChatGPT, I recommend this explanation by Wolfram. I admit it is way over my head and I became completely lost when it moved beyond generating sentences to sentences that reflect the knowledge in its knowledge base. I was exposed to matrix mathematics back in graduate school, but I did not take the calculus-based version of statistics so the determination of weights and such things are beyond my understanding. The math is just one of the issues to contemplate in machine learning. I have been looking for something that took on the challenge of explaining the AI of language understanding and production. I think I have found such as effort, but to my frustration I just can’t understand it. Wolfram has a YouTube effort to explain many of the same concepts, but he seems to explain things well but my comprehension was the same – Wolfram YouTube and Wolfram YouTube

The algorithms that prioritize what I encounter online fascinate me. How the exhaust from my online behavior can be used to determine what interests me or might be valuable to me and then is used to address these priorities seems potentially quite useful and I suppose under different circumstances quite frightening. Whether useful or damaging, how it all works is intriguing.

With Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the algorithm that determines what appears at the top of my feed has obviously changed. This algorithm is the default provided Twitter users as “For You”. I cannot figure out what the “For you” algorithm was designed to do. It now could be a direct feed from TruthSocial and it certainly is not providing content I would seek out. I am completely mystified by what about my use of Twitter would encourage this collection of misinformation. As a means to prioritize what interests me, it is a complete failure. So what is the goal?

One of the challenges facing those making a transition from Twitter to Mastodon is the variety of instances that they may find interesting. Mastodon is a federated system meaning there are many hosts unlike the single host for Twitter. You may join one instance and invest time building up a group of associates there and then find that another instance may have a focus even better suited to your personal interests. You can join multiple instances and with a little work it is easy enough to switch from instance to instance to catch up, but there is now an easier way.

Mastodeck may remind many of TweetDeck. Tweetdeck was a multicolumn twitter client that allowed a user to follow multiple inputs. Usually, the columns followed your main feed and the others followed different hashtags. Mastodeck provides the same capability for Mastodon, but also allows you to assign your different instances to different columns. This means you can now go to one site to follow all of your instances without having to manually use the preferences of a single client to switch among your instances.

Last post of 2022

I have long been a supporter of K12 technology. I think a lot of pro-tech types thought that the COVID situation of 2020-2021 and the related required greater use of technology would generate systemic change. This does not appear to be the case and there may even be a bit of a backlash. The “Zoom experience” was often blamed for boredom and what seems to be multi-month learning loss.

I have been reading a book about educational reform and Horn makes the following observation about crisis and change. Horn claims that studies of leadership during crises show that crises are great for increasing the availability of resources, but not for creativity applied to solutions. He describes what he thinks happened in educators responding to COVID, but also the newspaper industry as ad revenue was suddenly diverted to online posting. Those in leadership doubled down on what they knew and the pressure from the need for an immediate response. They put the stories that would typically go in the paper online often behind a paywall and they tried to run classes online as if they were in a face-to-face environment.

Horn suggests that studies of the response of organizations to challenges show that organizations need a separate group focused on innovation allowed to work independently from those who would normally control decisions. This separation allows a broader focus and more flexibility in the generation of suggestions.

Horn, M. B. (2022). From Reopen to Reinvent:(Re) Creating School for Every Child. John Wiley & Sons.

I have described the circumstances that led Cindy to invest in the development of Bird Buddy in a previous post. Quickly, Bird Buddy is a combination bird feeder and motion activated camera that allows the collection of the images that come to the feeder.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the Bird Buddy is that it continues to be improved even once you own one. This comes about through software updates. First, the company improved the battery life. Now, I find that our device can record video. Here is the first recording – a female and then a male Northern Cardinal.

I have made the effort to create several posts about this product because some have continually complained online about the product. First, there were accusations that the company was ripping off those who had invested. I don’t think people understand IndieGoGo and similar ventures. If you invest, you are not guaranteed of anything. You may receive a product if the product materializes. In this case, there is now a product and you can purchase it through multiple sources, but there were no guarantees in the beginning.

They there were complaints about the battery life, the failure of birds to use the feeder, and the failure of the device to capture images. It may take some time for birds to find a new feeder. You learn this if you have fed birds before. The other issues may involve assumptions about how far you can position the feeder from your house and the wireless access required to control the feeder. Other problems involved not understanding how to install the updates and the battery life. This last issue has been improved with updates, but the battery life is an issue. Even with the solar panel, the a charge may be exhausted in a couple of days. Not a huge issue for me, but be warned when making a purchase.

What no one complains about is the quality of the images (and now video) that the device generates. I am completely satisfied with the value we have received for our investment.

I write a lot about the specifics of notetaking. This may not be the ideal way to present notetaking to K12 educators looking for an overview to guide their classroom presentation of notetaking skills to students. I encountered a post authored by Jennifer Gonzales that provides an overview that probably communicates in a more efficient fashion.

Among the specific topics considered is the offering of instructor notes to scaffold learner notetaking and strategies for collaborative notetaking (the sharing of notes between students). Instructor notes and collaborative notetaking are reasonable ways to develop student skills through modeling and through comparison with the content peers record. Since both strategies in my experience are unusual, the article is worth a read.