Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Category: digital storytelling

  • Attention is Everything All At Once

    I’ve been basing grades in my classes on what I call Attention Units (AU=gold, get it?). Since studying 37.5 hours over a semester (15 weeks, 90 min class and 45 homework) is not measurable for proficiency, and because I run a class with a lot of individualization (personalized, differentiated), I can’t measure them on a specific set of language points or skills. I also find I can’t accurately measure how hard they work, which is a common fallback for language teaching. That leaves me with Attention, a more specific aspect of the “working hard” school of grading. I believe, especially these days with mobile and online learning, that this has become a viable option, both for measurement and curriculum. Let me explain.

    Some research about attention and it’s sibling, ignoring.

    Via Kottke and How to weather the storm.

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  • Attention Grabbing by Mr. Beast

    Mr. Beast of YouTube fame is expanding his empire with a new game show. This is a review of the show, complete with a short history of how Mr. Beast got there. A good lesson for where are attention is being guided. Take back control, folks.

  • Curipod beats Kahoot

    I just discovered Curipod, a lesson creator with AI feedback built in. It looks like a valuable tool more suited to language learners than Kahoot. I like the flexibility of customization while there is a good lot of lesson templates. For now, it looks like short writing sessions can set a scene for discussion.

    Oh, and most of the functions are available for free. Sadly, if you want feedback to student writing in a non-English language (something my students would actually read), you have to negotiate school or district pricing, which I have not looked into yet.

  • Eraserhead

    I remember the velvet, slick with age, and the ashtrays at the end of the arms on the creaky seats in an also run theater in the barrio Chino of Barcelona. I remember being high as hell on a new batch of hashish from the kid brother of a friend. I remember being both scared and fascinated at the same time. We decided not to stick around for the second feature, we wanted to go out to a bar to talk about Eraserhead. That was my introduction to David Lynch.

  • New TTS Tool. Open Source

    This TTS (Text to Speech) tool from Kokoro (early development) is an early look at what I will probably use to create short listening passages from content my students create, or that I create. It works really fast (60x live speed, this clip took less than 5 seconds).

    Here is the Text:

    It was late autumn in Cedarville, the kind of day where the air smelled like wood smoke and the leaves were all shades of orange and gold. I had just run into Nakayama at the old diner by the train tracks—the one we used to hang out at after football games in high school. Nakayama was still the same as ever, wearing that beat-up denim jacket and grinning like life was one big inside joke.

    “Didn’t expect to see you here,” I said, sliding into the booth across from him. He had a cup of coffee in front of him and one of those little plates with a half-eaten slice of pie.

    “Yeah, well, life’s funny like that,” Nakayama said. “I was just passing through, thought I’d stop in for old times’ sake. You still living here?”

    I nodded. “Yeah. Figured someone should stick around and keep an eye on the place. How about you? Still playing music?”

    Nakayama shrugged, looking out the window at the empty street. “Not really. You know how it goes. Things don’t always pan out the way you think.”

    And here is the Speech: