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Ethics and Learning Technology

It’s great to hear from Dr. Chuck Severance again. I took many of his Python courses on Coursera and find him to be an excellent instructor.

In this short video he addresses privacy and LMSes and how schools pay little attention to privacy issues regarding their LMSes. He mentions how the vendors control all the data, and we have been pushing the priority of ethics and privacy concerns back.

I admit that in my classroom I didn’t know how private my students’ personal data truly was. I just trusted in the companies that hosted the LMSes (D2L, Google) that they would not abuse the information nor use it in unethical ways.

Did your school board address student privacy when it considered which LMS to use? Is its privacy policy or privacy study public? Please share!

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Converting Lists of Data to CSV — Using a Colab Notebook Hosted in Gists

I’ve really been enjoying learning about data analysis lately. Part of what’s made it so enjoyable is the use of Colab, which is Google’s version of Jupyter Notebook.

I came across a need to convert some lists of data to a CSV (comma separated values) format so I could paste it into a Google Sheet. Not finding anything online to do I decided to write my own, and here is the product.

The Colab notebook I created has been saved as a “gist”, which is GitHub’s cousin for fast and easy file storage service. The Gist website is also very popular for sharing CSV files, which this search will attest to.

You’ll notice an “Open in Colab” button at the top, which is how you will open the document. A really nice feature is that it is fully usable without needing to save the file anywhere, but for those that do want to save their work, they can, into Google Drive.

When you first run it, you’ll get a scary message that was written by Google’s lawyers. You’ll see from the source code that the notebook’s not doing anything nefarious, so just trust me and click on “Run Anyway”. 😆

Google Colab Warning

This is a preview of the notebook. To open it, click here or on the filename on the bottom left corner of the preview.

Some Python programmers may want to remind me that I could have used Python’s built-in CSV library, but I felt Pandas would be faster, especially for large lists.

I hope some of you find this useful, although I’ll be happy if it gets some of you interested in Colab for Python programming or for data analysis, or even if it just introduces you to the Gist website.

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Integrating Google Drive into Google Colab Notebooks

Why might we want to integrate Google Drive into Google Colab? The primary reason for this would be to easily access data files to use in your Colab notebooks. 

Here is a video that outlines the basic process. For written instructions, see below.

Integrating Google Drive into Google Colab is quite simple. The first step is to go to Google Colab, then open a new notebook.

Continue reading “Integrating Google Drive into Google Colab Notebooks”
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Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day 2021

I always have the annual Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day marked in my calendar, but sadly often miss it due to extenuating circumstances.

But not this year…

I started my journey in Port Robinson where I saw this abandoned bridge. I had the camera, a Nikon D750, mounted on a monopod which helped stabilize the 1.5 second exposure. I submitted this image to the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day exhibit, even though I took some others that I also liked.

Moving to a path in the woods next to the bridge, I then took this abstract image of some small trees and bushes. It didn’t start out to be abstract, but a gust of wind hit me just as I was taking the 2 second exposure which resulted in the motion blur. Normally I would have deleted the image but in this case it worked!

Next I set out along some back roads looking for suitable scenes. This one suited me fine:

As well as this one:

Overall, I think it was a successful day. In past years I’ve gone out and maybe only had one photo I was willing to share. It’s a very hit-and-miss process because you really don’t know how they will look until you get back to your computer to look at them enlarged.

In my case though, the process is much easier than many other photographers because I’m using a digital camera with a pinhole adapter. Many other photographers use homemade cameras with film that of course makes the process much more complicated.

Here is the pinhole adapter that I used. As you can see, the adapter replaces the lens so the pictures are taken without a lens!

If you’d like to see other photos that were submitted by Canadian photographers, visit here.

 

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Snippets #4

 

Welcome to the 4th in my series of “snippets” blog posts. See here for previous ones.

GitHub and Macs

Are you using GitHub and on a Mac? Here’s an excellent .gitignore file you can use that will keep all those pesky ._ files out of your repository:

https://github.com/github/gitignore/blob/master/Global/macOS.gitignore

Need to Record System Audio Using Camtasia on a Mac M1 Computer?

Setting up to record system audio using Camtasia on a Mac M1 computer is a bit of a nuisance. See here for the instructions:

https://support.techsmith.com/hc/en-us/articles/360055945312

Data Analysis Content in the Ontario Curriculum? 

My tweet:

https://twitter.com/pbeens/status/1374460114241921028

There were lots of responses! You can check them out here.

Keyboard Shortcuts on a Mac

I recently bought a new Mac but my Mac keyboard shortcut skills are quite rusty. This page has helped me immensely to get back in the groove.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario reports record 4,456 COVID-19 cases, 21 deaths; 1,513 patients are currently in Ontario hospitals due to the virus, with 605 in intensive care

It’s pretty sad that Canada’s per-capita rate of Covid is higher than the US. Please, stay home everyone, and get vaccinated as soon as you’re eligible.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/04/11/coronavirus-covid-19-updates-toronto-ontario-canada-april-11.html 

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Your Moment: Getting You Ready for Retirement (OTPP Retirement Planning Webinars)

Join the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) for a virtual presentation to learn about one of your most important financial assets: your pension.

You have been contributing to your pension throughout your career. Now that you’re thinking about retiring, find out how this asset fits into your financial picture.

This interactive and informative presentation will provide you with everything you need to know about preparing for retirement, and what to expect throughout the retirement application process.

You have 10 dates to choose from. Each presentation will be the same, so please choose a date below and click on it to register. Each session is about 1.5 hours with a Q&A session. Two days before the date you selected, you will receive another email with information on how to join the virtual presentation.

March

April

May

Source: OTF Mail List