Panegryic Passages
 purging disasters
from surging sensory
 induced fools
who let loose
abuse and praise
chasing juice
as New Jacks
attack
attempts to
 circumvent 
monopolistic
 power

as the goose quill 
spllls and laws
take flight
we bound
sin in skin of
 Anser atavus
in placcid answers
to Gaggle at

Inconvenient Existence
chasing a  false
brilliance in  face of 
persistent resistance 
to spews of 
incomprehensible
 evidence cast
at distant audiences.
A subsistence on nonsense
in hope of another
remittance. A Pittance for pestilence
at Providence of
Incompetence

Yeah that super secret deep state activist controlling the Biden article….mmmmmmkay Larry.

www.foxnews.com/media/wik…

When
  first 
flower blossoms
begin to fall,
petals caught 
in a 
wind,
you hear the dog's
howl
  songs
  for
Galia spilled
 in pages of
tears
 Notes who soak
into  soul
so our beloveds
can frolick again

#smallpoems

What if
  my friend
Did not charter
a Funeral Dirge
 "Phenomology of Spirit"
But shipped
 a manuscript
with my OG intent
an etymology of
"Systems of Science"
would history be 
  different?

#smallpoems

Shape of a Story Week II

In week one we looked at the shape of popular media and myths. I then asked you to look at the text structure of common texts you come across in college

Here are two brief overviews to wrap up what we learned in week two. If you use text structure well in College you can cheat in every class:

• skim any research article and identify the text levels of the headings. Organize notes this way
• when you write , always prewrite, turn your outline levels into your heading levels

these two hacks will 100% raise your grade in all your class that require reading and writing #edu106

How is Quantitative Research Organized archive.org/details/q…

Intrpduction to Quantitative Research Text Structure archive.org/details/t…

Fellas
 develop
medicinal plates
of ceramic pfp
enhancements to allow
minimal enchantments
of liminal
 distate
in fates of info 
spaces dripped
 in
  subliminal
hymnals 
sung in
 criminal
tongues through
 imbecile debates
of truncated
  principles
Ostinatos of
emaciated
 play dough
  reshaped
to rape, and reap
hate
  in disinfo spaces
disgraces in 
    cadence
nested in
  cradle of
     tonality
serving
  festering ladles
dripping in pronounced
nonsense
  sipping on the
soup of my enemy

Calling #writingcommunity looking for few volunteer poets. Help raise $$ for @U24_gov_ua to get kids in #ukraine tablets for remote and bomb shelter learning

Do something like our poetry port: bit.ly/3CZ3lsm

Make a donation, get a poem and #nafo fella with day’s word

Hello friends

Just sharing the Day 5 #NAFO pfp we are auctioning off as part of the Advent Calendar Fundraiser. Feel free to reply to this post with a bid,.

Winner selected tomorroe 3 pm CET/2 pm UTC

East Haddam Chess ub with the kids

An example of political satire. Earlier online we were discussing the role of satire in online political speech. Someone was trying to discuss the focus of what people often refer to as the “demographic problem” in Russia.

This was my quick example I wrote as a satire News article

Earlier today a new sensation gripped Russia as citizens everywhere celebrated our historical foundation and the liberation of four Oblasts who faced Western Satanic demise choked by EU and NATO.

Roses of Reunification, a new hit Reality TV show from RT, matches Russian women with strong Russian men, formerly known as Ukrainians, liberated from Oblasts under attack in NATOs proxy war to destroy Russia.

Roses of Reunification presents men of strong Russian, formerly known as Ukrainian, stock to women of Russia. Women who lost cowardly weak men who became Western agents and abandoned Mother Russia.

Each week lucky Russians take a cruise over the Dniper River and have a luxury stay in a hotel. A Russian woman then gets a chance to interview three men for a chance at making Russian babies. Bonus shows can include a secret Russian child liberated from Ukraine as a party gift for the live studio audience.

Then legions of fans vote on VKonkante picking a couple who will make most beautiful of Russian babies. Winning couples marry in a Season Finale and get new property in our Glorious and historical Caucus Mountains. A luxury property recently freed up by fodder left in Donestk.

Lady GreyFoam, in this exclusive report, has learned Roses of Reunification has support at the highest levels of Government.

The hit show has full backing as a long term goal to address Western schemes at depopulating Russia. "Due to influence of foreigners our women have 0.4 babies to Finland's 0.8 babies," noted Olga Golodets, Chairman Commission on Minors’ Affairs and Protection of Their Rights. She continued, "The Ministory of Defense can plan to equip a 0.8 man. Most Russian conscripts have lost some kind of body part, but we need more than a 0.4 soldier."

Roses of Unification was launched as a brainchild of the 143 Service, a specialized unit in the Intelligence Information and Spermatic Glorification through Unification of the Federal Security Services of the Russian Federation. The unit now lead by Colonel General Segery Beseda deals with demgographic challenges in Russian Federation.

"We had so many weak men turn their back on Russia. When mobilsation was announced cowards fled to our borders. Now we have liberated strong Russian bears held captive by Kiev. Russian women can not seem to get enough of these liberated war heroes freed in newly annexed territory," commented, Besada. "True Russians, from Ukraine," said Beseda.

Russians can not get enough of the TV show or online fan discussions. "You see the #OblastBearRide hashtag everywhere" said one woman, "I can not wait to get a Ukrainian, I mean, freed Russian, to replace my Vatnik of man."

Roses of Reunification airs every week. The show gets carried in 14 languages and is available on RT, OAN, and Fox Business News.

regrets of reason
   form prisons in our minds
treason of thought now
torn
fraught with futures
once
defined 
  doors behind
bars of delusion casting
illusions of
  freedom
Reasons of
regret
#smallpoems

Hoping to see Judge take the record.

Your #phishing training needs to focus on increasing thinking not converting silly KPIs of phishing tests.

Focus more on Awareness of “Think before you click”

Make employees aware of how your filter works Train your employees on your SPAM folder Train employees on you quarantine process Train employees to never share credentials in an email Train employees to never share credentials

If a phishing email reaches an employee upstream defenses have already failed. It is not the users fault for clicking on the link.

Most phishing tests are an assessment of writing quality of the attacker and not vulnerability of employees.

Instead of playing Gotcha Ball to raise KPI scores teach people the kinds of email to ignore and train them often on your company email policy and procedure.

MouseBrain by jgmac1106 licensed with a CC-BY-SA. A a remix of: “Alas, poor Yorick” by byzantiumbooks lnkd.in/eBFj6cMv is licensed under CC BY

Ben Werd

Gentrification as a Service and Don’t even make the term sheet would be great titles for your social equity and design book.

We had a hipster trailer park open in my town. Bought an old 4h camp. People pay hundreds a night to live in a trailer park while others scrape up that much for a month’s rent in real trailer parks.

You can even pay extra for a cellphone lockbox outside to help you “disconnect” (don’t tell anyone there is barely any service anyways).

But the disconnect to community happened already. Look at the rise of plus 55 housing to meet affordable housing set asides. People wanted all the taxes and none of the children. Now school budgets are decimated and active communities going bankrupt.

Flow city. Maybe this is how Racoon City started. Worst case you get an idea for a dystopian novel.

Remix of Internet Archive Book Images lnkd.in/gMN8VDHn is licensed under CC CC0

“Self” by Magdalena Roeseler lnkd.in/gFJSM8Yu is licensed under CC BY

and

“Binary.Ring, Gallery of Computation” by jared lnkd.in/gkYWiuj7 is licensed under CC BY

The next sticker in the design. A remix of This one a remix of “Invisible” by mondi lnkd.in/ent9Fvmp is licensed under CC BY

Never been a fan of 21st century skills. Beyond the fact we are a fifth of the way through., the term never resonated. I must admit, I even added to the hype; publishing a set of skills using the latest trope of alliterative “C buzzwords” in a white paper and then a special issue on 21st Century Learning. More so, Ian and I have taken a stab at “measuring” these “soft” skills through research into self-report instruments.

We need to think of 21st Century Skills as practices of pedagogy rather than of performance. Instead of focusing on the learner we need to intentionally design the learning space to cultivate these practices.

The term “21st” century skills is dated. The Internet has seen more birthday candles than the students who walk the halls of our schools. The web outdates many of the teachers as well. We need to prepare students for the future not catch up to the past.

Instead of 21st century skills I think about our networked society. Castells and Cardosa discussed the need for self-programmable learners. So instead of the consonance of constant change, I tried to think about what the “soft skills” (stop calling them soft) people would need to be a self-programmable learner in a networked society.

No. Performing arts are not “soft skills.” #et4online #snarksplaining pic.twitter.com/InblUm2P0b

— Kris Shaffer (@krisshaffer) April 23, 2015

+many for dropping “hard/soft” skills cliché. Talk to any performing artist about how hard their skill is #et4online https://t.co/GuRpauD7s3 — Alan Levine (@cogdog) April 24, 2015

I settled on: create, communicate, think, lead. I then wanted to start thinking about a map. Actually the thinking about the map started first. It lead me to the four practices found in participatory learning environments.

I was reading an article by Paul Deane on “Rethinking K-12 Writing Assignment” when he discussed competency models as a “detailed map of the skills that should be assessed.”

The infographic is great. So many layers of meaning in so few words. It also “mapped” writing in a way that I had never really seen before.

I was also, of course thinking about the Web Literacy Map and the working group efforts to release a second version of the Map. If you have been following the developments a series of focus group interviews is being conducted. Reading the questions being asked it seemed many people are trying to answer what are “21st Century Skills” we are trying to teach.

I am beginning to wonder if that is the right question. Maybe we should be asking, “What practices should our learning spaces require and reinforce?”

Choosing Practices

I settled on these four practices because they are essential to self-programmable learning. I dropped collaborate because learning never occurs alone. We are social animals and I believe in many ways our humanity begins when behavior must conflict with instinct. When we run simulations in our mind, delay gratifications, weigh consequences, and consider others we become human.

I then placed a series of practices in concentric circles. I was intentional in my design hoping the practices grew in scope and impact on society.

I then looked around for the types of choices and practices I would want to see in participatory learning environments.

I lifted the entire Create category from an etherpad published by the Web Literacy Working Group. It is cool stuff. Gets at the whole design thinking thing plus puts a focus on making.

The Communicate practices are a mix from the Dean article and writings about rhetoric, reading, and writing.

The Lead category is something new to me. Garnder Campbell sparked my thinking around leadership and learning. The recent focus on leadership in the Mozilla Learning Networks has also honed my though.

In the Think category I dropped critical. Maybe its my natural aversion to totally useless and unnecessary modifiers. I find them redundant and repetitive.

Part of it is just plain confusion. If I can think critically when do I think uncritically? When do I use my dumb thinking skills? Instead critical thinking usually refers to a specific subset of processes and practices. Yet these subset of competencies changes if we are talking Spache’s critical reading or the camp that grew from the Frankfurt school and Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

I went with Think. You can Think Different, but just think.

Levels of Engagement

I then played with the idea that each circle represents some level or characteristic of learning. I tried using two dollar words like enculturation. I attempted to sound like the cool kids by using in words like affinity spaces.

Nothing work. So I tried to settle on simple:

self->others->Mes->Us->-Everyone

Not sure if this works though. Still I would rather us invest time into ensuring are learning spaces afford the agency for these practices to be built rather than spending time and treasure chasing variance in scores.

What are Affinity Spaces?

I finished the next design in my cybersecurity awareness sticker series:

I wanted to do a quick backstage blog post on how I made the image.

The Brainstorm

The idea in my head always far exceeds my abilities or the available content I can use to remix. In my mind I wanted to try and capture an eye that had to watch streams and streams of data.

I had this vision of an eyeball that was half Kit from Knight Rider and half Sauron. I was trying to think of what would a vulnerability scanning sticker be like?

I searched around Flick using a ton of different keywords. I settled on these two images below.

<a title=“Image from page 657 of “New Physiognomy : or signs of character, as manifested through temperament and external forms, and especially in the “the human face divine.”” (1889)” href=“https://flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14779947114">
<a title=“Image from page 657 of “New Physiognomy : or signs of character, as manifested through temperament and external forms, and especially in the “the human face divine.”” (1889)” href=“https://flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14779947114">"Image from page 657 of “New Physiognomy : or signs of character, as manifested through temperament and external forms, and especially in the “the human face divine.”” (1889)" by Internet Archive Book Images is licensed under CC0

“Laser Scanner Art (24/365)" by Lars P. is licensed under CC BY

Preparing My Sources

I really liked the spooky look of “New Physiognomy : or signs of character, as manifested through temperament and external forms, and especially in the “the human face divine.” That dude totally just checked out someone’s System Security Plan.

I zoomed in real tight to grab just the eyeball.

I then opened up the laser image as a layer. I tried to match up the contours in the pattern with the eye. I then increased opacity on the laser so it came through. I couldn’t get the linear landscape I wanted to traverse and cover the entire base image but it made a cool line (the one in the upper right)

Cheating in Canva

I went to Canva. I love Canva. I can do much of what I do there in Creative Suite but it will take me 10x the time as I might be learning and designing.

At first, I tried to match the original tone of the base image in the background, but this created a really weird cut-off corner with a bleed.

I had to revise

Revising Media

I then went back to Pixlr. After a bit of experimenting, I decided to copy the base image four times and stretch and rotate it to my own designs. I put one in each corner and tried to line it up with other elements.

Finalizing

I then went back to Canva and wrote the phrase “Be Aware” using the “letter elements” these are empty shells you can drop other media into.

I then added the laser picture to each letter and moved it around until I funkified it the way I wanted

New Cybersecurity sticker designs

Failure will happen. I look at the five attempts it took for me to carve a Knight as a minimally viable piece. Took five tries. Probably well over a hundred hours.

I did fail. I did not celebrate it. I did take the risk again. The next attempt always matters more than the first in learning.

Even Piaget, in simplified terms, defined learning as a series of overcoming “crises.” Yet I feel educators put too much stock in the revelry of failure in maker spaces.

We need to create environments where every learner feels safe to fail but more importantly focus on the community needed to lift each other up.

Why We Celebrate Failure

I understand why. We must encourage an acceptance of failure to create the psychological safety innovation systems need.

Our schools suffer as systems that often can reinforce bias in the STEM fields. Nowhere is this more pronounced than risk-taking. Society has long reinforced risk-taking in males with “boys will be boys” and perfection in females with “sugar and spice and all that is nice”

Our classrooms both reflect and reinforce this bias. Grade anxiety is much more prevalent in females. Large numbers of those who identify as female and engage in self-harm report stress of grades as a cause. Correlations exist between eating disorders and need for perfection.

Beyond these horrid cases, we can often see this in office and board room dynamics. Male applicants will see a job posting, meet none of the required qualifications, and say, “Nuclear engineering, how different can it really be from burger flipping? I will apply.”

Often, and there is data to support this, women may have every qualification but miss one specific preferred skill and not apply.

You can perfection bias see it in planning meetings where the same voices often get amplified and other voices and good ideas may get lost. How many times are young females devs pushed into project management and not engineering?

You see perfection bias in the gender inequity in pay negotiation. Women will not take the risk, nor get rewarded if they do, in asking for higher salaries. Data proves this.

We still see, though demographics shifting, more males entering STEM fields. A field that requires exploration and risk-taking.

Beyond just building a culture where women can feel safe from workplace sexual harassment and violence we also must fight the narrative of perfection.

So we celebrate failure

Getting up Matters More than Falling Down.

Failing stinks. I hate it. I still expect it. I also do not face the same forces trying to knock me down as women in STEM fields. Sharing failures online comes with less risk to me.

I think instead of clapping when we fail, we should work as a society to help lift each other help. We must be intentional in the systems we design to make sure all the voices get heard and all the ideas explored. Create spaces where people can fail and provide feedback to succeed.

You can’t leave a winning idea on the table if the words never leave her mouth.

Expect failure. Celebrate growth. Curate a community of intellectual risk.

He chimed in;
confidence saught
yet
 potential fraught
hidden behind a tenacious
shudder
and a flicker
of misgiven honesty
#smallpoems
#mastoprompt
#catchingup

Three quick badge designs

Recently Doug Belshaw asked about the badge designing tools available in issuing platforms and if AI will play a role in these designs.

The badge designing tool is often the most requested feature by people but for developers one of the most expensive to develop and maintain.

I used to struggle with this as well. I see two pathways: -Commodifying Design -Niche High-End Brand marketing

I just use Canva to make badges. Plenty of templates and I can download the SVG. I can upload my logos and build a brand kit. I do not think any badge issuer should invest heavily in badge-building automation tools.

For organizations focused on branding there will be boutique design shops. I have seen some sick designs. In the end, most companies will not invest in the Design of credentials if they invest in credentials at all. That being said as credentialing grows brands will start to see the ambassador roles of badges. Some may, and many do, pay six-figure design budgets as part of a campaign.

Here are three quick “prototype” badges I made. They took less than ten minutes for the three.

I used wombo.art, an AI drawing tool, and used the phrase “keep badges weird.” Then I chose three different styles.

I then fired up Canvas. I selected a badge template. I added a circle frame. I uploaded the training cards from wombo.art. I moved them down to see the title of the badge.

stream.jgregorymcverry.com/uploads/2…

stream.jgregorymcverry.com/uploads/2…

stream.jgregorymcverry.com/uploads/2…

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