Author: Chris Aldrich

I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.

👓 The need for speed: Google dedicates engineering team to accelerate development of WordPress ecosystem | Search Engine Land

Read The need for speed: Google dedicates engineering team to accelerate development of WordPress ecosystem by Michelle RobbinsMichelle Robbins (Search Engine Land)
Google's partnership with WordPress aims to jump-start the platform's support of the latest web technologies -- particularly those involving performance & mobile experience. And they're hiring WordPress experts.
Contributing back to the community is an interesting way to go, though I’m curious how readily the community will pull the pieces back, particularly into core. This is certainly a better modus operandi than attempting to press forward on AMP technology.

👓 The MoviePass Tips You Need to Know | Lifehacker

Read The MoviePass Tips You Need to Know by Patrick Allan (Lifehacker)
MoviePass, the almost all-you-can-watch buffet of movies on the big screen, is a pretty sweet deal at $9.95 a month. But what if I told you that deal could be even sweeter? We’re talking scoring free popcorn, guaranteeing tickets to brand new releases, and easily avoiding the most common problems. All you need is the right tricks.

🔖 PressForward in the classroom

Bookmarked PressForward in the classroom (pressforward.org)
Do you want to work with students to publish class assignments or research? Instructors use PressForward in the classroom to consolidate and review student assignments, help students learn to survey their fields, and create opportunities for collaboration, communication, and research. The Lewis & Clark College Environmental Studies Program produces Environment Across Boundaries, a student-led publication that cultivates interdisciplinary perspectives on environmental issues. Participation gives students an opportunity to engage with their discipline through experiential, project based learning. They develop skills both in their field and with a suite of digital tools.
An interesting use case for PressForward: creating a “planet” website to aggregate and/or showcase work of students in an entire classroom who are all posting content to their own separate web spaces.

Sketch idea: create a standalone WordPress site for a course, install the PressForward plugin, input the RSS feeds for students’ websites to aggregate all their work collectively into one space. Various ideas include:

  • Use the feed for students and teacher to keep up with the entire classroom.
  • Publish an OPML file for students to easily subscribe to all feeds in their feed reader of choice.
  • Optionally publish the highlights of the best work or even all of it.
  • Teachers could use the feed to check that students are posting/keeping up with assignments for grading purposes.
  • Use the read/unread functionality to “mark” pieces as graded/ungraded or seen/unseen.
  • Use the internal commenting system to keep private notes on student’s work.
  • Create output feeds for specific tags and/or categories
  • Works with any student sites that produce feeds, not just WordPress, so students have choices of different CMSes.
  • Use the nomination functionality to quickly aggregate and disseminate online sources for classroom assignments or readings.

I had contemplated planet like aggregation at the recent WPCampus online conference. It’s interesting to see that PressForward has considered it as a use case as well though I’d love to hear about or see examples of this in the wild.

How else could this rich, multi-functional Swiss Army knife-like plugin be used in education?

Cartoon diagram with a funnel collecting content from sites like YouTube, WordPress, Drupal, Blogger, RSS being aggregated into a single computer-based website.
Diagram of PressForward functionality as a content hub or “planet” courtesy of PressForward.org

🎵 “Natural Blues” by Moby feat. Vera Hall

Listened to Natural Blues by Moby feat. Vera Hall from Play (on Mute, V2)
"Natural Blues" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the fifth single from his 1999 studio album Play. It samples "Trouble So Hard" by American folk singer Vera Hall. It was first released in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number 11. The song received remixes by Paul Oakenfold, Mike D, Peace Division, Katcha and the Olmec Heads.
https://open.spotify.com/track/6hmtNel4OKlBpBcTO7ao3o

🎵 “Find My Baby” by Moby

Listened to Find My Baby by Moby from V2, Mute, EMI
"Find My Baby" is a song by American musician Moby, released as the ninth and final single from his 1999 studio album Play. It features samples from the song "Joe Lee's Rock" by Boy Blue.
https://open.spotify.com/track/0dI4mHGU5PgjoU4Ogay1Bp