Blathr Wayne Lorentz

What is Blathr?
Showing blathrs with the tag “Education.”

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023 Alive 18,930 days

Show me secondary education for our finned friends, and Iʼll show you a school of fish.

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Itʼs a major award!

Monday, January 23rd, 2023 Alive 18,899 days

What happens when you gamify education

It seems that I can do things.

Today I received an e-mail telling me that my Windows Server training has earned me a major award. Maybe not major. Minor. OK, itʼs a PNG.

Collecting these badges is the way nerds boast to one another these days. Kind of like the way certain birds will collect shiny objects to attract a mate.

According to the company that taught the class, I am now thoroughly stilled in the following:

  • Azure
  • Deploying And Configuring Azure VMs
  • Facilitating Hybrid Management
  • File Servers And Storage Management In Windows Server
  • Hyper-Virtualization in Windows Server
  • Implement Identity Services in Windows Server
  • Implementing a Hybrid Infrastructure
  • Implementing Identity In Hybrid Scenarios
  • Microsoft
  • Network Infrastructure Services In Windows Server
  • PowerShell
  • Windows Admin Center
  • Windows Server
  • Windows Server Administration
  • Marine welding and light submarine repair

I may have made up that last one.

A New Horizons certificate award declaration
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You get a sticker! And you get a sticker!

Monday, October 10th, 2022 Alive 18,794 days

Ooh! Teacher gave me a sticker!

It used to be said that learning is its own reward. Now itʼs all about the stickers.

The company that taught me the fundamentals of managing Microsoft Azure servers has sent me a sticker to confirm that I understand the fundamentals of managing Microsoft Azure servers. Well, not a real sticker. A virtual sticker. So it doesnʼt really stick to anything except this web page.

Iʼm not sure that making education a game is a good idea, especially for adult continuing education, where weʼre all supposed to be adults and taking these classes to improve ourselves. It seems to me that “gamifying” education only adds incentive for people to game the system. Like back in the 1980ʼs when we used to trick the Scan-Tron machines into marking every answer correct using a sewing needle. Good times.

At least I have a series of ones and zeroes that I can show a potential employer so they know that I understand (according to the certificate):

  • Availability
  • Azure
  • Compliance
  • Fundamentals
  • Management
  • Microsoft
  • Monitoring
  • Security
  • Services
  • Solutions
  • Understand Azure Concepts

Also, it states that I have been trained in “and Cost Management.” Perhaps someone at New Horizons should take a class in proofreading before publication.

Totally un-forgeable credentials
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♫ Life on Mars ♫

Monday, October 10th, 2022 Alive 18,794 days

Badge? I donʼt need no stinkinʼ badge.

Today the New Horizon online professional education organization sent me an e-mail telling me I could claim my badge. So, here it is.

What does this badge do? Not much. Itʼs supposed to be a verification that I took New Horizonʼs online classes, and document that I have awesome Python skills. Chicks dig documented Python skills like:

  • Deal with Exceptions
  • Declare and Perform Operations on Data and Data Structures
  • Define Use Functions
  • Manage Files and Directories
  • Programming
  • Python
  • Write Conditional Statements and Loops
If itʼs on the internet, it must be true

Hopefully no employer takes these little PNG files as verification of anything. But considering the way personnel departments are so overworked, understaffed, or even outsourced these days, for my next employer, I present this totally legitimate certification from Mars Academy that I am an accomplished terraformer and hyperspace navigator, grade: “Superawesome.”

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Isn't it too early for this sort of thing?

Sunday, September 25th, 2022 Alive 18,779 days

A jack-o-lantern and black cat-themed bubble nightlight

Halloween can be educational. In addition to teaching children about math (candy nutrition labels), geography (mapping out a trick-or-treat route), history (Halloween folklore), and extortion ("Trick or treat!"), it's also possible to learn about physics. The way to do that is with a Halloween bubble light.

I don't know why bubble lights went out of fashion, but showing a child that something that is boiling can still safe to touch is an opportunity to learn about the phases of matter, the elements, boiling points, and all kinds of happy physics and chemistry things.

Also, it's never too early to put up Halloween decorations — if they're educational.

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Can I be excused?

Tuesday, October 27th, 2020 Alive 18,081 days

A clipping from the Navajo Times showing children learning outside

This is what it looks like when kids on the Big Rez have to do school-from-home.

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