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Today a family member asked me whether I use the Telegram messaging service.

My answer: “Technically yes, but not in the way you assumed when asking this question”.

The full explanation is simple. I do have the Telegram app installed on all my devices, but hardly ever use it to communicate with other people.

However, I have one main contact I use daily: a bot named Telegroam, which I use to send ideas and information to my Roam Research graph.

This looks very promising:

As a result of the non-standardization of blocks, our end-users suffer. If someone is using my blog engine, they can only use those blocks that I had time to implement. Those blocks may be pretty basic or incomplete. Users might want to use a fancier block that they saw in WordPress or Medium or Notion, but my editor doesn’t have it. Blocks can’t be shared or moved around very easily, and our users are limited to the features and capabilities that we had time to re-implement.

To fix this, we’re going to create a protocol called the Block Protocol.

It’s open, free, non-proprietary, we want it to be everywhere on the web.

Teaching online with the cameras turned off

This tweet caught my eye this morning:

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Not wordle, just a zoom class.

The issue of turned off cameras in zoom classes is, as many other issues, nuanced.

I have been on both sides in online workshops and can sympathise with both the teacher and the students.

A student might not have the fancy videoconference gear I have, nor a nice background. Maybe they are in their bedroom, maybe there are other people around… They simply are trying to protect their privacy.

As a trainer, I have only once faced a completely blacked out camera grid while giving my workshop and it was hard.

Without any visual o audible feedback, you don’t know whether the participants understand you, whether you have the right rhythm and speed, whether the participants air high in energy or need a break…

However, a good training, whether online or in person, is interactive. The days of the teacher giving a masterclass have long gone. Nowadays we know that learning takes effort and time together is valuable. If a teacher uses this valuable time only to pass information, he or she could better have recorded a video or send the information in written form. Being together does add nothing if there is no interaction.

Rather than passing information, a teacher should use the online session to answer questions, to work in groups on assignments, to discuss…

When the session flows and is interactive, the lack of turned on cameras will be no issue anymore.

And as a last resort, you can also ask a colleague to connect to the session with the camera on, so you hace at least one face to talk to.

I’ve got sooo many questions after watching What does single women do after work? (hat tip: Frank Meeuwsen). This woman lives on another planet!

  • What does the device she put in the water with cherrie tomatoes do?
  • What does the ‘Hello Kittty’ style device on the water tap in the bathroom do?
  • Why is there no device to cut the lettuce? (Just kidding 😜)
  • Does the knife block automatically clean her knives?
  • What does the green beeping device in the fridge do?
  • Why would you watch a movie on your phone when you have a huge screen available? (I know, this is a typical question for somebody my age 🧓)

My biggest frustration playing Magic: The Gathering is randomness: those occasions I can’t play because I don’t get any land or because I only get land.