Matt’s Notes
Thanks one and all for checking out the EnT today!
As mentioned in the notes for… cough… the episode AFTER THIS ONE… I’m putting in the necessary elbow grease to get a VERITABLE TRIFECTA of episodes out the door… primarily so that I don’t have to think about them anymore! And uh… you know, positive motivation as well… stunt production… mumble… mutter…
AND: we’re all about the WordPress in education with this episode! Perhaps unsurprisingly, we have opinions!
Rest in Power, Steve Albini! (1962-2024)
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Steve Albini would have no use for this podcast whatsoever! And that’s OK! #stevealbini #ednontech
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Somewhere in the recording of… the next episode!… the term “stunt production” came up!
It’s not the first time I’ve resorted to such tricks in the course of these podcasts… and, wretchedly, it won’t be the last. As much as it’s a drag in the moment, it’s always a tad… exhilarating… when it finally comes together and you can… PUT THE WHOLE DANGED ENTERPRISE ASIDE AGAIN… which is, for me, crucial to mental/emotional wellness… to say nothing of the creative process generally… DOWNTIME, folks… never doubt its importance for healing and growing stronger!
Anyway, that’s probably better saved for EPISODE 56… which you should also totally check out! But, you know, I’m pretty biased…
So… a few things that have been keeping me busy… or occupying mental and emotional real estate! You say potato… I say… SEA CUCUMBER… er…
Rest in Power, Steve Albini
It’s hard to describe the effect it had this week.
For sure there is absolutely no direct connection between myself and this person. And yet, he’s touched dozens if not hundreds of my favourite recordings… stuff I’ve listened to, in aggregate, many hundreds or thousands of hours over the years…
So… on the basis of nothing more or less significant and “impactful” than that… I’ve spent even more time in the “musical zone” mentally and emotionally than normal lately… definitely SAD is the lesser emotion to awe… at how productive and impactful and consistent one can be when committed to a vision of anything… and the general fragility of human life, generally… my parents are both still with us, thankfully, both closer to Steve’s age (61) than to mine (nearly 46)…
I think of Steve as a kind of generational figure. And he would unreservedly deny that. His hating the fuck out that sentiment is probably not out of the question either…
Nirvana: In Utero
This album landed like a tonne of bricks.
I have a distinct, though largely composite, memory of Art class in the fall of grade ten… where I sat with a couple of rad dudes from that year… people I only seemed to share that one class with… or only a couple, anyway… including my best pal Jon Bowie…
Nirvana is for sure closely associated with my memories of hanging out with Jon.
We were both keyed as hell into Nevermind… complete with air guitar freaking out to Endless Nameless…
And so when this landed in the fall of grade ten… it landed heavily… and Jon was kind enough to dub his copy of the CD onto a Maxwell 90 minute cassette as soon he got it…
SERIOUSLY POSITIVE VIBES associated with this record in other words…
Not too long later, it turns out this dude Steve Albini in Chicago has produced the album… fine…
Big Black / Rapeman / Shellac
Totally unfortunate edgelord bullshit! Worst name for a band ever. 100%
Pre-incel! No doubt…
And yet… his is a trajectory of always defying his shittalking with legitimately endlessly inventively radical music upon production upon community-building…
And one-time victims of his significant vitriol… i.e, Sonic Youth… have spoken at length and passionately about the artist and the person who was Steve…
And, in recent years… he’s made a point of unabashedly calling out his former youthful self out for harmful discourse and general shittiness… at no point pandering or trying to make false excuses… it’s singular, is all… maybe especially in the realm of popular music…
Recordings Upon Recordings Upon Recordings
OK… the first three non-musician-Steve records I think of, besides In Utero or Surfer Rosa…
The Pacific Ocean EP by Thrush Hermit… which I’ve never actually listened to… but it’s local to the Maritimes… it’s early Joel Plaskett recordings… and Joel is highly rad… and it’s proof Steve would work with anyone willing to pay his fee, outside of personal interest in the music…
The next thing is, in aggregate, anything by the Jesus Lizard that he was involved in. It’s hard to imagine, but once upon a time the Chicago noise legends were at the bottom fringes of the Billboard Hot 200 or whatever…
And the last thing that I think of right away is the Pod LP, the Breeders’ first record… which, like the Thrush Hermit, I’ve yet to dive into!
Evidence of a significant artist is how much awesomeness remains out there for the generations to follow. He fucking knocked it out of the park on that score.
Electrical Audio, cats, and the World Series of Poker
There are so many pictures out there of him holding cats…
He won TWO gold bracelets at the World Series of Poker… a serious, legitimate contender every time he played a game…
He challenged Nirvana to a game of pool for the balance of his fee… or else his fee would be doubled… and they turned him down…
His band Shellac has a record coming out next week and it is going to be huge feelings all over again, probably
A sixty-one year old dude in Chicago passed away from a heart attack this past week, and it definitely stands out. Thanks for all of it, sir!
Doug’s Notes
WordPress – a deep dive
As the use of WordPress in education continues to grow, many third-party developers have created plugins specific to the needs of educators.
Scott, A. D. (2012). WordPress for education. Packt Publishing Ltd.
From a technical point of view, WordPress allowed us to build a multimedia enriched ePortfolio system by expanding its basic functions with additional and freely available plugins. This was possible due to the high flexibility and great variety of plugins provided by WordPress, in combination with simple PHP programming.
Avila, J., Sostmann, K., Breckwoldt, J., & Peters, H. (2016). Evaluation of the free, open source software WordPress as electronic portfolio system in undergraduate medical education. BMC medical education, 16, 1-10.
The purpose of creating an online community was to enable school teachers, student-teachers, and university instructors to freely share their thoughts about teaching and learning as well as reveal a personal side of themselves.
Hall, J. M. (2019). Negative and positive aspects of using WordPress to facilitate reflective practice in pre-service teacher education. AI and machine learning in language education, 18-32.
Currently, there exist more than 60.8% of the web pages are based on WordPress, or according to statistics, by June 2019, WordPress was used in 27.5% of the 10 million most popular Internet web sites (WordPress, 2020).
Ivanov, V., & Tzankova, J. (2020). Online distance education on WordPress web based platform as an innovation in the learning process of sports students from medical university–Sofia during the pandemic of COVID-19. Pedagogy, 92(7), 143-51.
Word of the Podcast
WordPress
Question of the Podcast
Is WordPress worth using?
Phrase of the Podcast
The simplicity of the interface belies the complexity of the product.
Folks, we are positively CHUFFED you’ve chosen to join us for this episode! We’ll catch you next time!
My head is done my head is done
We’re going home we’re going
I’m not alone I’m not alone
My heart is home my heart is #ednontech
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