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The academic year (20/21) of CMD Amsterdam started this week. Our first semester will be online (remote). I'm doing tons of prep work (admin stuff, preparing slides, creating class lists) so students have a smooth start of the year. I've also been reading a ton about remote teaching, I'll probably write an article about it on my personal website.
In the first couple of months I'll be teaching 'front-end 2', a course about responsive design and the 'tech-track' which focusses on data visualization and frameworks in our third year.
I'm very excited about seeing students again! Even if it's trough a computer screen.
Links
- I read everything Ben Thompson writes. He recently wrote about the whole Apple, Epic, and the App Store thing.
- Jay Hoffmann is writing a series on the history of the web on CSS Tricks. Everything from how Sir Tim Berners-Lee pitched his idea of the web to the introduction of Mosaic
- Mozilla laid off significant portions of its browser team and Peter-Paul Koch shares his thoughts in The cult of the free must die and a follow up called I Love MDN, or the cult of the free in action.
More to click
Project
I'm overhauling my note-taking system inspired by Roam Research. After researching for Roam alternatives I stumbled upon Foam. It is a personal knowledge management and sharing system very much like Roam Research but it's built on Visual Studio Code and GitHub.
I don't need another application, I can use the code editor interface I'm already familiar with and enhance it with some extensions. I've created a batteries included 'starter' so you can try it too.
↳ View the Foam Starter Repo on GitHub
Learning
Next academic year I want to pitch a new 'creative coding' course for our curriculum. I've been slowly outlining the syllabus and thinking about assignments for students to complete. It wouldn't be a surprise I have all of Daniel Shiffman's courses on repeat. Next up are these processing books from my Goodreads shelf.
Media diet
↪ Playing: As you might know I like to do some Sim Racing. A couple of weeks ago I bought F1 2020 and it's the best formula one game Codemasters have made. It has a 'my team' mode where you can create your own team and player, a nice addition from last year.
↪ Reading: Tom Sherrington is a former teacher and worked at different universities for over 30 years. Together with Oliver Caviglioli he has released several books. One of them is Teaching WalkThrus which I'm currently going through. What I like about his books is that they are very visual and practical. It's not a traditional book but more like a field manual (guide) which you can reference whenever you feel like it.
↪ Watching: Last year I watched the first two seasons of Mr. Robot and stopped for some reason. I'm picking it up again and started with Season 3. The story is very good and has a 'political edge' to it.
That's all folks! See you in the next new(s)letter 👋