Trending news of The Rock's daughter Simone Johnson's announcing her new Stage Name is breaking our Versus tool because "Wrestling Name" isn't in our database!

Here's the most useful #Factualist comparison pages #Thread 🧵

⭐ I’m a frontend dev. I work mainly w/HTML, CSS, & JS

last year I built stuff that doesn’t sound like frontend work:

- custom APIs and DBs (both GraphQL & REST)
- user dashboards
- video manipulation

but it all *felt* comfortable & within my skillset

how? a thread: 🧵

I do all sorts of demos and "hello world" projects, but I want to focus on real-world apps only in this thread. specifically, I'll talk about this production project:

✨ Jamstack Explorers 👩‍🚀

this is a load-bearing app that a lot of people depend on

to build Jamstack Explorers, we needed:

🗄 a custom database to track mission progress
📝 a content management system
🔐 user authentication
🎬 video manipulation

we were a small team of frontend devs and we needed to ship quickly — this was a daunting todo list 😅

🗄 custom database

using @HasuraHQ Cloud, we were able to create a new DB, configure it, and test the API all from a web interface — no config files or server setup required

we got it running in a day & I never felt like I was in over my head, even though DBs make me nervous!

📝 content management

we chose @sanity_io as a CMS. we used their CLI + JSON schema to set it up for Markdown + @mdx_js, exposed through a GraphQL API

the docs were great — it still felt like I was well within my frontend wheelhouse while we set this up

On teaching without grades.
A long-ish (20-tweet) 🧵. Here goes.

So, you know how you write lots of comments on an essay/exam, and the student looks at the grade and never reads the comments? That's because when grades enter the picture, the learning stops. /1

Instead of focusing on learning, there is a lot of negotiation: can we find one or two points on the midterm as the student is just on the verge of A-?

Everyone is just on the verge of the next grade.

And all the evals are not about the class but about the grading. Really? /2

Is the grade at all informative? If you are just below the A- or just above that, is that giving the student any information about how to improve their knowledge or skills? No. t is just a useless, demoralizing & stressful smoke screen /3

Students' abilities, challenges, and learning are multidimensional. Providing feedback on these many dimensions is much more useful for promoting growth and learning than are quantized unidimensional grades. /3.5

There is an alternative: do away with grades. Keep the feedback -- lots of it (this is not less work for us teachers) but never summarize it in a unidimensional uninformative number (unless you absolutely have to). /4

As my Christmas present to you all, here is a list of my top-10 metal tunes of 2020, in no particular order. It's a mixed bag of genres and styles, but they're all bangers!

First up, The Terror Begins by Make Them Die Slowly. Horror-movie inspired grind/black/industrial from Mick Kenney and Duncan Wilkins.

Next, Northern Irish thrashers @gamabomb, with Lords of the Hellfire Club from their excellent new album Sea Savage.

Now for something a bit off the beaten track: brilliant New York black metal experimentalists @imperialnyc's City

Time for something a bit more accessible: this year's best symphonic metal from Sweden's @eleine. Here's the title track from the fantastic 'Dancing in Hell' album.

So I woke up today to learn that the @A2SchoolsSuper has called a snow day. After a four-day weekend. And with tomorrow an "asynchronous" day (i.e., no real school again).

Which might sound reasonable after a storm, except -- there IS no in-person school in Ann Arbor.

In her email, @A2SchoolsSuper said that COVID-19 means "we have missed many of the simple joys that make our time together memorable."

Simple joys? You mean, like seeing friends? Actually learning in a classroom? Heck, like learning at all?

Or having your parents not be quivering messes because they haven't had their kids in school for nearly a year and are at the ends of their ropes? Or not waking up in the middle of the night worrying if the district is ALSO going to limit or suspend in-person school for the fall?

She writes: "Snow days are opportunities for children, young people, and adults to play in the snow, read books, take a break, and enjoy the winter season." You know what adults can't do that? Adults who work. And yes, this burden fall primarily on moms.

Also, we just had a four day weekend! My kids have played in the snow! They've read books! THEY'VE HAD A BREAK.

They don't need those things right now. They need school. We need school.

1/ THREAD. MFA in Creative Writing at Chapman University. Application deadline: February 1. That's MONDAY! Let me say a few things about our program first, and then I'll provide a CODE for an application FEE WAIVER at the end of this thread. #MFA #gradschool #creativewriting

2/ While some of our MFA students focus on one genre, many write across genres. @tryphena_yeboah published her first poetry chapbook last year with @AkashicBooks, has published stories @NarrativeMag, and is writing a thesis in fiction with thesis director Richard Bausch.

3/ Likewise, @lizharmer published her first novel with @penguinrandom while she was an MFA student here, her second novel is forthcoming in 2022, and she drafted a memoir as her thesis, with me as the thesis director. Lots of our students take a workshop in a second genre.

4/ MFA faculty work across genres too. Jim Blaylock is a steampunk fiction writers (see Homunculus), and now he writes essays (see a couple in @poetswritersinc). @TheMil10 writes plays & poems & I write poems & essays. Together, our expertise covers a broad range of aesthetics.

5/ All incoming MFA students begin with Aspects of a Writer in their first fall semester. This course focuses on sustaining a writing life, publishing, and fostering literary culture. When I teach the course, each student forms a Writing Life Plan based on their own goals.