David Sugden
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Well for a start, I
didn't know that the crossing control buttons (which say WAIT at a
traffic light controlled pedestrian crossing) had 'twizzlers' underneath
them! I was out walking with John Rousell this morning when we ended up
stood at one of the crossing points on a busy road. John said - "just
feel and see if it has a twizzler" (apparently not all do, especially
older versions). This helps the blind and sight impaired to know when
the road is safe to cross. Traffic noise often drowns out the beeping
sound we usually associate with these crossings.
If you put your hand
just underneath the button, and have a good feel around you will find
the knob that twizzles whenever the crossing light is green.
There is a flaw
however. As we waiting for the light to go green - with my hand feeling
for the knob to start twizzling, the traffic in front of me backed up -
so that as the light went green (and the twizzler twizzled) there was a
car in front of me. If I had been blind, I would have walked straight
into it as the crossing doesn't tell me that!
Blog action day - October 15th
View my delicious bookmarks here
Today is Betony's birthday.
16! Happy Birthday Betony (not that she reads any of my drivel though
...)
This week has been another busy
one. I spent quite a bit of Sunday and all of Monday working on a last
minute thing for Huddersfield University - also all of today! I hate
rush jobs, work is always of superior quality when time and thought is
given to what should be done and when it should be done. However, it has
given me the opportunity to meet my new grandchild for the first time.
Emma, my daughter (see 21st September, below) finally gave way on Monday
evening and produced a girl - Charlotte Kate (10lbs 4oz). So far, all
I've seen is a sleepy child, but time will change that. So now I'm a
double granddad.
Tuesday was the MoleNET launch
conference (well not so much 'launch' as 'remind') at the Oval - London.
It was great to meet everyone again (see
previous) and interesting to hear all the morning speeches. But
there was also a great deal of wheeling and dealing going on, as
delegate began to realise the enormity of this project.
£6 million to be spent on 'kit'! That's
not new, it's always been £6m of LSC money and it has always been for
capital only. But when broken down, as it was again this week (nothing
has changed since July 9th) the scale involved in a £100,000 project (I
think) became obvious. £100k is the size of the minimum bid. Some
senior managers were apparently just beginning to flex their muscles
too, as the size of a 20% cash equivalent has become obvious,
some have begun to seek out partnerships (max = £500k). So there was a
lot of cattle trading going on on the day. I was disappointed by the
attendance at the six (3 x twice) accessibility workshops in the
afternoon. Many may wish that they had attended, by the time the
bids are chosen. Bids have to be 'in' by 1st October and will be chosen
by 4th October! Good luck.
The next two days were spent at
Loughborough University, being trained to become a MoleNET mentor - part
of the LSN's support network for the project. It was an interesting two
days and I feel to have been 'trained' - although perhaps not in the way
they had planned. I found the content interesting and the reasons behind
the content even more so - but my personal journey was very much aided
by the presence and collaboration with (and of) friends and colleagues,
new and old. Ron Mitchell, as always - quietly helpful, Brian Lambourne,
feet on the ground and learner focussed, James Clay and Di Dawson,
technically proficient and helpful, Lilian Soon, honest as the day is
long - Mrs 'm', Geoff Stead (I always like listening to Geoff he knows
SO much) and Danny Atwere, Colin Rossiney, Anne Dennis, Geoff Foot - and
new colleagues. Thanks to you all.
The video alongside is thanks to Lisa
Valentine for putting the Bob Dylan link on her web site.
This
week has been a bit 'phew'. On Monday I met Sally from
the Women's Institute, at
The
Tickled Trout near Preston to go over the work I've done so far. We
had a good chat and arrived at a series of action points before I had to
race off to meet Di Dawson at Lancaster University. We were meeting
there, to deliver the WBL Scoping Study which Village e-Learning has
done on behalf of the RSC
Northwest. I'd asked Di to write up the findings taken from hours
and hours of telephone interviews and face to face visits made over the
summer. Part of my 'bid' was to submit the report in person - which I
think went well. After the Lancaster visit, I drove down to Manchester
Airport where I was picking up my brother who has come over from Perth
in Australia for a month. A busy day!
On Wednesday, I
joined all the other e-Guide trainers in Birmingham for a two day
training session. Both days were a rush, packed with new sections to
learn and practice. The e-Guide manual is now a much slimmer version
with all materials now presented via a memory stick
instead of a CD. This makes life so much easier for the new e-Guide
because they can save work directly to their stick. We also have new
equipment - the old Acer laptops were getting on a bit! The new ones are
Toshiba's and they seem to fly. We have plenty of (new) software bits on
the laptops but two disappointments were a) the lack of Bluetooth and b)
no image editor! There's no Course Genie anymore and the voting kit has
changed from Quizdom (which none of us liked or ever came to grips with)
to Turning Point which works directly from within PowerPoint. Simon
showed us all how to do it and it's a doddle!
Emma is still holding on. I think she was
due on the 12th September but there's still no sign. She's therefore
being induced on Monday next - so unless the baby comes quickly he or
she won't be a Virgo like mum, but a Libran like Betony. I'll bet that
Amy (pictured) won't know what's hit her.
I received a comment which
said that the main text was too close - no line breaks. I've made it all
1.5 line spaced now - please comment.
I really am not sure
where it came from, but I have a letter from the Rt Hon John Denham MP.
It's addressed to no one in particular but the salutation is to 'Dear
Colleague' .. [6th September 2007). John, as many of my readers will
know, is the new Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS).
The letter talks about how F.E. can help to populate the Universities of
the future (I hope I didn't misunderstand) and urges those in charge of
F.E. to place a variety of information resources onto institutional
intranets and VLEs.
www.direct.gov.uk/studentfinance Seems to be the most important from a student point of view, but
links are also given to the direct.gov site, Learn Direct and Next Step.
I'm not sure what the rest of the letter really means. It does a lot of
sucking up to F.E. "The FE System is a key partner in .. Leitch", "14-19
Diploma's .. opportunity to engage .. The specialist .. skills of your
staff will be essential" etc. He mentions the Further Education and
Training bill (FET) and a consultation - but this is the first I've
heard of these. Does anyone else know about this? On balance, I suspect this this letter announces new and better
things for the wider F.E. sector (he even mentions work based learning!)
but I won't hold my breath. Comments?
I
don't know what happened with the date of my last post - seems to be out
of synch! Hey ho. I met my old Vice Principal for lunch
yesterday. Not that Martin is 'old', more 'ex' in the sense that I don't
work at Dewsbury any more and 'ex' in the sense that he doesn't either,
having taken voluntary redundancy over the summer. It was an interesting
meeting and thoroughly enjoyable. Martin has been able to put us in
touch with (local an national) organisations that deal with
ME/CFS.
Betony,15, has been recently diagnosed with this illness and we're in
the first stages of dealing with it.
CFS/ME
is a condition that causes marked long-term fatigue and
other symptoms which are not caused by any other known
medical condition.
CFS stands for chronic fatigue syndrome.
Chronic means persistent or long-term.
ME stands for myalgic encephalomyelitis.
Myalgic means 'muscle aches or pains'.
Encephalomyelitis means inflammation of the brain
and spinal cord.
And the controversy is that
many people don't believe that there is such a thing,
including many in the medical profession. In Betony's
case it could easily have been seen as a manifestation
of teenage 'growing pains' but taken all together her
various malaises have been blood tested and diagnosed as
CFS/ME. The school know now (it's Betony's final GCSE
year) and we're seeing them again on Thursday to discuss
strategies. Betony herself is being brilliant at coping
with it and will hopefully manage to develop her own
coping strategies (with help). The class are now used to
here falling asleep in lessons! The image alongside is a
screen shot of the comments I've had for the video I
posted
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct76qM2T5AI to show
how to load
YouTube videos into
MySpace.
I'd done it as an experiment an found that no matter how
I tried, my voice sounded bored. Apparently, that isn't
a problem, as the comments are all supportive. I may get
around to re-filming it one day. Having said that, it is
a Photo Story 3 project with voice over - so no real
filming was involved. I've just received notification that I have been
selected as one of the
MoleNet Mentors,
that LSN are putting together. Training is being
delivered in Loughborough, over the two days which
follow the MoleNet conference on 25th September. So
that's good. I'm also going to Birmingham next week for
e-Guide training and now have ten dates in my diary
covering the next nine months (that's three x 3 day
events and an e-Guide+ day in Leeds).
I went over to Beaumont Park yesterday to see
Emma (daughter, heavily pregnant, due this week) and Amy
(granddaughter, nearly 3) for an hour. Poor Emma looks
huge - but still no news ...
It's really funny that the
day following a BBC news item
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/698 on favourite words (I
thought that my own favourite might be balmy) I came across
this one on First Monday.
First Monday is an Internet journal I first came across about seven
years ago and which helped me through my MSc big style. I only drop in
now and again but enjoyed reading this article. "[The]
primary result
(of their research into the 'language' used by bloggers)
is that a number of stylistic and
content–based indicators are significantly affected by both age and
gender, and that the main difference between older and younger bloggers,
and between male and female bloggers, lies in the extent to which their
discourse is outer– or inner–directed. In fact, the linguistic factors
that increase in use with age are just those used more by males of any
age, and conversely, those that decrease in use with age are those used
more by females of any age".
The team say that they have "looked at
140 million words of
naturally occurring text from randomly selected blogs by men and women
from their teens into their forties". What a huge
task! All the blogs researched came from
Blogger.com during August 2004 -
which immediately puts the research out of date. Three years is a long
time in Internet terms. Where was
YouTube and MySpace in August
2004? Nowhere! What were the top five political words found? (bush,
president, Iraq, kerry, war - which is not
surprising really).
For anyone interested the in social dynamics brought
to modern life by the Internet, this would be an interesting read. But
as I've suggested, already a bit out of date. On the personal front - I'm still waiting for news of a second
grandchild! Emma is due 'anytime' so fingers crossed for a fit and
healthy brother or sister for Amy.
Tuesday's visit to Birmingham was a blinding
success for me. I learned such a lot about
OLAS. The job in
hand will be to support the prison and probation service's senior
management teams to develop an e-Learning Strategy. This will be on
behalf of NIACE. See their special site:
http://www.offenderlearning.net/ But this work won't be easy given
the intrinsic problems of learning 'inside'. From a learner's point of
view - which for me is the starting point of any 'learning'
strategy - once they have started a course, they don't know if they will
be able to finish it before being moved (usually to another prison -
which needn't have the same provision!) So, there's no chance of planned
continuity for the learner. Then there are the different types of
learning provided. There is in-scope learning, which is funded by the
LSC and out-of-scope learning which is not. The Head of Learning and
Skills (HoLS) is in charge of the learning that goes on 'inside' but he
or she will have 'contracted' provision from outside which delivers the
in-scope training. We will have to see that this contractor's strategy
is attuned to their OL service and that it fits nicely with that of the
HoLS. On Wednesday, I did more research into e-Portfolios - a small
piece of work I'm doing for Clare Killen at the LSN. I got a bit of help
from Geoff
Rebbeck at Thanet College,
for which I must thank him most sincerely.
I sometimes wonder if I speak the same language as
others. Occasionally it is the use of colloquialisms that causes
misunderstanding (what is a ginnel after all?) but sometimes I find it
hard to know what it is that I've said that is unintelligible. I'm just
leaving Manchester Piccadilly by train, en route to a
NIACEOLAS consultancy
training meeting in Birmingham. I like coming down via Piccadilly
because they have such a wide selection of breakfast opportunities.
So I went to the Bagel shop (Bagel Factory) and asked for "a smoked
salmon bagel please, no butter, no garnish". Then I was asked, "cream
cheese?" - no - "lemon?" - no - "salt and pepper" - no -"toasted?" -
no! Fair enough, she also asked which Bagel I wanted and I'd used a term
another Bagel shop use (all-in-bagel) and I had to add that to my
request, but - when I said "no butter, no garnish" - what did she hear?
The same thing in Ritazza, the coffee shop: "a small soy latte with and
extra shot please". I was told "we already put two shots in sir" - so I
said "yes, I'm aware of that, but I'd still like an extra shot" . . . .
"are you sure?" ..... grrrrr.
Finally
Finally
Finally
Finally, there's to be an
announcement about the NLN Materials.
It is republished here for any reader's
convenience:
Announcement: New NLN Materials service.
The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is pleased to announce that
following a tender process a new contract has been awarded to host
the NLN materials. The new contract will rationalise the current
arrangements and simplify access for all sectors, enabling users
from authorised organisations in education and training to access
the NLN Materials free of charge under licence from the LSC. The
management of the service will now be provided by JANET(UK) in
partnership with the LSC and the hosting service contract has been
awarded to Xtensis Ltd. who have been involved in the NLN Materials
programme since its inception and have been successfully offering
NLN Materials access to Adult Community Learning and offender
learning providers for the last 2 years.
The new service will be fully integrated into the existing support
site at www.NLN.ac.uk
providing a unified point of access to the Materials, and supporting
the entire community of NLN Materials users. The new site will
include all the features currently enjoyed by the ACL community,
such as collection creation, powerful search and browse, and export
for easy import into virtual learning environments (VLEs), such as
Moodle, or immediate use on CD, DVD, or Intranets, plus a range of
new features and enhancements. The service will be launched mid
October.
Further details will be forwarded to you in September and will be
available from www.nln.ac.uk .
Please forward this information to anyone to whom it might be of
interest.
About the NLN Materials: Funded by the LSC and available free to the
education and training sector, the NLN materials represent one of
the most substantial and wide-ranging collections of e-learning
materials in the UK.
I drove to Birkenhead on Wednesday and then on to
Liverpool. I had two face to face interviews booked for the RSC-NW
scoping study we're doing on Work Based Learning providers. The venue in
Birkenhead was the hardest lace I've ever tried to find. Not only did
the address have no meaning on the Internet (it did show up - and it showed a
map of where the postcode was, but it didn't exist on the ground) but it
couldn't be found on the ground. There was no Tower Street. So I phoned
and was given directions (not a man thing really). But even then, the
building didn't have any name, although it was post addressed as Tower
House. Hey ho. We saw Harry Potter on Tuesday evening and enjoyed it
tremendously. I'm meeting Sally from the WI on Friday to present the beta
version of the work I've been doing for her. I finished it as far as I
could this morning. I then hoped to drop back onto the work I'm doing
for Clare Killen, but we had no internet until well after lunch. (That's
not happened for so long before). So, I went out and bought a Vodafone
data card. That's working too now - so hopefully I can now work anywhere
(??). I'm publishing this from a train!
We've had a busy bank
holiday weekend. John was going out for a ride on his bike on Saturday
with Leon, his son, and my own bike still needs re-assembling after its
journey to France in June! So I elected not to go with him, but to walk
instead into Huddersfield and meet Sharon there. I needed to get a
couple of things in Sainsbury's for my parents and a card for Janet's
Ruby wedding party that night. So that all went well and when I got home
I took advantage of the fine weather and cut the grass. This took me
three hours - it hadn't been done since before we went on holiday and
probably not for a few weeks before that - given the wet weather we had.
So there was a lot of cutting to do. Sunday was the day to take all the garden trimmings to the tip.
No worries, as my trusty 'old' trailer was just sat there waiting to be
laded up, hitched up and taken. Having filled it up, we set off for the
tip and had a puncture. Of course, its an 'old' trailer and there is no
spare, is there? Well, there is but it was behind the greenhouse back at
home and not in the trailer. So we wasted what seemed like half the day
trolling backwards and forwards to the tip in our cars, as we emptied
the trailer outside Charlie Browns (where I also fitted the spare,
having picked it up from home). The whole day was wasted, so we said we'd do something different
and all three of us went to the cinema to see The Bourne Ultimatum and
followed this with a Pizza Hut meal. Very nice, very relaxing. The film
was very exciting and the only thing to bother me was that when Bourne
was in the middle of a shoot-up in Waterloo Station, the police, running
to the incident were accompanied by Dixon of Dock Green-like whistles!
When did the police stop using whistles? a thousand years ago? We're of
to see the Wizard tonight - Harry Potter.
This is a video clip obviously aimed at those of you who
are not familiar with the intricacies of cooking fish and chips. watch
and learn.
It's the
ALT Conference soon but for
the first time in three years I'm not going. I decided to have a break
for all sorts of reasons but may well decide to go
next year as it's only in
Leeds and is therefore not a huge commitment travel-wise. James Clay
(http://elearningstuff.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/cn-we-uz-mobz-4-lernn/#comment-213)
is going to this year's though. I was in Liverpool yesterday, delivering an e-Guides PLUS event
at the Gateway Centre on
London Road. Sharon had accompanied me as Betz was with her dad
and I had to go over on the Tuesday evening anyway. I had been booked
into the Ibis Hotel, right opposite the
Albert Dock, so we had a really
pleasant evening together, walking around this rejuvenated area. The
city itself is still under a major re-construction programme and new
building and road works are going on everywhere. So we stayed on the
Albert Dock for dinner at Est Est
Est. This was a busy place but the waitress was attentive and the
food was good. I will certainly try one of their other venues. Breakfast
at the Ibis was a disappointment as the bran flakes were soggy! and
that's before I put milk on them ... Two guys from Mid Cheshire College attended the session, John
Taylor and Colin Gallacher. They are both enthusiastic users of
e-Learning and fully committed to e-Portfolios via
PF Global. They showed me how
it worked and we discussed costs - so I've just asked the company for a
call. This is because of a small piece of research I have been given by
Clare Killen at the LSN.
e-Portfolios are my next task. Watch this space!
Well I'm back with my feet under the desk for a
while. I spent Monday tying up loose ends and completing various admin
tasks. I always enjoy this time of year, when I can begin a new
'personal folder' in Outlook - 2007/08 - and begin to make sense of my
emails. This used to last until about Christmas (clear white space every
evening at the bottom of my INBOX, folders sensibly arranged down the
l/h window) but last year it lasted until the end of September. My
2006/07 INBOX still has page after page of emails in it that haven't
been filed. Where necessary, they have been answered - just not filed.
Already this year's folders are creeping off the bottom of the l/h
window. Today I meet John Whalley at Huddersfield University, where we
are meeting Keith Webb, to discuss the facilitation of their important
new ITT Moodle. I dare not put its name here because I'm not sure what
it is (it seemed to change all through development) but hopefully, I
will know later today. I will then drive over to Liverpool, where I am conducting a face
to face interview as part of our Scoping Study for the JISC
RSC Northwest. This has
been going on all summer and has involved a combination of telephone
interviews and (now) face to face visits. Vic Dejean is helping with the
F2F's and Di Dawson with the coordination. A local company - PAS - is
helping with the telephone interviews. I'm staying over in Liverpool
because I'm delivering an e-Guides PLUS event there tomorrow. More news
on MoleNet later
See
http://dsugden.googlepages.com/wales_07
for the holiday blog.
This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called Wales_07. Make your own badge here.
The
glorious twelfth.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2241734.ece Although I'm still in Wales, this week is an
official 'work' week. We agreed to stay on here at Ty Llwyd, to allow
Steven and Rosie a couple of extra days in France. They will be back on
Tuesday evening. On Wednesday I will travel to London for my NIACE BL
e-Guides, day three event in Camden on Thursday. Sharon will come
with me. Because it's her birthday on Wednesday, we agreed to 'do' a
show in London - so that's Wednesday sorted. On Thursday while I'm
working, She will visit the US Embassy to try and get her American
passport renewed. This will make it much easier for her to travel as she
visits her sick mum in Alabama. We hope to meet Vic Dejean for dinner on
Thursday and to return to Wales on Friday. We can then pick up daughter,
stay one more night and return home on Saturday next. I've still got a couple of things to wrap up for SDELC and have
made a good start on the Women's Institute work - so I should be able to
put these to bed on Monday and Tuesday - so that when I return to
Huddersfield, I have a clear desk, because that week I will join the
fray and begin interviewing WBL providers in the Northwest. The girls
have already bitten a good chunk out of this but if we are to finish on
schedule - I need to join them. I have acouple of burning issues for the new academic
year: *
Will the hosting of NLN materials
ever be resolved?
The materials are now seriously underused and many
teachers have forgotten they exist. Many new teachers don't know that
they exist. WBL e-Guides have been amazed at how they can have been so
'secret' for so long. A real push is now required to show all of the
post 16 sector how these FREE (but developed at great original cost to
he public purse) and fabulous materials can be used. I would hope that
whoever eventually 'owns' the new material provision will
undertake a serious awareness campaign. Get a move on! *
Will the MoleNet project get off
on the right foot - or will the techies have their way?
I worried from the
beginning
that the timing was not right for this imaginative project from the LSC
(managed by the LSN) and that because of this there could be flurry of
bids from those who just want some nice new kit. It would be much better
(and there is still hope) if the bottom line was 'learner experience'.
This will be much harder to achieve because the bid is based on
'capital' spending and therefore much of the money must be spent on kit.
I really hope that those who are successful have some imaginative ways
of getting around this. So, back to the Sunday papers.
The holiday blog
continues for a short while.
Still away - but keeping in touch. I have some
bits to do for the SDELC project at NIACE - not much, but enough to
detract me from my main goal this week - of finishing the Women's
Institute work I'd begun the week before last, as planned. To some it
may seem strange that I am working like this - while on holiday, but
it's so relaxing here that it doesn't seem like work. And anyway - I'm
away for a week in October when I will NOT be in contact with the world.
See
http://dsugden.googlepages.com/wales_07
for the holiday blog.
Gone to Wales for a couple
of weeks. I still have some work to complete, but this will be done while
relaxing in Rosie and Steven's conservatory and (fingers crossed) the
sunshine!. w/c 13th August I'm still in Wales, but back at work Monday
and Tuesday and delivering a day 3 e-Guides thing on Thursday 16th. I'm
still answering emails (but maybe not by the minute!) and my phone is on
- but there's no reception unless we go out (I'm on holiday after all).
See
http://dsugden.googlepages.com/wales_07
for the holiday blog.
This has been (and still is) a busy week. On
Monday I went to Lancaster to meet the head of
RSC-NW to discuss a project
we are undertaking for them. I met Di Dawson at the station in Lancaster
and afterwards we travelled back together. We are undertaking a scoping
study and setting up the instruments for use took up pretty much all of
Tuesday. I'm also doing some work for NIACE that needs me to sit at my
desk and work. Following a pretty full last few days of last week doing
that - I think my eyes are ready for falling out. Anyway, my colleagues
are phoning around the region right now, to undertake phase one of the
scoping study - something I will be keeping an eye on while relaxing (ah
ha ah) in Wales next week. It's still raining. Following the floods in South and East
Yorkshire last month the whole of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire seems
to be under water. Di had to take a fairly circuitous route north on
Monday, to avoid the floods around her place in Banbury. Virgin Rail
were not running trains in the area because of the floods. Both Sarah
Knight and Ellen Lessner live in the region too, but when I checked they
were both ok. The images we see on T.V. are awful and the thought of
trying to bring up a toddler (like Sarah is doing) in that environment
is hard to envisage. Although the floods do not bring the political
memories of Hurricane Katrina - they do bring back the memories of the
people of New Orleans.
http://dsugden.googlepages.com/neworleans. We're off to Wales next week to join the
Aberaeron
Festival and
bicentenary celebrations. Also - check out these images, captured during recent e-Guides
events: Asked the question 'what is 'e'' - - -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsugden/904407091/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsugden/904407159/
Very funny ...
I missed
this earlier in the week - a post from
Lisa Valentine's blog.
More applicable to the south of England this week?
Anyone interested in the Voting Kits -
please drop me a line for more information:
Last Wednesday I became an
EPICT licenced (I'm not changing
the spelling just because American software wants me to - licence has a
'c' in it - sorry!)
facilitator. I'm sure that in the long run this will be a good
business move, but I'm still looking into what EPICT delivers to improve
the learner experience by improving teaching with 'e'. People like Andy
Black and Geoff Elliot have also done the course, so it could be a
useful move. I spoke Margaret Wallace at EPICT today about the future
and will do again shortly. On Sunday this week I met Vic Dejean in York to prepare for our
day 3 e-Guides event on Monday. We went to a Pakistani Restaurant and
got absolutely wet through in the torrential rain. The food wasn't good enough to make things
seem brighter either. We stayed the
Premiere Travel Inn in York which is a brilliant base - provided you
don't get put in a room on the road side of the hotel. I hardly slept -
too noisy. The gig went well on Monday; everyone seemed to enjoy the day
and the feedback was good. I then set off by train to London (18.30pm from York), where I
was to work with Terry Loane for two days delivering a day one and two
event (WBL e-Guide training). I had a sandwich on the train, so no real
comment on the food on this day - I met Terry in the bar for a pint and
a long chat (this was the first time we'd worked together) before
retiring (knackered) to bed. We stayed in the Ibis Hotel in Euston.
NIACE book this level of hotel (see above) and to be honest, they are
not all that bad. The bed in Ibis hotels is HUGE and once you have
pulled out the shroud-like sheets and blankets you can thrash about to
your heart's content (this is perhaps an arthritic thing?)
Both days were really good. The e-Guides were brilliant and both
Terry and I had a great time. We were at the
ORT centre
in Camden and on leaving at the end of day one, I decided I would come
back up to Camden to eat that night And I did. I ended up in a
Vietnamese restaurant and ordered by number because having chosen one
dish, I couldn't remember it after choosing the second (tiredness I
think). The soup I ordered was delightful. Full of fresh vegetables in a
delicious broth with vermicelli. The other dish was a bit too Chinesey
for me to enjoy as a new experience (I could taste the Golden Syrup in
the sauce) but all in all a very nice meal. I'll take Sharon in August.
The stuff we captured during the two days were put on esnips
http://www.esnips.com/web/dsugdensOtherStuff for the e-Guides to see
afterwards. The journey home was uneventful except for the taxi from ORT to
Kings Cross. The guy was almost suicidal. He complained non stop about
how his wife treated the kids so unfairly - giving them too much money
and too much leeway. I was glad to get out of the cab. It's all gone quiet on the NLN front. we were showing delegates
the various access points yesterday but when they asked why there could
not be just one - we couldn't answer. Just like HMG closing down web
sites - not a lot of thought went into the way things affect users.
Already people tell me that the NLN materials 'have had their day' and
that 'they are never updated' and that really is such a shame. So come
on LSC (or whoever it is that drives the decision) - make your mind up.
12th July 2007 . . .later
Anyone interested in the Voting Kits -
please drop me a line for more information:
Well I'm home now after a
tiring (but not as tiring as it could have been - it's been worse)
journey up the M1. They really should build another shelf between
Leicester and Sheffield - a double decker motorway! Today was great. I'd been asked by Clare and Stephanie to provide
some awareness
of
what's happening with technology in the educational `workplace. We
started with a voting session which polled the delegates opinions and
experience of such things as Social Networking and mobile learning. This
threw up some interesting results. Just of 25% of the people responding
had considered the use of SMS in teaching and on the next question just
over 10% said that they had used it. 70% of the delegates believed that
social networking sites could be use for learning. So in many ways the
audience was 'ready' to be enthused and made aware of the many features
which m-Learning and Web 2.0 can offer. I enjoyed working with this
group, they were enthusiastic and inquisitive. They also responded well
to Colin and Richard's session - the results of which Philip hopes to
link to from the SLC portal. All in all, it was a great day (a long one) and I really believe
that everyone took something new away with them. Well done Regional
Subject Leads. I also met Sue Warman today, who had contacted me about a gig in
December. She had contacted me because
Helen Roberts had recommended me for a Hairdressing Science 'thingy'
(HR speak) that she couldn't get to herself. Sue and I had spoken on the
phone so it was nice to put a face to a voice. We were also able to
discuss the sort of content she might like me to show. Food time now....
12th July 2007
I'm in Nottingham today, at the East Midlands Conference Centre (EMCC)
working with Clare Killen's team at a Regional Subject Lead (RSL)
development day. We're looking at how technology can help and support
learning and networks. My input involved Mobile Learning and Web 2.0
stuff - which seemed to go down well. We had guest appearances and
inputs from Richard Nelson at Calderdale College and Colin Bell of
Yorkshire Coast College. These were both brilliant presentations - look
out for Richard and Colin. They are at the pointy end of education and
making 'stuff' work. More later.
Yesterday was a good day. I
met lots of old friends and learnt much more about the MoleNet projects.
A lot of colleges will struggle to get a good bid together over the
summer, given the short timescales allowed. An expression of interest (EOI)
has to be submitted by next Monday and although this EOI needn't be set
in stone (others may submit a project proposal later), it it what the
LSN will give feedback on - which may help others to form their ideas
and subsequent bids. The most successful bids (I believe) will be those
which are multi-partner, multi-agency. Some of the audience seemed to be
there to see how they could get a bit of the £6m up for grabs and tried
to find ways (a slight exaggeration but ..) around the 20% up front cash
equivalent. Then there was much discussion around the in-house costs
required for project management and technician overheads. To be fair,
quite a few hadn't given the depth of thought that these proposals will
require. A good bid (to me) will have at least one college (essential)
and possibly a University but others might have a local authority
putting up the money for work across a whole range of 14-19 initiatives.
Private enterprise might be included to do back-end work maybe?
Individual partners then might contribute to the project leadership from
within - perhaps even find money elsewhere for this? But - they need to
be doing their getting together now - very quickly. If anyone needs
ideas ...
afternoon session at MoleNet
Met loads of people over
lunch - hi to Dave Webber, Di Dawson, Di Palmer, Richard Brooke, Danny
Atwere, Geoff Stead, Paul McKean, Andy Black, Sandra Taylor and many
many more. Sat right now in
Dave
Whyley's session and he's a talking about the
Learning2Go projects. One
teacher (video clip) just said "I use it to support my teaching not just
because it's there". Now talking about the spec they've come on to.
Reckons that the ‘m’ bit enables personalised learning:
Releases potential
Raises attainment
Bridges the digital divide
Engages the whole family
Embeds ICT into all aspects of learning
Suggesting that some thought should go into what the project will be,
who it will involved and what they might want from it. Various examples
of use - mind mapping right now.
All in-class tools should be connectable from the device: VLE, White
Board etc. Example shows device being controlled by IWB and visa versa.
Now in
conjunction with SMART – they are using synchroneyes. 3-4
seconds refresh rate. Learners can contribute in real time. Looks good.
Set off for the
MoleNet meeting in Birmingham
this morning at 6.00am only to find that my connection to Wakefield had
been cancelled. The next train went in the other direction but was
delayed by 20 minutes! I only mention it because I could have stayed in
bed another hour! Here now - listening to LSN talking about the programme. Much
talk about what they intend to do - perhaps the rest of the day will say
whether it's possible or not. Danny Atwere talking now about CPD,
Network Support for the programme, conferences; case studies, newsletter
and much much excitement.
Some questions:
Q = 24/7 anytime anywhere learning – will money cover duration of a
student’s course? If you want!
Q = can Uni’s partner F.E.? We’ll see
Q = Brian Lambourne – ‘m’ learning champion as a main contact
plus staff time? Commitment required by college
Q = Marianne – 20% up front? Yes
Q = Steljes – Aiden Prior = what about wireless safety guidance?
Not sure. Becta? Will keep an eye on it
Q = City College Manchester – here we are (to Uni guy). Discussed common
themes – will that be a problem? Advice in letter
and on web site … will try to avoid something too way out – needs to be
replicable …
Q = John Webber – how much are we looking at learners or the devices
they bring into college? Hard to know – not much
research but that doesn’t mean you can’t!
Q = Confusion about funding. Cost for management etc. could possibly
come to 5% of project! Yes – college may have to
absorb that! Collaboration may help to overcome this.
Q = any limitation about where 20% can come from?
Depends on consortia bid.
Q = Connectivity? (Me). Not sure
At secondary using mobile 5 or 6 for various data
packages – Andy Black says “not allowed”.
Q = LSN support towards (didn’t hear)? – looking at continuation
but nothing promised. Learners sometimes provide contribution towards
running costs.
Q = applications – any favouritism towards one project (in-house) 3
here, 3 there etc? Depends on bid.
Q = Can £6m be spent on development costs? Central
development already planned.
Q = can capital funding be used to but learning materials –
Jill says no! But we’re not sure.
Q = Lilian, can an institution be in more than one bid?
Probably no.
Then they went onto procurement and I lost the will to live! Had a good hour yesterday picking bilberries! Just across the
road from where I live there are huge banks of Bilberry bushes (if
that's what they are called) and every year, we know they are ready when
a lady comes and parks opposite our house (on a narrow pavement-less
road) every day for about two weeks. Sunday was her first day this year,
so once she'd gone we went and picked a bowl full. Lovely.
Happy Independence day!
Yeehaa!! (My half American wife will get me
for that one) I love this time of year, when there's a bit more time for staff
development. I had another great gig yesterday. This time I was at the
University of Huddersfield, giving an overview of e-Learning (ILT) to
summer school students studying for their Cert in Ed. Their specialism
was Hospitality and Catering, which is right up my street. They loved it
and didn't really want to go for lunch. The feedback forms were
fabulous - people usually just put a few words down as they rush to
catch their bus or get out for a smoke, but this lot wrote reams. Not
bad for a freebie! Jean Delaney, who was my tutor when it did the Cert
in Ed in 1989 is finally retiring and this is to be her last week in
charge. Jean is well known and much loved figure in northern Hospitality
+ Catering and Art + Design teacher training circles and she will be
sorely missed. So a final gig was the best I could offer her. Well done
class, good luck Jean. Today I was at Leeds College of Art and Design. I'd been booked
to do two sessions on Advanced PowerPoint, both of which seemed to go
down quite well (I haven't read the feedback yet - the train was too
full). My biggest problem was deciding what 'advanced' means. To some,
just adding an animation to something on screen is advanced but to
others importing Flash or creating interactive text boxes are more the
sort of thing they'd call advanced. But we survived - importing videos
and sound were the main attractions in the morning and
TechDis'
Accessibility Essentials 3 was the favourite in the afternoon. See http://www.pcet.net
(where there is a bit about me).
Great comment found today - I've got to share it:
"Great seminar on Web 2.0 technologies at the JISC
Conference! I must admit that I should have been one of those people who
put their hand up when you asked "are there any experts on Web 2.0?" at
the start, but I was just interested to see how somebody else was using
Web 2.0....and to see if there was any other websites that I had missed
(which I had - eSnips and Piczo are new to me, so thanks!).
All the best"
Karl Florczak
E-Learning Systems Co-Ordinator, North Trafford College, Manchester,
www.cheadletownfc.com Thanks Karl - you're welcome. Also listed today on http://www.pcet.net as their F.E. Practitioner of the month -
take a look (you may have to join up).
1st July 2007
SeeApril - Junefor the last three months of blogging. New page started July
1st
Quote:
"We look at the present
through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into
the future"
Found on Marshall Mcluhan's site - quote attributed to him ...
Will it ever stop raining? Sharon and I set off to Blackpool in the rain on Thursday at
6.00pm and the spray on the motorway was horrendous. It was still
raining when we got to the venue and we had to unpack all our kit in the
rain. We had been given a stand at the RSC Northwest's Conference (see
Lisa Valentine's Blog) on the Friday so we had taken almost all the
technology we own! I'd wanted to show the
MKM products, a Gyro Suite,
a Mimio and the
voting kit. I was thwarted with the Gryo Suite because someone had
nicked my wireless receiver on Tuesday. Friday was to be no better when
someone walked off with my No 5 voting pad and to cap it all, I could
not find a supplier of Mimio batteries in time to show the product - hey
ho. Still, there was a lot of interest on the stand and my workshop on
Web 2.0 seemed to go down quite well. It was great to meet so many old
friends and to meet new people who might become friends of the future. I was also asked to be part of the plenary stage-team and found
some of the questions quite interesting. One concerned the uptake of
technology by older people - was it a barrier? I declined to comment on
that one because it's quite a complex subject. First of all - what do we
mean by older people? I'm older people and I don't have a problem with
it. I know other older people who don't have a problem with it and other
older people who do! The real point is that I know similar groups of
younger people who are just the same - so it's quite difficult to know
how I could have answered the question succinctly. I certainly believe
that in this day and age anyone who teaches should have a modicum of
understanding for the way young people learn and the tools they like to
use (I'm basing this on the fact that 'older' people teach 'younger'
people). But it's often not the case. In another part of my
working life someone has asked a group of online learners whether the
message is obscured by the medium (see
http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/) but degrees and doctorates have
been awarded without ever answering that question. The point is
that the message MUST be sent - the vehicle shouldn't be the most
important problem. When we teach we use whatever means we can to make
our point - to deliver our message - and in this age, the digital age,
we must consider tools (vehicles, technologies, strategies - call them
what you will) that suit the clientele. This week, I do my next pro bono bit on Tuesday - at the
University of Huddersfield, where I will deliver a presentation to the
Hospitality and Catering summer school students studying for their Cert
in Ed. this will be my old mentor Jean Delanney's last event leading the
summer school (mind you she's said that before) and it is nice that I
can help. On Wednesday and Thursday I'm at Leeds College of Art and
Design, helping with their staff development. I'm doing inputs on
Advanced PowerPoint and Mobile Learning. Just to finish the equipment problems (nicked wireless
transceiver; misplaced voting pad, no batteries for Mimio) with a
fourth. We had stopped at Tesco in Blackpool to try and find the
batteries when I saw a printer at £25! That'll do for me I thought - one
I can take to gigs with me just in case. I also bought a spare black
cartridge too. But when we got it to the stand to set it up we found
that there was no USB cable supplied! Why is that - what do they hope to
achieve by not packing an essential piece of kit like the cable that
connects it to the PC? For goodness' sake, they could have charged my
£27.50, supplied a cable and still made a bit more profit! So I now have
a printer that still needs a (special) USB cable. Hey ho.
There wasn't much chat up and down about the Becta
report. I saw it on a few blogs but nowhere else. Mind you I haven't had
the time to visit the Champions forum all week, so perhaps they talked
about it - we'll see when I catch up. If I catch up! Tuesday went ok,
despite the floods. I was able to drive to Burton on Trent over the High
Peak and missed Matlock and Derby - both of which seemed to have
problems similar to, but not as severe as Sheffield and Leeds. The
floods had come as part of a terrific deluge over the weekend which
seemed to just hang over Yorkshire and north Derbyshire. The trains were
still disrupted yesterday and John Whalley was diverted (on his way from
Hull to Huddersfield by train) all over the place. It took him four
hours to get home. Tuesday was unusual inasmuch as I'd been asked to talk to three
groups of 17 year olds (year 12s) about the I.T. industry (a careers
event). I had pointed out early on, that I knew very little about it but
apparently my story fitted the bill - so off I went to de Ferrer's
School in Burton. The first two groups were great - we looked at how I
got to be what I am (whatever that is), a little history (calculators
the price of a week's wage) and then at what way other industries rely
on I.T. - then the I.T. stuff itself. The last group were more
disruptive and more closed minded (one guy wanted - when asked what (if
there were no barriers), would he do in I.T. to make a £million - said
"make an online weapon design tool") Whaaaat? Today I'm off to the RSC Northwest conference, where I have a
stand tomorrow. Sharon and I are both going and I'm also delivering a
workshop on Web 2.0. so it should all be fun, especially as I should
also meet so many old friends. AND Two nights in a posh hotel!
This fourth 'new' page was started on July 1st 2007. It was copied over from
the original file - which was re-named 2007_2.htm. Clicker was on 2,227
(March = 1,598)
instead of a CD. This makes life so much easier for the new e-Guide
because they can save work directly to their stick. We also have new
equipment - the old Acer laptops were getting on a bit! The new ones are
Toshiba's and they seem to fly. We have plenty of (new) software bits on
the laptops but two disappointments were a) the lack of Bluetooth and b)
no image editor! There's no Course Genie anymore and the voting kit has
changed from Quizdom (which none of us liked or ever came to grips with)
to Turning Point which works directly from within PowerPoint. Simon
showed us all how to do it and it's a doddle!
CFS/ME
is a condition that causes marked long-term fatigue and
other symptoms which are not caused by any other known
medical condition. 
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