David Sugden
After many false starts with 'organised' web logs like Blogger - I gave up and thought I'd have more interest and more input, if I did my own. This is just a simple web page, so any contributions will have to be via email [blog@village-e-learning.co.uk] - I promise to edit very little and to publish all lucid comments! Please state how I should sign you off (anon; my name; my name and address etc). I've deleted the comments feature, because of all the spam I was getting - sorry! e-Mail me if you have anything to say - address above. Click here to go to beginning of blog.

Other Blogs of mine:

Posterous - mainly holidays, but some bits and bats too.

Live Journal - something I set up for my reflections - prompted by NIACE

Blogger-1 - devoted to the books I read. not all - but most.

Jaiku - Jaiku is a 'micro-blog' and I keep up to this every day. A community of practice

Twitter - As above but I'm not as tied to Twitter as Jaik.

Doesn't time fly? It's already time to finish this quarter's blogs and begin developing the next one! I entered July with as much work as I could cope with - all nose to the grindstone stuff, and then we had our damp summer. Now Autumn is upon us things are a bit easier, with time to think about personal development. Hopefully, this will change over the next few weeks, but for now, it's nice to get the chance to learn or experiment with new things.

Yesterday I was at the RSC-YH Excellence in Inclusivity conference, which launched the new website of the same name.. See http://inclusivity.rsc-yh.ac.uk/. The web is a nice mix of case studies and stories about how various technologies have been employed to help and assist a wide variety of learners. The conference was attended by over 60 colleagues from the various Learning for Living and Work (L4LW) projects and interested parties from up and down the country.

Whilst there, I got into a discussion with Lisa Valentine about Standards! Sadly, someone was talking from the front so we couldn't expand upon our views and had to keep very quiet. Lisa had suggested that Standards were necessary to ensure that an absolute minimum service was maintained - and to a point, I agree. However, I feel that Standards are often seen as a goal or a crutch rather than Lisa's stepping stone. Standards are rigid and slow to change and as a result they can be stifling an unresponsive. I worry that the inspection of colleges adheres to a set of Standards that recognise excellence in filing and paper production (even now) rather than innovative practice in (and here's the rub) outside of the classroom. I know that this is a sweeping statement and that on-the-ball inspectors will interpret the Standards to fit all kinds of innovative practice. But isn't that the problem - that Standards are open to interpretation?

Betony hasn't had a good couple of weeks. The rigours of 6th form seem to have hit her hard and the M.E. has kicked back in. She's currently alternating between wet-rag and plague carrier (she'd had a cold on and off since starting at 6th form) and it's worrying to know what to do to help. Obviously, the school's understanding will wear thin, but to be fair to the kid - she's spending her every lucid moment doing homework or trying to keep up. She's 17 this weekend and hopefully we can then register her with adult M.E.-C.F.S. organisations for help and support. Fingers crossed.

  
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This week has been amazing. I've pursued John on the 'accessibility' issue I mentioned at the end of my last post, eaten at Chop Chop again, picked up information about exciting work that may just be on the horizon and met lots and lots of my old friends and many of those colleagues I respect and look up to. All these events have made me feel buoyant again and have given me the positive strokes I sometimes need.

On Monday I completed some work for RSC Yorkshire and Humber, wrapping up the work we (Dave Foord, Lilian and I) did in the first six months of this year. The finished product will hopefully be launched next Wednesday at the 'Excellence in Accessibility Conference' they are holding in York. On Tuesday, I tidied up this work and my office (sort of) before heading off to Birmingham, where I met Di Dawson for a drink before meeting the rest of the NIACE e-Guides trainers for dinner and our training session on Wednesday. Even though this was the third year I'd attended such a session, it was designed in a way that was refreshing and interesting. Three new e-Guide trainers had been briefed the day before, so much of our day was spent in looking at what's new and in being shown/told important concepts and information.

Nigel Davies delivered a session about coaching. I've seen similar before, but not in such an engaging manner. Nigel made the session interesting and relevant - and for me very very useful. Thank you Nigel. We also had input from Sue Gay (who I was very pleased to see after so long) who used to be at the Standards Unit, when subject learning coaches first began. Sue talked about Nord Anglia's role as the new masters of Subject Learning Coaches and about the interesting changes this will mean. The NIACE training was a great session but what I gained the most from was meeting my colleagues. Every time we meet as a group, we all learn so much. The result is always far greater than the sum of all the individual parts. Di and I shared the journey to London afterwards as we were both going to the MoleNET 08 launch Conference at the Emirates Stadium. As everyone else had been in London all day - they had gone of for dinner and a tour of the Stadium but Di and I went to Chop Chop for dinner!

Thursday was a real blast for me. I met too many people to mention here - as I'd be mortified to miss out naming someone. But so many of the people I work with and look up to were there. I facilitated two sessions and learned such a lot from those people delivering. I also delivered another session myself. But the main hall sessions were a bit much. As good as the day was, I and many others would have preferred less waffle and more from the 07/08 projects. I was encouraged to write a bid for work with JISC by several of my chums - so that was my main role on the journey back to Leeds (I got the bid in in time!) Many thanks to those of you who provided that encouragement.

And now - Saturday: I'm sat here thinking back on the week and I've really only told a fraction of what I feel, what I know and what I hope. It's been a good week.

On Monday evening I was invited to attend a round table seminar to discuss  'Contemporary Issues in e-Learning' which was hosted by Desire2Learn at Leeds University. The seminar was led by John Traxler and therefore surrounded the theme of mobile learning. Both Lilian and James were also able to attend, which meant that I passed a pleasant few hours in the company of friends. I was once again re-invigorated by being in the company of Lils and James and learned more from them than I did from the seminar. Following the meeting, Lils took James and I to a Japanese restaurant in Leeds. Little Tokyo. This was a fairly new experience for me as the only time I'd eaten Japanese before was in New York - 2006. This time it was tasty, but a bit sticky-Chinese, like the Vietnamese last week - AND it was so dark that I couldn't see the food, never mind the menu!

However, today I have had anther Lilian inspired Oriental meal - this time in London. I have been there for my interview with SSAT and as this finished at 11.00am, I had time to have lunch at Chop Chop, just across the road from Kings Cross Station. Lils had recommended this a good while ago, but this was the first time I've had the time or hunger to call. It was refreshingly delightful - and a bargain.  Lilian had recommended a Singapore Noodle dish, but being used to small-average portions I'd ordered a starter of steamed dumplings, which were nice but which would have served as a main course themselves - there were that many. The main course came (luckily) immediately after I'd started eating my starter because it too was huge. I only managed to eat half of each.

I'm not sure what SSAT thought of me - only time will tell. I thought it went ok, but my knowledge of Diploma is perhaps not what they want. I haven't been absorbed or working entirely with Diplomas, so my understanding is not 100%. We'll see.

Other Blogs of mine:

Posterous - mainly holidays, but some bits and bats too.

Live Journal - something I set up for my reflections - prompted by NIACE

Blogger-1 - devoted to the books I read. not all - but most.

Jaiku - Jaiku is a 'micro-blog' and I keep up to this every day. A community of practice

Twitter - As above but I'm not as tied to Twitter as Jaik.

I've got an interview with SSAT on Wednesday, for more Diploma work. I think that this is more vocationally orientated than the LSN work, so will suit me better. My reflections on last week have lead me to decide that I will only pursue two of the three lines of Bespoke Diploma Support I trained for. One, Personalisation was quite contentious amongst the consultants being trained but I DO feel confident that I can deliver that subject (partly because it can be objective). Likewise Pedagogy - that's bread and milk to me. But Curriculum Design turned out to be something akin to teaching teachers how to suck eggs. All admin, site-searching and timetabling. I'm not sure that I'm cut out to do that. As a fellow consultant said at lunch "if we go in and tell teachers how they should do 'that' - we'll be minced!". Upon reflection I should have chosen Assessment - but had (again) misunderstood what was being offered. Now that schools consider 'assessment for learning' (what I might call 'formative' learning) I'd be much more comfortable with the subject.

I went walking with John again on Saturday - actually walking THROUGH the canal at Marsden at several stages, due to the flooding caused by torrential rain overnight and during the week (most of this had passed us by in London). We discussed IFL at some length, as John is going to lead some training on it, at his college. We both agreed that sometimes our walks were ideal fodder for claiming CPD credit. During the last ten years we have covered all aspects of e-Learning and Accessibility. We both feel that our walks have strengthened our understandings, our resolve and our commitment to these subjects. John would list Accessibility as his first concern and 'e' as second, whilst my own would reverse that order. We feel that some aspects of the discussions SHOULD be allowed when logging CPD with IFL. On Saturday we discussed one of John's co-workers use of mobile phone for 'signing' with her partner. He said it was amazing and that he will let me know what the software was for future reference.

Sharon and I are just completing three days of training with the LSN for the Diploma Support Programme (DSP). We set off from home at 6.10am on Wednesday and our train sets off back tonight at 6.30pm from Kings Cross. I'm sure that over time, I will reflect much more on the content and outcomes of these last three days but for now I will just discuss our non-training time (I'm no workaholic!!) "as if!"

On Wednesday evening, we got a call from Vic Dejean, to say that he WAS in town and we therefore went down to Waterloo to meet him. We met him at the Fire Station in Waterloo. That was a mistake as far as my Yorkshire spending sensitivities go! I ordered a pint and a Pimms and -- it cost me almost £9. Other, similar rounds later cost half as much. Vic also took us to a pub called the Old Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street and that was a revelation! What an intriguing pub. There are so many floors and narrow nicks and crannies, that it makes a really interesting visit venue on its own - never mind drinking.  We then went to a Vietnamese restaurant in Hammersmith - the Saigon, where the food was good but not quite up to Vic's expectations. This was probably due to use trying to ensure there were not too many fish or prawn dishes - which he (and I) would probably have chosen had Sharon not been with us.

Last night we went to see Buddy at the Duchess Theatre, just off Aldgate. We just phoned the Theatre and got the cheapest tickets going but still ended up on the front row of the stalls - dead centre! I know that people don't often like being to close to the action but this was brilliant. We could spread our legs and see everything that was going on on stage. Brilliant. A cracking evening, the only downside of which was eating so late - we had a Marks and Sparks salad at about 11.00pm. We don't like eating too early and the show started at 7.30pm.

So, I'm still not so sure about Contribute! It doesn't have the same functionality as Front Page and the only reason I'm using it is that I'm running-in my new Vista laptop. I've made this (an Aldi bargain!) my main email machine already - as I become more familiar with Vista and I need to try out different web authoring packages before settling upon one. My reading suggests that Front Page (now discontinued) doesn't work well with Vista. Hey ho. (Just re-formatted and updated via Front Page. I don't like Contribute.)

Just playing with Adobe 'Contribute'. Had to cancel my Front Page Extentions so I don't know what will happen here. Scared that I can't see my files ....

28th August  2008

I've been doing some work for Geoff Foot at the LSN today. During the course of my research for this, I have come across some really interesting (irreverent) e-Learning Glossaries. They are well worth a look.

http://e-learning.gen.tr/blog/e-learning-glossary/ (see comments on Andragogy and C-learning :-)
http://www.e-learningguru.com/gloss.htm (see Blooms Taxonomy and Cognitive Loading)
http://internettime.com/Learning/glossary.htm - may be some plagiarisms here and there on these three!

It's interesting that the Americans call ILT - instructor lead learning (i.e. didactatorial or pontificatorial!)
 

We're well and truly back now! See http://dsugden.posterous.com/ for holiday blog and for holiday reading blog see http://dsugblog.blogspot.com/

It was GCSE results day on Thursday, so we'd returned to be around when Betony got her results. We travelled from Kent to home during the day and she'd already picked up her results by the time we got home but never mind, she was happy enough. Because she'd had to drop various subjects due to her illness, she'd only entered for eight GCSEs and she managed to get 'C's or above for all of them which is brilliant. Not only is it good, given the fact that she was laid up pretty much all of the first term (2007/08) but it also means that she can go to the 6th form of her choice and to study the subjects she wished. She's doing Art (two types - not sure of which) and Combined English - with enrichment of Creative writing and Photography (she was dissuaded from doing these as AS levels to give her M.E. half a chance of surviving).

I spent Friday catching up on emails and have swapped today (Saturday) with Tuesday next week so I can go walking. Hence, I'm working today but not Tuesday 26th.

Well, we're just about halfway through our holidays now. We've moved up to northern France and the weather has changed: it's raining and cloudy! Check out Posterous link below for holiday blog. Pictures are slowly (tortuously) going onto Flickr. Also see Summer reading @ http://dsugblog.blogspot.com/

See .........

http://dsugden.posterous.com/  ...    previous post on ... Mobile Learning Blog updated 25th May

Well  that's it. Off on my jollies tomorrow morning. It's been a struggle to catch up because Sharon's plane missed its connection on Sunday and she was a day late getting back home. It has thrown my carefully laid plans for a quick getaway right out of synch. But we'll get there - perhaps not as smoothly as I'd hoped but we will get there.

There's been such a lot of last minute activity, that I have only managed to put things I need to pack 'on a list' but I think that there are only a few things I still need to find. One thing I haven't done is reply to Ellen on Facebook. I'd said that I must be stupid because I don't like Facebook and she very kindly wrote to tell me that I wasn't stupid - but I have to disagree. How on earth do I see someone's profile (see what they are doing now, who they work with etc.) and how do I send a private message? Goodness knows - I can't see for ducking to avoid flying food, sheep and mobsters! Myspace is so much more civilised.

Communications for the next three weeks might be scattered to say the least but if I can, I will publish to http://dsugden.posterous.com/ which will be easy to post to as we do it via email (which I can do from internet cafes)

Speak soon?

Dyslexia Technology

See Times Online Article

Txtng: The Gr8 Db8.  David Crystal Amazon

This book is reviewed in today's Sunday Times and it was a comment from the author that drew me into it. "Texting doesn't erode literacy: it actually challenges literacy skills". Brilliant! That's the sort of message, Di, Lils, James and I (amongst others) have been pushing for this last year. We touched on this before (see m-Learn pages), when the Sunday Times picked up on the question previously.

Crystal is honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor and uses the book to answer charges by others that texting is ruining the language: "..doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago" - John Humphrys (BBC). One such detractor suggests that texting masks dyslexia - which may be true, but on the other hands texting allows dyslexics to contribute and communicate without fear of ridicule or embarrassment. Some mobile phone tools actually help dyslexics tremendously - see Captura Talk software which is supplied and installed with the HTC TyTN on a micro SD card.

So, good on you David Crystal - I may even buy the book to see what else I can preach about during mobile learning sessions.

Sharon is still away in the States - due back next Sunday. Sadly, I had to cry off a 'puffin trip' led by Sal Cooke yesterday. This was a great disappointment, as I would have spent the day in the company of Nick Jeans and Lilian (with mini-me) and then gone on to John Whalley's summer barbecue. Karen and Dave were to join us, but Karen has laryngitis so had to give back word herself mid-week. On the strength of Karen being my taxi on the day, I'd booked my car in for a major service Friday/Saturday, so had to hurry the mechanic along (never an easy task) after Karen had fallen ill and all was well until my windscreen cracked after being jacked up! I was told that this would be impossible to get this fixed in time for me to go along on Saturday afternoon, so I sent my apologies. Hey ho - another day?

It's funny isn't it how soon nature reacts to changed circumstances?

Because I've been at home most of the week, I've seen much more of the garden than I have for a while. It's been interesting therefore, to see a pair of doves making a nest in our willow tree. They are taking advantage of us having no cats around at the moment.

Since Simba died in May, there has only been Maisie to climb the tree (which is easily done) and keep guard on the property - which is what cats do!

As Maisie is currently staying with my mum and dad (they love it - and so does the cat), the doves must think it's safe to build a nest right in the middle of the most accessible tree in the garden.

The birds are in for a huge shock when she gets back!

Disappointed by all the rain here - I've been talking to Sharon via Skype. She's currently at Aruba Drive, ...

 
View Larger Map

... St Joseph's Bay, (zoom out to see where about this is) and enjoying the Florida sunshine. She's with her mum, Betony and sister Gail about two hours south of mum's home in Dothan, Alabama. Apparently the weather is HOT, HOT, HOT and I'm desperately jealous. I can't even sit in the conservatory to work as the rain is bouncing down so hard on the roof!

Why is it that companies who exist solely to provide a service people often think that they know what's best for me, and what I want? Thinly disguised as an ice-cap saving move on our behalf, hotels ask us to use our towels more than once and only to throw them in the bath if they NEED changing. What they really mean is 'please save us money'. T-Mobile have today sent me my "last paper bill" because they 'know' it will be more convenient for me to access my bill online in the future. I wish it was! I prefer paper bills from T-mobile because they (T-Mobile) are one of the increasing amount of online sites that tell me the format of my username and of my password (you must have a mixture of numeric and non-numeric digits). As a result I forget these and have to go through no end of security questioning to get to the site. I naughtily write the details down but shouldn't it be up to me to decide how to secure my login details and not the site holding these details? I also have to provide printed information for my accountant so in the end, I have to bear the cost of printing out the bill myself and STILL the planet suffers. But this time at my cost not T-Mobile's!

I'm in Birmingham at the moment, at a JISC Learning and Teaching Experts group meeting. Sadly, the membership now seems to have become predominantly H.E. and I could only recognise Ellen Lessner as an F.E. practitioner. Cam Swift from RSC-Northern is here, Eta De Cico and Alan Clark from NIACE and Ros Smith - that's it for what I regard as the wider post-16 community. There may be one or two others but I don't know them. It's great to hear of some of the work going on in H.E. but I'm not too comfortable with the lack of focus of sub-University stuff being discussed. Issues remain the same but solutions are often different. Discussion in the afternoon about e-Strategy (for H.E.) and e-Construction. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/sfcbookletectp.aspx. Tried to improve learner autonomy. Partners include: http://www.learndirectandbuild.com/, They have over 200 learning objects, all scorm compliant over many construction trades. (Joe Drake from York College was one of five or six experts who supplied expertise). Five different levels of quality/complexity (1 = text - 5 = fully immersive game). Materials all available online - will share - contact details soon. Learners drove development of staff?

Whilst at the RSC-NW conference last week I was fortunate to meet Terry Middleton again. terry had moved from Stafford to Cumbria last year and I'd not seen or heard from in in quite a while. He's well and settled to his new life in the northern lake district. Also at the conference, I came across (via the redoubtable John Dalziel) a fabulous blogging tool (could be an e-Portfolio tool!) - see http://www.porteous.com. Try it - send it an email ...

I finished my work in the northeast yesterday with a double session in Gateshead. The morning looked at 'Learning Platforms' and the afternoon at 'e-Portfolios'. I'd gone by car for all sorts of reasons and had stayed at the Premier Inn at the end of Kingsway - Gateshead. Which was a good decision in the end. They cook their own food and as a result (and remarkably) both the menu and the food were excellent. Well done Premier Inn - except for not having the normal two breakfast rate (I don't want the cooked offerings at that time or in that environment).

Now that (well, after I've got home today) things have calmed down, I can start to finish off some of the itsy bitsy stuff which need more thought than I've been able to give them for a while. Then next week, I'm down to re-creating materials for a college and I'm meeting Sally from the W.I. to discuss some final items.

There is finally some light at the end of the tunnel. I was back up north again last Monday to present consecutive presentations on IWB's; Voting Systems and Blogs/Wikis - half an hour each repeated in the afternoon. We'd set up a Promethean and a Mimio but most (nearly all) of the delegates refused to come up an interact with the board.

This was a pattern which was followed the day after in Middlesbrough, where the afternoon workshop was devoted to Interactive Whiteboards. After signing their names (unavoidable), there was very little interaction at all. One delegate even suggested that that (interactive interaction) is not what she wanted to use it for! And that's the rub with adults - they do not like getting up and coming to the front of the room - even when they are teachers themselves.

I took Sharon and Betony to the airport on Thursday from where they were flying to Atlanta and then onto Alabama to see Sharon's parents. They will be having better weather than we are here! When I went for my Saturday morning walk yesterday, it was pouring down - we were walking in the clouds, and it's not much better today.

On Friday it was the RSC-Northwest conference and I was presenting a workshop called 'A Yorkshireman abroad - a round up of FREE stuff for PC and on the web'. Whilst I only managed to show ten items in the half hour slots, there was much discussion of use and I was able to point them at www.techdis.ac.uk/getfreeresources (initially via Emma on the TechDis stand).

This has been a really tiring week. I got to Leeds slightly later than I'd planned on Monday. The taxi queue was longer than expected so I walked to Thomas Danby College: with movie camera; tripod; computer and 'stuff'. Then back into Leeds for lunch at Bagel Nash, before moving onto Leeds College of Building. After a weekend of working on preparation and report writing, Monday was hard.

I was up early on Tuesday to catch the train to Middlesbrough, where I was working with RSC Northern at the Chamber of Commerce - which turned out to be just across the road from the station, which made the kit-carrying a bit easier. Here, I was delivering sessions about Learning Platforms and e-Portfolios. It wasn't the best room in the world (lighting was difficult), but all the delegates seemed to enjoy the various sessions. Brian, the RSC-N WBL officer kindly took me up to Newcastle then, where I stayed (foolishly) at the Newcastle Airport South Premiere Inn. I say 'foolishly' because I'd not considered the early morning noise.

Which meant another early morning. Today's events were more classroom based, with 'creative use of Office materials' and 'Free tools for web and pc use). They were not as well attended, but everyone seemed to enjoy the day. Brian then took me back into Toon for my train. Thanks Brian.

It was the NIACE e-Guides review event in Birmingham yesterday and was a great opportunity to meet like minded friends and colleagues. I'm developing a course for next year and this was peer assessed - which left me with a little more work for this weekend (which I expected).

I'm finally beginning to see a little light at the end of the tunnel. I've had to work that last two weekends just to keep up with gig preparation. Even if I've delivered a subject before, I like to go through it again, updating and correcting as I do so. But this last few weeks (and the next two) have seen me delivering slightly different subject matters. Last weekend I had to prepare for the RSC Southwest conference (Thursday last) and this weekend I've been preparing for two days working for RSC Northern - Learning Platforms and e-Portfolios, both being newly prepared from scratch so as to keep them relevant and interactive. The other two subjects will be completed tomorrow evening, whilst whiling my time away in a hotel somewhere near Newcastle airport.

The Southwest gig was good. I was nervous of it because I'd been booked on the strength of last years presentation, which was only about half an hour long. This year's booking was for 90 minutes and I'd been asked for 'hand's on'. With hindsight, I'd have done it differently but I got the feeling that more than half of those present enjoyed what they got. At the conference, I met many old friends - like last year - not the least of whom was Rod Paley of Xtensis - holders of the NLN materials. Rod is due to meet important people from the LSC this week and our discussions led to plenty of ideas for that meeting. But we were unable to meet with enough time to write down the ideas we discussed. Basically, we'd talked about the fact that there was still much 'unawareness' of NLN materials and e-Learning tools, tips and techniques generally amongst practitioners. Despite the Xtensis records that show how many people have accessed the materials, my own experiences (which are varied - not just single-sector) are that there is still a lack of general understanding of what NLN or 'e' can do. Having said that, there is a readiness amongst teaching colleagues, to take it ('e' generally and NLN specifically if they can be shown how the two might combine) on board - unlike six years ago when NLN was launched - but they NEED training and support. STILL!

Hosted by http://www.1and1.co.uk/?k_id=8553337 - Well worth a visit - no fuss, easy to use.