Cycle ride '99

Mobile Learning Blog

Lesson Observations

Learning Styles

iPhone Trial

Books I read

Live Journal

This will probably be the last post of this quarter, I'll have to start another page for April. Just like last year and the one before (2008; 2007) the quarter finishes with the e-Guides National event.

This year's event, like the one in 2007 was at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham. This year, however, unlike the previous years, I didn't get to blog any of the events live from the venue. This was partly due to incompetence on my part (read on) and partly due to the changed face of Web this last few weeks.  I also delivered'  three workshops, so that cut down time a bit. My enjoyment of the first evening, a discussion between Gilly Salmon and Alan Clarke was spoiled because I could no long communicate with Jaiku via the phone. This ability was removed when Google made Jaiku open-source earlier in the year and reduced the qualities that Jaiku enjoyed over Twitter (although there are still many). So, there I was, with only my crappy K850i (crappy in the sense that internet communication via this model can be likened to sliding down the side of a cheese grater - slow, painful and not something you would choose to do). I did send the odd text to Lilian to keep up my spirits. I'd even forgotten about Ping.fm - which could at least have send contributions to Jaiku and Twitter. There was plenty that I'd wanted to say about the discussion these two eminent people were speaking about, partly in agreement, partly in disagreement but mostly so I didn't forget. But it goes to show that sometimes, the things we use and get used to can change and that we have to be prepared.

I'm more prepared now though ..
Finally, I've got my new phone - a Nokia N95, black 8 gig. It arrived this morning, so it's still a mystery to me, but already I have got it n my Web n walk contract and on my home WiFi - which will enable me to be all the things that my iPhone was and wasn't (fingers crossed). I still need to set up Shozu, email, download a QR code reader, set up my QIK connection and learn how to save things - but wow - what a phone (for now). We've come over to Crosby, near Liverpool this weekend, to see Tony and Gill at Gill's sisters house, which overlooks the beach at Waterloo. We had a couple of pints in the old pub round the back - where they still serve you at the table. good atmosphere. Then we had a sumptuous and late supper with lots of wine before going to bed. We needed the long and wind strewn walk this morning - along the Crosby beach and around the Anthony Gormley iron men. Loving the phone - although there are still a few quirks. http://dsugden.posterous.com/nokia-n95-8gig

On my way to Nottingham on Wednesday, I listened to James Clay's latest Podcast. This inspired me to blog about it elsewhere. See: http://dsugden.posterous.com/cpd

  
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Cycle ride '99

Mobile Learning Blog

Lesson Observations

Learning Styles

iPhone Trial

Books I read

Live Journal

Spring! This week has been a lovely week for weather. Bright and sunny, if still a little cold. Today, Sharon dropped my by the University and I walked up though town, up past Kirklees College, through the park and over Marsh to Quarmby. It got a bit windier up there but as I dropped down through Longwood and up through Golcar it warmed up nicely. I had a cup of tea at home before going down to Slaithwaite to pick my car up. Lovely morning. Whilst still in town today, I saw that the local Traffic Wardens have been renamed - Civil Enforcement Officers! What's all that about?

We went to the theatre last night to see Return to the Forbidden Planet - by the Woodhouse Players, a local amateur dramatic society. It wasn't the same quality as some of the professional productions we've seen but was highly entertaining nevertheless. Because the Lawrence Batley Theatre is quite small, we were almost on the stage - which to be fair, added to the sense of occasion. The players themselves seemed to be having as good a time as us in the audience and we all ended up dancing in the aisles. One thing that stood out for me (if you've never seen this play you won't 'get' this) was the narrator: You will possibly remember Patrick Moore doing the videoed narration in professional productions? In this one, the older, well spoken guy was reading his Shakespeare-like script in front of a modern Smart IWB!

The working week has been as intense as others of late. On Tuesday I delivered a MoLeNET m-Assessment workshop in Leeds. On Wednesday I met most of my PDAs at the Cohort 1 day 2 event, also in Leeds and on Thursday I attended TechDis Certified Trainer training in York. This is quite exciting and potentially good for my business. I've always subscribed to the TechDis ethos and working with like-minded others, those also attending the training day, will be a pleasure. Yesterday, I spend the day with a colleague who is interested in doing work in Turkey and we prepared a planning document ready for her to deliver a conference paper in Istanbul next month. She and I will deliver a week long European Community Project course together in Leeds, in June - so, fingers crossed!

Last week was a buy week, but it seemed to fly by. Where is March going? The week began in earnest on Tuesday with a long-planned CAMEL meeting at the Huddersfield Centre of Kirklees College. We'd got off to a slow start back in the autumn term but this weeks meeting was a real success with plenty of attendees representing a good few colleges. On Wednesday I went over to Warrington to undertake a Health check for the Hospitality Diploma team. Then it was clear the decks and start some work for NGFL Cymru - requested by Karen Ford.

On Friday Lils came over for the evening and on Saturday four of us (John Rousell, Lils, Shaz and me) walked the full length of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. Sharon and I went out with Emma and Charlie - to Endogans on Saturday night.

James has just released another Podcast which he and I recorded (you just can't get the quality these days!) - see: http://elearningstuff.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/elearningstuff017.mp3

Last week James Clay and I recorded a Podcast about the experiment I had been having with the iPhone. He has just posted this on his e-Learning Stuff blog. Click below to listen.

http://elearningstuff.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/elearningstuff016.mp3

Cycle ride '99

Mobile Learning Blog

Lesson Observations

Learning Styles

iPhone Trial

Books I read

Live Journal

Once again, I have to ask - where does time go? It's already pushing into the second week of March; January and February have passed by in a blur. It's only my ramblings here that keep me up to date with what I've done - what I'm doing is recorded in my dairy and on my calendar (which is now synchronised between Outlook 2007 and Google Calendar). This week has rocked! It has seen five solid days of work starting on a high and finishing on a high; but the week has been tinged with sharp reminders of reality.

The first brush with reality was the reminder that Web 2.0 offerings can change. Over the months, several sites have folded, but haven't impinged on what I do. But this weeks news that Gabcast will start to charge for their services really has affected me. As the change had 'legged-me-up' during my delivery of e-Guides on Tuesday I took a special interest that night and blogged my findings: http://dsugden.posterous.com/gabcast.

The second reminder that all is not well with the world was the news that all new builds for F.E. are being put on hold until at least the summer. I had just started my work with Nord Anglia and Hugh Baird College when the LSC met to decide whether it could afford to fund the new build plan for colleges. I can't find the press release now, but had it read to me. Apparently the LSC (the Government?) will review the situation in summer - but that seems a bit bleak given the current state of borrowing being undertaken by HMG at this time. Something has to give and for now it looks like the easy to hide F.E. sector - again.

I've undertaken two Hospitality Health checks for the LSN this week and they cannot have been more unalike. One college seems to be going it alone and aims to deliver the Higher over one year - the other seem(ed) to be getting nowhere. However, some probing and research helped me to find that things looked much rosier - when you found the right person to talk to.

Cycle ride '99

Mobile Learning Blog

Lesson Observations

Learning Styles

iPhone Diary

Books I read

Live Journal

We spent last Friday with Tony and Gill in Halifax. they had very kindly offered to buy lunch for Sharon and me, as a Christmas present - a gift we'd been happy to share with them. Like last year, we visited The Old Bridge Inn at Ripponden and had one of their buffet lunches. We were slightly disappointed that they closed at 3.00pm, as we would definitely have stayed longer had we been able (we didn't arrive early as Tony had been working in the morning. Instead we went back with them and had an enjoyable evening - Tony and I knocked back a nice bottle of Italian Wine he's bought at his mate Andy's.

We followed that up on the Sunday when John and Carol joined us for an afternoon's rugby (league). We'd got some tickets from the University (who sponsor the Huddersfield Giants) and started with a couple of pints to get us going. Huddersfield lost to St. Helens 23 - 6, so we commiserated with another couple of pints before going across the road for a curry. A good day.

I think that the time is quickly approaching when I need to sit down and seriously re-think the way this blog is written. I made a choice, right at the outset, to write it myself - in FrontPage 2003 (and FTP it to my web provider) instead of using the now more popular blog services. But FrontPage 2003 (reputedly) doesn't work on Vista and Microsoft have decided not to issue a new or upgraded version. As my main Laptop is now on Vista, this is a problem. My old (but only just over two years old - I think) Toshiba still runs 2003 and I therefore blog less often because I don't always have this machine with me.

The blog began almost four years ago (see first post) as life in college was becoming impossible and since then it has become a record of my weekly life - both at work and at play. Since starting back in May 2005, I have adapted the way it is designed, selected and deselected various add-ons and gadgets as they became available and generally honed my html skills, fixing the various problems that have arisen. I want to continue like this, but I suspect (another story) that the Toshiba is dying. I have Dreamweaver as a last resort but can't afford the time to teach myself how to use it. The last time I looked it was full of floating toolbars and I couldn't figure out which was which.

Anyway, on balance this week has been a good week. I'd had some angst about my visit to Shire Oak near Walsall, because no one at LSN had told me that is was a Vocational Support visit and I'd not been sure what to expect (other than a Diploma visit thing). in the end I think it went exceptionally well and I was able to put the school on the right tracks for their upcoming change of programme. I found that my e-Guides, Diploma Training, eCPD and MoLeNET colleague Nigel Davies lived just off my route back - so called for a cup of tea - which on such a nice day was lovely. On Thursday, I met Khawar Iqbal in Leeds, to talk about a European Project she'd like me to help with this summer. We'd first met last January when undertaking some OLAS work together for NIACE. The project looks like being an interesting piece of work and hopefully, it can lead to more. So, that was a good day.
 

Mobile Learning Blog

Lesson Observations

Learning Styles

iPhone Diary

Books I read

I'm taking the day off today. It feels really strange - I'm not accessing my emails (well, not work ones) and am just sat updating my Flickr photos and account. It also feels strange because I didn't work on Monday or Tuesday either, but I did keep up to emails and contacts then.

We drove to Wales on Saturday to stay with Rosie and Steven for a few days. As always, we were well fed (too well fed my belt tells me) and welcomed with open arms. It's a great place to start relaxing. But I'm afraid that I needed much more time than we had to relax fully. I had a full-on day on Wednesday and then spent a day with Nord Anglia on Thursday, beginning my work with a new build project on Merseyside. Then we went to the Weaver's Shed in Golcar for a meal and to stay over. This restaurant has rooms, so although it's only just out of sight of our back window - we felt that the comfort and luxury would be a nice change - and a change is as good as a rest.

The food was terrific - but you can tell from the menu choices that they are feeling the pinch. My starter was the richest I could see - Scallops and Pease Pudding - and it was delightful. Perfectly cooked King Scallops on a delicious, creamy, hammy Pease Pudding. Sharon had a Mature Cheddar Cheese Risotto which was perfectly balanced for flavour and texture. The main courses consisted of Hake (fair enough), Goosenargh Chicken, a Veggy dish I can't remember and something else. We ate: Braised Ox Cheek with Herb Dumplings (Sharon - loads of flavour) and Pan Fried Calve's Liver with 'greens' and mash. This was very tasty and if there is just a small downside, it is that the piece I had could just maybe have been butchered a little better. Sharon had some kind of ice cream with hot espresso coffee on it for pudding and I had an Eccles Cake with Mrs somebody's Lancashire Cheese. The Weaver's Shed grow as much of their own produce as possible and meat is sourced from local farms and butchers. Well worth splashing out for a special meal.

Things start getting serious again next week with lots of catch up to do for RSC-YH, the eCPD programme, Huddersfield University's online moderation work and preparation for upcoming gigs at Bolton, Ashton and NIACE National e-Guides Conference. One LSN Bespoke Training event for Diploma next week too. The following week sees me back in Bootle on the Monday, doing day 3 e-Guides Tuesday, MoLeNET workshops Wednesday and then two Diploma Health checks in Wakefield and Darlington. Well - I've got to keep putting food on the table!

Mobile Learning Blog

Lesson Observations

Learning Styles

Friday the 13th . . .paraskavedekatriaphobia day.

I went over to Liverpool on Tuesday to meet Elaine and Danny in preparation for our MoLeNET event on the Wednesday. The preparation for this event had been made, in the main by Di Dawson, based on the workshops we did last year. I'd spent some time re-working it to suit my own delivery style but needed to sit with Elaine and go through it with her too. So we did that before eating in the hotel. Now there's a surprise, a hotel meal that was actually not bad. So - Holiday Inn in Liverpool (opposite Lime Street Station) had good food - well done. The gig itself went ok despite trials and tribulations caused by the original venue not being confirmed by someone. Feedback we've seen since has been good.

Several of us met in Leeds that night for a meal at Wagamama's. A meeting had been arranged for the Thursday by LSN and most of the mentors would be there. Elaine and James stayed overnight, as did Danny who felt unwell and didn't join us. Dave Foord joined us as he happened to be in town. Another nice dinner.

The meeting itself went ok and we heard about how each others projects were progressing and about the new facilities being offered to MoLeNET projects later this month.

Today I've visited two colleges as part of the follow up activities for L4LW (our RSC-YH project from last year).

Another busy week. For those of you that might be interested in the lesson observation debate below (responses to my rant), I've moved it to http://dsugden.posterous.com/lesson-observations so that interested parties can 'comment' directly. I will keep up my own dialogue re: lesson observations there too.

I travelled to Manchester last Sunday in very wintery conditions. These continued throughout the week but amazingly, I managed to steer clear of the worst. At home (see picture) Sharon became housebound, only managing to get out on Tuesday evening to pick me up at Slaithwaite Station. She'd already warned me that getting to Huddersfield to pick me up would be impossible due to the treacherously icy roads. The weather impacted on our e-Guides session on Monday with only eight of the planned twenty two participants being with us by the 10.00am start time. We eventually managed to get up to nineteen, which was great but the weather (and poor internet connections) spoiled the two days. Because of transport fears on both days, participants wanted to leave early. Those from Yorkshire had good cause, but in Manchester and even later in the week, despite further snow across the country, Lancashire remained pretty snow free. I visited St. Helens College on Friday and there was a distinct difference between the counties.

On Wednesday, I travelled to London for the LSIS eCPD launch conference being held at the Russell Hotel on Thursday. this gave me my first experience of the travel upset when my planned train from Leeds was cancelled. However despite the next train being very full, I managed to get a leg room seat and no one wanted to sit by me. Brilliant. The conference went well, I facilitated the session by Richard Everett who talked about the way his college had implemented a scheme whereby learners supported ILT - e-Learning in the classroom. It was a very interesting presentation and for me was a promise fulfilled as I'd tried to get teachers to understand the power of learners in their personal uptake of 'e' whilst at Dewsbury.

Dave Foord, Ron Mitchell, Neil Mayne, Lilian soon and I all visited an Indian Restaurant on Wednesday night - quite close to the Russell hotel. It had great promise and we ordered accordingly. To say that what we got was amongst the shabbiest Indian food we'd ever eaten wouldn't be stretching the point. To say that we were ripped off (they added 10% service charge to the bill - which we were too tired to dispute) would be a statement of truth. Lilian's dish had been twice the cost of mine but wasn't twice the value or twice the taste. Her Biryani was supposed to be king prawn - but we had great difficulty finding prawns of any size. It didn't taste as good as it should and the sauce was like thick mashed vegetables. We were not happy bunnies, but as I say - too tired to make a fuss. The gig Lils and I did will be published by ALT sometime in the near future (watch this space) and we both (as well as those in our workshops) enjoyed it very much.

I'm off to the University of Huddersfield this afternoon to deliver a session on mobile learning - this must be my fifth year now, so I've been polishing up my presentation today. The sessions yesterday at St. Helens (on Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy and Marshall McLuhan's Medium v Message) seemed to go down very well so I've re-incorporated those into today's delivery. It's hard to believe how easily 'theory' can be made palatable. Next week is a little bit quieter, so perhaps I can catch up on my sleep!

Mobile Learning Blog

Lesson Observations

What a week. Tuesday saw the first face to face day of the new eCPD programme and Wednesday was our day - the day of the Northern meeting in Leeds. This programme seems to have brought a lot of angst along with it and this resulted in my own poor performance. However, as you'll see from the link - we sorted it. We'd had to meet on the Tuesday evening - Lilian, Neil Mayne, Sue Owen-Evans and Steve Smith to chat about the lessons learned in the Midlands event. Lils took us to Wagamama which was a revelation to me. I've never been to this chain before and was pleasantly surprised by the style and the price. The food was ok too.

On Thursday, I was at Nottingham University attending a Xerte training session. I've seen the product demonstrated before but never had the time to play - and today I took the opportunity to do just that. Its real potential is for ordinary practitioners to easily take up the e-Learning mantel. Xerte presents the user with a series of 'templates' within which to arrange a learning episode. The templates have been jointly produced by the University and TechDis and are therefore a accessible as they can be. Even the Drag N Drop exercise can be manipulated (by the learner) without the use of a mouse - which I thought was nigh on impossible. You can download version 2.1 from the Xerte website: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/ and this, with a couple of tiny tweaks, will run off a memory stick! You can also apply to TechDis to play with their Xerte Sandbox. This is a free product, open source and currently preparing for release of a final Toolkits version one (for developers).

Friday saw me in Leicester for an e-Guides CoP training event. It was great to meet the other trainers and to chat in a relaxed atmosphere about all the things we'd been up to. This exchange of war stories, tips and techniques emulates John Seeley Brown's findings whilst working at Xerox. (The Social Life of Information). It's good to talk. But it's not good to be away from home at this busy time - emails back up and because of intermittent internet connections - email 'sends' won't always go. I'm not sure why. But this has caused me some embarrassment this week by not being able to communicate properly with my contact at Nord Anglia. Yet it goes on ...

This evening I have to go to Manchester for two days delivering e-Guides and then on Wednesday I'm off to London to deliver a session with Lils at the eCPD launch at the Russell Hotel. Friday I'm at St. Helens and Saturday I'm delivering a Mobile Learning session for the MSc students at Huddersfield University. Phew.

Mobile Learning Blog

Lesson Observations - comment

It would seem that all is not well on the chalk face.

I now know of two teachers who have fallen foul of their college’s lesson observation system. It seems to me that the authors and proponents of this particular system are so far out of touch with learners as to make it a useless, destructive instrument. Although lesson observation training takes place, there is no consistency of purpose. Surely the purpose of lesson observation is to improve teaching and learning - not to demoralise staff to the point that they become ill. But this is what has happened here and is happening all over the country. Instead of treating lesson observations as an opportunity to support and encourage good teaching (and learning), they are used in negative soul destroying ways.

Obviously I cannot name the two teachers or the college(s) involved but one person involved is someone I have placed on a pedestal so high that I often urge others to look up to her skills and achievements. With her learners she enthuses, excites, chastises, encourages, advises, helps and educates in a way that makes those same learners love her and which gives them the means with which to progress their course and their lives. Both teachers were marked as unsatisfactory in recent lesson observations.

Whilst one observation is hearsay to me and I cannot comment further, I have seen the instrument and the comments on the other observation. I was appalled and not a little glad that I was now ‘out of it’ – because had I been ‘in it’ I would have become demoralised, dispirited and downright angry. But – that has happened anyway - I'm furious that these two eminently successful women have been slighted so badly. Hence this blog post – my only practical release for the frustration I feel.

There's very little I can say here that will change things, but consider this - the instrument used is a grid to support assessment decisions – 2 x A4 pages (landscape) each with five columns (assessment statement in 1 and then grading 1 – 4) and a total of 19 rows, each detailing an assessment statement. Statements such as:

Learning materials/resources - including e-Learning. Are marked across four levels. Picture shows the Statement
plus the criteria for Outstanding

The criteria for Good and Satisfactory

and finally the example criteria for Inadequate

This teacher was marked as inadequate. She was using NING with some learners and others were creating Christmas video-montages using Photo Story 3. The subject was enrichment and it had been agreed with the course coordinator that the learners would use this session to increase their non-Office I.T. skills. Where was the lesson observer? Why wasn't this use of technology recognised? I can only assume that the lesson observer - whoever that was - wouldn't know e-Learning if it crept out of the gutter and bit his/her leg! The teacher was similarly marked as either Satisfactory or Inadequate for Attendance (it was Eid!), and for demonstrating Photo Story on a computer that was too small (no other display equipment in the room) - anyway I could go on (and on) - this should never happen.

Lesson observations like this are destructive! They have a design that destroys the confidence of teachers and which suggests that everything they do is wrong. But is it wrong? These tutors have a world of experience dealing with learners’ year on year and bring countless years of industrial experience to the job. So they can’t be all bad. So why not implement a more supportive regime? One that recognises the outstanding features of a lesson and which encourages the development of better skills where they are deemed unsatisfactory. Peer observation is one solution - not widely used in this establishment. Oh - and there is no appeal!

Disgusting

On Tuesday this week, and following a piece in TES I was concerned enough to write this: My Posterous Blog

Monday's gig with Lilian in Liverpool was good. We were both there to deliver a MoLeNET 'm-champions' event. This included an overview of some of the other workshops which would be provided throughout the year. Lilian later found some reflection on one of the recipients blogs which, after saying how much they'd enjoyed the day said: "the trainers were as mad as me!. Which is fair enough! I had to go to London on Tuesday evening, for the final day's training for PDA Facilitators. It was great to catch up with all my chums and colleagues again, even though it had only been a month since we last met. We all seemed to get lots out of the day.

Last week, I'd bought a new pocket projector - a 3M MPro 110 from http://www.personalprojector.co.uk/ who are based in Featherstone, Nr. Wakefield. I showed this at the MoLeNET training and many were interested. As long as you don't think these tiny tools will be as bright as a room projector you won't be disappointed. It easily projects a reasonable image to about 3ft square (the blurb says 60" - but let's be reasonable here) which is good enough for some purposes. This model (the company also sell another make) will project from a laptop (other makes tend not to do that) - which is what I wanted it to do. It also projects from other video or image sources - if you have the correct cable. It's downside (and the other model's plus point) is that it doesn't play sound. It's well worth having a look at the videos on the company's website.

Bishop Burton College had contacted me last week. They booked in three workshops, the first of which was Thursday this week. Whereas previously, classes finished at 4.00pm, the now go on until 5.00pm - which means that my twilight session is put back from 4.00pm - 6.00pm to 5.00pm - 7.00pm. The first thing I noticed about the change was the increase in traffic off the motorway (both directions) and the second thing was an increase in attendance! Once again, I had double figures. The workshop was 'basic office' and it seemed to go down very well. As it always does. As I've said many times, there is still a great need to show basic techniques and to discuss the various uses to which these can be put.

I completed my initial MoLeNET visits this week with a train and tram journey around Manchester. I visited Trafford College first - which can easily be found by taking a tram out to Old Trafford and walking right around the Lancashire County Cricket ground (down the Warwick Road). Despite the location, I didn't see the football ground. Trafford are looking to use mobile devices in S4L, ITT and T2G. I then went to Ashton 6th Form College where they have some good ideas for the use of iPods, iTouches and iPhones (as well as other kit).
 

Last Friday, we took Betony for her first adult consultation about her CFS/ME. She's 18 later this year and can now finally be treated as an adult. We didn't feel that the paediatric consultant knew enough about the syndrome to be trusted as she was recommending increasing bouts of exercise, which were tiring Betony out. We know that this will have to be done, but not over the three month timescale she was proposing (with GCSE's thrown in). Betony is much happier with the adult environment and the proposals which the department have suggested. They also very kindly reminded us what the problems is like for Betony.

I've been watching the activity on my Flickr pages quite avidly for a few months now - I find it intriguing why certain photographs receive attention. For example, the most popular this week is this one http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsugden/2515480577/ which is also the third most popular on my site. Why? Its partner (I took two photos at the same time) shown alongside, is hardly ever looked at. The only reason I can surmise - and this is a good example of how NOT to tag - is that the tags are different. For the popular photograph - Hunger-2, I have used the tags: human, body, parts, NCSL, internal, organs. Whereas, for the one shown here I used: skeleton, human, body. That really does show how important it is to tag correctly. I'm not going to change them - so I can use this as an example. But again, why are people searching for human body parts on Flickr? Incidentally, the most popular image on my Flickr site is Karen Ford - sat in a wheelchair stroking a lion!

This week has seen me back to work with a vengeance. I went to Leeds on Tuesday to meet Lilian for lunch. We chatted about almost everything: her holiday in the USA, her family, our MoLeNET 'stuff', our BDP 'stuff' (which she is leading regionally - and I don't envy her the work she's having to do to pull it all together) and some L4LW 'stuff' we're continuing with. Wednesday, I went to Oldham to meet the Bolton/Oldham MoLeNET people - Roger, Julie and Paul. Thursday, off to Wakefield to buy a tiny, portable projector, which I will advertise more fully here when I have confirmation of some commission. (That's quite unlike me - but I have to earn a living and in the modern world knowledge is a commodity to be sold) From there, i went onto Kirklees College to meet the new L4LW team. Most of those involved in last years bid have left or moved on, so new people have had to be shown what can be done with the kit they bought. Friday saw me off to Merseyside, where I met people for various reasons at various colleges. I will flesh this bit out when things have evolved more - but it was an interesting day nevertheless.

Following a conversation with Richard Gorringe at Nord Anglia this week, I'm hopeful of more work coming my way on new builds. We had an interesting visit together before Christmas when we attended a meeting which was not at all what we had expected. This was also the first time we had met, so I think it cemented a mutual trust in each other as there was a certain amount of digging ourselves out of what was a difficult meeting. All in all week 1/2009 has been a good one. :-)

Happy New Year.

This is my first entry of 2009. Nothing to report right now! I've left a few days from last year below, the rest can be found elsewhere.

2008
Jan - March
April - June
July - Sept
Oct - Dec

2007
Jan - March
April - June
July - Sept
Oct - Dec

This will probably be my last post of 2008. I make it in the full knowledge that by publishing it, I am sharing my life and myself with the world - or anyone who is remotely interested. Thank you for maintaining that interest. Bloggers and the readers of blogs are changing the way society lives and breathes. Especially micro-blogs. Happy New Year

It's been another active year. Only when I look back do I realise (remember?) some of the great things we've done. We went to France in Summer. To Nick and Sophie's wedding in Somerset in May. Before the summer holiday, Sharon spent some time with Betony in America. Work wise it's also been a great year. I've done work (and am still doing work) for NIACE as an e-Guide trainer; for LSN as a MoLeNET Mentor and Diploma Support Consultant and for several of the JISC RSCs.. Next year, I have more work coming along from the National Science Learning Centre and with BDP on their new LSIS sponsored PDA programme. Hopefully, 2009 will be as rewarding as 2007. Best wishes to you all and thank you for reading.

We've come over to Chirk today, to stay with Karen and Dave for a couple of days - which should be nice. On Boxing Day we walked down to Slaithwaite and had a few drinks with John and Carol before coming back to prepare a dinner for us to share with Tony and Gill. They had arrived just before we got back from Slaithwaite - which caused some consternation! In the end we had Parsnip and Ginger soup, Roast Ham and Pork Pie (prepared earlier) with bubble and squeak, pickles and salads. Sharon made pudding - Trifle (without the sponge) and then we had cheese, cake and biscuits.

Recent Posterous:

Micro-blogging

Christmas Day

Boxing Day. It looks like being a lazy day today - which is good, following two days of intense activity. I spent a great deal of Christmas Eve in the kitchen preparing for our meal yesterday. We'd been to Costco on Tuesday, looking for one of their turkey fronts (breast only, on the bone) or one of their breast rolls (no bone) - but they had none. All sold out. The only things available were huge birds - far too big for us. We ended up having to buy one at Tesco, which was potentially too small. In the end it was a perfect size, inasmuch as there is just enough left for a sandwich (which Betony probably had last night before she went to bed).

Part of my preparation is to remove the turkey legs, bone them, remove sinews, tie them and cook them along with the bones and 'stuff', simmering away to make stock. This leaves me with a fairly sleek bird which cooks quickly and saves mess 'on the day'. the leg meat is then sliced and served cold along with (on this occasion) some cold roast ham. I'd boiled the ham for an hour, let it stand in the water for half an hour and then (having removed the rind) studded it with cloves, coated it with butter and honey and roast it for a further half an hour. Lovely. That's mainly for today (Boxing day). I also made (as you might see above) a pork pie and a terrine (same meat mix: one dressed, one undressed!) - both for Boxing day, when Tony and Gill are due to join us.

We were joined yesterday by my mum and dad (looking and seeming much older than they do at home) and Charlie, Emma and the girls. These two, Amy and Charlotte, kept us entertained and awake all afternoon. Amy's favourite food of the day was some rice pudding Sharon had made for Christmas Eve (thinking that we NEEDED pudding with our Cream of Tomato soup and roast best end of lamb ON Boulangere) - everything else was patently unpleasant. Charlotte, the youngest just ate everything she was given. We'd put the table down the middle of the living room, which stopped us playing games and the like but all in all it was a pleasant day.

Sharon had bought me a PSP - which I'd wanted for a while (not being sure what sort of things they could do) and I'd bought her an iPod Touch - which she seems to like very much. Just one point with the Touch though: She charged it all day but it held no charge. we went on forums etc and finally thought it would have to be returned. But, just as a final final touch, she downloaded iTunes. Then it worked! It wouldn't show that it had been charged or that it even had a brain until it touched base no more than that) with the mother ship of iTunes. Amazing. Imagine a car that wouldn't start until you'd downloaded a manufacturer specific something other to your garden (I use garden as an example because it has little to do with the car - like to the computer having similarly little to do with the iTouch). Both garden and computer seem to act as bouys.

Happy New Year.

Season's Greetings

This might be a long post. The man-flu is upon me now - full on!

Yesterday was the Jaiku Christmas lunch. Well, that's what it has become. Last years lunch was disrupted somewhat by an accident on the M62 which spoiled what would have been the third time Lils, JW, Nick and I had met for Christmas lunch here on the mother ship. This year, I'd opened up the invitation for lunch to other like-minded souls on Jaiku and four were able to respond. Nick and I were the common denominators and we were joined by Dave Foord, Ron Mitchell and Lisa Valentine. It was really good to get a chance to just sit and chat, eat lunch and generally relax in quiet surroundings. With no pressure.

We discussed many things and although we are all Jaiku converts and members of our own community of practice - we still like to 'talk', to 'discuss' etc. face to face. Nuances are easier to understand and explanations easier to make in this way. We talked about the excellence many 6th form colleges achieved and wondered if this was because of or in spite of technology. We feared the worst. I think we all feel that there is a deep-rooted problem with the education 'system' and this (probably) begins in schools, where they are so very target (benchmark?) led. Those that survive key stages 3 and 4 go on to 6th forms already knowing what to expect and how to cope. For this, the 6th forms get much credit. General F.E. (the wider post 16 community) get those who have fallen by the wayside. I'd love to be able to say that my personal views are out of kilter with others - but they are not. We do a serious disservice to 16 years olds that come along and expecting not to be taught the same old nonsense they have had at school - yet that it was the 'system' expects of us.

To be fair, if learners come to F.E. they are disillusioned or disappointed with school life - maybe they have just had enough. They may be very very bright and WANT to learn a trade but every possible effort is made to keep them on at school (6th form) and to pursue an academic route, so if they DO come, we need to push push push. They may otherwise be very bright, but this brightness hasn't been nurtured (perhaps they ask too many questions - which I understand can be a problem :-() and they are driven towards vocational routes - so they can't cause too much disruption. They are then frustrated when we have to (do we have to?) teach them in the same way that has been so far unsuccessful since they were 11. We also get those learners who are so perplexed by the way school has treated them that it takes us an age to get the very best out of them - but invariably we do ['we' here is the F.E. workforce].

Learners are all different and they all prefer to learn in different ways - and supporting differentiation is what F.E. should be (is?) good at. But time and time again I hear of inspections and lesson observations that seem to disregard this. I've always had a problem with Aims and Objectives for example. What are they for? Why do we need them - for every lesson? Don't get me wrong, we DO need to know what our lesson/session is for and what our general outcomes should be but what if the learners want to go somewhere else that day; what if they are more interested in something else that is subject-relevant today; shouldn't we allow them to go there, without fear of censure? I believe that we should had very firm Aims for the course itself and that objectives should be the same as those required by the awarding body (performance criteria?) - these should be supplemented by whatever life, social and communication skills are appropriate to the learner. This way, when I begin every lesson/session I KNOW what my Aims are - they are those of the course. My planned Objectives are those I wish to apply 'today' BUT ... if the learners get so interested in one aspect of the class that I cannot achieve a planned objective (but in fact they/we cover one or more from upcoming weeks) - then why should I be penalised? Because I would be - "teacher strayed from stated objectives and caused confusion in the minds of learners'. WHAT!

If learners are engaged (and that would be a permanent objective), they will learn. If we allow them opportunities for exploration and experimentation, they will learn. We just need the room, the space, the opportunity to do these things. Without censure.

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