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David Sugden |
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** Links updated this week |
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| 28th December 2006 | "If you can raise the meter
for 10% of children in a school you can do it for the other 90% as
well."
I took the above quote from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6214407.stm which was titled ['E-Credits' for top 10% of pupils] -today's date. The e-credits system, with initial funding of £65m, is to be run by the not-for-profit CfBT Education Trust from next September. It's not clear who made the quote above - but I have to ask myself the same question! If our government can invest enough confidence in 'E' to support the needs of a high-flying 10%, then it should also be able to find cash for the other 90%. And, what about those young people already out of the school system - and adults? Don't their educational institutions (whatever or wherever they might be) deserve access to a similar level of support? It's not that I begrudge the opportunities given to the top 10%, it's more that I bemoan the dwindling support for all those others, not in school or university. What do you think? |
Links
Featured Videos Resources Holidays and Gigs
My other 'stuff'
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| 26th December 2006 | Merry Christmas! It's Boxing Day evening and
(sadly??) I'm sat here filling in my blog! Many thanks to all
those of you who sent us cards and gifts - they are all much
appreciated. Please take a look at the other 'Village' pages - you might
find more than you expected . . . . We have had Rosie and Steven (Sharon's brother) staying with us since Saturday and it's been a super holiday. On Saturday evening, just after they arrived, we went to Endogans - the Tapas bar in Slaithwaite. This was an early sitting, so we were home in plenty of time for a chat and to being the Christmas boozing. On Christmas Eve, John and Carol joined us for an evening meal: Salad of Artichoke, hot bacon and Goat's Cheese; Pan Fried Sea Bass with buttered Capers, Roast Loin of Lamb with lemon, rosemary and honey stuffing; Green Beans and Dauphinoise Potatoes; Cheeses (from Wensleydale and Wales); Baked Bananas and creme fraiche!!! And lots more booze - we were stuffed by bedtime. It took us all Christmas Day to open presents - people kept dropping in. To be frank, I'm happier with people dropping in than opening presents, so that wasn't a problem. Nevertheless, I was given some very generous presents. Many of these came via my Amazon wish list which, when I opened the list it felt very strange. It seemed so self-centred to tell friends and family about it., but it has allowed them (mainly Sharon and Emma) to buy 'wanted' presents without having too much trouble. One of my favourites was 'The Healer' by John Lee Hooker - recommended by Vic Dejean. Thanks Vic. Today was a more help-yourself sort of day. Sharon took Chloe back to her mum's and then we all went out for a walk around Bolster Moor and Scapegoat Hill, Food for the rest of the day was cold meats and whatever else we could find (plenty to choose from). I'm ready for a break from all the food and drink now - well at least until Sunday `evening when Karen, Dave, Tony and Gill join us for New Year's Eve dinner. |
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| Here's a fishy Christmas greeting . . . | ||
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20th December 2006
Christmas Present |
Try Martin's Money Tips for money saving ideas. He is giving money to charity for everyone enrolling on his email list before 24th December. | |
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14th December 2006
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It was my birthday last Thursday and like
last year, I was joined for lunch by Emma and Amy. This was something
I'd looked forward to for a while (the lunch with daughter and
granddaughter - not the birthday). Now she's two years old she's a
pleasure to watch. As all of you will know, a child is very inquisitive
when she's two and Amy is no exception. However, her most pleasurable
time seemed to be sat in the conservatory playing with the cat's water
dish!- she was drenched! I had a sore throat and head cold, and by
Friday didn't feel all that good - so I spent the entire morning in bed.
I had lots of reading to do, so staying in bed and reading was great for
me. I had the pleasure of catching up with work I'd normally leave until
last (the reading), I stayed warm and comfortable AND managed to relax.
Which was good because we'd booked a table for the night at Bentleys' in
Shelf.
http://www.bentleys-foodandwine.co.uk/ We had a delightful meal here
- see my MySpace blog (link on right-hand side bar) for more details. I went for a walk with John on Saturday but we concentrated on PC World and the town centre, so not much exercise there then! The rest of the weekend (until my departure for Leeds at 6.00pm Sunday) was spent trying to install my BT Total Broadband 'upgrade'!!!! What a bloody nightmare this was. We spent half the time on a phone to India - where more technically competent (but language challenged) staff were placed to help us. My new laptop passed through the hoop fairly easily - probably because it was new, but we had to go and buy a new USB wireless connector for Sharon's PC (the old one was a BT one, my PC's existing USB connector - a Belkin one - worked fine, which is how we knew a new one was needed - but (sorry this is a long parenthesis) we were told at one stage that we shouldn't use Belkin!!) But BT were crap. My Acer - which I still use for gigs etc just WOULDN'T connect, despite having a centrino chip. Betony's dad had to talk to India after I'd left for Leeds. Leeds was where I was meeting three other WBL e-Guide trainers for our day-s gig on the Monday. This went well and prepared me nicely for the next day-3 event in Liverpool on Wednesday (yesterday). Once again, I had to go the night before and ended up eating a fairly mundane Indian meal for tea on Tuesday evening. Sharon picked me up off the train on Wednesday evening and took me to the new Tapas bar in Huddersfield. I'm not sure of its name, but we weren't impressed. I'll try it again (Sharon says she won't) but it's not a patch on Endigans. They don't have a web site as far as I can see but it's a little secret place in Slaithwaite - only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. If you can find it and book it: try it! The JISC thing is still going on and I've now received a contract to do some Prison visits for NIACE, which should be interesting. |
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| 5th December 2006 | I've just done quite a bit of updating on my Googlepages site. Don't expect much on the master page (main link) but do search the fish pages and the vegetable pages - constructive comments welcome. http://dsugden.googlepages.com/commodities | |
| 4th December 2006 | It was Amy's
birthday yesterday - two years old!! I can't believe how time flies. I
spent the early part of last week working on the JISC project but on
Thursday I worked with
Alistair McNaught
at the Magna Centre in
Rotherham. The building is huge but at this time of year, very very
cold. We were right in the middle and they did their best to keep us
warm but it meant that our workshops were interrupted by the overhead
heaters (they could have been air conditioning units for all the effect
they had). It might be nice to visit again sometime - but some time
\warmer. I met and re-met lots of people including Claudia and Sarah
from NIACE and some of the WBL e-guides who I'll see again next week in
Leeds or Liverpool. Alistair and I discussed with our delegates the
creation of learning materials how how simple it is to 'include' the
majority of our learners without excluding any. Then on Friday I went to
Karen's in Chirk, to meet her and Chris Kelland. However, Chris's train
abandoned him at Wolverhampton, so we decided to cut his journey and
meet him in Shrewsbury. It was half an hour's drive from Chirk to
Shrewsbury, so we arrived just as his train did. Whilst we were walking
around the town, looking for somewhere to eat, someone came up to me and
asked if I'd been at the Magna Centre on Thursday!! He'd been in one of
our sessions - what are the odds against that? Next week is a long one - I have a Sunday start for NIACE - day three of the WBL e-Guides training for Yorkshire and Humberside - Vic and I will be joined by Terry Loane and David Boulton. Then on Tuesday I have to go to Liverpool for Wednesday's similar session for North West, where I will be joined by Sandie Gay. Then it's wind-down and catch-up time, as long as I can finally get this JISC thing put to bed! |
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| 28th November 2006 | The weekend in Swaledale was great. We'd gone to try and catch up with some work stuff and pretty much managed. It sounds really sad doesn't it? But we had no disturbances, no phone calls (NO RECEPTION - NO PHONE CALLS) as well as some time to ourselves. I had a lot of reading to do and notes to make for reports etc. which I managed to do in relative peace. Sharon managed to catch up on her assignment marking while we sat in front of the huge open fire. The JISC thing is getting closer to the first real milestone - when our work goes to its first review. Fingers crossed. Did some more work on http://dsugden.googlepages.com/fish_master and sought some permissions to use photos. So far the UK permissions have been granted - thanks to all. | |
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21st November 2006
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Just released today -
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldbills/006/07006.i-ii.html
the F.E. and Training Bill. I haven't read it yet - but as always -
comments please.
Click here
to make a comment. I've spent most of this week (at least a day and a half) trying to make headway with the JISC Innovative Technology workshops project. The pilot will be by invitation on 31st January 2007. After that we will present four other workshops in Bristol (probably April); in Leicester (Gilly Salmon's place); London (Met Uni - John Cook's place) and Manchester. It's all shaping up very well - the day's content if looking really good. That's not down to me though, John Traxler and Helen Beetham are the real hero's with the content creation. 'ALL' I've done is crack the whip and make sense of the thousands of emails from various quarters. Next week I'm working with the fabulous Alistair McNaught at the Magna Centre in Rotherham (Sheffield really). TechDis are doing a workshop for ALP as part of their roll out of e-Learning to Work Based Learning. I'm looking forward to that. I'm doing some stuff for NIACE and for Huddersfield University, before Sharon and I go to Reeth in Swaledale for a long weekend! Now, that's something I'm looking forward to. |
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| 15th Nov. addendum | Just trying out a new layout for the blog. I keep being asked about
parts of it - so I thought I'd try to make navigation easier (fingers
crossed?). See Colour wheels - see Accessibility |
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15th November 2006
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Back on the food theme for just a minute, I'm not a vegetarian (although I do like vegetarian food) and I do appreciate well prepared food >> see various notes and comments below. But I do debate sometimes exactly what it is that we call food. Dinner ladies are currently being hounded because they are trying to serve up better tasting,. more nutritious food. Yet - many of us still like to drop into one of the big chains for a quick fix of meat (sic). This video (posted earlier this week on YouTube) can be uncomfortable watching and is disturbing in places - well worth a view though. Ask yourself - "would I like to waste another gherkin on such a thing?" | |
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Also see on [My Space Blog] Food rant:
http://blog.myspace.com/dsugden
www.meatmatters.com -
a web page produced on behalf of http://www.barbecue-online.co.uk/ - a Calor web page (worth a look!) http://www.bmesonline.org.uk/ - some cracking resources on this site
http://www.meatandhealth.co.uk/ - another
useful pro-meat site |
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14th November 2006
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I'm filing this on the train from London King's Cross to Leeds, on my
way back from a LSN gig at the Boddington Hotel. Once again I led the
student services input - but also once again, this was poorly attended.
It seems that student services staff are not used to being invited out
on such things - which is a shame because there are some really good
resources on
www.learningtechnologies.ac.uk/itq - take a look and see.
This is the first publicised announcement of the
site's address, as far as I can see - so if it ended up (where it
belongs) on the Champs mailing list - how could anyone complain?? The
resources were made to support different areas of college life: Teachers
(overseen by the redoubtable Steve Smith); LRC staff, overseen by Meg
Gain and Student Services - over seen by me! I used eight authors, all
soaked in F.E: John Rousell; Nick Jeans; Karen Ford; Sharon Chapman;
Terry Middleton; Lilian Soon; John Whalley and Alan Carr. Their products
were designed to be used by learners, but to show colleagues how the
process of developing the resources could be undertaken by said
colleagues. For example, take a look at the Substance Abuse resource:
You'll see that the accompanying files show the rationale behind its
development, a word file to support any delivery or support of the
material, the supporting excel and hot potatoes files and the resource
itself. Separate to the LSN have developed (in conjunction with
Coleg
Sir Gar) a series of excellent supporting tutorials and 'how to'
documents. All these and a presentation about iTQs can be found on the
same site. Well worth a look. As I said earlier, the York e-Guides gig went really well. The same can't be said of the Manchester gig. The delegates were great but it didn't go well at all. Actors say that you shouldn't work with animals and children and until recently I've always refused to rely on ANY internet connection. My presentations, until this academic year have always had 100% hard disk back-up. This year though, due to the changing nature of 'e' and the more ubiquitous and reliable provision of wireless broadband - I've been more trusting. What's more, e-Guides training includes a great deal of internet access. We had none! There were other problems - but enough! Move on. My meal on Thursday in Manchester was at the El Rincon de Rafa Tapas restaurant off Deansgate. It was getting full as I got there but I was offered a seat at the bar to eat my food. It was smoky (big minus for me) but I was determined to eat here again, after having such a fabulous meal with Ros Smith, Sarah Knight (well done new mum!) and the Scottish ladies last year. The food was once more tremendous and towards the end, as the bar filled up, I was hunched over it (like a lion over its prey) to keep people away from it. I was ihn bwed aslepp by 10.00pm. |
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12th November 2006
click for bigger picture |
Doesn't time pass quickly. It's Sunday again yet only seems a couple of
days since I set off LAST Sunday to meet Vic Dejean in York, to prepare
for our e-Guides gig there on Monday last. The wedding had gone well and
we all had a great time. Emma couldn't have had a better day (well she
could - but for November she couldn't!). The weather stayed fine and the
sun shone brightly. She looked stunning and I was very proud of my
daughter. Amy, my granddaughter looked great too and was as well behaved
as only a two year old can be - she looked and was delightful. Karen and
Dave came over to join us in the evening and we had a great time. We'd
booked rooms in the hotel overnight, so the following morning, Karen,
Dave and I walked back home over the tops, which was great too. Both of
them stayed over that night and because of the view from our
conservatory, had a nice meal with firework accompaniment by the many
visible neighbours. The e-Guides thing went very well I think and it was a pleasure to work with Vic. This was the first event for both of us, so it was nice to have each other to fall back on. We had a few beers on Sunday evening and then were joined by Claudia Hesse from NIACE) on Monday. We'd had a restaurant recommended - so off we went to The Old Girls School. Despite some reviews, we had a good meal and a cracking bottle of wine. Then on Wednesday I was off again. But more of this later - I have to go now and stop the tea from burning. |
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| 2nd November 2006 |
It's Emma's wedding tomorrow, so today is catch up day here in sunny
(but very cold) Huddersfield. With just the one daughter, tomorrow
should be something of a unique occasion for me. How often do you get to
walk down the aisle with the bride? The father or the bride speech has
caused me more concern than any of the preparations I make for gigs and
conferences. But it's in the bag (I think). This week began with the first of six LSN events to promote the eCPD materials. "These resources have been developed and contextualised to meet the needs of Learning Resource Centre staff and their learners, both to develop the ICT skills of LRC staff and to provide interactive resources to support learners in their use of the LRC. The resources focus on three areas of skills: Information and study skills; Presentation skills; Staff skills." - http://www.learningtechnologies.ac.uk/ The gig worked ok for me, but there was some frustration caused because the hotel had not fixed up the wireless internet properly. Some of the presentations were marred by this. We discussed the day afterwards and hope to have it all in order by London (Bonnigton Hotel - 14th November!). Since then, I've been catching up on various projects and preparing for next week's e-Guides adventures. There is a bit of activity on Wales but nothing much to report there just yet. - Right I have to get on with it -I pick my suit up this afternoon . . . |
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26th October 2006 Met: Ellen Lesner Benita Wiseman John Traxler Helen Beetham James Clay Ros Smith Helen Walmsley Paul Bailey |
Well, there's a lot happened during the last week. I've worked at the Reebok stadium at Bolton (for TechDis) and then at Blackpool College on the 19th. On Friday 20th, I drove Sharon and Betony to Manchester airport (where they were making a surprise visit to Sharon's sister Gail's wedding) and then up to Accrington College, where I delivered three e-Learning and NLN sessions. On Monday this week, I was at Bishop Burton College and then yesterday I was in Leeds helping to plan the LSN workshops which begin next week. Today, I'm at the e-Ped Expert's meeting in Birmingham. On Friday I have to catch on all the projects and begin getting ready for the e-Guides work the week after next. But first, I've got my daughter Emma's wedding to go to - and that's more nerve wracking than any of this stuff! A father-of-the-bride speech indeed! It's wearing me out, trying to find the right words and then to memorise them. | |||
| 17th October 2006 |
Today is the day of the Big Blog. A group of charities headed by
the National Trust and English Heritage hope that it will become a moment of history unlike any other with the launch of what they call the greatest mass "blog" ever. My effort (which will be send, as directed via email to www.historymatters.org.uk - just as soon as the site recovers!) will be meagre - but part of the gross word count anyway. For me, this is a great diversionary tactic - I am sat at home, working my way through the delivery materials for a two day course I will deliver next month. So - a reflection of how history impinges on me today (if I have properly understood the deal): For me it's the technology we use in Education that is of paramount importance. I look back at old repeats of FRIENDS and see the gang occasionally using huge handheld bricks which they quaintly call their 'cell' (phone). Most of these episodes were post 9/11 and America had yet to catch on to the 'mobile' revolution that was taking place in Europe and the far east. My wife Sharon took delivery of her new phone this morning. It has a 3.2 megapixel camera, which gives her the improved ability to capture learning opportunities (she's a teacher; it has a web connection, video capabilities, a Gigabyte of memory AND it can be used as a phone too. The Handheld Learning Conference last week discussed many educational uses of mobile learning and for those innovative teachers amongst us - the prospects are quite exciting. Yet, back in many institutions, teachers are still reluctant to use what is now fairly common technology such as that offered by Office Suites of software or free ready-made materials like those of the NLN. See http://ferl.becta.org.uk for examples of Office suite materials and my Resources page for 'how to' |
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12th October 2006
QEII Centre |
Well, I'm at the Handheld Learning
Conference at the QEII centre in Westminster. There is no reasonably
priced access to the internet there so I'm doing a daily blog on
http://dsugden.googlepages.com/handheld - Friday's might be up on
Saturday or Sunday. Thursday's is there now. Lots of interesting people
and old friends. See link
http://dsugden.googlepages.com/handheld > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > There seems to have been some debate about the use of YouTube on the Champions discussion list - I'll have to try and catch up now that I'm back - although today is the day I have set aside for reviewing all the e-Guides 'stuff'. Well, today and tomorrow will see me do that and catch up on the Welsh Champ's report - which is looking better now. Wednesday I'm at the Reebok Stadium with TechDis and then over to Blackpool College on Thursday to talk about researching and re-crafting resources. We would talk about JORUM, but I think that I'm prevented from playing with that because I have no 'institution'. We'll review the materials on NLN, FERL and FENC and then think about how easily these can be re-purposed to suit our needs. I'll show some of the work we did for LSN and discuss the merits of Reload and other means of re-crafting. Friday - I'm at Accrington and Rossendale College to deliver some sessions about NLN materials - a sort of NLN mentor job, which was kindly brokered by RSC-Northwest. |
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| 10th October 2006 |
It seems that Google have bought out YouTube. "YouTube Inc. agreed Monday to be swallowed by Google Inc. for $1.65-billion (U.S.), a deal that may mark one of the fastest Internet growth stories since the tech heyday of the 1990s" - http://tinyurl.com/hp4sl I don't suppose that that is a bad thing as Google don't seem to have grown the horns other big players eventually develop. I've used Google videos alongside YouTube ones, so hopefully the two are compatible. I spent some time over the weekend and yesterday doing some work for Clare Killen at the LSN and today I'm off to York, to meet Sal and Sue at TechDis - then it's the Handheld Learning Conference at the QEII centre in Westminster. |
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5th October 2006
Karen's gapes - in Chirk, nr Oswestry! |
I'm still working on the Wales report and I'm
finally beginning to see the light - it's very dim, but gradually coming
towards me. The next phase of the LSN work is now being
advertised [See
the LSN site here] although I can only see the first of six events
up there so far. It seems to have been ages since I actually did any work with people - I've been sat here reading or writing or visiting folk about one thing or another. Sometimes life changes without anyone noticing. Still, it will all kick-in quite soon, with the Handheld Learning conference at the end of next week (I'm delivering a talk about the accessibility of 'm' in partnership with Alistair McNaught). This is followed by a day at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton, for TechDis and then a day at Blackpool College for Christine McAllister. The initial idea here is to look at all the national repositories and to show how they can be used to assist subject specific teaching. The following week, half term, I have a delivery at Bishop Burton College on the Monday and then two meetings (in Leeds on the Wednesday and in Birmingham on the Thursday). I did talk to someone about a gig at Accrington and Rossendale on 20th, but they haven't come back to me yet. Then - it's the LSN thing on 30th in Manchester and "where did October go?" Most of November is LSN and e-Guides, although I also have to fit in the work for the Innovations workshops - a contract I won with JISC. My colleagues on this venture will be Helen Partridge, John Traxler and John Whalley. For those of you interested in the development of free online resources - see my nascent web site at: http://dsugden.googlepages.com/fish_preparation. This is just a beginning and where time and resources allow I will add to the FREE RESOURCE as time goes by. The essential thing to remember with such a site is that it is only possible because people share things. If you have any colleagues who would like to contribute to the development of this site - please let me know. Click here to make a comment. And please do comment - I won't be publicising it more than this until a lot more work has been done and feed back received. |
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| 25th September 2006 |
Thanks to Dave Foord for the 'comment'
on my previous posting and thank you too, for the BBC link concerning last
week's news about MySpace.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5344722.stm I'm seeing the use of MySpace or Bebo etc. more as a vehicle for engaging learners rather than delivering anything to them. I've played with MySpace enough now to agree with Dave's comment that it is a social network site more than anything else. [See My Space] and [My Space Blog] for proof of that. Having posted my first MySpace blog entry - I received a favourable comment on its content from California. Which proved to me that using MySpace can have a beneficial return. Imagine the boost some learners would get from such unequivocal support from across the world. Notice too, that my second entry features an embedded video clip? Imagine learners video blogging like this to illustrate what they have learned. Many now have cameras on their phones and are equipped and interested enough to do just that. I'm thinking that if they load their video product to YouTube, just like all their friends - they can then link to it wherever they like. I agree that there is a sinister side to MySpace and the BBC news report covers that - but I also believe that there is a sinister side to everything, if we look hard enough. The thirteen to fifteen year olds I see using it (Betony is fifteen next week) do so purely to express themselves and to show off their new 'stuff' (has anyone seen MyGen yet? http://www.mygen.co.uk/) but older teenagers, who are perhaps growing out of it a bit may well find using MySpace preferable to Blackboard, WebCT or Moodle. My real quest is to link these freebies together for those learners who currently have nothing online to learn from. The real winner here could be ACL and Work Based Learners. |
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24th September 2006
Alan Carr |
I don't know what PhotoBox are doing about their images, I've just
re-embedded the one alongside and it's working fine - today. We'll
see what happens over the week. So - what's happening? I forwarded
all the LSN stuff to Ron Mitchell now and apart from the paperwork trail
- it's looking good. Some of the resources my team have sent in to me
are brilliant and I look forward to announcing the release of the LSN
DVD, later this year. There is a variety of 'cracking' stuff to be used
specifically by Student Services staff in F.E. but which will of of
tremendous use to all those of us who work in Education. Many thanks to
all those of you alongside (linked to web addresses where possible).
I've been inspired by the work these people have produced and have
attempted to extend some of the work with a new Village e-Learning web
pages - Student Life. The Student Life page will concentrate on supplying information about many of the problems our learners come across in everyday life - often for the very first time (no matter what their ages). The opening page covers topics such as Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking, Money and Sex. Let me know what you think. |
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I'm also still playing with the stuff on YouTube, MySpace and whatever
the Messenger equivalent is. There follows another video from YouTube
which compliments the filleting fish one below.
Eventually, I hope to prove that someone can put together a lesson using
all that's free and 'out there' Watch this space! |
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15th September 2006
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Sorry to bore you, but I'm stuck in the office and I suppose writing in
my blog is a diversion tactic of the first order. I'm about ready to
begin the next big thing (I'm not doing a thing with the LSN project
today) and since 8.00am I've been rearranging my office! The printer
used to be in the middle of the desk and, come winter, would block out
some of the heat rising from the radiator - and we can't have that. It's
probably culturally true also that, as a Yorkshireman, I would be afraid
of the ink (toner - whatever) drying up too quickly (and costing too
much!) So now I have room for my laptop on there as well, so no need to
sit with it on my knee anymore. I replaced my 19" CRT screen two weeks
ago with a 19" lat screen LCD model - £130 from PC World - brilliant.
This also gave me much more room on the desk and made life much easier
for my aging eyes. I emailed David Foord last night, following up a question he'd asked on the Champ's discussion list. David is now the E-Learning Staff Development Co-ordinator at the University of Derby (isn't it great that University's can still have posts like this?) and has become interested like me, in some of the features available on the web now. See Dave's blog at http://davefoord.uniblogs.org/. He replied to say he was looking into the benefits of YouTube, flickr, wikispaces and edublogs, whereas my particular interest is how we can employ the tools already being used by young and mid-teens. They use their spaces (MySpace?) for fun and for social development. It would be nice to tap into that to help their learning. Although Photobox have let me down with the picture below (they are investigating) it was brilliant in America to blog and add images hosted by others. I see a great future, particularly for work based learning providers, in using YouTube, MySpace and the like. See http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/3943528 for my growing selection of copyright free images. |
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| 14th September 2006 | I feel to have been stuck here without permission to move for 'ages' and feel like a rant. The LSN job has become a salutary lesson for me, to get proper aims and objectives for a project right at the outset. Overall, the project is exactly as described and as planned. However, the fine details are taking time that I'd not planned or budgeted for - it would have been useful to have had this sort of nitty gritty detail laid out right from the beginning. It's not a problem - other than time allocation. While I do the work that is now required, another project is suffering - and that's not good for my business or my self esteem! so, rant over - back to it . . | |||
| 13th September 2006 | I've just finished a two day training session with NIACE for the WBL e-Guides project. It was great to meet a new team of people but far too much to absorb straight away. I have to take a day sometime this month and go through all the 'stuff' to do the project any justice. right now, I'm back on the LSN project I started earlier in the summer. It's getting close to the end of the production stage (we're making resources for Student Services staff) so hotting up a bit. I should be writing up the Welsh work, but other things keep intruding. I have blanked out the next two days to begin that though!! More later. | |||
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Alison - check this out! The video alongside comes from Google. It may be of use to those of you teaching child or health care? The thing that occurred to me was that pregnancy seems to make you unsure of your hairstyle? |
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| 8th September 2006 | A recent survey has shown that students would like to receive their results by SMS. [See Text It] The same pages suggests that "A total of 137 million text messages were sent on August 17th, the day that A-level results were issued." So why are we not making more of this pervasive technology? John Whalley and Lilian Soon came around today for lunch and to discuss how we might work more closely together in the future. We had a great discussion and hope to have something ready to put out in 2007. We were joined for lunch by a colleague, who was 'working from home' - so an enjoyable time was had by all. | |||
| 7th September 2006 |
I'm back now - working on a bid for JISC. I'm copying a few of my
observations form the conference here because I'm not sure how stable
the GoogleBlog is. I’m not too sure what my overall impression of the conference was. I certainly thought that Dr Diana Oblinger’s message was a plaintive cry to the audience. Unfortunately, I think her talents were wasted – THIS audience should have been aware of the message given. We can’t just keep repeated the same thing time after time – some effort needs to me made in training staff in the employment of new technological tips and techniques (the technology will look after itself). Prof. Tim O’Shea gave a great advertisement for his institution! Generally talking about what they do now and what technology allows them to do and how institutions like theirs will lead the way with e-Learning Development. The most interesting observation I heard came from the guys talking about blogging. They told the audience about MySpace. It interested me that I’d not thought of discussing this phenomena with colleagues (outside my close circle). It is a huge huge problem waiting to burst upon us. See http://www.myspace.com (My own – just started). Millions of people are using this site. Many of the most verbose are from the mid-teen range who will come to F.E. soon and to H.E. shortly after. These youngsters will be already equipped to use Blogs, Wikis, VLE, file sharing web-technologies and VLEs – because that’s what MySpace is! As Tim O’Shea suggested – they will also have little regard for what we currently see as good practice in copyright, plagiarism and the like. If we think we are behind today’s learners (which I think Dr Diana Oblinger was saying – then we should heed the warning of some presenter and Prof. Tim O’Shea – Watch Out, things are about to change. AGAIN |
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5th September 2006
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I'm currently at ALT-C in Edinburgh. I intend to use Google Pages again to record the event so please go to http://dsugden.googlepages.com/alt-c if you have any interest at all in the drivel I might publish. Please email me with any comments about this or about the video insertion below. The trip up here was really good. I left home at 1.00pm and arrived in Edinburgh at 5.00pm. Brilliant. | |||
| 1st September 2006 |
This is the clip (if it works) of me filleting a Plaice. Many people
have seen this in different guises (including via PDA), and as far as I
know it has been used with students up and down the country. I've
finally got around to putting it on the web. If this works, I foresee
the use of YouTube as a delivery vehicle for sharing such things.
Hopefully by using the servers of YouTube, this will allow people like
me, who wish to share, to do so without the
bureaucratic limitations often found
elsewhere?
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| What a fabulous way of getting such materials to work based learners who often can't get into or don't want to get into colleges. I know we lose some of the 'control' a VLE offers (who has looked at this? and who has done that?) but . . . whaddya think? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y0_jMzwK3A | ||||
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30th August 2006
|
Those of you that know me, will remember that first and foremost, I am a
chef and that food is a passion of mine. Last week - in Wales - I ate a
great meal (and the service was good) at
The Harbour Master Hotel in
Aberaeron. The splendid thing about the food was that it was
obviously fresh (which is a good beginning) and prepared by someone who
both knows what he/she is doing and who cares about what he/she is
preparing. Both the town and the hotel are well worth a visit. However, not all food is produced in such a savoury way. See this video which I found on the Google video pages. It's a famous Channel 4 programme which investigated the production of chicken by our supermarkets. It makes scary viewing. About 40 minutes long. Think before you eat. |
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28th August 2006
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Well it seems that we'd no sooner landed than we were off again. I
coupled work in Wales (on Thursday) with a family birthday celebration
weekend in Aberystwyth. It all means that I'm now like the proverbial
dogs' testicles (always behind) but I'll get caught up again this week.
Back to Wales tomorrow - Tuesday, to see Christine Major and then three
days working on the LSN project and a bid for JISC. Then it's
ALT next week. Phew.
As many of you will know, there was much of a furore about security on aeroplanes while we were away. (See) It seemed that we would have to come back bringing nothing with us but a see-through plastic bag. But in the end it was much easier (although there were still silly practices to encounter). We'd looked on the web at JFK's rules on the Sunday just before we travelled and were advised that any small (laptop sized) cabin bag would be ok. So that's what we went with, but when we got there they had relaxed this to two bags - one normal cabin-sized bag and another laptop sized BUT NO LIQUIDS or GELS of any kind. Fair enough. We couldn't even buy duty free liquids - even though they presumably came from a bonded store! Nevertheless some customers were having Duty Free delivered onto the plane - we missed that trick. The silliest thing was that any bottle of water bought inside the concourse had their lids confiscated - in case you took them on the plane! |
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21st August 2006 |
Well we're back now - tired from the flight but back. I wasn't able to access this site while I was out there because none of our hosts had FrontPage (which I use to both edit the site and to communicate with my provider). I therefore searched for a free web creation tool (didn't want to use a blog tool) and found Google Pages. for a full record of what we did for a month (insightful, interesting, provoking, boring - in turn) the please visit http://dsugden.googlepages.com |
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| The Chicken in our food chain - 48 minutes! |
YouTube |
YouTube | ||
| Guy Kewney? not YouTube | see Boris's tackle | see Simpson's LIVE! | ||
| 19th July 2006 |
It's time for a break now. Everyone else seems to be still working - but
we have a month booked in America with Sharon's sister Gail. She lives
in Connecticut but we'll be looking in on Canada (Montreal) and New
Orleans while we're there. I hope to contribute to the blog whilst over
there, but who knows. |
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| 9th July 2006 |
Both James' gig and the two days at DYSG went really well, but after the
week in Aberystwyth - I did begin to miss being at home. I then had a
week away (again) and don't seem to have spent any time at home this
summer. This week just gone started on 2nd July, with an eight hour
drive to Cornwall, to take part in Dave Trevena's Cornwall e-Fair on the
Monday. I managed to find a room at the
Penventon Hotel - which was
delightful, apart from the fact that the suite they had set aside for me
was on the ground floor and had no windows other than those which opened
on to the car park outside (with warnings about car theft on the
inside!) In the bed room the only windows were French - and on a day
like that one, these had to be left wide open all night. A carefully
balanced bottle of talc kept me safe though! Dave and I spent a couple
of relaxing hours with a tasty dinner in their restaurant. The next
night I stayed at
Cardiff North Premier Travel Lodge, which after Redruth was a bleak
and dismal place. It is a huge monstrosity - formally some kind of Forte
Hotel (and latterly a Travel lodge - I think). No air conditioning was
to be had and no Internet access either (although other
PTL's do have
both). Its saving grace was an empty - but switched on, mini-bar in
which I was able to cool my bottles of water for the Tuesday. The food
was poor - even though I only had a Greek Salad and some bread. Tuesday,
I had arranged to meet Karen and join her on a visit to
NGFL Cymru who were going to
put a link on their web site to
LearnTrain
and the NLN Materials. We then drove on to
Narbeth in Pembrokeshire, to
meet our colleagues for a day's work at Pembrokeshire College. we stayed
at the Plas Hyfryd Hotel
and although Karen wasn't able to enjoy her room because of its
proximity to the kitchen exhaust fan - we all had a great meal in their
restaurant. The food was nicely cooked and vegetables even included
braised fennel - quite a delight. Dave T and I had Lobster Bisque and
weren't too disappointed. Well done this hotel. However - not so well
done the local youngsters - they were screaming up and down the road on
their lawnmower bikes well after midnight (some people are easily
impressed -but not me). Geoff's gig at Pembrokeshire went ok and I
returned to Newport with Karen to deliver our own WBL-NLN gig at
Coleg Gwent's Newport Campus
the following day. We also presented a gig to the ACL people of Gwent at
Blackwood. we stayed two nights at the Express by Holiday Inn at
Pontypool.
The pub next door was an absolute disaster and I'd
have no worries about suggesting people didn't eat there. On our second
evening (there being no where else to get anything in Pontypool after
8.30pm) was a disaster. They had no Lettuce - so no salad based dishes
were available (how can you run out of lettuce?); they had a huge range
of chicken dishes - but all those with bones were off the menu - just
breasts available (!?!); the restaurant is no smoking (you cannot
just have a drink in there), but the other third of the pub - where
you can't eat - is a smoking area. it was like sitting in a chimney. The
safest place to sit was right under the AC - which was dripping water
and the bar had no towels on it and was drenched, with seemingly no one
to dry it up. CRAP. I'd had enough then and drove home on the
Friday (still a six hour drive). This week I have to present a few gigs,
work out how I'm going to get to Leicester and then hopefully begin to
wind down. Phew. |
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26th June 2006 |
Where did the last two weeks go? The first was spent in Aberystwyth, as
I noted below - Karen and I met Chris Kelland on the Monday evening and
then we were working solidly on other Wales 'stuff' On Thursday we
presented a NLN/Learntrain awareness session for work based learning
(WBL) providers at the DVLA Richard Ley Development Centre in Swansea.
This was a great success and (we hope) enjoyed by all who attended. On
the way back, we detoured along Mumbles Bay and thoroughly enjoyed the
view. Wales is beautiful on so many fronts - not just mountains. we also
passed Swansea Airport which gave us some amusement - just click the
picture opposite. My other duty this week was to look after Rosie and
Steven's dogs and chickens while they went off for a few days in France.
The weather was kind to me, so the week was fabulous: fresh eggs, walks
along the seaside and great scenery! Last week saw me representing
TechDis at the
RSC-YH annual conference at the
National Museum of Photography in
Bradford on the Monday and doing my first event for James Clay (at
WCC) at One Queen Anne's Gate
in London. I had a ropey meal the evening before this - at some pub near
Scotland Yard - it was inexcusably bad. Why can't people prepare
and cook food properly and serve it in a way that say "I care"? Then on
the Wednesday I worked alongside the redoubtable
Sal
Cooke, again for TechDis -
this time at the CEME in Rainham,
Essex. I'm now preparing for another gig with James Clay, this time in
Manchester and then have two more days in Swansea at the DYSG
Conference, where I have two presentations to make: one on repurposing
tools and the other on accessibility. |
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Swansea Airport - click
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I was just preparing for some work I will be doing for James Clay at
WCC when I was reminded of
Ted Nelson's
single minded determination to present the world with a truly
personalisable reading [learning?]
experience. The picture alongside uses Ted's 'transpublishing'
protocol and is linked to his own server (rather than mine) which is
cool because mine is getting fairly full. Transcopyright-on! Still in Wales; the weather has cooled somewhat since weekend and I've managed to catch up with some work. Chris Kelland came down to meet Karen and me yesterday and stayed in Aberaeron. I've been here at most times of year and I am never disappointed - there's something about it that makes me want to come back time and time again. We ate at the Royal Oak partly because it didn't charge the exorbitant prices found at hostelries nearer the sea and partly because it was the only other place open on a Monday evening! He and Karen left late morning and I've been catching up on emails and preparing for next week. Next week is scary. |
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10th June 2006
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For those of you who missed the feeding of the
Woodpeckers in Czech (below) - just click on the image of Woody. The onslaught has begun, we started the real roll-out of NLN materials and LearnTrain to the Welsh WBL and ACL sectors this week. On Tuesday I was in Newtown, attending a meeting of the Welsh College ILT Champions. I hope to be able to secure work in early autumn, writing up a report of the progress that has been made over the last five years, so it was quite an important meeting for me (and for them). On Wednesday, Karen and I presented two half day deliveries of the NLN materials and LearnTrain. we were at NEWI to do this and the facilities were very good. We met 18 people - which is a good number for a sector so widely spread. The following day we were at Deeside College, helping them to roll out their cross-Flintshire VLE. Five of the original NLN Mentors were there to help, which was nice. Seeing them all together again made me realise (once again!) just how much knowledge and support for tutors of all sectors was lost when the Mentor scheme was closed last year. It really was a waste of talent and opportunity. Today I'm in Aberystwyth again, looking after Steven and Rosie's dogs and chickens. It works well for all of us because I still have lots of work in Wales and they want a holiday. |
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The clip alongside comes from Google's video
archive. It is from a famous Channel 4 programme which investigated the
production of chicken by our supermarkets. It makes scary viewing. Think before you eat. |
back | |||
| 4th June 2006 |
It seems a while since I penned my last entry - Gregynog seems an age ago. Last Saturday (27th May) eight of us flew out of Leeds/Bradford to Prague, where we picked up two cars and set off for a week in southern Bohemia. We were staying a a 12 bed (Gite/Villa/Apartment/whatever) close to Nové Hrady - just 5K inside the Czech-Austrian border. Betony accompanied Sharon and me. Also travelling were Jim and Sue Scott with John, Sandy and Gavin Rousell. Jim and Sue had been here last year and wanted to share the beauty of the region and the excellent accommodation with us this year. |
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| Photos' | http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/3139378 | |||
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The drive down to our base took us four hours, but we had stopped off
for a coffee and a walk around at
Trebon
on the way. as planned we'd packed enough food between us to prevent
having to go out on the first night so we stayed in and had a real
feast. This began what was to be a real feature of the holiday - wood
fires! Each of the apartments (there were three, each sleeping up to
four people) and the bar had wood burning stoves and we (had to) put
them to good use. The morning after, Sunday, we had to visit the
one supermarket in Nové Hrady to stock up for the next few days.
Although it seems a very small town by comparison to others, it seems to
have plenty of activities and sights. We went back up to
Trebon
for dinner that evening and celebrated Sandy's birthday. We visited Ceske Krumlov on the Monday. This is a really pretty town, about 45 minutes away, with much more going for it than York. Not only is it pretty, with an interesting history - but you can park too! See the pictures for more of an idea. If we went again, we would certainly look at taking on one of the river activities advertised (one takes you upriver 35k and lets you raft your way back!). On the Tuesday most of us went to Ceské Budejovice while Jim and Sue went off on their own. Ceske Budejovice is a large industrial town just over half an hour away from Nové Hrady and the birthplace of Budweiser Budvar Beer. The girls went off shopping while John and I did shopping of our own. We went looking around the stores which circle the outside of town. These often looked like office buildings, but when you went inside and looked there were a whole variety of stores for sale. One shop, selling car parts, had its wares on display in a small tobacco shop-like window. Not boxed, just open - see pictures. On the Wednesday we drove over the border to Linz in Austria. This really was the worst day weather wise, it rained most of the day but snowed and hailed too from time to time. We had a delightful meal in a city centre hotel (an old Beer Keller I suppose) but the rest of the time was a bit damp. Jim and Sue found the river and took some nice shots. This was a well over two hour journey. On Thursday we caught a train up to Prague. There isn't a train locally, so we had to first drive up to Trebon (about 40 minutes away), where we had been told there would be a departure at 0705am. In fact it didn't leave until 0745am and we had to change twice. Still, this gave us the chance to have breakfast in Tabor, another major Czech city. We all split up in Prague and did our own thing. Sharon, Betony and I walked into town from the station and explored the various streets along the way. We watched the Astronomical Clock and wandered around the Old Town Square before taking a trip over the Charles Bridge. Because the weather wasn't so good, we decided to forego a walk up to the Castle and to walk up river to find lunch. This was very tasty and much cheaper than anything we could have found in the heart of tourist country. See photos' To really appreciate the area, on Friday, our last full day there, three of us walked around the countryside and into town. Although it had rained much of the week and been overcast, we managed the walk without getting too wet. It was certainly worth it as behind the trees opposite our accommodation was a large lake with Herons, Storks and a variety of other water fowl. the highlight of the walk (of the week?) was seeing a pair of Woodpeckers feeding their young in the hollow bole of a tree. [see video clip] Wonderful. During the week we did many other things (all recorded in pictures) too. We arrived back in Leeds on Saturday afternoon and now I'm preparing for the onslaught the next six weeks will bring. |
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21st May 2006
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I've just got back from the Welsh
RSC conference at
Gregynog: 2 days of 'stuff' from the Welsh e-Learning arena. Karen
and I had off from our bases at roughly the same time and remarkably,
arrived in Welshpool within minutes of each other. So we had a coffee at
the
Old Railway Station there before setting off 'en-convoy' to find
Gregynog Hall. I followed Karen as we had decided to put our trust in
her new Sat-Nav system. Now I'm ot entirely sold on these things and
sure enough it decided that it knew a better route than that offered by
the hall itself. It took us up hill and down dale and along plenty of
single track roads. If it hadn't been raining (which it seems to have
done non-stop this week) it might have been an interesting journey, but
when we came to the fallen trees across the road - we knew we had to
shift them, because there was no turning around! Still, it all adds to
the excitement. Gregynog is a beautiful conference centre owned by the
University of Wales and is set in extensive grounds. The drive is a mile
long. Another week should see their Rhododendrons out in full bloom -
for us some were out, enough to show us how gorgeous this place would
be, if only it would stop raining. Despite its
beautiful setting, there are several things you should know before
coming here (I didn't). First of all there are no en-suite rooms to be
had. If you want to stay clean and fully abluted - you face a trek to
the bathroom (if you can find one). Secondly, there is no digital
contact with the outside world - no network coverage of any kind. In
many ways this is a blessing, but it just showed me how reliant we can
become upon our instant communication systems. On Wednesday
night, three of us went for a walk around the grounds. I needed to break
in my new sparkling trainers, so the rain and mud was a bonus. It was
probably about 2 miles to the tiny hamlet we eventually came to - and
here they have a little signal for the phone. But they also have the
most amusing telephone box. Set in the corner of a field and offering
'Internet'; 'email' and 'Text'! Click on the picture to enlarge. The
conference continues to be joint techie/teacher event with a blend of
presentations aimed at both camps. The atmosphere between the two is
cordial and as always in Wales I felt welcomed as part of the group. I
met lots of interesting people and saw plenty of presentations.
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13th May 2006
Digital Natives ----> |
I've just paid for the starter motor repair -
my goodness they know what to charge don't they?
What a brilliant week its been weather wise. We managed to get all the
branches we'd chopped down in February on to a fire and now the garden
is looking much tidier. On the work front, I was able to catch up a bit
mid week before tripping off to
Blackpool College on Thursday to present a couple of workshops on
Course creation tools. In my mind I break these down into three areas:
Activity Creation (Ron Mitchell's excellent Picture Grid
Editor, MS Producer, MS Word etc.) and Creation Support
(Windows Movie Maker, Paint Shop Pro etc.). Then the Course
Creation Tools themselves (Reload, MS Excel, MS PPT etc) - these
are the wrappers for the activities created. Because I'm doing some work
with MKM
I also showed their new Custom
Learning Studio suite of products See
Demo):
Custom Course (the wrapper); Hot Spot Toolkit (a really neat image hot
spot creator) and Storywriter Toolkit (a comic strip learning activity
creator). I think it was all appreciated but the Hotspot Toolkit came
out tops! Let me know if you want to see the products in action. We've had builders in our house since early February and yesterday, they finally left. It's peace at last. But we still have to clean up; still have to find the means of paying for decorating, for a new carpet and for a new bed! But now it's done we can wait, why would we want to move up into the new bedroom, when the view from our old one is so brilliant. (See the winter view alongside). During a Skype conversation yesterday with Di Dawson, I was minded to read this paper again (for pleasure!). It is a thought-provoking, six-page, easy to read document which is already five years old and many of you will have seen and absorbed it by now. But many others will not. If you haven't seen it before (and even if you have) - it is well worth ten minutes of your time to make you think about what we are doing in our classrooms and more importantly, how we influence others who teach. Try to think of yourself learning a foreign language (say French?) - some of you will speak it fluently, some (like me - speak just enough to get by) while others will just point and speak louder! Yet none of you will speak the language as well as, or understand the culture of the county as well as those who were born there. |
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| 8th May 2006 |
Click on the movie alongside to see the now
famous Boris Johnson 'rugby' tackle
He an absolute star!! A typical old
Tory buffer. He reminds me a lot of
Gerald Nabarro,
who use to live in Broadway in Worcestershire as a sort of country
squire. While I was searching the web for the clip alongside I came across this. http://eclectech.co.uk/dailymailpicnic.php I quite like it - it's very apt. |
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| 8th May 2006 |
Well that didn't work. I set off early for St. Asaph and managed
to get past the mess around Manchester in good time, so stopped at the
truck Services where the M6 cross the M56. I had a relaxing cup of tea
and a bacon sandwich while I checked emails on my PDA. Then the car
wouldn't start. I had to call out Green Flag and be jump started. The
starter motor on Mondeos (and Transits, which have the same engine) it
turns out, are prone to this. I'm not a mechanic, but several have told
me that it's now well know 'in the trade'. Short story is that I was
without a car for a few days and expect to pay a huge price, when the
bill finally arrives. I hate cars. My planned gig in London has been
postponed. I had been going there tomorrow (Tuesday) but now have the
day free, which is a relief because I have so much admin to do. |
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| 3rd May 2006 |
Just to finish of the France thing - we spent the week at a place
near Pont Farcy, which itself is nine miles from Vire in the Bocage. We
stayed inside for the first few days in front of a roaring log fire and
just read! In Sharon's case she just worked non-stop on University
assignments she has to submit. Bliss. Then as the weather improved (it
was brilliant after Thursday) we went out and about a bit. What a great
week. Luckily the break set me up for the period ahead - non-stop appointments through to then end of July. I've been working this week on preparing and planning for the roll out of NLN materials to Work Based Learning (WBL) in Wales. Karen and I have been emailing, phoning and generally persuading WBL providers to have one of us or one of the ex-NLN Mentors in to talk to them and their staff. We've booked an event at the DVLA in Swansea for 15th June and as soon as it's confirmed I'll put up a link to the event. Got to go now - I'm off to St Asaph for some Wales based training tomorrow. |
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| 28th April 2006 |
We set off for France early on Easter Sunday morning and had a
nice relaxing journey down to Dover. It's really strange to drive along
the M1 and to a certain, but lesser extent, the M25, with hardly any
other traffic. Perhaps one day drivers will take their children out
early on bank holiday mornings to explore empty motorways (well not all
bank holidays of course!) Because of the the lack of traffic we were
able to catch an earlier ferry (Speed
Ferries) and arrive in Boulogne with plenty of time to unwind with a
real taste of coffee and a relaxing dinner in the hotel. I always enjoy
my first 'taste' of France - everything is so different. A major
difference between eating in France and eating in this country is the
service - in France the waiters and waitresses see their job as a
vocation (as do their customers). Over here, that only happens when
people begin to work in the real top class (expensive) establishments.
Then there's the butter, which accompanies the never ending supply of
bread to the table. This is so sweet and obviously NOT unhealthy that I
can't get enough of it (as you may see from my figure!). Contrary to my
usual tastes and choice, I had a steak for dinner and it was wonderful.
In France they don't have three ways of cooking a steak (1-just cooked,
2-well cooked, 3-knackered) like us; they have four! au bleu
(raw); saignant (warmed through lightly); a'point
(coloured AND warmed through) and bien cuit (perfect) - which all
of the chefs know how to cook. So I was well pleased with my a'point
bavette. We reached our destination the following day after meandering down through Normandy along a mixture of motorways and 'N' roads. This is the first time that I've been able to drive through France at this time of year (my previous springtime visits have been by train to Besancon, to visit students) and it was beautiful. It was a delight to see the profusion of spring flowers at the roadside and as the week passed, the leaves began to unfold on the trees and the blossom began to bloom. Delightful. I may add more bits of our visit as time goes by (and photographs) but right now I really must do some work. Here's a tip: visit Alan Carr's PodCast radio show for some off the wall musical entertainment. |
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| 14th April 2006 |
That's it for now then. Easter. It seems to have been a long drawn out month so far (it's gone quickly too - how do you account for that?) Some colleges have had two weeks holiday already and others only broke up this week. so for me, it's quite a frustrating month as I can never be sure if the person I want is on holiday or not. And now it will be the same for them! On Sunday, Sharon and I set out for Normandy to stay at a friend's house and to have complete break. We're staying at a place near Pont Farcy (http://tinyurl.com/ev8mh) which is about 9 miles from Vire. Basically we're about an hour from any coast and about 20 - 30 minutes from any big town (depending on Traffic). So that will fulfil all our needs for a few days. All being well, I will have to do nothing except read, read and read. Perhaps a little eating and possibly a little drinking, but basically - lots of reading. I suspect that despite good intentions (to read nothing but holiday novels picked up in charity shops) I will still manage to find the time to read various policies and reports. But then, isn't that the time to do that? When you don't have to! I'm off to see Emma and Amy later this afternoon - so maybe we'll have an new picture to post somewhere. |
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| 5th April 2006 |
It's nice to be working from home for a change. I've still been busy,
but have managed to see all four seasons since Monday! It's hard for us
'up north' to understand why there is a hose pipe ban 'down south' when
we get so much bloody rain. I am constantly teased for not washing my
car - but the other Sunday I did (after all it's new to me and deserved
a wipe-over). It hasn't stopped raining since! Well, there is the odd
bit of sun (like now - cold but sunny) but when it rains it is
torrential. Never mind though, I'm sure some of it will run downhill to
the 'south'. I've been messing on Chris Swain and Rob Englebright's
Wikki this
week - developed for the post 16 e-Learning community. It's a bit hard
going to start with and will no doubt become unmanageable when more
people use it - but it's fun to try. I'm off to Blackpool tomorrow.
I've just had permission from James Clay to
post a link to his recent JISC Conference presentation -
http://www.wccprojects.co.uk.
It is well worth a look. Please note that it is only up on the
WCC site until the end of
April - so be quick, you don't want to miss it (or any of the other
formats he has posted!). |
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| 2nd April 2006 |
Phew! When I first started as a freelance e-Learning expert last year, Chris Kelland told me that I would be "dead in August and dead in March": How prophetic. He reminded me of his words last week when I handed him the final report on the evaluation of some software evaluation I'd been asked to lead. March has been so busy I feel half dead. August (which I have yet to experience) will no doubt be just as dead as Chris suggested as all of academia will be on their holidays. Sharon has been busy too with he University work (she'd underestimated the amount of assignments she had to finish before May - and the dates of earlier submissions. So, we're off to France for a few days at Easter. I'd looked around cottage up and down the Uk and nothing much was coming out at less than £300 for the week, but for £87 return ferry; £45 hotel and whatever Mark charges for Tuesday - Sunday at his place in Normandy (see July - below) we can have a nice relaxing rest away from phones and internet. We did think of just staying at home but besides the change being as good as a rest - we are both as bad as each other at "just checking my emails!". I've been working on the Subject Learning Coaches Moodle this month - Clare Killen of LSDA, had given me (amongst others) five days to populate the VLE and to get something happening on there. I've been working alongside John Whalley and I think we've done a good job. I hope there's still the chance to contribute when it starts being used, because I've enjoyed every minute. The evaluation job was under a bit of a time limit - had to be completed and invoiced by the end of March but we managed. The results were not too complimentary, so we'll have to see what happens when the LSC respond to the report. Karen has now moved over full time to ELWA and will not be working for BECTA. I will now pick up the Welsh reins for BECTA, but will still be working alongside Karen in her new role. We've got a few busy weeks ahead, but I will somehow find the time to do some other gigs. Blackpool College this week - Mobile Learning. |
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| 20th March 2006 |
But then, the following day (Thursday) - I had to drive to Bradford
during rush hour (and a half). It took me almost as long as it had to
get to Middlesbrough. The Bradford gig was for
CLE
and was attended by eight people. All were from the wider Bradford area,
including three from Keighley
College. The main input was NLN materials but we had a good
look at e-Learning generally. Two others were from schools and yet two
more from a private training agent - so the 'word'' of CLE is getting
out. After this I drove out to Beverley, where I was presenting a basic
ILT workshop for
Bishop Burton College. I arrived especially early as I had arranged
to meet Sal Cook from TechDis
before I started. Sal wanted to speak to me about some work she had
coming up, that might interest me. It certainly did. I believe
that Sal is one of the most interesting, keen and motivated people I
have ever met and would consider anything she thought me capable of
doing. I believe Sal to be one of the leading lights in the UK's drive
for excellence in e-Learning. On Friday, I presented a workshop on the
use of Smart interactive whiteboards for Kirklees Lifelong Learning team
at Park Valley Mills in Lockwood. What a tiring week! When I got back on
Friday afternoon, I had to get straight on the computer, just to catch
up with the week's mail and email. On Saturday I presented another
workshop on m-Learning for Huddersfield
University
- this time the second year MSc students were my audience. I really am
looking forward to Easter - for a feet-up and rest! For more on
m-Learning see Di Dawson's blog:
http://mlearning.blog.co.uk/2006/03/16/title~648343 |
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| 15th March 2006 |
I've just got back from a cracking day with the RSC Northern, at
Middlesbrough College.
They had booked me to do a day long m-learning event with them and I had
been a little worried about making it interesting for a whole day.
When John Whalley and I did our
two ALT workshops we each had contributions to make but today it really
was just my normal stories and lots of hand's on time. To make best use
of rooms, Alistair from Middlesbrough delivered his case study to half
the group, while I showed the other half how to use (and let them use)
the online text server at
http://www.bulksms.co.uk. This worked well and after coffee we
swapped around. Later we let the delegates play with the
links we'd provided and with
the Innovative Practice
booklets. despite the weather having recently been very nasty up this
neck of the woods, the journey up was ok (6.00am start - so Leeds was a
breeze) and the journey back uneventful. Rain early on on the way up and
nothing on the way back. I think those attending got a lot from the day
- so a big success I think. Thank you all. |
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| 12th March 2006 |
I liked this video. And they offer a downloadable
player (plus code) - so I provide it for you enjoyment! All credit to
the original authors - see their site for details. This week I've got quite a bit of deskwork to do for various bodies, but this will be relieved midweek by a visit to Middlesbrough to take part in RSC Northern's Mobile Learning event and on Friday I will be delivering a workshop on SMART interactive whiteboards for Kirklees Lifelong Learning team. |
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8th March 2006
|
Well the month is hotting up now! I spent Monday working in the Library
at Newtown in Powys, before staying once more at the delightful
B & B,
Park House, just down the road from
Coleg Powys, where I was attending the meeting of Welsh ILT
Champions on the following day. I'd never thought of doing this before,
but it worked a treat. I was able to work quietly both with and without
my laptop and still have occasional access to the internet, via the
Library bank of PCs. It saved me having to get up at 4.30am to get here
in time tomorrow or the trouble of driving around Manchester as tea time
(well - did that on way home - what a disaster). I've just started some
work for BECTA that needed some desk work, so it fitted in nicely.
Karen joined me that evening and we had a lovely meal at an Indian in
the town centre. The meeting on Tuesday was pretty uneventful, unlike my
journey home. I got to the M6 ok, but missed it. The turning is
immediately after a turning for a service station and I was in
completely the wrong lane. It wasn't too big a problem though, because
the M56 is just as direct at getting me home - just a bit busier. The
road continued to be fine until I reached the airport. Then it
seized up. After a while, having sat there too long, I decided to follow
the free-flowing lane which would take me around the top of Manchester
(the better route is under Manchester). After a short while this seized
up too - good and proper. After crawling towards the Trafford Centre, I
came off and had a coffee at John Lewis. The traffic was unbelievable.
When I set off again it was clear (for about 250 yards) for a while and
in the end I turned around and went back around the bottom. I'd
left Newtown (possible to get to on a clear day in less than three
hours) at 3.25pm and got home about 8.20pm. Five hours! I've been to York today to see MKM again. They've agreed top support me in Cornwall in summer and perhaps in Wales. So that's good news. Here's a site worth visiting - news of Bath's wireless environment. |
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| 3rd March 2006 |
It's been an interesting week - an has gone at such a rate! On Monday
and Tuesday I was working with Karen at BECTA in Coventry and then I
went to the NIACE e-Guide's
conference in Birmingham. So I've been away pretty much all
the week. At the e-Guide's conference, I had been asked to present three
workshops on the use of Mobile Learning (reaching the parts, other
technologies don't reach). The third presentation (scarily) was
web-cast, so if you want to see me performing on stage go to the
web-cast page any time
in the next month.
My web-cast was on Thursday at 13.30pm. I say 'scarily' because the
whole scenario is quite false and is an example of practice adapting to
fit the technology, rather than the other way around. The workshops had
attracted around 14 - 20 people each and it is quite easy for me, the
presenter to make occasional eye contact as I talk. This
encourages me to perform well and the audience to respond. For the
web-cast I was moved to the large auditorium where the web-cast kit was
set up. Here, my 20 or so strong audience had a choice of 300 seats to
sit on and although they mostly sat around the front so they could see
me, I couldn't see them very well. So that I could be seen on the
web-cast, two huge lamps were placed on the stage which prevented my
from seeing much beyond the immediate distance. So that was
disconcerting. It was much harder to build rapport with the audience -
although they seemed to be ok. I also found myself looking at the
projected screen much more than I usually do. Anyway - it was an
interesting experience and hopefully one I shall learn from. This weeks hotels were as different from each other as they could be. The NIACE conference was at the Hilton Metropolitan, close to the NEC. This is an enormous hotel designed for conferences like this. I had been booked into it for Wednesday night. Goodness knows what the rack rate is for the room, or what NIACE had to pay, but you can bet that the casual guest would pay around £140 for a room. My room was tiny. That's not really a problem because you never have time to spend in the room at such events. But rather than having a second bed (one double, one single - what's all that about?), I'd rather have had an armchair. The bed was very comfortable and the quilts and pillows just right. In Coventry, I stayed at a fairly new Innkeeper's Lodge. The strange thing about this place was that the room cost if booked more than seven days in advance was £30 but if less than seven days - £55!! How do they work that out? Anyway, the room was fine, roomy and warm. The bathroom and its fittings were excellent (better than the Hilton) - but the pillows were rubbish. So quite tiring really. The point is - for probably half the price (possibly much less) the cost and comfort of staying overnight, the Innkeeper's Lodge was better value and more comfortable. And it didn't cost me £5.00 to park there. |
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| 26th February 2006 |
The gig at Tower Hamlets was great. It is always nice to work with a
predominantly F.E. audience - we understand each other. It's not that I
don't like H.E. audiences, it's just that there's more rapport with F.E.
The people from Cambridge Training and Development (CTaD)
had set up the event and they were there to promote their excellent
products, CTad have always been at the forefront of mobile learning
projects and materials development. I was not surprised therefore, that
they had enrolled
Bob Harrison to perform as the key note speaker. His work with the
Standards Unit and Toshiba - put him ahead of most in the m-Learning
game. He was ably assisted by Andy Black and between them they prepared
the audience for my own presentation. Bob had shown the
JISC video clip so all I had to do was talk about
John Whalley,
Lilian Soon and myself! Easy. I'd
missed the chance to get cheap rail travel, because I'd been asked too
late - but at least my return journey was reasonably priced! It takes
less than three hours from home to London (same on the way back)
and that include a 30 - 40 minutes drive to and from Wakefield! The
other good thing is the 'Traditional' Cornish Pasties they sell at
King's Cross Station! Because I was in the Capital, I had arranged to meet Susanne Overton-Edwards and her colleague, to talk about how we might help each other with e-Learning in the future. This was a fruitful meeting, if somewhat cramped in the cattle lounge at Kings' Cross. hopefully, more will come of it. |
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| 24th February 2006 |
This is new experience! I'm writing my blog on the train . . . I'm
on my way to London to assist with the presentation of a 'Getting to
Grips with m-Learning' conference at
Tower Hamlets College. This is a
CTaD event. Just tried FTP'ing - worked ok! The week started in Barry, South Wales. I did two gigs there - one for Caters and Hairies, the other for Early Years and Care. Both groups seemed to enjoy the sessions and I certainly felt that the visit was worthwhile. If there was one drawback at Barry, it was that the interactive white boards are under and 'mis' used: Each room, and not just mine, I saw with an interactive white board, had something in front of it. In Karen's first room there were two other boards: a normal white board and a flip chart! My first had a desk in front of it and 'it' was in a corner! The next had all the 'stuff' (pc, video etc.) located in front of the board. This is silly - how can you use these boards when they are obstructed in this way? The fact that I cleared the obstacles away and used the boards showed on the feedback sheets - most said they would try to use them in future! Apart from that, the college seemed to be well prepared for ILT use. I met Keith and John on Wednesday to discuss progress on the Huddersfield University RSN work. On Thursday, I returned to Bishop Burton to show them resource creation tools. More when I get a steady surface to type on! |
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| 17th February 2006 |
Saturday again and another brilliant day! We cleared away most of the
branches that we had left over from last week's foray into the garden,
before having a fairly late lunch. Met JT while we were out, to look at
a new car. Told him to go ahead, so we should have a new motor by
tonight. A Ford Mondeo, 2 litre TDCi, 115 HP LX (not the 130 HP beast we
had been going to get though - this had met with an unfortunate accident
when we went to pick it up). The new motor is not two years old yet and
we've had to put more money towards it than we'd planned - but we were
struggling with quality on our earlier budget. So - fingers
crossed? Wales - I set off on Tuesday morning and drove down through Wales, right down to Llanelli. I was staying at a hotel near Llandybie, which itself is near Ammanford. I stayed at the Glynhir Mansion. Whoops!! I'd phoned on Sunday to see if they had vacancies and they'd said 'yes' - so I booked in. When I arrived, it seemed strange, but as it's old and full of character, I thought no more about it. I'd been surprised that I could not get dinner there, but thought that was just because they were quiet. I was shown my room - no worries and where to get a cup of tea (and a biscuit, fresh milk, olives! etc.) and told that the central heating looked like it had kicked out - she would go and fix it. And that was the last I saw of anyone that night. I even phoned the hotel myself to say that the heating was STILL not working, but they were on answer machine. Sharon tried rattling their cage too - no success. When I got back from the (smoke filled - thank goodness for proposed new laws) pub where I ate, there was still no heat. So I lit a fire in the large living room (in the fireplace - which was well stocked with wood and coal) and thought that if the worst came to the worst - that would be where I would sleep. I was warm enough down there - it would surprise them in the morning, but I'd be comfy! So, I sat back to read my book and as I drifted away in thought, I wondered where the ambient heat was coming from, because there seemed to be more heat in that room than you'd think in such an old building. I found a LARGE oil filled radiator behind the huge settee!! That was me sorted. I took that up to my room, plugged it in, covered the bed with an extra blanket and slept like a log. I'd already been told that I couldn't have breakfast at 7.30am as I wished - 7.45am was all they could do. Nothing was said - so I told her I'd stolen her radiator and she said "you did right!". Good ho. When I got back from three excellent gigs at Llanelli and Ammanford for Coleg Sir Gar - there was a large crowd of people there buying themselves. I was told by someone who I'd not met before that the radiator man had been there all day. OK. This lady served my breakfast on the Thursday morning and told me that they don't usually take guests at this time of year - you have to warm the whole house!!!! There were no tea making facilities in the bedroom - although these were available in the living room. There was no mirror in the bedroom - I had to shave in a local artist's painting! But - for £32 per night (£28 without en-suite) - it was ok. I just won't go again. |
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| 13th February 2006 |
I'm off to Wales tomorrow and won't get back until Thursday. Which in
many ways is lucky. The builders arrived last week and made a start on
the loft conversion. This involves taking the roof off and taking it up
somewhat. Today was remove the roof day! I'm never happy when major work
is going on around the house, it disrupts everything and, like with car
mechanics I suppose, there's always a "problem". Today's problem is the
height of the new door from the new landing to the new shower room. We'd
originally hoped for a mezzanine-like floor above the bedroom that could
(unofficially) become an office. The views over the valley would be
tremendous. But, the architect didn't pay that much attention to the
height of the roof at that point and now - we have a fairly passable
crawl space! Sharon may well be able to use it as an office, but I
certainly won't. So we don't want the same lack of height to be a
problem on the entrance to the shower room. This room has plenty of
height - its just the entrance because of the way the new roof is
formed. I'm hoping they will be done by Easter. Then we can get
the house back to something like normal. We spend a good few hours on Saturday in the garden. The weather was nice and we managed to clear back a good four foot of trees and bushes. Now I need a chain saw, more good weather and lots of space!!! |
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9th February 2006
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Well, today I've been inspired by
Alan Carr of Mid Cheshire
College to play with podcasting. I have to say that I've not been
over enamoured of the rush to embrace this technology. It strikes me
that the furore over podcasting is an example of allowing the technology
its head - never mind the horse! I remember that my primary and junior
school days (a long long time ago) were peppered with sound recordings -
mainly from the BBC. Those of you over a certain age will remember Peter
and The Wolf being read by Peter Ustinov? Yet, despite the development
of sound recording equipment (cassette tapes?) and their ultimate
cheapness, the technology and pedagogy of sound wasn't taken up (by
many). How many of you remember the hours of listening to tape
recordings you made of student assessments - only to drop them because
of those same hours? Alan's work shows some promise - there could be
some good use developing down there at Mid-Cheshire. But many
papers (mainly H.E.) seem to think that simply recording your lectures
is enough . . Well it isn't just listen to my recording of this passage
[first of all find yourself a RSS reader - I'm
using JUICE -
which is free]. Then ask the RSS reader to
go to
http://dsugden.podomatic.com/ or click on the image above for the
xml file. And they say it's easier . . Still to be convinced (although I
do see there is plenty of room for podcasting - I'm not sure it's being
done right just yet). This week, I met a friend for lunch on Monday, before attending a steering group meeting at the DfES in Sheffield. Then on Tuesday I delivered packages for CLE. I spent the morning working in their offices because the builders have started on our house. So it's cold and noisy here just now. On Wednesday, I was off at 6.00am to Wales. I met Karen at the Caer Beris hotel in Builth Wells. She was delivering a talk to key skills tutors at an event there - we were both due in Llandindod Wells, for Coleg Powys that afternoon. I took my time getting there and it took about four hours - the same coming back, but this time with less time stopping. The driving in Wales is fine, but as soon as you get to Chester (and then around Manchester and into West Yorkshire) - it's horrendous. Today, I've been doing RSN work and got so far that I allowed myself a visit to see Emma and Amy this afternoon. Brilliant. |
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3rd February 2006
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I have had to progress a bit of work for the CLE this week and managed to pick up the CDs that they had ordered from Beaumont Street Studios on Tuesday. Beaumont Street are one of the Kirklees extended learning services outlets and I'd visited them back in the autumn - only to be amazed by the 'stuff' that was going on there. They even have a radio station, broadcasting to the whole of Huddersfield. There was a regional | |||
