My Writes

Dealing with temptation, Oscar Wilde Style

2011-12-23T00:09:00.001Z

Chocolates, by Jonathan Reyes

Oscar Wilde, the English playwright, was right on the button when he said he could resist everything except temptation. I’m pretty much the same, which would be OK, I suppose, except that I’m trying to lose weight and we keep buying people boxes of chocolates and tins of biscuits for when we visit them over the holiday period.
But wait, you say. We are buying these things for others, so how can they make us put on weight? Because we – well I, if I’m honest – constantly say, “Look, we’re not going to X until next week, so why don’t we start those chocolates ourselves and buy them another box nearer the time?”
Last night I did the only thing I could think of to put an end to this: I threw away half a box of chocolates and half a tin of biscuits. I felt pretty good about myself, doing the right thing and all that.
But this evening, I suddenly thought: “What if someone pops round unexpectedly? We have nothing to offer them.”
You can’t be rude to one’s guests, so I put aside my own desires and goals in favour of a greater good, and bought this lovely big tin of biscuits….

Automated Thinking

2011-04-14T08:52:00.000Z

That old science fiction chestnut of earthlings being taken over and ruled by super-intelligent aliens is unlikely to happen, but might be bearable if it did. Conversely, being taken over by unintelligent machines is an extremely unpleasant prospect – but, alas, highly likely – because it has already happened.

My latest evidence for this is to be found in my local supermarket. The tomato is a fruit, botanically speaking. Don’t believe me? Then check it out for yourself. Yesterday, I bought some tomatoes and at the check-out proffered a voucher which would reward me with 25 pence off the price. Unfortunately, the computer wouldn’t allow it. There’s no point in arguing with the check-out person in such a situation, because they can’t exercise any discretion at all. After all, they’re not going to be able to do it for tomatoes if they can’t do it in the case of a manifest absurdity:

(The date: a few weeks ago. The place: the check-out at the same local supermarket.)

Check-out person: I can’t sell you this because it’s not on the shelves.

Me: But I got it from the shelves.

CoP: Yes, but it doesn’t exist in our system.

Me: Well, we can both see it, so does that mean we’re experiencing a group hallucination?

CoP: No, it means that it’s not registered in the system so we can’t sell it to you.

Me: Can I have it free of charge then?

CoP: No.

I didn’t see why: if it’s not in the system, then nobody would miss it.

The team from Little Britain had it about right:

Of cats and men

2010-11-17T05:42:00.000Z

I’ve been re-reading a book by Rod McKuen called Listen To The Warm, and in particular a poem called “A cat named Sloopy”, in which McKuen says:

A dozen summers
we lived against the world.

One Christmas, in 1959, McKuen stayed out all night, and all the next day. When he returned, Sloopy was gone.

I think when we invite animals into our lives we take on a sacred bond of trust, which we break at our spiritual peril. It’s not always easy, but we need to be vigilant.

People sometimes associate dogs with men – the bigger the dog, the better -- and cats with mad old women. But for me there is something rather appalling about regarding an animal as little more than an expression of, or an extension of, oneself. They have their own lives and personalities.

There is no doubt that when we domesticate animals we tame them.

But they also tame us.

The New Reality

2010-11-06T07:39:00.004Z

One potentially good thing about the financial situation in the UK is that we may all start to receive better service from suppliers of goods and services. This ought to happen because of two factors.

Firstly, if a company has to lose customer-facing staff, hopefully the ones they will choose to go will be the least effective.

Secondly, with any luck staff will be so worried about losing their job that they will make sure they are as attentive as possible to their customers.

I have been saying over the past 10 years (to anyone who would listen), that the new reality is that the customer really is the most important person in any business transaction. That is to say, that because you can buy anything, or even acquire it free of charge, without even stirring yourself to get out of bed (except perhaps to make a cup of tea), you no longer need to have to deal with bored staff who have no interest in you whatsoever, and who seem strangely cut off from the fact that, were it not for people like you, there would be no need to employ them in the first place. In other words, the economics concept of consumer sovereignty is no longer merely a theoretical one.

I was reminded of my thinking on this yesterday. I wanted to respond to the Royal Society’s Call for Evidence on the state of computing and ICT teaching in the UK. As it was a beautiful day, in a blustery sort of way, I thought I would take myself to a local park, buy a latté in the café, and sit outside reading my notes and drafting my thoughts, away from the tyranny of the screen. Unfortunately, the experience was somewhat spoilt for me by the fact that the girl who served me was far more interested in texting and making phone calls. It’s true that I had to wait only a few seconds for her to take my money because she was too busy reading her phone to see that I had offered it, but why should I have had to wait at all? Besides, it’s not a matter of how much of my time was wasted, but of attentiveness: I should have been the sole focus of her attention. Instead, I felt that I was interrupting her busy day.

Now this little episode was a clear example of bad management. Rather than tolerate this person’s behaviour, the manager, assuming she noticed it at all, should have given her a choice: either turn your phone off and actually do the work for which you are being paid, or leave and find another job. Which brings me back to the start of this article.

Of course, it probably won’t work out like that, ie companies getting rid of employees who give poor customer service, for the following reasons.

Firstly, I have noticed that as the economic situation bites, some stores seem to believe that a good way to survive in a recession is by increasing their sales rate. What this means in practice is that the quality of customer service goes down, at least in the short term, as companies try to increase the volume of sales per day or per month or whatever, at any cost. In a nutshell, how companies define "effective", and how customers define the term, may not coincide.

Secondly, for some bizarre reason, a lot of people who work in stores seem to have no sense of a connection between what customers do, ie buy stuff, and their (the employee's) income. It shouldn’t take a Harvard economist to figure out that once the volume of sales has fallen below a certain point, the job of a salesperson become superfluous.

But these are only short-term issues. I’m convinced that the better the customer service it gives, the longer a company, especially a small one like a corner shop, will survive. After all, if you want impersonal service, you might as well go to a supermarket, where at least the price will be lower.

Do I like the fact that as the recession deepens some people will lose their job? No of course not. But as a consumer I do like the fact that this situation may lead to my having more enjoyable shopping experiences more often.

Was It Something I Said?

2010-10-29T15:12:00.001Z

Was it Something I Said?

It's all very well preparing an elevator speech, but the people you're delivering it to need to understand it. I have experimented with various elevator speeches over the years, and they have all ended up being misinterpreted by people who are not in education.

For example, at a recent meeting I said that I help teachers use technology in their classrooms to help raise their students' level of attainment. Five minutes later, someone from the business sector said, “...so if you're in software development, like Terry...;”

Wait a minute! Who said anything about software development? How does a phrase like “technology in classrooms” end up becoming a synonym for software development?

It's not just a matter of finding the right elevator speech, as I believed last year. A couple of years ago I bumped into someone who used to be a personnel officer in one of the places I've worked at. He knew me for 3 years, was involved in processing my pay packet, and helped me deal with personnel issues. It would therefore, surely, be a reasonable assumption that he knew what my job was.

Apparently not. He said to me: “I have some work for you if you're interested.” It turned out that what he had in mind was for me to install an antivirus program on his computer.

Without wishing to wax too philosophical, it seems to me that this is a clear example of the Sufi proverb, “When a pickpocket sees a Holy man, he sees only his pockets.”, or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's observation, that to someone wearing red-tinted spectacles, everything appears red.

In one of my teaching jobs, I had to listen to a parent while he went on and on about how kids should taught how to take computers apart in their ICT lessons. When I pointed out that the course was about being literate in the uses of computers rather than how they're made, he insisted that digital literacy could only be taught by taking computers apart.

I've had other people tell me that they know all about educational ICT because they used to program IBM mainframe computers with punch cards.

It's all very tedious, and I'm tending towards the conclusion that if someone doesn't have a clue about technology in education, or even modern education, it's because they can't be bothered to think about it properly. Surely there comes a point when someone who is, say, in their 50s or 60s can see that education is not the same as it was in their day?

Or am I being too unkind?

A Smile Goes A Long Way

2010-10-16T15:41:00.000Z

A strange but nice thing happened to me a little while ago. I was striding along, minding my own business, when this fellow, marching towards me, donned a huge grin and threw his arm to the side in a gesture which meant, “Hey! Give me five!”
What was even odder was that I did!

I have no idea why he did what he did, or why I responded positively, except that I think happiness is catching.
It’s always slightly risky to extend a hand to someone you’ve never seen before, but a good compromise is a smile. I am trying to smile more at people I’ve no reason to smile at, in the hope that it will spread a bit of happiness. I can’t save the world, but I can be responsible for my bit of it.
Photo by Yuri Kimura.

Doctor, doctor...

2010-08-17T21:11:00.001Z

I had a very Tommy Cooper-esque experience at the doctor's this morning. The conversation went like this (this is no word of a lie):

Me: It hurts every time I touch my knee.
Dr: So why do you keep touching it then?
Me: To see if it hurts!

If you're not familiar with the British magician/comedian Tommy Cooper, watch the following video. At 3 minutes and 30 seconds he tells the doctor joke I was alluding to in my first sentence.

Enjoy!

Nonversation

2010-08-14T21:35:00.001Z

Despite the fact that it appears in, for example, the Urban Dictionary, and that there is a blog of that name, the word “nonversation” is not an official word. Not, that is, according to the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The editors review submissions of neologisms, and weigh up whether the word is in use enough to admit it into the hallowed pages of the OED. According to a recent article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, “nonversations” didn’t make it.

Part of the definition of "conversation" in the online OED

A nonversation is “a worthless conversation, wherein nothing is explained or otherwise elaborated upon”.
I think the OED editors are right. I think a nonversation is, for the most part, a non-concept. It’s well-known that people who are madly in love tend to say little, and explain less. Are their near-silent conversations worthless?
Who’s to judge the worth of a conversation anyway? Most of the conversations I have on Facebook are of little import, but they’re not worthless because they provide a welcome respite from the general seriousness of work.
Besides, nonversation is an ugly word, a portmanteau word which is as unnecessary as it is unattractive. If you really do think a conversation was worthless, why not call it a worthless conversation?

Is Journalism Dead?

2010-07-04T23:12:00.006Z

Not according to the panellists at the recent #Futurising conference. Tony Johnston, of the Press Association, believes that there has never been a more exciting time to go into journalism as a career. This was echoed by the panellists, especially Colette Hume, the Wales correspondent for BBC News. She said a TV news reporter now has to not simply report the news, but write copy for the web, perhaps even record a special version of the news bullet for the web page.

One thing that came over loud and clear to anyone seeking employment in this tough-to-break-into field was the message, "Be persistent". Work on a student newspaper. Write your own blog. Even offer to make the tea (in exchange for being given five minutes to pitch your story idea). Take the initiative.

A useful website mentioned by Tony is that of the National Council for the Training of Journalists, which features a results section so that you can compare the results achieved by students of particular courses in different institutions.

From left to right: Ryan Parry, Cara Simpson, Colette Hume, Tony Johnston

Mind Your Language -- 5: Fork Handles

2010-05-28T22:39:00.001Z

This is a marvellous observation of what can happen when communication is not as clear as it might be.

Mind your Language -- 4: Cryptic Crosswords

2010-05-27T20:32:00.019Z

If, like me, you have a love of language, you should explore the strange world of the cryptic crossword. Unlike the plain crossword, the cryptic variety requires more than providing a synonym for a word or phrase. Rather, it involves working out what the clue is getting at.

That sounds much more difficult than the task facing you in an ordinary crossword, doesn't it? In fact, much of the time it's easier, for one simple reason. In a plain crossword, you either know the answer or you don't. With a cryptic one, on the other hand, you have a chance of working the answer out from the clue. Indeed, on many occasions I have worked out the answer to be a word that I've never heard of, which means, of course, that I'd never have got the answer in a plain crossword setting.

Let me give you an example. Let's suppose the word to be entered into the grid is candle. In a normal crossword, the clue might be something like:

Type of illumination (6) (The number represents the number of letters in the answer.)

In the hands of the cryptic cruciverbalist, however, the clue might read something like this:

It is wicked, but it gives light (6).

What's that you say? Wicked? What's good and bad got to do with it? Well actually, nothing, but before explaining why, I should deconstruct the sentence.

Like most cryptic clues, this consists of two parts: a definition, ie the meaning of the word or phrase that is the answer, and an indication of how to work the answer out. In this case, the definition is "it gives light". In other words, the answer is an object which gives light, so it could be a torch, candle, flare, sun, moon, neon light and so on. The indication part of the clue, though, helps us narrow it down by informing us that the object we're looking for is wicked, ie it has a wick.

That's a classic trick of the cryptic crossword clue: you mustn't take anything at face value! Here, the correct pronunciation of the word is not wick-ed but wick'd. Makes perfect sense, right?

Other examples include "flower", pronounced floe-er, ie something that flows, ie a river. Thus "Egyptian flower (4)" is not asking for the name of a plant, but the name of a river, ie the Nile.

Perhaps an even worse example of this stretching the rules of language to their limit is the word "banker". That's not someone who works in the City or on Wall Street, but something that has banks, ie a river.

What do you understand by the word "detailed"? Well you're wrong. In the land of the cryptic crossword, "detailed" means having had its tail remove. That would usually mean that the end of the word has been removed.

So it won't surprise you to learn that "beheaded" means having had the first letter of the word removed.

Anagrams are indicated by a word or phrase which suggests the letters have been jumbled up: "all over the place"; "agitated"; "confused" and so on.

What makes the cryptic crossword especially challenging is that the clue makes sense in itself. That often leads the solver to make certain assumptions, and thereby to be led completely up the garden path. And the answer will often make you groan out loud, such as a clue I saw recently in the Daily Telegraph, which was something like:

"Is this the central part of our education system? (6,6)"

(A question mark usually indicates that there has been a complete mangling of the meaning of a word or phrase.)

The answer was "Middle School".

It's this sort of challenge and playfulness which makes cryptic crosswords fun to do.

My favourite crossword clue of all time appeared in the Daily Telegraph about 30 years ago. It read something like:

"What an incompetent deep sea diver must do to get rid of an irritation? (4,2,27)"

The answer? Come up to scratch.

To find out more about cryptic crosswords, follow the links below. You might also like to read this book, which interweaves crossword clues with the story:

Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8): A Memoir of Love, Exile and Crosswords

The title is itself a cryptic crossword clue: "pretty girl" is "belle"; "crimson" is "red". Those are the clues provided for the definition, which is "rose" -- but not the flower, but the act of revolting against a a ruler. Hence the answer is "Rebelled", because you have to place the word "belle" (pretty girl) inside the word "red" (crimson).

This nicely illustrates the point I made earlier, about the clue making sense but thereby leading you in completely the wrong direction. When you read the sentence "Pretty girl in crimson rose", you are almost bound to conjure up a mental picture of an attractive young lady wearing a dress of a crimson rose colour. Completely wrong!

Have fun!

See also Mind Your Language --3.

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How to Solve Cryptic Crosswords

Exploring the Fascinating World of Crossword Puzzles on your Kindle

90th Birthday

2010-05-26T23:00:00.004Z

I visited someone today is who is 90 years old. 90! Astonishing. On such occasions I always think about the changes the person has seen in the course of their lifetime so far, living in the UK.
From almost no private transport (except, perhaps, bicycles) to near-universal car ownership.
From computers that took up a vast room to computers you can take with you everywhere, and called cell phones.
From a day, then a week, to a seaside resort, to weekends in Paris or New York and vacations in Spain or Portugal and the USA.
But more than all these things, many people of that age regret changes in manners.
From intense privacy to conducting private phone calls in public.
From acting with dignity and decorum to chewing gum and slouching around.
From a concern with being of service to knowing 'my rights'.
And I wonder if, when I'm 90, someone will be wondering what I make of all the changes I've seen in my lifetime?
Photo by jzlomek.

Waiting

2010-01-22T11:09:00.001Z

This is my first attempt at Twitter fiction.

Jason Fox surveyed the street. Something looked wrong, out of place. He waited. A phone screen flickered alive. Not long now.

The bloke in the bowler hat

2009-10-13T09:13:00.001Z

There is something mildly depressing about walking up Beech Street from the Barbican Station the The Brewery, where the Handheld Learning Conference was held. Whether it's the lack of sunlight, the narrow pavement or the fact that the only thing of even mild interest is the entrance to a car park, I don't know.

But whatever it is, I've taken to using Moorgate Station instead. The distance is the same, possibly shorter, and the walk to The Brewery off Chiswell Street far more interesting. In fact, I was certain that I'd taken a photo of some of the architecture along the way, but it would appear not.

It's not just the architecture, of course, but the people. People walking along reading the free newspaper City AM. People darting into coffee shops to get their first fix of the day. Leisurely people hovering outside buildings enjoying a nicotine fix, and unleisurely people (like myself) rushing to make a deadline.

They say that it's not the destination but the journey that's important. Yes, to an extent. But whatever the weather or the state of the trains, the journey to the Brewery always ends in being greeted by a bloke wearing a bowler hat and a huge grin.

"Good morning, Sir! Are you here for the conference?"

"That's right".

"Just go straight through those doors, Sir. Have a wonderful day!"

The Brewery itself is a strange sort of building. You can go up the stairs at one end, but to get to the upper floor at the other end you have to go down and then up. If there's a session in progress in one of the lower rooms, you have to go down, out and then up. The first couple of times I went there I became slightly lost, and I'm convinced that if anyone looked hard enough they'd find Lord Lucan meandering around in the vaults, looking for a way out.

I quite like the place. It has character. Even more importantly, it has space, which is something you need for a conference with 1500 (I believe) delegates. It was easy to mingle and network, and that's pretty important. Some delegates complained about the price of coffee on the first day: £2.50. I agree it is pricey, but actually no more so than coffee anywhere else in London (and less than places like Starbucks). And, to put the whole thing in perspective, the first day of the Handheld Learning Conference 2009 was free!

The conference itself, which I am in the process of writing about on the ICT in Education website, was very good indeed. In fact, I always like to note down my immediate reaction to an event at its close, even though I like to mull it over before actually writing about it. My verdict this time was 'exhilarating'.

Admittedly, not the usual sort of evaluation of an educational conference, but that was my feeling. There was a great mix of intellectual stimulation from thought-provoking talks, and from what people are actually doing in their classrooms. I came away buzzing.

Great stuff!

To find more articles on the web or in Twitter, use the tag HHL09 or #HHL09 respectively.

Further reading

Lord Lucan

Hand-holding

Reflections on Handheld Learning: Technology May Give Parents Consumer Power, But Is That Unequivocally Good?

Reflections on Handheld Learning: Authenticity vs Karaoke, and magnificent failure vs benign success

Technorati Tags: HHL09 #HHL09 "Handheld Learning Conference" "Terry Freedman"

A Writer's Diary: Friday - full circle....

2009-10-04T21:12:00.001Z

I don’t write much on Fridays. Perhaps it’s because of the fact that as the week draws to an end I find myself winding down. However, because I am perfectly able to get on with other work, I suspect it is more to do with finding myself in need of the sort of creativity boost that can only come from sitting in a café…

A Writer's Diary: Thursday - The Dreaded Deadlines

2009-10-02T05:47:00.001Z

I am having one of those days. As deadlines start to close in on me, like the zombies in Night of the Living Dead, my ability to be creative is rapidly diminishing. This is bad news: I have an article to write for my own website, and one to write for an American website, Technology and Learning.

It’s very interesting writing for an American audience. Every so often I get taken to task for using ‘learnt’ instead of ‘learned’ or ‘different from’ rather than ‘different than’. That crack by Oscar Wilde about the British and the Americans having everything in common except, of course, language is almost true!

My solution is to take myself off to the gym. I have recently taken up keep fit in a serious way, going to the gym or going swimming at least three times a week. It sounds like a waste of time, and indeed it is time I can ill afford. However, I don’t think it’s my imagination that the surge of creativity I experience afterwards outweighs the time used.

Moreover, a happy side effect is that I am becoming more Adonis-like with every passing day. I will soon be so thin it will be impossible to see me when I turn sideways.

A Writer's Diary: Wednesday -- Newsletter Editing

2009-10-01T22:22:00.001Z

I thought I’d do some editing. A few people have sent me articles for my Computers in Classrooms newsletter, so I thought I’d go through them.

In the past I have tried giving copious guidelines to would-be contributors, or stating that the preferred document type is plain text. People did take notice of the guidelines, but the wordprocessor didn’t. Bizarrely, I discovered that documents formatted in the same way in different versions of this wordprocessor actually came out looking different to each other anyway. Plain text is by far the better option in a way, but nobody likes to create documents in boring old plain text, myself included. So half of my job as editor is sorting out formatting.

Oh well, it keeps me off the streets I suppose!

The image above was created using ComicBrush in accordance with its terms and conditions.

A Writer's Diary: Tuesday

2009-10-01T06:37:00.001Z

I’m rich! Well, OK, not rich exactly, but getting there. It can only be a matter of time before I am lying in a hammock somewhere dictating my next bestseller.

What has brought on this feeling of euphoria, you ask. Well, I had an email today informing me that I’ve earned a couple of quid from a book I self-published using Lulu (http://www.lulu.com/terryfreedman). It’s a print-on-demand service, and although getting rich from it could take some time, it has at least two good things going for it:

Firstly, it gives a writer an opportunity to publish, in a very professional-looking way, a book on a subject that is of such a minority appeal that getting it published by the more traditional route is very unlikely to happen.

Secondly, the time lag between sending off your ‘manuscript’ and seeing the published book can be as little as two weeks. That is excellent for people like myself for whom the concept of ‘deferred gratification’ is anathema.

A Writer's Diary: Monday

2009-09-25T08:28:00.001Z

I was recently invited by the Society of Authors to write a diary for a week, from a writer's perspective. Here is the result.

I’m feeling quite pleased with myself. I don’t usually write short stories, but today I managed to think about, write (in my head, again) and then actually write a work of fiction which will fit nicely into a free newsletter I publish, called Computers in Classrooms (http://terry-freedman.org.uk/landingpages/doc_page41.html). I don’t often include such examples of frivolity in the newsletter, but teachers do not live by serious articles alone.

I can’t reproduce it here because that would be unfair on my subscribers. However, what I can tell you is that I’ve written it in the ‘hard-boiled’ style of Raymond Chandler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler). Now there’s an interesting exercise in itself: try writing about a subject in a style that is completely antithetical to the subject matter. In my case, the result is reasonably humorous because of the incongruity, and so gives a bit of light relief. Heaven knows we could do with some light relief in education!

Postscript

The story has now been published on the website.

A Writer's Diary: Sunday

2009-09-24T03:37:00.001Z

I was recently invited by the Society of Authors to write a diary for a week, from a writer's perspective. Here is the result.

I decided the most creative writing-inducing activity would be to do no writing at all. Well, not physically anyway. I do a lot of writing in my head, and then have to go through the laborious process of making notes before I forget, and then actually typing it up. If scientists could find a way of plugging my head straight into the printer, I’d have a lot more time on my hands.

A great stimulus, I find, is photography. I always try and take a digital camera with me wherever I go. It fits into a pocket, and now and then there’s a great shot just waiting to be taken.

Other times, I like to take photos of ordinary everyday objects just to be able to illustrate articles on my website (http://www.ictineducation.org) without having to concern myself with copyright issues.

And occasionally I like to take pictures of strange or beautiful patterns, such as formed by sunlight through trees or the shadow of a wrought iron gate on the ground, to serve as a stimulus for a bit of creative writing in the future.

I store a lot of my pictures on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/terryfreedman), where they languish mostly unseen and therefore mostly unloved – but at least they are there should I need something with which to illustrate an article.

So, off to the park, enjoying the summer weather and just relaxing, and not really thinking about writing at all. I managed to obtain some nice photos though, which I hope will come in handy one of these days.

Then home, to do some reading. I have mixed feelings about the value of reading for a writer. The conventional wisdom is that the more well-read you are, the better a writer you will be. I’m not so sure. Part of me thinks that the less cluttered your mind is with other people’s thoughts, the less derivative a writer you are likely to be.

I first started to doubt the value of reading, specifically literary criticism, when doing my English ‘A’ Level. After a week spent reading and making copious notes on the views of the Great and the Good about Hamlet, I came to the following conclusions:

1. All these experts completely disagree with each other, and presumably they can’t all be right?

2. They all back up their arguments or draw their conclusions by extensive references to the text of the play itself.

3. Taking points 1 and 2 together, I had just as much right to form my own opinions which, as long as they were grounded in the text of the play, were just as valid as anyone else’s.

4. Following on from point 3, why would I want to waste my time trying to glean insights from all those other people?

Bear in mind that that was my 18 year-old self speaking, and I no longer hold such self-assured, bordering on arrogant, views. Nevertheless, when it came to my thinking about writing a review of the Waiting For Godot production at Her Majesty’s, it occurred to me that rather than do a load of research into the play in order to check if my views were ‘correct’, I’d be better off just ploughing ahead with it.

Incidentally, that’s another work that is currently residing in my head; otherwise I’d have given a reference for it here.

A Writer's Diary: Saturday

2009-09-23T10:03:00.001Z

I was recently invited by the Society of Authors to write a diary for a week, from a writer's perspective. Here is the result.

It may seem a bit odd to begin a weekly diary on Saturday, but from a writing point of view, that’s when my week begins. Saturday is the day when I can prioritise writing over my work (some of which involves writing: it gets a bit complicated).

All cafés should have free wireless internet access. I often like to write in a cafe, because being away from the usual ‘stuff’ tends to release my creative juices. I like to go there with a pencil and notepad, but also with a laptop sometimes. A free wireless connection, in addition to being useful, would also go some way towards compensating for some pretty dire service. Like the cafe I went to on Saturday...

Me: May I have a cheese salad sandwich, please?

Girl behind counter: No, we can’t do that.

Me: Why not?

GBC: Hang on, I’ll find out.

...

GBC: No. We can’t do that.

Me: But why not? You’ve got a cheese salad roll there.

GBC: Hang on, I’ll find out.

...

GBC: Here you are (proffering the cheese salad roll).

Me: Yes, that’s a cheese salad roll. I was asking about a cheese salad sandwich.

GBC: Hang on, I’ll find out.

...

GBC: Yes OK, we’ll do that. Anything else?

Me: Yes. I’d like fish fingers, chips and baked beans, please.

GBC: Fish fingers and chips.

Me: Yes, with baked beans.

GBC: Is that fish fingers and chips twice?

Me: No, it’s fish fingers and chips once, with baked beans.

Whilst sitting at a table drinking my cup of dishwater, I was wondering aloud to my wife what we’d actually be served with. Just then, the GBC appeared and said, “Would you like butter on your tuna and sweetcorn roll?”

“What tuna and sweetcorn roll?”, I asked. “I didn’t order a tuna and sweetcorn roll!”

“Oh no, wrong table”, she said, and ran away.

By some miracle, we actually did get the food we ordered, and very nice it was too. But that sort of ‘service’ is very annoying, and not conducive to creative output. Mind you, having said that, I got this article out of it, and there will be another one coming soon about how welcome the new Hospitality Diploma is, and how it ought to be compulsory in schools, alongside Maths and English.

But I still think a wireless internet connection would have been nice.

Digital natives and cyber-utopians

2009-09-22T13:21:00.003Z

I've just attended a fascinating lecture about the other side of the internet: how governments and corporations manipulate the social media that we tend to assume is an intrinsically liberating force.

And it's not all one-sided either: how far are our 'digital natives' cyber-hedonists rather than cyber-activists?

Whether you think cyber-activism is a good thing or not, it's important to consider the assumptions we make about all this stuff. If nothing else, it has implications for what we say and do in the classroom.

I'll be reporting on the talk and exploring these issues on the ICT in Education website in the near future.

Fings ain’t wot they used to be

2009-08-26T07:08:00.001Z

A couple of days ago I was loafing about in the dolly, but after a while I thought I really must get out of the cat and go for a ball of chalk.

So I did, and I have to say that when my minces fell on the linens, while walking along the frog, I had such a shock that I thought my raspberry had missed a beat. I got straight on the mobile dog to the duchess.

“Hey, turtle”, I said. “You will never Adam ‘n’ Eve it.”

“What?” she said.

“I’ve just seen the headlines. The J Arthur is going to have Matheson on its ATMs. You’ll be asked to insert your bladder and then you’ll be able to take out some sausage.”

“Yeah, right”, said the Mrs. “You’re such a holy friar. Why don’t you make yourself useful and help me lay the cain ready for Lilley?”

“No, chance”, I replied. “I’m off to the rubber for a double I’m so, to calm myself down. I tell you, it’s enough to make me want to pay for everything with a goose’s neck.”

Translation

The piece above uses rhyming slang. This is a language developed in London by the criminal underworld in order to make it difficult for others to know what they were talking about. The slang is formed by using a word or expression that rhymes with the word you actually want to use. A lot of the time, only the first part of the phrase is used, making it even harder to interpret. Some of these terms have entered common usage.

For example, the expression ‘use your loaf’ comes from ‘use your loaf of bread (ie head)’.

I used a book called A Load of Cockney Cobblers, by Bob Aylwin, which I don’t think is in print any longer, and The Web’s Greatest Dick ‘n’ Arry of Cockney Rhyming Slang.

Anyway, here is the translation:

A couple of days ago I was loafing about in the garden (Dolly Varden, or dolly), but after a while I thought I really must get out of the house (cat and mouse) and go for a walk (ball of chalk).

So I did, and I have to say that when my eyes (mince pies or minces) fell on the newspapers (linen drapers or linens), while walking along the road (frog and toad, or frog), I had such a shock that I thought my heart (raspberry tart, or raspberry) had missed a beat. I got straight on the mobile phone (dog and bone, or dog) to the wife (Duchess of Fife, or duchess).

“Hey, love (turtle dove, or turtle)”, I said. “You will never believe (Adam ‘n’ Eve it).”

“What?” she said.

“I’ve just seen the headlines. The bank (J Arthur Rank, or J Arthur) is going to have rhyming slang (Matheson Lang, or Matheson) on its ATMs. You’ll be asked to insert your card (bladder of lard, or bladder) and then you’ll be able to take out some cash (sausage and mash, or sausage).”

“Yeah, right”, said the Mrs. “You’re such a liar (holy friar). Why don’t you make yourself useful and help me lay the table (Cain and Abel, or cain) ready for dinner (Lilley and Skinner, or Lilley)?”

“No, chance”, I replied. “I’m off to the pub (rub-a-dub, or rubber) for a double whiskey (I’m so frisky, or I’m so), to calm myself down. I tell you, it’s enough to make me want to pay for everything with a cheque (goose’s neck).”

This story was inspired by the news

Technorati Tags: Terry Freedman,Cash machine offers Cockney slang,rhyming slang on ATMs

that some ATMs in London will feature instructions in rhyming slang. Fortunately, that’s optional: you can elect to have them in normal English if you prefer!

The teacher’s dilemma

2009-07-29T15:33:00.001Z

It’s a sobering thought, not to say a frightening one, that the senior pupils I taught when I started my teaching career are now 52 years old.

I thought of that a couple of weeks ago, when I found myself within a stone’s throw of the school in which those lessons took place. Needing some shopping, I decided to visit the supermarket just up the road from there. That’s when it struck me that I might bump into some of my ex-pupils.

It’s interesting, I think, to chart the progress of my thoughts and feelings.

The very first feeling was one of dread, and this for two reasons. Firstly, I didn’t much fancy being called ‘Sir’ by a grown-up: for some reason, all ex-pupils address their ex-teachers as ‘Sir’ or ‘Miss’’, even when the age-gap is minimal and the pupil concerned is a great-grandparent.

Secondly, I had this horrible premonition of some social misfit recognising me and blaming his lifelong failure to my ineptitude as a teacher.

And then two thoughts struck me. The first was the realisation that any ex-pupils would have families of their own by now: I would be just as likely to ‘bump into’ their children or even their grandchildren as meet them.

Secondly, why should I be so worried anyway? I always tried to do the best by my pupils, and most of them went on to university or a decent job. As far as I have been able to determine from trawling Friends Reunited, all of them have made good.

But I think the dilemma of any committed teacher is that they are always doomed to failure, at least in their own eyes. I can’t think of a single worksheet I used twice, or in the same way two lessons in a row. I can’t think of a single textbook or other resource that I used ‘off the shelf’: there was always something to be done to make it better somehow.

I claim no uniqueness in these respects: most of the teachers I know or have known are exactly the same. I think this is why any attempt to give teachers a painting-by-numbers type of lesson script is usually bound to fail. It’s probably also one of the reasons that teaching is still one of the most stressful professions.

However, teaching can be a highly rewarding profession. Being in a situation where the successes of your charges serve to drive you on to work even harder, and to never be quite satisfied with your own efforts, is constantly challenging, and therefore constantly potentially improving.

Fear of failure and awareness of perceived failure constitute a dilemma for teachers. Yet, in a funny kind of way, it’s a good dilemma.

Signs of life

2009-04-17T16:27:00.001Z

At the funeral this morning -- the second one we’ve attended this week – a baby was crying. Between two walls of glass, a bird had nesting materials in his mouth.

Technorati tags: life, death, funeral, Terry Freedman

Economy Blues

2009-04-08T18:03:00.001Z

In a recent issue of Computers in Classrooms, which I posted on my main website, ICT in Education, I mentioned the fact that many moons ago I taught my students the basics of two opposing economics theories by summarising each of them in a blues song. One of my subscribers said, in an email to me:

"I'd have liked the words to your economics blues songs."

So, here they are! Enjoy.

Monetarist Theory Blues

by Irving Fisher and the Classicals

Woke up this morning, saw that interest rates are low.

I said I woke up this morning, and saw that interest rates are low.

I said to my woman, I ain't gonna save nothing no more.

My woman told me, son you better save some cash.

Yes, my woman told me, boy you better save some cash.

I told her interest rates are low, so ain't no point in building up a stash.

One of these days, interest rates are gonna rise again.

I got a feeling in my bones, that interest rates gonna rise again.

When that day come, my days of spending are gonna end.

Keynesian Theory Blues

By Johnny Keynes and the Marginals

Interest rates are high, but my income's way too low.

I said that interest rates are high, but my income's way too low.

I said to my woman, I ain't gonna save nothing no more.

My woman told me that stashing my cash is wrong.

Yes, my woman done told me, that stashing my cash is wrong.

She don't seem to understand that I might wanna buy me some bonds.

One of these mornings, gonna get me a well-paid job.

I said that one of these mornings, I'm gonna get me a well-paid job.

When that day come, gonna stop being a no-savings slob.

Technorati tags: blues, economy blues, economic theory blues, Terry Freedman

Review of The White Keys

2009-03-22T12:15:00.002Z

I'm glad I don't live in Leeds or Harrogate. I'd spend my days in Betty's, spending money and putting on weight, and my weekends (or some of them, at any rate) trying to lose it again by dancing to the music of The White Keys. This is a jazz-funk band I saw recently at a conference.

They were good.

Actually, they were superb. Some people are highly proficient on their chosen instrument. Unfortunately, that's not the same as being a musician. Musicianship is proficiency plus passion plus a level of technical expertise that goes beyond mere competence.

I've often thought, changing the context for a moment, that the reason some actors are not convincing in particular roles is that they may have learnt their lines, and they may even have spent a week immersing themselves in a different environment to prepare them for the part. But when you look at an expert in something, whatever that "something" is, they walk in a different way to the rest of us, they hold themselves in a different way, they use their hands in a different way, and so on. You can tell someone's an expert because they make it all look so easy.

There was no doubt that the White Keys are technically competent. The rhythm guitar recalled the "chinky" sound of 70s disco music, and the horn section was as tight as a drum. But where they definitively showed their musicianship was when they decided to perform, as an encore, Mustang Sally.

Amy, one of the vocalists, announced that they were going to do it as best they could as the song was not on their list. I thought this was a bit of showbiz hyperbole but I was wrong. They really were trying to sort it out as they went along -- but the only reason I know that is that I watched the trumpet player, Matt Roberts, experimenting and then telling his companions when he'd worked out the right notes.

So, was there a cacophony whilst the band was groping its way to such a happy solution? Not in the slightest. In fact, one of my colleagues said that their rendition of Mustang Sally was better than that of The Commitments, whom he saw a few years ago.

I remarked to another colleague that I thought the band to be the best one we'd had at the conference in many years. His response? "By a mile."

You can download several songs from the band's website. Perversely, they don't sound as good as the live versions. That's possibly because the band seems to thrive on the energy of an audience. In this photo, for example, you can tell how much Sian, the vocalist on the left, is enjoying herself. The others may not be showing that so obviously, but they are clearly "into" it. That's the sort of thing I mean when I talk about passion.

All band members except one are currently at the Leeds College of Music, an establishment with a well-deserved reputation for excellence. The other one had been at the college: he graduated last year.

If you're looking for good entertainment for a conference or a private function, I can definitely recommend The White Keys.

Line-up:

Amy Syed - Vocals
Sian Chandler - Vocals
Huw Foster - Bass + Vocals
Rich Laws - Drums
James Sayer - Guitar
Pete Lee - Keys
Matt Roberts - Trumpet
George Grant - Alto Sax
Katie Ballard - Tenor Sax

Click here to view the band's website.

Technorati tags: The White Keys, music, review, jazz funk

Creative Writing: Autobiography: My Sporting Life

2009-03-11T14:00:00.001Z

My secondary school was a grammar school whose motto was With God on My Right. Leaving aside the arrogance which would place God on the school's right, rather than the other way round, it was in any case inaccurate, or at least incomplete. It should have read With God on the Right Wing, or With God as Centre-Forward. The school was, you see, obsessed with sport.

This came as a shock to both myself and my parents, since all of us had been avid sports-avoiders for as long as I could remember. We had been labouring under the misapprehension that grammar schools, unlike secondary moderns, were there to develop your mind. In fact, my one assumed that your mind had already been developed, and conducted its affairs on the understanding, that I was able to articulate only years later, that every battle had been won on some playing field or other.

Thus sport, and all its cousins, such as gymnastics and athletics, were deemed to be the be all and end all. You could be completely useless at everything academic, but if you had a good bowl, or could take a penalty, you were destined for great things as far as the school was concerned.

I loved sport. Not the activity itself, which I hated with a loathing I couldn't begin to describe without sounding unbalanced, but because of all the learning opportunities it gave me.

For example, every so often we would have to go on a cross-country run. This was about 5 miles long, and was circular. The teachers, not being complete idiots, always declined to accompany us. Instead, they would send us off and then wait for us to return, stop-watches at the ready.

One of the things they could never understand was how I always managed to be one of the first five or six pupils to return, bearing in mind my complete inaptitude for, and disinclination towards, anything which involved more than the minimal amount of physical activity.

My prowess at cross-country running would have been readily explained by a quick reconnoitre of the route, followed by the consultation of a bus map. Half-way round the course stood, oasis-like, a transport café. There you could have a steaming mug of tea and beans on toast, all for under two shillings (10p or approximately 15c) -- which left just enough pocket money for the bus fare to one stop short of the school.

Sprinting the last hundred yards or so was, I admit, rather more effort than I would have preferred to exert, especially on a full stomach, but the gains in terms of the admiration of the teachers and the acrimony of my fellow pupils were well worth it.

Technorati tags: creative writing, autobiography, My Sporting Life, Terry freedman

Creative Writing: Flash Fiction: Travel Time

2009-03-07T07:49:00.001Z

.said he ,"impossible is travel Time"

Technorati tags: creative writing, flash fiction, time travel, travel time, Terry Freedman

Creative Writing Exercise: Autobiography: The course

2009-02-28T23:27:00.001Z

I am on my way home from a course, and already I can tell that it worked. Called "Loving Relationships Training", it was advertised by the proclamation "Get in touch with your inner self!". Well, that sounded like something different to do on a Saturday, so in a moment of profligate curiosity I signed up.

It was a decision I regretted. From the moment the day started with an introduction by some gushing woman with a permanent smile, to all the mumbo jumbo about deep breathing, I spent the day being bored, angry or bemused.

And yet, it seems to have worked.

I am on the London tube, and people are friendly.

A man asks me if I have a light for his cigarette.

A woman smiles at me.

Someone remarks to me how efficient the transport system seems to be these days.

Everybody wants to talk to me, and it is so annoying. All I want is to be left alone to read my book: "How to Win Friends and Influence People".

Technorati tags: creative writing, autobiography, Loving Relationships Training, Terry Freedman, The Course

Transition complete

2009-01-05T08:01:00.007Z

It had to happen, I suppose: it happens to everybody seemingly. I have become a prude. I have become my parents.

The first sign was when I found myself saying to a niece, "How can you call that 'music'?".

Now I find myself asking, "How can they call this 'literature'?".

I borrowed a book from the library a few days ago, a book of short stories about the internet. Of the 4 stories I've read, or tried to read, so far, 3 have been about sex.

(The other is unreadable because of the number of footnotes. Hey, this is meant to be a short story, not an academic treatise.)

What is this obsession with sex? I was hoping there might be the odd story or two that I could recommend to teachers and students.

Why wasn't the book categorised as adult fiction?

Why aren't there cinema-style ratings for books?

"I am the future of journalism" contest

2008-12-30T13:17:00.001Z

I've just submitted my entry to this competition. You could submit a video, slideshow, or essay, or some combination of all three. I decided to submit a slideshow and an essay. I was going to submit a video, but I didn't think I'd have time to edit it and produce the sort of perfect script I'd prefer.

Click the pic to the left to see my entry. If you're eligible to register for Publish 2.0, which is free, then do so and please vote for me! If you're an independent journalist, you should be eligible. And "journalist" may include being a blogger.

But even if you are not eligible, I'd be interested in your opinion of my submission.

Thanks.

Technorati tags: Publish 2.0, Terry Freedman, I am the future of journalism contest

Interesting educational ICT articles 12/29/2008

2008-12-29T09:31:00.001Z

The Educational Technology Site: ICT in Education: --> Three microblogging services for use in schools
Three microblogging services. How useful are they for schools?
tags: microblogging
National Curriculum | Information and communication technology
The new KS3 and KS4 Programmes of Study for ICT
tags: ICT curriculum, ICT Programme of Study
The Educational Technology Site: ICT in Education: --> Why teach spreadsheets?
Educational Technology, educational ICT,ICT in Education, information technology, information and communication technology, practical advice, leaders, managers,Terry Freedman,spreadsheet,modelling,sequencing,spreadsheets,modeling
tags: spreadsheets

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Connaught Water

2008-12-27T09:16:00.002Z

It's quite a while since we've been to Connaught Water, a beautiful lake in the Epping Forest, so yesterday we went there in the afternoon. It was the light that attracted us: that beautiful clear, crisp, cold light that you only see in winter. Here's a picture to show you what I'm talking about:

(If you like that, there are more here.)

It made me think of Vivaldi's Winter:

Technorati tags: "Connaught Water", "Epping Forest", "Terry Freedman", Vivaldi, Winter

Mind your language -- 3

2008-12-23T18:25:00.001Z

Doesn't time fly when you're employing yourself? Unbelievably, it is now over two years since I wrote the second instalment in this series; in my mind, I thought it was about six months.

But I'm here now, ready to take up where I left off. Just to remind you of, or introduce you to, this series, I'm exploring different aspects of the English language in order to draw out its richness. In the first article I discussed the wilful abuse of the language. In the second, I discussed the inadvertent mangling of the language, as sometimes found on street signs and the like.That leads naturally onto this article, in which I'd like to explore the genius of Tommy Cooper -- not in his magic, which he is best known for, but his interpretation of the English language, to hilarious effect.

In case you're not aware, Tommy Cooper was an English magician who was famous for the fact that most of the time his tricks didn't work. In fact, he was highly regarded by other magicians, and would often delight in leading the audience to believe that a trick had failed miserably, only to completely turn the tables on them at the very last moment.

Cooper's speciality as far as language was concerned was taking the literal meaning of words and phrases. Here are some examples:

I saw an advert for headache tablets. Why would anyone want a headache?
I went to Margate [an English coastal resort] because a friend of mine told me it was good for rheumatism. So I went there and I got it.
While I was there I knocked on the door of a small hotel. A window opened and a lady put her head out and said "What do you want?" I said "I want to stay here". So she said "Well stay there" and went back inside.
I bought a greyhound the other day. A friend of mine said "What are you going to do with that?". I said "I'm going to race it." He said "By the look of it you'll beat it."
I went to the doctor last week and said "Doctor, I've broken my arm in several places." He said, "Well stop going to those places."
I went into the attic with my wife the other day. Dusty, covered in cobwebs. But she's good to the kids."

He also liked playing on words (homonyms), as in:

I always call my wife "dear": she's got antlers on the top of her head!
I was walking along last week and I saw a chicken. So I said "Cluck cluck cluck", and the chicken said "Cluck cluck cluck", and I said "Cluck cluck cluck", and then a policeman arrested me for using fowl language.

To fully appreciate all this, though, you have to seem him in action, so here are two clips which I hope you'll enjoy. They illustrate the points I've made here.

Next time, I'll be talking about the way cryptic crosswords mangle the language.

Technorati tags: "Terry Freedman", "Tommy Cooper", language, "Mind your language"

Inside the house of the living dead

2008-12-18T14:15:00.001Z

Crockery lies forsaken in the dishwasher. Clothing, laundered but unfolded, languishes in the airing cupboard. Piles of post unopened is our only Christmas decoration. For this is the house of the living dead, where even the cats walk on eggshells for fear of disturbing their human counterparts.

Since Sunday, our household has become one of the statistics in a growing volume of flu or flu-like illnesses which seem to have gripped about 90% of the British Isles. Fortunately, things are improving. Today I have managed to rise from my sick bed and start attacking some of the tasks that suddenly became urgent, including updating the ICT in Education website. I cannot guarantee that people will receive Christmas greetings from me this year, but I will try. If I fail, forgive me: the thought is there.

Technorati tags: ICT in Education, Terry Freedman, flu

Nostalgia is EXACTLY what it used to be: selective, irrelevant and boring

2008-12-08T10:16:00.001Z

I was watching a TV programme about the railways last night. Drawing heavily on the work of the poet John Betjeman, the commentator droned on about the good old days of steam, and the lack of character in today's stations.

For example, at York Station he pointed out that what used to be the signal box is now a Costa Coffee house. Good. Back in September I was in York station after a conference, and being a couple of hours early for my train, I had far more use for a Costa than a signal box.

Anyone who can witter on about the golden age of rail either has some sort of false memory syndrome, or only used the railways for the odd jaunt to a seaside. As someone who uses trains quite frequently, let me say this:

A train journey that used to take over 4 hours now takes two.
Stations that used to have just one horrible cafe/bar now have at least one reasonably OK cafe in which to sit and wait for your train.
British Rail sandwiches, infamous for their curling edges, have been replaced by freshly-made sandwiches and various exotic items like paninis.
The cold, damp and boring waiting room, often used as a urinal by drunks, have been replaced, or supplemented, by seats under a roof, and shops you can browse in.
Although I always like a shower when I've been travelling, at least I don't come home with bits of soot in my hair from the steam.
And on that subject, the environment is a lot healthier as a result of the demise of steam.

I too like the idea of steam: the particular sound as the train gradually picked up a head of steam, and the special rhythm of its clatter over the rails. But I suspect that it's more a hankering after lost boyhood and the associated innocence of childhood than a desire for old technology. Don't get me wrong: I'm not an ardent lover of technology purely for its own sake, as any regular visitor to the ICT in Education website will tell you. But there's a danger in over-sentimentality too.

Good luck to those who dream of times gone by. For me, railway travel now is infinitely more pleasant than it used to be.

Technorati tags: Terry Freedman, railways, nostalgia, technology

Are hairdressers paid by the gunkload?

2008-12-05T08:54:00.001Z

Yesterday afternoon I decided to have a haircut (actually, I had all of them cut, but let's not split hairs). As usual, while my hair was going through the stage of being washed, I was offered the opportunity to have some sort of rubbish put on my hair:

"Would you like to try our peppermint conditioner?"

"Why?"

"Because it's been specially formulated."

"For what?"

"For your hair."

"Really? Wow, that's pretty impressive. Who knew? So what does this stuff do?"

"It's refreshing and makes your head feel cool."

I feel obliged to point out at this stage that we'd just that day received more dire warnings of Arctic weather on its way. Nevertheless, I didn't want to be responsible for this young lady's being so upset by my refusal to have the conditioner that she decided to throw in her new career before she had even really started.

"It's no good, mum. <sniff> I'm just not cut out for hairdressing. <Sob> They refused to have the peppermint conditioner! <Wail.>"

So, ever the sucker for a pretty face, I said "OK".

"Cool"? As I was chipping the bits of ice off my scalp I couldn't help thinking what a great future this girl had in PR, advertising or spin.

At the end of the hair-cutting, just as I was thinking how nice it looked, the hairdresser said,

"I'm just going to put some paste on your hair."

"Paste? You mean flour and water, that things stick to?

"No, it will give your hair malleability without looking shiny."

"Erm, well, OK, if that's what you think best."

And that's why when I came home my wife thought I'd suffered some kind of electric shock.

Peppermint conditioner? Paste? Where's the nearest barber's shop?

Technorati tags: Terry Freedman, haircut

More on the Online Information conference

2008-12-03T10:18:00.007Z

Everything is a balancing act. Take this morning, for instance. I was faced with the choice between racing to get a particular session, or taking some time to consolidate some of my notes from yesterday at the conference and responding to emails from clients.

I decided to opt for the more leisurely course of action. This was mainly because I think it's important to respond to clients and potential clients in a timely way (well, I try to do so with everyone actually), and partly because of the way the conference sessions have been orgaised. There are two or three sessions one after the other in each room at a particular time, and it's hard to try and barge in at the appropriate time if the one you're interested in happens to be on last. Yesterday I had to sit through a couple of dire sessions, and frankly I didn't want to risk the same thing happening today, when there were other things I could (and should) be getting on with.

Having said that, I also attended a couple of cracking sessions, including one by Jenny Levine on what libraries are doing in the world of Web 2.0 (a lot for schools to learn from this), and Marydee Ojaha on searching the web (ditto). I will be writing more about these very soon, on the ICT in Education site.

And now, having been fed, watered and energised by writing this blog, I'm about to line up for a seminar.

More later, but in the meantime if you want to follow the conference in Twitter the commonly-accepted hashtags are #onlineinfo and #onlineinfo08.

Collaborating just got easier

2008-12-02T11:04:00.006Z

That's the message from Clay Shirkey in his opening keynote talk at the Online Information conference here in London.

I don't have time to write an extensive report just at the moment, but for now I will leave you with this thought:

"Journalism has moved from being a profession to being an activity. People commit acts of journalism."

I love that, even though I am not sure I wholeheartedly agree with it. And I think it ties in tio what I have started to explore in my survey of the differences between writing and blogging.

Well, on the next stage of the proceedings, which is to look at the seminar list, conference sessions list and exhibitors' list, to determine where to go next.

I will be writing more about the keynote and the rest of today either later tonight or tomorrow, at the ICT in Education website.

Nothing like an ice-breaker to bring a cold chill to the proceedings

2008-11-20T11:09:00.001Z

What's the point of an ice-breaker on a training day? Yes, I know the answer is "to break the ice", but what is the point of the activity itself? The correct answer is, or should be, "There isn't one".

Ice-breaker activities should, ideally, be completely useless or, failing that, absolutely useful. The worst kind of ice-breaker, in my opinion, is one which seeks to pretend to be useful, whilst being nothing of the kind.

You can spot such an activity a mile away: typically taking the form of a discussion, but in a gimmicky kind of way,it has something to do with the subject of the training, but it's a token gesture. Like the worst kind of starter activity in a school, it's designed to get people in the proper frame of mind for what's to come, but there is no right answer, and no opportunity to discuss people's answers.

That's bad enough in itself, because it can easily lead to misconceptions going unchallenged (see below for an example) and leave people feeling frustrated and wondering if the rest of the day is going to be more of the same. Perhaps worst of all, it doesn't even necessarily achieve its stated aim, of getting people to talk to each other: it is all too easy to let the self-elected spokesperson of the group say everything whilst yourself sitting back and saying nothing.

Here's an example of what I believe to be a misconception. One of the things decided by a group of teachers in an ice-breaker activity I facilitated was that personal presentation is one of the least important attributes an employee needs in the IT industry. I can see the logic of that in some respects, if you have an idea of the IT industry as comprising an army of geeky men who spend their entire lives in a room filled with servers, old mugs of coffee, and every surface covered in bits of copper wire and screwdrivers, and who emerge once a week to dispose of all the pizza delivery boxes and, if it's a full moon, have a wash.

But the real IT industry isn't like that, and even in the parts of it which have the potential to be like that, personal presentation is still important. And I think it is perfectly feasible to extend the concept of personal appearance to that of business appearance. Near my home there is a parade of shops, one of which is a computer repair store. It looks, from the outside, like a junk shop. The windows are dirty, there are computers seemingly thrown around all over the place, half-opened boxes, everything in disarray. Now, perhaps they are so busy that they don't have time to think about such things, but there is no way that I would venture into a shop that looks like I'll need a good bath when I come out of it. Apart from anything else, I'd be worried about dust getting into the innards of anything I brought in.

To me, therefore, presentation is highly important. Now, I realise that that is a matter of opinion, but returning to the original theme of this post, any decent discussion activity would be allocated enough time to explore such issues rather than just leaving them.

A much better ice-breaker activity is to get people to introduce each other to the whole group, or to go around getting answers to half a dozen questions from each other. That sort of thing can raise the temperature a bit, both literally as well as figuratively.

Which only goes to show that an ice-breaker doesn't have to be cold in order to be cool!

Technorati tags: ice-breaker, "Terry Freedman"

The best-laid plans...

2008-09-24T10:27:00.002Z

Blast! Had I known last night, when I finally tipped into bed at 2 am, that this morning would be one of complete mayhem, I'd have forced myself to stay awake a bit longer in order to finish off the publication I'm working on (Practical ICT, in case you're interested). Unfortunately, a malignant fate decreed that I wouldn't get started properly until around 10:40. And now look at me: back against the wall, desperately trying to catch up, even multi-tasking on things that cannot, ideally, be multi-tasked, and what do I do? Take time out to write this blog.

That's the trouble with all this pressure: the constant desire to always be doing something other than what it is you are doing, or are supposed to be doing. It isn't merely a displacement activity though. I need to limber up, and writing a short blog is, for me, a good way to do so. By getting my thoughts into creative mode, I will be much better placed for the next activity which, on the face of it, is not creative at all. I am going to be typing up some notes I took in a training session I attended, all the while thinking of how I will deliver the same training when the time comes. That requires creativity, not drudgery.

Since waking up this morning we have received a visit from the mother of a friend of ours, a phone call from our accountants, a phone call from another acquaintance, and have made two phone calls to a department store enquiring about a missing refund, and I have followed up a phone call received yesterday asking if I was available to do some work. I downloaded my emails but decided they can wait for now; they will have to wait. I need to get on, not least because very soon there will be yet another interruption when someone comes to inspect our gas installation. There is nothing wrong with it, of course, but given that we don't want to wake up and, as a blues song puts it*, find our own selves dead, it seemed like a good idea to take up the suggestion.

But it's impossible to work completely effectively with constant interruptions, and the fear of even more interruptions. I wish I could do what Joe Cocker advocates in a song called "Dangerous Mood":

"I parked the car down the street,

And unplugged the phone,

To make it look just like

Ain't nobody home."

Interesting concept, that, unplugging a phone. I wonder if today's kids realise that that was an older generation's equivalent of going offline (literally: I suppose that's where the term comes from)?

Enough persiflage. Time to get back to the grindstone, typing up notes whilst cringing at the sound of my own voice on a recent Women of Web 2 podcast. Later on I shall complete Practical ICT, write a blog post or an article for my other website, ponder a post mentioning me, written by Bud Hunt, and have some lunch. Yes, lunch. So mundane, yet so important. I'd better get on.

* "Better stop that drinking, before it goes to your head

Wake up some morning, find your own self dead."

(Bad Liquor Blues)

Technorati tags: Terry Freedman, interruptions, best-laid plans

Reflections on Pepys

2008-09-22T05:45:00.001Z

Having spent the past week maintaining a diary, especially in terms of my writing activities, I have to say that I have a new regard for Samuel Pepys. I was so busy last week that I found it hard to find the time to write the diary at the end of the day -- which is why, incidentally, the dates for each entry do not always match the date of publication. Consequently, it was difficult for me to recall what had happened, or upon which day it happened, or the sequence of events on a particular day. This despite having access to a plethora of means by which I could record my activities more or less as I was going along.

In fact, I wonder if that is half the trouble? Pepys maintained his diary despite a complete absence of even the most basic technologies we take for granted. When I want to ensure that I remember something later on, I tend to jot it down in a pocket notebook, with a ballpoint pen. What did Pepys do? Whip out a quill and a sheaf of paper?He must have been a remarkable man to have engaged in all the activities he did, arrive back home from having walked everywhere if his accounts are to be believed, have supper and then write it all down before it became too dark, or until his eyes hurt from straining under the candlelight.

Unless, of course, he was cavalier with "the truth".

I say that not because I have any reason to believe he was, other than my own experience of trying to recollect everything in detail. I'm not sure I succeeded. On several occasions, having spent quite a long time trying to remember stuff, I took the view that in the total scheme of things it didn't matter that much if I had the idea for a new article on Wednesday or Thursday.

I also knew that, as others would be reading the diary (because it was being written for the Society of Authors), perhaps it would be of interest only to myself if I had two cups of tea rather than three (so I omitted that sort of detail), or if I went to a training event on one day rather than the next.

All of which made me start to ponder:

Did Pepys have a feeling that his diaries would be read by people from all over the world, for generations to come? And if so, did he write them as a journalist rather than a diarist, if that makes sense?
Did the absence of technology such as ballpoint pens affect the accuracy or detail of what he wrote, in terms of what he could actually recall of the day's events? I think it's worth saying here an obvious point, but one easily overlooked, that Pepys himself would not have been aware of the absence of the technology. It's only in retrospect that people marvel at how previous generations managed to get anything done with the meagre tools available. Perhaps Pepys himself wondered how anybody ever managed with parchment.
Has technology made us lazy? Maybe Pepys really could remember everything, because there was no alternative: no pen, no notebook, no camera, no voice memo device, no cell phone.

Perhaps now and then it is not a bad idea to do what some schools and school districts have done occasionally, and have an IT-free day, just to give kids a taste of a bygone era in which even the simplest thing, like keeping a diary, was not necessarily that simple at all.

If you'd like to read my diary entries, start here and then read the next 4 entries. The diary runs from the 15th to the 19th September (inclusive).

Technorati tags: Terry Freedman, diary, EWG

A pleasant surprise

2008-09-21T20:33:00.001Z

Friday 19 September 2008. my sense of gloom at the thought of the training day ahead only increased once I was on the Central Line, headed towards High Street Kensington. Don't get me wrong: I love London: I am definitely with Doc Johnson on that one. It's just the getting there that can be pretty horrible. Sweaty bodies, all pressed together. Hmm, I suppose put like that it would sound quite attractive to some people; let's not go there.

It wasn't just the journey, though. It was the thought of what awaited me. The training was to learn more about delivering training to teachers in respect of the new Diplomas. Run by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust on behalf of the Government, the day would, I assume, follow the standard pattern for all such training. In other words, it would:

Take place underground, with no natural daylight or fresh air.
Consist of several PowerPoint presentations, each comprising too many slides with too many bullet points on each one, and all delivered by people who think that the best, or indeed the only, way to learn anything new is to have it handed to you on a plate. A bit like painting-by-numbers, only not quite as creative.

(OK, perhaps I'm being a bit harsh: a lot of the materials are first class, and the people involved tend to be both passionate and knowledgeable. But you know what I mean, don't you?)
Be punctuated halfway through by a buffet lunch consisting mainly of sandwiches, samosas and fruit. Nothing wrong with sandwiches, samosas and fruit, of course, but sometimes a bit of imagination -- indeed, a bit of luxury -- would not go amiss.

I could not have been more wrong. The training took place in a ground level, well-ventilated room with oodles of natural daylight. Lunch was a sit-down affair. Not table service, apart from the first course and the post-prandial coffee, but I'm not bothered about that sort of thing anyway. The food was delicious: too much, so, in fact, making it possible to be sensible only by a supreme effort of will.
The training itself was made more enjoyable by two factors. First, I knew four of the people there, and two of them were on my table. Secondly, and of more consequence, the training actually required us to evaluate and help modify the materials and approach we were being trained in.
It was not quite as self-referential as that sounds: changes in the materials and even the sequencing of them have to go through several million committees and "stakeholders" (a word I loathe, but apt in this context). But at least we got to discuss it and talk about how to make it work better, and fleshing it out with examples we could relate to. We were, in short, being treated as professional educators rather than salespeople required to learn by rote a script that someone else had written. In fairness, the kind of training that teachers have become used to is not quite as bad as that -- but I don't think it's much better.
This approach reflects the underlying philosophy of the Diploma itself which could, if only schools will see it, be the vehicle by which creativity will return to the classroom and teaching will once again become completely enjoyable -- because I think what we've lost in the past ten years is the maverick teacher, or even the odd maverick lesson, as everything seems to be driven by targets, timetables and tests.

So the day was a good one. All of which merriment leaves the question: how much writing was I able to get done? Answer: none, unless you count the few more squiggles I made in my squared notebook. But I did get plenty of time on the journey to reflect on the folly of making a really good pitch to a publisher when you don't have the time to follow it through. That's right: I had an itch for a pitch, so I scratched, last Thursday. I had a response the same day, telling my idea was interesting and asking for more details. More details? I wasn't expecting a reply so soon! Oh well, that's another day that the clearing out I promised to do will have to wait. I'm heartbroken.

If you've enjoyed reading my diary, you may be interested to learn that I write regularly (virtually every day) about educational ICT matters at http://www.ictineducation.org, a weekly blog called "Ed Tech Diary" at http://www.hotchalk.com and every two weeks at http://www.techlearning.com/blog/terry_freedman/. Thanks for reading!

Technorati tags: Terry Freedman, diary, EWG

The trouble with technology

2008-09-20T15:53:00.001Z

Thursday18 September 2008. To the adage "Never work with children or animals", I would add, "or technology" -- which is somewhat worrying given that I have been involved in educational technology for over 20 years. Anyone who has anything at all to do with technology knows that, sooner or later, whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and that even what can't go wrong will go wrong. Murphy didn't invent that law, he simply discovered it: it's a law of nature, immutable, unchallengeable.

Today, for example, is a case in point. Whilst on a training course I have grabbed every spare moment in order to write a blog. I pride myself on having the tenacity and dedication to do so, considering that having tea and biscuits and socialising is arguably more fun. But I crack on and, true to my principles, save it every couple of minutes.So, I publish the blog, and then realise that I have put no tags into it. These are the words that may get my blog noticed by more than a handful of people. And that's where it all goes wrong. When I republish the blog, half of it is missing. Then an indecipherable error message pops up, and then everything goes blank.

I had been working online, so there was no local copy. The saved file had disappeared too. Usually I write my blog posts on my computer, and then publish them to the web, so I have the original. On this occasion, I was working online from the word go. To think that I chose this occasion to pen some of the most erudite passages in my career.

Nothing for it, then, but to get back to the job in hand, which is to write notes about the training I am observing, so that I can give the same training myself. Actually, this is another form of creative writing. I am making notes on how to do certain things, and at the same time, how to teach others how to do those things. So I have devised a sort of running index for the latter, and on the same page as my main notes, by the simple expedient of creating a wide right-hand margin in which to put these meta-training notes.

Also, it is full of squiggles, arrows and light bulbs -- this last symbol to indicate an idea: proof indeed that I spent far too much time as a lad reading comics like The Beano.

I am pleased to say that my squared notebook is starting to bulge with ideas. Who knows when I will have time to flesh them out into full-blown articles? Perhaps list-making is an art form in its own right? If only I can write enough to become famous enough, my notebooks could be quite valuable when I've passed on; what a tragedy that I probably won't live to see it.

Upon returning home, I switch on my computer and start downloading my email, wondering all the while when I'm going to be able to fit in half an hour or so to recreate the missing blog post. Then I notice that it's arrived in my inbox: the original one, intact.

Of course! Eons ago I set up this alert form which tells me that I've posted a new blog entry (just in case I forget, I suppose) and also, more usefully, actually sends me the blog post itself. So all I need to do is copy, paste and upload -- the work of seconds.

It's all so easy. No wonder I love working with technology so much.

Technorati tags: Terry Freedman, EWG, diary

On the other side of the desk

2008-09-19T07:00:00.001Z

Wednesday 17 September 2008. Today I am in a classroom. But I am not a teacher, or even a student. I am what I suppose should be called a "meta-student". Just as students are encouraged to learn how to learn, I am learning how to teach. Well, not teach in general -- I learnt that millennia ago -- but how to teach teachers how to use a particular Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). This is made more difficult than it need be by two issues:

Firstly, I don't actually know how to use the VLE myself. Not completely, anyway. I don't (yet) have the depth and breadth of knowledge to be able to say, when a teacher asks "What if someone hands in three batches of work at once, and in the wrong order?", "Oh yes, there are three ways you could handle that...". I try to take the view that, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, but it is not easy.

Secondly, I have discovered that my new Cross propelling pen has a mind of its own, and turns while I am writing. This has the effect of retracting the "nib" in a languid, imperceptible manner. So imperceptible, in fact, that the first time I notice is when I am "writing" with the pen itself rather than the point. I have no idea what I am doing to make this happen, and can only prevent it by holding the pen at its very tip, which is somewhat uncomfortable.

However, there's a brilliant idea hidden here. If you could calibrate the amount of twirl to ink flow, or to time, then you could set the pen to retract when a particular condition is met. For example, I have been commissioned to write 600 words for an article in the TES. If I could set the pen to stop writing after 600 words, I'd be laughing, so to speak.

Alternatively, this morning I had only 15 minutes of writing time before I need to sling some clothes on and get out of the house. A pen that stopped writing after 15 minutes is just what I need.

I have to say, although I enjoy writing with a pen, it is all rather laborious. So perhaps I shall reserve it for special occasions, such as when I am on a bus or the tube.

When I came home, I felt once again the pangs of guilt as I saw on my desk a publisher's contract that I need to sign and send off. To be frank, after endless emails going backwards and forwards about things like "exclusive works" clauses, I have to be in a particular frame of mind to deal with it. That is not least because "dealing with it" entails trawling through all the aforesaid emails and checking what we agreed against what's in the contract. It is worth doing: the last time, a couple of the agree changes had not been made. Inadvertently, of course. But the omissions were all in the publisher's favour, not mine.

But there is hope. I met someone today who is an editor I used to deal with. I'd never met him in person before. He told me that he has been published by a couple of brilliant publishers. Assuming he is (a) not lying out of a bitter and twisted hatred of happy authors born of years of dealing with unscrupulous publishers, or (b) not senile, I have reason to be optimistic. It's a while since I pitched for a book, and I'm missing the cut and thrust of negotiations. Somehow, self-publishing is not quite the same.

Tomorrow, let the pitching begin!

Technorati tags: Terry Freedman, EWG, Diary

Writing Gym

2008-09-18T17:28:00.001Z

Tuesday 17 September 2008. I have come to the conclusion that writing for lots of different publications is like using a gym -- only a lot more enjoyable.
Every so often I decide that I must get fitter and, having a Type A personality, I sign up for a year's gym membership, get myself a personal training plan and start going four times a week. Now, what all these episodes have in common (apart from the fact that they last only six weeks), is that they all involve doing a variety of exercises on a variety of machines. That way, all your muscles get toned, and without getting muscle fatigue in any one area.
Well, writing can be the same. You need to work on different types of material, for different audiences and different purposes, in order to keep yourself agile. That's my theory anyway.
Now and again I go to the library and borrow one of those books full of writing exercises. The thing is, though, they look good, with their invitations to complete a sentence or write 5 words about a photo, or whatever, but they are sterile. Writing for no purpose is sterility itself. At least if you are writing for writing's sake, you are writing with a purpose, if only in an aimless, self-referential sort of way. But exercises? The whole idea reminds me of the worst kind of IT lesson, where the teacher gets the kids to do boring, disjointed, unconnected, aimless and trivial stuff on a spreadsheet, whereas the only way people really learn is by having a problem to solve.
So, today I wanted to write for my own website, and another blog, and also to compose emails to various people of varying degrees of acquaintanceship with me -- which is why I regard email writing as creative writing in its own right.
I have spent a total of 4 hours on trains, much of it standing up. It's hard to write in those circumstances, so it is mostly all in my head. Such a shame I can't print my head really. Now the challenge is to write as much as possible before I either forget it all or collapse from fatigue.
Too late. At around 11:03 I find myself nodding off at the keyboard. I manage, with the aid of a bowl of cereals and a cup of tea, to raise my blood sugar level sufficiently to allow me to complete the article I'm writing.
It is not ideal. Tomorrow, perhaps, I will make up for lost time.

Stationary item

2008-09-16T21:52:00.002Z

Monday, 15 September 2008. I've had a reprieve! No, no, not from prison, but from a ban on buying pens and paper. To think, that having spent years evaluating the usefulness of conferences by the (a) number and (b) the quality of the freebies I manage to come home with, my "reward" was to be told:

"We've got enough pens to open a stationery shop",

followed by a blanket ban on anything even remotely resembling a writing implement. There's gratitude for you.

Now here's a funny thing. Despite being a technofile, I love the feel of paper, and I love writing with nice pens. When I was 15 I fell in love with, bought, and fell in love with all over again, a clutch pencil that lasted for years. I've even still got some of the leads for it. Relatively recently, I discovered (though not sure how) that I still love a nice pencil. In particular, I love writing ideas for articles in a notebook, with a pencil.

I actually don't know why I like using a pencil, rather than a pen, for this. It is certainly not so that I can erase it or bits of it -- I tend to just cross it through. It just, I don't know, feels right.

A couple of weeks ago I was allowed to treat myself to a special pocket notebook in which to record my ideas. A special, dedicated notebook, with squared paper, that is completely separate from the other notebook I use to make to-do lists whilst on the bus or train, or for note-taking in meetings. But my joy was not complete because I also had to carry around either an ordinary pencil or a cheap clutch pencil that was a freebie at some away day or other, and is so light as to be almost insubstantial.

But today I had a reprieve. On our travels, my wife and I saw a lovely-looking Cross ball pen and pencil set. Black and silver, not too expensive, and with a lifetime guarantee. Taking a leaf out of our cats' books, I looked at her imploringly. In a moment of weakness, she succumbed to my charms. I am now the proud owner of this wonderful propelling pencil. It has weight. It has gravitas. It has a 9mm lead.

Unfortunately, it is so lovely that I cannot bear the thought of losing it, or worse. And so, it remains on my desk, a stationary stationery item, whilst I sit on the bus with my squared notebook and flimsy clutch pencil.

You'd think, being a technofile, I'd use technology to record my ideas. There's a memo function on my mobile phone, and a voice recording function too. I could use either of those, or a laptop. But it's not the same. There is something about the act of writing an idea that renders it more beautiful than merely typing it, texting it, or recording it. And besides, a notebook and pencil is less fiddly, less likely to be "wiped", and certainly less likely to attract muggers.

So, what are all these ideas for? I'm doing lots of writing at the moment. As well as my own website and a blog I use for writing about writing, I write a blog for Technology and Learning and one for Hot Chalk, as well as articles for the TES now and again.

I just enjoy writing. And blogging. Which reminds me. I'm conducting a survey into what people think are the differences (if any) between writing and blogging. If you have an opinion on the matter, and a spare five minutes in which to express it, it would be good to hear your views.

The day the love affair ended

2008-09-09T21:45:00.002Z

I have loved buses for a long time. I don't know why, but they have always had an air of romance and adventure about them. I love the look of them. And their variety. In London alone there are "bendy buses", which are really like trains without tracks, single deckers, double deckers, and double deckers with no roof (for tourists: no Londoner would be daft enough to brave the English weather, which can be brightly sunny one minute and then dark with rain the next).

There used to be green double deckers too, that went from London to the countryside, now replaced by green coaches.

Go further afield, and you will find more red buses, red and yellow buses, yellow buses, green buses, green and yellow buses, yellow and blue buses, maroon and yellow buses. No doubt there are many other varieties.

In my youth, London Transport, as it then was, used to sell Red Rovers. These daily tickets allowed you to travel anywhere in London, on red buses. And I did. Sometimes I would hop on a bus, sit there until it reached its destination, and then jump on a bus going somewhere else. Just for the sake of it, and to watch the changing scenery, and the little vignettes as bits of people's lives were played out for a few seconds as we hurtled past them.

There was a Green Rover too, which was valid only on green buses. And a twin rover which -- ha! you guess wrongly! -- was valid on both red buses and the underground.

So, my love affair lasted a long time. Until now. My experiences of the last few days has finally made the veil fall from my eyes. In later life, my wish to travel on buses has been motivated partly by a desire to get out of the stifling rush hour tube, and partly for "green" reasons. But tomorrow I may be going where I need to get to by car.

This week I am in a school in the east of London, doing training, ie as a trainee. London is a big place, so although it is not that far from where I live, it's far enough, and unfamiliar. It entails either going by train, bus, another train and another bus and then a 10 mile walk, or taking two buses. Funnily enough, I chose the second option.

Yesterday, when I was on the second bus, I asked the bus driver if we had passed the road I wanted. He told me we had, a few miles back. I got off the bus and went back. I then realised that this could not possibly be correct, so I retraced my original route. It turns out that when I spoke to the bus driver we were almost at the stop I needed, so he had sent me rushing backwards and forwards for nothing.

Today, I spent a total of 40 minutes waiting for buses in the pouring rain -- including a needless 20 minutes brought about because the driver pulled away from the bus stop when I was within yards of getting on.

On the return journey, the people on the first bus were subjected to listening to a mother and her out-of-control shrieking teenaged daughter having a blazing row. Then, whilst waiting for second bus, I was smoked over twice by people who seem to think it acceptable to just blow smoke in people's faces, couldn't get on the first bus that came along because it was full, and was virtually crushed on the bus I did get. Add to all this the fact that the driver seems to have been trained as a stunt man, and I came home feeling pretty tired.

So, don't let that idyllic picture of a bus shelter fool you. Travelling by bus in London is rapidly turning from a pleasant option to something you choose only if desperate. Well, that's the way I feel anyway, and I know I'm not the only one.

If Transport for London really wants to entice people out of their cars and on to their buses, I suggest they do the following:

Make it an offence to smoke in a bus shelter.

Prosecute people who shout and scream, not just those who threaten the driver.

Get all its drivers trained as advanced motorists.

Send all its drivers on a customer care course -- most of the time when I say "good morning" to a bus driver I am either ignored or grunted at.

You cannot expect anyone who has a choice to choose to experience the sort of thing I've described. So until Transport for London sorts its buses out, it's the tube and the car for me.

Technorati tags: Terry Freedman, buses

test

2008-08-22T10:15:00.001Z

test interactive spreadsheet

2008-07-19T14:17:00.000Z

Reading and Writing

2008-07-18T04:34:00.001Z

Reading

Research at the British Library differs from that at other libraries, by dint of the fact that there are relatively few books on the actual shelves. Unless you are interested in the most basic of books, so I am told, you need to reserve the books you are looking for online. Subsequently, perhaps two days later, depending on where the books are actually stored, you will be able to look at the books in a certain reading room and at a certain time.

In that reading room you will not be able to have in your possession a pen. Why not? Because some idiot (to use the same words as the person who told me) caused £50,000-worth of damage. So you are allowed a pencil and a laptop, carried in a clear plastic bag. No pens, no knives, no scissors. (Well, let's face it: if people are prepared to write graffiti on Stonehenge which has been in existence for thousands of years, they are hardly like to respect an ancient book or manuscript.)

How do I know all this? Because yesterday I joined the British Library as a "reader". I was able to do so without having to prove I am a researcher because I am a member of the Society of Authors. I can't wait to start exploring the Library: it looks fascinating. They even run courses in how to handle books and historical documents.

I have to say that I am fascinated by the idea of the catalogue -- there are courses in how to use that as well. It seems like a curious mixture of online and offline research. You have to search for, and order, the resources you need online in order to consult them offline.

Another thing that caught my imagination is that, in the British Library, owning a laptop is a distinct advantage over not owning one -- unless you like making notes in pencil, of course.

The reading rooms have free wi-fi, so I can see myself sitting there reading an original resource and also, at times, checking something out online. For example, I also have access to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Oxford English Dictionary, through my ordinary local library membership. I'll write about that soon, and I'll keep you posted about my experiences of researching at the British Library.

Writing

"We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language." So said Oscar Wilde, and I was reminded of this when Susan McLester, of Hot Chalk, started off with a disagreement before we have even got to know each other. Susan had pulled me up over my inclusion of punctuation marks inside quotation marks. Turns out we are both right: British and American schoolkids are taught different rules of grammar.

You will be able to read the offending sentences next Monday, I believe, when the first instalment of my Ed Tech Diary will appear. I hope you will drop by!

Gadget mad

2008-07-17T21:14:00.006Z

One of the unexpected pleasures of travelling in London is fending off the hordes of people trying to shove free newspapers into your hand. Sometimes I take them in order to do the crossword or the soduko.

Sometimes I take them in order to experience the sensation of degenerating brain cells as I read about the so-called concerns of so-called celebrities. Today I took one because it was one I'd never come across before: Sport Magazine.

I have zero interest in sports. The last time I played sport was when I was 13 years old, an occasion which still causes me to be emotionally traumatised when I dwell on it. Anyway, I did what I do with any paper these days: turned straight to the gizmo section.

The best type of gadget is, of course, one for which you have no need whatsoever. I was not disappointed. One of their must-have choices was a shaver called the Braun Pulsonic, a snip at a mere £250 (approximately $500) -- although the web price seems to be £100 less. Apparently, this vibrates, causing the skin to raise problem hairs.

Well, perhaps I'm missing the point, but I cause my hair to stand on end every morning just by looking in the mirror first thing in the morning. Failing that, I use a hot flannel. That has stood me in good stead for the past 40 years.

The other trick up my sleeve is that I use a razor that is cunningly designed to remove the top layer of skin, especially when I'm in a tearing hurry. True, there's the unfortunate side effect that I lose about a pint of blood and end up looking like a patchwork quilt because of all the bandages on my face, but the point is that it works.

I love the idea of the Pulsonic. The very name gives it geek cred. And if those nice people at Braun wish to send me one to evaluate, I will happily review it. But until and unless that happens, I will stick to my status quo. Anyone here a blood donor?

A Polaroid experiment

2008-03-26T23:51:00.001Z

A Flickr experiment

An Englishman in Glasgow

2007-09-26T16:52:00.001Z

An American in Glasgow, caught in yet another downpour, which so far has occurred each day of the past two weeks, stops a little boy in the street.
"Pardon me, son, but does it ever stop raining here?"
"How should I know?", comes the reply. "I’m only four."

That joke, told to my wife and me by a Glaswegian, David Muir, pretty much sums up our experience. It rained every day of our one week stay, even on the odd day that started with glorious sunshine, or ended with it.

Not that rain would necessarily dampen the visitor’s spirits. Glasgow is an interesting and largely enjoyable place, full of pleasant surprises.

The first surprise for me was discovering that there was so much culture (museums, art galleries, architecture) and the people so pleasant. That sounds vaguely insulting, I know, and I also know that Glasgow won an international cultural award a few years ago, indicating a degree of cognitive dissonance on my part. So, allow me to explain myself.

Until this week, the closest I had knowingly come to Glasgow was on the London Underground, in my youth, when the last train home always seemed to have a resident Scotsman looking for a fight, the worst for drink, addressing every man as Jimmy. (When I said to Theo Kuechel, himself a Scotsman, that I’d assumed Glasgow would be full of drunken Scotsman he raised an eyebrow and simply replied, "Well it all depends what time of day you come here, Terry".)

So, what did I like about it? Well, although a certain type of rain can be unpleasant (low level, incessant, boring and, well, wet), and that is exactly the sort of rain that Glasgow has, the light after the rain has a particular quality to it. Look at these photographs here.

They were taken soon after rain, and they are the kind of photos that would look better as paintings. They make me want to take up painting again, as a hobby. I may discipline myself to paint these photos, and then photograph the paintings and publish them on Flickr, thus completing a circle.

I don’t know very much about architecture but, like many a plebeian art lover, I know what I like, and I liked the sweeping crescents and the grand houses that were now apartments, bedsits or offices.

I enjoyed the Kelvingrove Museum, where I took these pictures of heads, and where there are several rooms of art from different countries.

I also liked the café society-type feel of the place, which stems from the fact that there is an inordinate number of cafes, mostly populated by students (from Glasgow and Strathclyde universities). There was one café which proclaimed that it had free wi-fi, and you might think that that would be the one I would gravitate to. Not so. In the days before I decided to boycott Starbucks, my favourite branch was one where there was no wi-fi and no mobile phone signal, because it was the only place I could not be "got at".

We discovered the Biblocafe which, as its name suggests, is a café where books play a prominent part. Many bookshops have a café; Biblocafe is more a café with a bookshop. Or, to be more precise, a café where you can read books, and "buy" books with other books, and use cash if you insist. And guess what? No wi-fi.

If I lived in Glasgow, or were staying there for any length of time, I could see myself spending a fair amount of time in the Biblocafe. In the event, we went only twice. The first time we spent a pleasant hour or thereabouts talking to the owner, Lou, about the setting up of the café. The second time, we spent a pleasant hour or thereabouts reading and drinking coffee.

We also visited the Charles Rene Macintosh museum, a must for anyone interested in design, and the Imax cinema, where a 3D film of ocean life thrilled us.

A visit to the Hunter collection in the University of Glasgow left me cold, and the Hunter Art Gallery not much warmer. Still, the experience was lightened by being handed invitations to a roller disco by some students, meaning that either we look a lot younger than we think we look, or that Glasgow University students are born optimists.

Places we didn’t visit included the Transport Museum and the Science Centre. We had planned to "do" those after the educational event that formed the main purpose and focus of our trip, but by that time we wanted to relax, which we did by browsing in bookshops and ambling along, and visiting the Botanical Gardens (twice).

We walked a lot. More, as Elaine observed, than we would where we live. I’m not sure why that was, especially since, like an Escher print, everywhere we went seemed to involve climbing hills or climbing stairs -- in both directions. Maybe it was because the guide book we had, which mentioned Ian Rankin and the Rebus novels a lot, seemed to be a work of fiction in itself. It was easier to work out where we were if we walked, than if we went by bus.

We also visited the new BBC building, and had a guided tour, by accident. Unbeknown to us, the building was just a few days from being officially opened (by the Prime Minister), and we passed it on our way to the Science Centre. It was pretty interesting, and we enjoyed the Doctor Who theme of the foyer.

Would we go again? Probably. But we’d fly, I think. Travelling by train is interminable, although there was some compensation: passing through the Lake District. There is nothing quite like the Lakeland landscape to make one feel that, somewhere at least, all is well with the world.

Identity Theft

2007-08-26T17:46:00.001Z

Mulla Nasrudin rushed into a store. “Have you ever seen me before?”, he asked breathlessly.

“No.”, came the reply.

“Then how do you know it’s me?”

Like all such stories, there is a layer of humour, and a much deeper layer to ponder, about who we are, and life.

I visited a nursing home for the elderly today. One of the residents said to me, “Young man, do you know who I am?”

“No I don’t”, I responded.

A nurse said to her, “You’re in a nursing home.”

The lady replied, “I know where I am; I just don’t know who I am.”

Like all such incidents, there is layer of humour, but a much deeper layer to ponder, about who we are, and Alzheimer's.

Book Review: 12 Books That Changed The World

2007-03-31T22:35:00.000Z

I'm reading a really interesting book at the moment. Note the present participle: I haven't finished it yet, so regard this as an interim review -- I'll let you know if I change my mind once I've read to the end.

"12 Books That Changed The World" starts from the premise that words, writing, can be just as powerful as the bomb or the bullet when it comes to causing cataclysmic change -- perhaps even more so. Books may be less immediately dramatic, but their effects, like ripples in the pond of time, can spread far and wide.

Unlike some popular, or should I say populist, books, this is not a one trick pony. What do I mean by that? Well, despite all the hype and the idol-worship, I can think of at least three books that consists of basically one idea repeated 50 times: The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman; Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell; and The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson.

Now, you could, of course, argue that "12 Books..." falls into the same trap, except that the single idea is repeated only 12 times. And you would be correct, looked at from one point of view. However, because the subject matter is so eclectic, the examples feel different -- very different.

So, what are the great works that are covered by the book? The selection -- and it is a selection: the author is at pains to tell us that he doesn't regard this as a list of the 12 books that changed the world -- may surprise you. In fact, the title would almost have been more accurate had it been "12 ideas that changed the world", but even that would not have been quite right. The books in question are:

Principia Mathematica -- Isaac Newton
Married Love -- Marie Stopes
Magna Carta -- English Ruling Classes
The Rule Book of Association Football -- ex-public schoolboys
On the Origin of Species -- Charles Darwin
On the Abolition of the Slave Trade -- William Wilberforce
A Vindication of the Rights of Women -- Mary Wollstonecraft
Experimental Researches on Electricity -- Michael Faraday
Patnt Specification for Arkwright's Spinning Machine -- Richard Arkwright
The King James Bible -- William Tyndale et al
An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations -- Adam Smith
The First Folio -- William Shakespeare.

As you would expect from Melvyn Bragg, if you have ever watched his TV series, the book is intellectually stimulating, exciting even, yet curiously understated. To take just one example: I am not a football fan myself and, apart from accidentally watching exciting games now and again, can pretty much take or leave it. Yet it never occurred to me that before the rule book was written, there were no rules. Obvious, really, once someone has pointed it out. And who would have thought that failure to agree on the inclusion of one or two rules would lead to the resignation of one of the committee members, or that the basic set of rules was written down one evening in a pub? And were you aware, as I was not, that the term "soccer" derives from "Association", as in Football Association, or that Rugby was, originally, called football, but had a different set of rules?

So far, what I've gained from the book is not merely a collection of facts such as these, but yet more proof of the power of the human spirit, and the bravery of particular individuals when they dared to challenge the conventional wisdom of their day.

There is included in the book a quote from Sir Isaac Newton which I love, because it reflects the fascination I feel at the fact that all the stuff we use now and take for granted relies on laws and energies that were always present, but undiscovered. I often wonder to myself what natural "raw materials" people in 50, 200 or 1000 years' time will be using of which we presently have no knowledge. He said:

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all unknown before me."

If you love good writing and great ideas, treat yourself: buy this book.

Zoundry Test

2007-03-24T18:57:00.001Z

I've just downloaded and installed a program called Zoundry, a WYSIWYG editor for creating, and then publishing, blog entries.

So far it seems OK, apart from the annoying fact that a tag box simply will not go away. I like the fact that it has a spell-checker, activated by F7, which I am used to, and that it automatically downloaded and installed a UK dictionary.

You can use different types of tag -- I am using Technorati. But it's a shame that you can only use one type at a time, and that it's too easy to get rid of your list of tags: I am about to type them in for the third time!

I have to say that I'm impressed by the fact that it downloaded my previous entries, which makes editing them a piece of cake: I can do it all from my desktop instead of going into Blogger. And that's another thing: after Google had finished messing about with all the account settings, my Windows Live Writer would no longer connect to my blog. This one had no trouble at all.

Technorati : blog writer, zoundry

Cheesed off

2007-03-24T17:48:00.000Z

Cheesed off

Why is it that cooking programmes on television always look so, well, grubby? In the UK there is a spate of such programmes at the moment, including the common or garden how-to type of programme, big brother-type scenarios, celebrity big brother variations, The Apprentice-type situation and the competition/TV game show.

I think all, at some time or other, have demonstrated bad practice.

For example, why does everything have to be handled? My understanding is that you can use thin gloves and/or utensils: you don't have to virtually wash your hands in a cake mix, for example. I don't care how clean you think your hands are, they're not clean enough for that.

Another thing I've noticed is where the chef or trainee chef tastes the soup, say, and then puts the same spoon or ladle back in the pan. Or, similarly, the judge takes a forkful of a dish, tastes it and then, using the same fork, takes a sample of another dish. When you have 2 or more judges doing likewise, one wonders whether these people ever studied food hygiene or health & safety.

Less directly hazardous, but nevertheless profoundly unappealing, is the sight of a cook who looks like he has slept on the doorstep and not had a wash in several days. I don't know about you, but that sort of thing simply puts me off my food.

Finally, you may believe that I am a nutcase, but I am convinced that unless you make food with a light spirit and a song in your heart, you fail to imbue with all the nourishment that you might have. Extending this, shouting and swearing over food really does, I think, kill, or at least seriously deplete, its spirit. Yet there is at least one cookery programme on English TV where the "star" of the show is constantly seen shouting, swearing and berating his staff or trainees. I think it's meant to depict him as a tough, no-nonsense kind of guy who is striving for perfection and who will be satisfied with nothing less. But for me, it serves only to make me determined to never patronise his restaurants.

Seconds, anyone?

Publishing, Self-Publishing and Vanity Publishing

2007-01-20T23:21:00.000Z

In this first video in this mini-series, I explain why I decided to self-publish my latest two books rather than attempt to have them published by a commercial publisher. The two books are Every Child Matters: What it Means for the ICT Teacher, and Go, On, Bore 'Em: How to Make ICT Lessons Excruciatingly Dull.

These booklets now available!!! Click the pix for more info!

Reviews of these
books

Click to play the video.

Living in Two Worlds

2007-01-01T08:22:00.000Z

The lady diagonally opposite the person I visit in hospital lives in a world of her own, pretty much. We all do, to some extent, but most of us share enough of our perception with others to be able to engage in social intercourse on a more or less equal footing. For this particular person, that doesn't seem to be the case.

She spends much of her time having conversations with people who are not there. Because they are not there, they cannot respond to her wishes. For example, a few days ago she was asking the other person to help her on with her shoes. When the other person didn't respond, she became agitated, distressed.

"What have I ever done to you," she wailed, "that you won't even help me on with my shoes?"

Interestingly, she draws other people in to her world in much the same way that I draw events into my dreams. For example, when, in a dream, a bell starts ringing inexplicably, my subconscious invents a fire engine to account for it. I discover, upon waking, that it was my alarm clock. Similarly, this lady "explains" the presence of someone walking past by seeing them as a possible guest ("Would you like a cup of tea?") or a friend or relative ("Hello again. What's it like out?").

Who knows what she was, or what she did, before her dementia set in? And how sharply does it put into perspective the concerns which usually occupy us?

Mind your language -- 2

2006-12-02T18:43:00.000Z

It's been far too long since I wrote the first article in this series. I was out and about today and espied this notice in the train station:

So, here is what I don't understand: how are you supposed to run on the handrail? Especially when it's so narrow:

Funnily enough, when I came out of the station I noticed this sign above a shop:

I don't know about you, but I think that's rather sad. It's bad enough to have faded from glory, but to actually be aware that you used to be regarded as a specialist but are now fading must be terrible.

I must write about Tommy Cooper soon: he was a great one for using language in a very literal manner.

How history matters

2006-10-17T18:51:00.000Z

This is my contribution to the "One Day in History" campaign. Organised by History Matters, the idea is to get as many people as possible to write about how history influenced their day today. These blogs will be stored by the British Library so that people in the future can see what life was like on the 17th October 2006.

Interestingly enough, one of the first things I looked at today was a piece of history. One of the subscribers to my newsletter, Dr John Cuthell (that's the name of the subscriber, not the newsletter), who runs the Virtual Learning website, recently sent me a copy of an article he'd had published in the Times Educational Supplement back in 1996. It's entitled "Teachers lag behind their students", and talks about the skills gap between teachers and their students (with the latter ahead, of course), and wondering what to do in school with the multi-tasking students who have better equipment at home than in school. So, if I hadn't mentioned the date, would you have even realised it was a historical document?

I was also due to go to Liverpool this evening for a conference tomorrow. I had been invited to attend free of charge by the local ICT Adviser, Paul Bradshaw, whom I met at Alan November's Building Online Communities in Boston in 2005. The conference features keynotes by Will Richardson, whom I met at the same conference and at NECC a couple of months ago; Ruth Hammond, for whom I worked as a consultant on Becta's "Safeguarding Children in a Digital World" document; and Mike Rumble, who works for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (for which I also worked about 5 year ago), and who I've known for ages anyway, through the subject association called Naace, of which I am now Chair. And oh yes: I myself attended the University of Liverpool to read for my Bachelor's degree. (I have to say that, until I just wrote all that, I hadn't consciously realised just how entwined our personal histories can be.)

As it happens, I had cancelled my attendance at the conference because I wanted to allow time to discuss issues following a meeting I had booked today with Jim Knight, a Member of Parliament and recently appointed as the Schools Minister. The historical connection there, I think, is that had it not been for people like Oliver Cromwell, who challenged the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, no member of Parliament would have wished to meet with anyone to discuss computers in education. He had to cancel at the last minute, though, and so the meeting has had to be rescheduled.

So, a fair amount of today related to my own "history", and a little of it was related to my country's history. However, I also feel part of the creation of a new history. Today I spoke, courtesy of Skype and some pretty inexpensive technology, to Barbara Sawhill, who is ne of the contributors to the 2nd edition of "Coming of Age: An Introduction to the NEW Worldwide Web". While I was talking to her, Miles Berry, who contributed to the original edition, came online and wanted to have a conversation. And then, a few minutes later, Steve Dembo, yet another contributor, appeared. International conversations by voice and text, a book created by over 40 people in several countries -- this would have been virtually impossible even 5 years ago, if not technically then financially.

However, I have to say that to some extent things are unreliable. Today my main email provider, Easynet, had a major power outage for the first time since I started using them, around 11 or 12 years ago, with the result that I have had a relatively email-free day. I suppose that, being so rare, both the power outage and the cessation of the relentless flood of emails are historical events in their own right!

I should imagine that anyone reading this on the 17th October 2206, the date mentioned in the Daily Telegraph today, will wonder how we manage to cope with such crude technology -- much in the same way that I marvel that people 200 years ago thought they were doing well if they managed to travel 20 miles in a single day. All I can say is this: you might have all the gizmos under the sun coming out of your ears (or more likely embedded in your ears), but just remember: we were the pioneers!

This blog will also be posted on my own website, http://www.ictineducation.org.

Today's pics

2006-10-08T22:04:00.000Z

No, not the UK's Channel 4 logo, but the number of the floor of the car park where I parked my car today.

Not buildings in the distance, but some kind of sculpture I think, in the same car park.

map test

2006-10-02T08:03:00.000Z

pic test

2006-10-02T07:56:00.000Z

On being ill

2006-10-01T03:48:00.000Z

The trouble with planning one's life like a military operation is that things go horribly wrong when an unexpected event, like becoming ill, occurs. It creates a sort of domino effect in which everything in the sequence gets delayed.

To go some way to mitigating this effect, I build in redundancy time, although it isn't really redundant time as such. Here's an example: earlier in the week I was due to attend two meetings, and so I had designated the day before as preparation time for those meetings. In the event I was too ill to attend, which meant that I could then spend the preparation day in bed without losing much. Of course, I will still need to read all the notes I was going to read, but I can do so at a time of my choosing, within certain limits.

I learnt to do this when I was working in local government. I suspect it is the same in all high-powered jobs: nothing seems to be planned and so everything becomes urgent. What happens, according to a line manager of mine to whom I complained once, is that someone at the top of the tree is given a request for information or involvement in a project or to spend a certain sum of money by a particular date, and by the time it filters down to the people who will actually implement the thing so much time has been lost that it has become urgent in the meantime.

Logic dictates, therefore, that the closer you are to the top, the more time you will have, and the more people you can delegate to anyway. Well, it just ain't true: the people right at the top don't seem to have any concept of forward planning. They's all there because they're visionaries. Visionaries don't have to plan, they just need to have visions, and to inspire everyone by their charismatic leadership.

As for having more people to whom the actual work can be delegated, that isn't true either: they're all too busy trying to implement last week's visions.

A brief update: work completed, work in progress

2006-09-20T23:54:00.000Z

To be honest, I don't really like itemising all the things I've done, because when I read other people's blogs about that sort of thing it always strikes me as really egotistical and boring. People do it, I think, in order to either boost their fragile egos or to get extra work. Maybe both.

OK, I can understand that last one, but quite frankly, when I read blogs or articles which include phrases like "As I said to X [insert grand title here] of Y [insert any country here] last week...", I just want to reach for the nearest bucket.

It is usually so unsubtle. I remember a MAD magazine piece many years ago in which they suggested embedding advertisements into movies, in order to save time by not having advertisement breaks. This was in the days before product placement had been thought of.

Thus, a scene from a War movie went something like this:

Sergeant: OK, boys, let's get them dirty reds.

Private: I, I can't, Sarge. I got this terrible stomach ache caused by excess acidity. Guess I'm gonna have to sit this one out.

Sergeant: Hey, soldier. What you need is EasiTum. (Produces packet from pocket.) Scientific tests have shown that 9 out of 10 people who tried EasiTum thought their symptoms had declined instantly.

Private: Hey, Sarge. I feel much better. That lousy stomach ache has gone, thanks to you.

Sarge: Don't thank me, Private. Thank the uniquely-formulated anti-acidites that make up 98% of the ingredients of EasiTum. Now let's get to work.

Believe it or not, I have read articles which actually read like that, but with the author's self-proclaimed expertise taking the place of the tablets. I think they sound ridiculous and, in a rather sad way, a little pathetic.

So, in terms of advertising myself, all I am going to say is that if you're interested in what I do, look here for a generic list. If anything strikes you as potentially interesting to your situation, I can give you concrete examples and client references. In the meantime, here is a general list of stuff going on now, which I think -- I hope -- you will find quite impressive.

Work completed

Lots.
Had an article about Learning Platforms published in the Guardian 2 days ago.
Even more.

Work in progress

Lots.
The 2nd edition of Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New Worldwide web.
When am I gonna get any sleep?
I am giving an inaugural speech as Chair of Naace soon. I wanted to keep the speech as short as possible, preferably not more than 5 minutes, or 10 at the outside. I estimated the length of my speech as being 4.72 minutes, but I am about to make some changes which will affect that.

Two experiments in one

2006-09-16T22:16:00.000Z

I'm in an experimental mood. I've recorded a brief, and pretty dreadful, video using my webcam, courtesy of a website called hellodeo.com, which I found about from Leon Cych. I'm writing this blog via a freeware program called Windows Live Writer. My intention is to upload the video by incorporating the code into this blog. Then to download it as a flash vide file. Then to convert that to a file format I can edit, like AVI.

What a palaver. But if it works, it could be useful. :-)

Freefall or free-for-all? Do teachers have the right to not be pedantic?

2006-09-14T08:42:00.000Z

In a recent blog Barbara Ganley says:

"I suppose I am writing this post in part to reassure myself that walking into a writing workshop with only the broadest strokes of a syllabus and only the backbone of a motherblog on Tuesday makes sense pedagogically rather than being a sign of me getting lazy after all these years. It's quite harrowing when I really think about what I am about to do --construct the syllabus with the students as we go and remove grades as much as possible --because it runs counter to what everyone around me does. I am about to pitch the teacher's safety net--a tight syllabus--out the window. I am about to pitch fifteen students into freefall, into discovering with me what it is they need to learn and not what I, without having met them, think they need to know about writing for the college classroom."

These ideas are not exactly new. I recall them doing the rounds when I started teaching in the 70's. I'll even confess to having a go at putting them into practice, with a group of adults. I didn't think they worked then, and I don't think they work now.

As I see it, the model is fundamentally flawed for the following reasons:

1. Many subjects have a particular body of knowledge associated with them, and what we may call key concepts. In Economics, for example, most economists would regard the concepts of opportunity cost and the margin as fundamental elements in the framework of economic theory. Interestingly enough, even though Chris Anderson regards the so-called long tail as a manifestation of the economics of plenty as opposed to scarcity, he acknowledges that scarcity, and hence by implication opportunity cost, is still present.

Even in a subject like how to write, Ganley's area, we have the interesting spectacle of Ganley talking about going into freefall at the same time that Stephen Downes boils everything down to a side of A4.

OK, I am being slightly facetious, and would say that in some respects his article is quite useful (I had intended to write a similar article myself, entitled "How I write", but had more pressing things to do at the time.) However, I do find the contrast between these two blog posts quite fascinating, and in the present context it would appear that Downes believes that there are certain things that you need to know about how to write in order to be able to write. If that is the case, what is the point of students wasting an entire semester or year discovering them?

This, to me, is a crucial point. If you know, say, that in order to become a great writer, or even a good one, you must know a, b and c, then surely it's your duty to tell the students exactly that in their very first lesson. That would enable them to spend the rest of the course applying those techniques and discovering what kind of writing they're good at. Discovery learning is not the same as constructivist learning. It's a waste of time.

2. People don't know what they don't know. How are students expected to make any useful decisions about what to learn, except by accident? A good teacher, using a well-constructed syllabus, will ensure that there is plenty of opportunity for students to bring their own life experiences to the table, and to discover and nurture their special interests. But that has to be within a framework which it is the duty of the teacher, as the expert, to disseminate.

I suspect that that is part of the problem. Perhaps not specifically in Ganley's case, but as a general observation it seems that the notion of the teacher as expert is frowned upon. It is undemocratic. It does not allow for student self-expression. The guide on the side is preferred to the sage on the stage.

Imagine if that approach was applied to military training, or driving lessons.

So, where would Ganley draw the line? I had a parent once who insisted that I should be teaching his child, along with all the other students, how to construct and take apart and then reconstruct a computer. The fact that these skills were not on the syllabus and would have no bearing at all on almost anything in the future had not occurred to him. In an adult economics class, a student insisted that the root cause of every problem was the balance of payments. As far as he was concerned, I should have been teaching the balance of payments alone throughout the entire course.

I took the view that I had a duty to teach them the key concepts so that by the end of the course they would be economically literate enough to be able to interpret the statistics and half-baked explanations that politicians delight in throwing about. I did, however, ask them if they would like to spend the course exploring what they thought were the important issues. They were unanimously against it.

And that brings me on to another point. Ganley says she doesn't know these students. So presumably she hasn't asked them what they think of this type of course. I have to say, if I turned up to a course to be told that there is only a broadbrush syllabus in place and few grades I'd ask for my money back. The only analagous situation I can think of is my experience as a teacher in the 1980s in England. There was a fashion for people running teacher professional development training to always answer a question with a question.

So you would ask the trainer, who was the acknowledged expert, "What would you do in such-and-such a situation?", and back would come the reply: "What would you do?", or "That's a great question. What does everyone else think?".

My view then, and now, is that here was a person who was being paid to waste my time. If he knew the answer, why didn't he just tell me? And if I wanted to hear what everyone else thought, I'd have asked them in the coffee break. If you've only got one day in which to get to grips with a new initiative or a new approach, you don't want to spend half of it "discovering" your own solution which may or may not be a workable one.

And getting back to this writing course, why are grades removed? Is there any kind of assessment? And will the course be recognised by anyone else, like potential employers perhaps?

Having read Ganley's blog posts for a while, I know she is an incredibly thoughtful and conscientious educator. I am quite sure that her reasons for embarking on the course she describes are well-founded. I would probably also go so far as to say that, given her expertise, I shouldn't be surprised if the course is a complete success. But if other, less experienced, teachers, pick up on this kind of idea, I fear that the blogosphere will, in a few years' time, be littered with the incoherent scribblings of people who think they can write -- but who never discovered that they can't, or who were simply not taught the basics.

Item 327 -- Get rid of to-do list

2006-09-10T22:11:00.000Z

I've always been a great one for writing to to-lists, mainly because of the surge of satisfaction I get from deleting items. But even I started to have doubts when the list soared beyond the 100 mark. By the time it reached 200, despite all the crossings-out (I rarely erase them, just cross them through and un-number them: yes, I do use the computer for this task) I had fallen into a slough of despondency. Now that the list has 326 items I have once again begun to question its usefulness.

The problem I find these days is that there seems to be a mismatch between myself and others in that I plan ahead as far as possible whilst a lot of other people seem to plan, if that's the word I'm looking for, at almost the last minute. For example, I am sometimes invited to conferences with 2 weeks notice: my diary contains bookings for almost the whole of 2007.

I once had a notice on the door of my office in the school where I worked as a technology co-ordinator. It read "Your lack of planning is not my emergency". Great words, and ones which clearly resonated with whomever it was who removed the notice from my door on the same day that I put it there.

Getting back to the to-do list, I think of mine as a very personal matter, a bit like a diary. In fact, I have kept all my appointments diaries for the last 28 years. I can look at the diary entries and they describe my life at the time more eloquently than the usual sort of diary entry ever could.

But only for me. They will mean nothing much to anyone else after I've died.

What will mean something, of course, is the to-do list with its 300-odd unachieved-as-yet items.I'd rather be remembered for what I have achieved than what I haven't.

So, the to-do list must go, a matter I'll attend to as soon as I've completed the next 326 tasks....

Mind your language -- 1

2006-09-03T09:28:00.000Z

Mind your language

Here are a couple of odd uses of language I came across recently. At least, they made me sit up and take notice, and perhaps that was the point.

The first was when a presenter at a conference I attended said that her full presentation would be on the web, and that she was going to read out an abridged version. A copy of the abridged version was given to each delegate.

In other words the abridged version was her presentation, which makes the longer version a longer version, not the thing itself. It also made me wonder, what exactly is a presentation in this context, given that what she described as the full version of her presentation was not, in fact, presented.

The second occasion was seeing a notice in a café announcing “Our new favourite drink”. Does this mean it’s a new drink which is destined to become a favourite, or an established drink that is a new favourite according to some poll that has been carried out, or a new drink which has just become a favourite even though it’s “new” (and I wonder what that word means in this context?)

It’s a bit like publishers’ advertisements for so-and-so’s brand new bestseller – made even more interesting when they add “In shops soon”.

It could, of course, all be down to the long tail phenomenon whereby more and more, smaller and smaller, niches become economically viable, and available, because of the low costs of online storage and selling. If, for example, you sell 1 copy of your book entitled “The colour of grass in Virginia in 1897”, which I would presume would be in a niche of its own, your book will by definition be a best-seller.

This ill-treatment of our wonderful language has been noted by many people, usually from the standpoint of attempting to help people avoid inadvertent misuse of English.
For example, people sometimes confuse continual and continuous, but there’s nothing intentional about it.

However, as Kenneth Hudson demonstrated in his “The Dictionary of Diseased English”
(USA purchases),
words are being used in ways which are completely wrong – in fact, in some cases the meaning is the exact opposite of the way the word is being used.

Take, for example, the word “choose”. In what sense do you choose a room in a hotel whose brochure states “Choose from over 200 rooms”?. You may, perhaps, choose a non-smoking room, but does the hotel show you a plan of the hotel and ask you to choose which room you would like, similar to the way theatres offer you a choice of seats?

British comedian Tommy Cooper was a marvellous mangler of the language, to hilarious effect. I’ll be writing about him soon. In the meantime, please…
Mind your language!

language use of language misuse of language abuse of language presentation

Coming of Age comes of age

2006-08-24T07:38:00.000Z

The free Web 2.0 booklet is now going into its second edition. For more information go to the book's blog.

Terry Freedman

Web 2.0

Coming of Age: An Introduction to the NEW Worldwide Web