Ada Lovelace day

Today is Ada Lovelace day when we celebrate women in technology. I'm not usually much of a one for girls-only recognition, but perhaps we are still a long way from the point where technological jobs are seen as being as open to women as they are to men.

I have to say that I think the exception is the field of ICT and related matters. Because of the relative newness of the field and the speed at which it has developed, there was no time for sexism. So, instead of writing about a particular woman in information/comms technology, and instead of extolling the many virtues of the women in my network, I am going to take a slightly different approach.

I would like to give a shout out to all the anonymous female motor mechanics, electricians, engineers of all kinds, fighter pilots, microsurgeons and so on. All the girls who hold their own in fields still largely seen as the male province.

When I was coming to the end of high school, I really wanted to be a mechanical engineer. I wanted to design machines. I like the way machines work and they make sense to me. Since we had no money to speak of, I was going to need a bank loan, so we set about applying for one. Every bank manager we saw told me the same story: they were not going to lend money to a girl who wanted to study mechanical engineering, because the attrition rate was too high, the risks too great and the return on the investment doubtful. I was encouraged to consider chemical or light current electrical engineering instead. Since I was hopeless with both those areas of the science curriculum at school, I had no interest in going that route.

I admire those women who haven't taken no for an answer. Who have activated their 'I'll show you' button and who earn their keep doing jobs that their grandmothers never heard of and that their mothers thought only suitable for boys.

One such anonymous woman was my husband's late aunt Gunnel Bjureblad, who was an engineer. She died four years back, aged 70-something, and I imagine the opposition she faced in her day was even tougher than my own, especially since her Dad thought that education beyond the age of 14 was wasted on a girl.

Call it a cop out if you like, but I salute the Gunnel Bjureblads of the world today. All of them.

An unexpected hero

If you live outside of the UK, you may not have heard of Eddie Izzard. Okay, you might have done - he appeared in My Super Ex-girlfriend as the misunderstood baddie who was in love with the super ex of the title.

In the UK, he is better known as a comedian (severe language warning on linked video) and a transvestite who frequently appears at gigs in towering heels and a full face of make-up.

He's intelligent and articulate, but he is not an athlete... or so you would think.

But with relatively little fanfare, last year he ran 43 marathons in 51 days in aid of the charity, Sport Relief... and raised £1.6 million!

He prepared for only 5 weeks and at the start, was carrying a fair old spare tyre. But he argued, this is what we were designed to do. And I guess he's right. Before the wheel came along, we had to walk or run everywhere, and the stone age didn't boast a Tesco or a Walmart, so it was run - a lot - or go hungry.

He ran mostly alone and largely unremarked, as this article in The Guardian explains. Catching snippets of the BBC series about his efforts, I have to say that my heart swelled and I developed a new found respect for this rather unusual man.

Well done, Eddie. I salute you. You put us all to shame.

Harold Jarche on PKM

Harold has written a nice post about personal knowledge management today. Check it out.

Those wretched hoops!

Our younger son is closing in on his final GCSE (general certificate of secondary education) exams, and recently brought home his 'long report' which provides parents with the following information for each subject:

• How your child is performing in terms of his/her attitude/behaviour in class, effort and homework completion - these are subjective scores allocated by the teacher on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being poor and 5 being stellar
• Your child's target grade and how he/she is currently performing against that
  
• A paragraph of reflection by the teacher: areas for improvement and so on

The last few weeks have been frantic, as the unfinished parts of the syllabus in several subjects are crammed in. The entire form recently had to stay on for an extra two hours every day for a week, in order to complete the work in subject X. Some of them are still doing this. My son has had no lunch breaks for weeks on end as he tries to complete the units of the syllabus in subject Y that the rest of the form did the year before he joined the school.

I don't understand why this all has to be done now. Surely it was known from day one when he joined the school two years ago that he was going to need to make up the extra year in subject Y? Surely that work could have been spread across two years rather than being crammed into these last few weeks? Surely it was evident months ago that the entire form was falling behind on subject X? Why does it all have to be done now? Especially since they are also frantically trying to raise several thousand Pounds for a school trip to Ecuador (anyone got a small fortune going spare?) in the summer.

My son's tutor remarked that he appeared to be showing signs of the strain of the additional workload and needed to find ways to break it down into manageable chunks. I commend her for her insight into his character, but I'm not sure what the poor kid can do.

In the context of all of this, one particular piece of feedback had me reaching for my poison pen. In subject X, my son's predicted grade is a B. His scores for attitude, homework completion and effort are all 5s. His recently submitted coursework received an A grade. The short paragraph from the teacher started "Your coursework was disappointing..." Excuse me? This is a model student who is outperforming his predicted grade and you are disappointed?

My son is talking about taking the work back and tweaking it so that he can get a better A or an A*. My advice to him is to let it be. He has enough else on his plate right now, and that A is in the bank. But the school is encouraging him to try to up that grade.

I know of another school where several kids are being pressured to resit a maths exam in attempt to up their grades from A to A*.

I'm casting about for a word to describe this and I'm tempted to go with iniquitous. What are we doing to these kids?

Taking YouTube videos offline

I was certain I had posted about this before, but I can't seem to find the post. Apologies if I'm repeating myself!

A lot of people in this space are frustrated by the fact that access to YouTube is blocked within their organisations. I think we've satisfactorily established that, while there is an inevitable amount of dross on YouTube, there is also a wealth of material that is useful. When reputable organisations like WWF, MIT, and the OU have their own channels on YouTube, surely it is time for a paradigm shift?

But if you are still bumping your head against the firewall, there is a chink of light. If you have identified some YouTube videos relevant to the learning needs within your organisation, you can take them offline. Appropriately enough, there is a YouTube video to tell you how to do this:



Of course, this is a long way from having all of YouTube at your disposal, but it's a start. If nothing else, it will demonstrate to your learners the value of YouTube as a learning tool.

The message seems finally to have gotten through in my own home. My younger son has recently decided to take up rugby. In a rugby mad family, he was always the one person who has been uninterested in the sport. But recently, he has been playing at school and has discovered an innate talent a passion for the game. Of course, he now has a lot of catching up to do, since most of the other kids have been playing for years.

To my delight, and entirely of his own volition, he went the YouTube route. Having discussed with us the role of each positional player within the team, he decided that he was most likely to play on the flank (numbers 6 and 7, sometimes known by the older name 'wing forward'). Over the past couple of weeks, he has completely immersed himself in videos about the rules of the game in general and the role of the flank in particular. He has also taken every opportunity to watch live rugby with us, questioning us endlessly about the reasons for stoppages. Then he has had a go at explaining to us what the deal is, to see whether he is getting the right end of the stick.

The learning anorak has spawned a self-driven learner, ladies and gents. My cup runneth over.

Peter Casebow and Jay Cross in conversation

Peter Casebow has recorded a skype conversation between himself and Jay Cross about learning and performance.

Don't expect slick production and such like - expect a conversation. That's what it is.

Increasingly, I would say we need to learn to regard resources like this as valid constituents of our learning experience. There isn't always time or money to repurpose material and make it shiny.

So you think social media are for socialising, huh?

Jane Hart, who can be relied upon to have her finger on the pulse, is building up a series of case studies of the use of social media "INTERNALLY for social and collaborative learning and/or performance and productivity improvement".

The examples (at the time of writing) include British Telecom; Pearson; BUPA; WWF; Nationwide and NASA. And the list os growing. If you'd like to add to it, please get in touch with Jane via the link on her site.

Bear with me...

This blog is undergoing some redesign, and may be a bit unpredictable over the next few days.

Magical augmented reality

How's this for a magical use of technology for kids?

The publishers say:
"This is a sneak preview of the animation that is in our new book 'What Lola Wants...Lola Gets' that uses 'Augmented Reality' which will be published on the 1st of April 2010 by Scribblers, a division of Book House. "

On that wretched academic/corporate divide

I find the divide between academic learning and corporate learning unhelpful, and I'm sure I'm not alone. In his comment on my recent post, Garry Platt touched on a point that has been niggling away at me for lo, these three and a half years past.

He said:

I think one possible reason why academic reviews of mainstream ‘management’ models are not more accessed and taken account of by trainers and developers is in part to do with the style of writing used. In many cases, the majority in my experience, reviews, positive or otherwise of models or concepts are in written in a style and English which is incredibly hard to understand. This in my view merely reflects a ridiculous style that academia deems as necessary. I can absolutely see the need for precision but the unnecessary use of big words when little ones will do and sentence structures of an arid and ridiculous length just make things worse.

Now, I'm not sure I would always go along with the big words/little words argument. I recently read a headline that said 'lots of people hurt in smash' and ground my teeth. I don't see the problem with 'several people injured in collision', but perhaps that's just me... and as for the over-use of the word 'big'! Well, don't even get me started.

But I digress.

My greatest obstacle on my (now almost complete, and about time, too!) Masters' degree has been that of writing style. The following is part of a conversation that took place on my Facebook page on Sunday:I'm not sure what I can add to that, except to point out that the value and applicability of research appears to be severely hampered by the requirement for a certain type of language. Surely this defeats the purpose of research?

I think I would rather enjoy an exchange of views among corporate learning professionals in which more than the usual token handful have read the research. As it is, as soon as the subject of research is raised, you can almost hear the shutters come down with a clang. I suspect some are hard pressed not to jam their fingers in their ears and yell "LALALALALAAAAAA!!!"

On not needing to know

I have often bewailed the fact that I am neither fish nor fowl when it comes to the world of learning. I don't work in the field of formal education and my academic writing skills are the about on a par with my squash: I have a go at it, but I'm not terribly successful, and I haven't ever figured out what it is I need to do differently. Ergo, I am not an academic.

I work mainly with corporates in the field of workplace learning. But here, I encounter learning and development professionals without the slightest interest in the stuff that ignites the spark in my eyes and gets my hands waving.

Apparently, we workplace learning bods don't need to trouble ourselves with all that geeky theory stuff. Or so they keep telling me.

And yet they talk about six sigma and red hats and black hats. They talk about Honey and Mumford and MBTI and VAK. They talk about Kirkpatrick. They talk about management styles. They talk about the trends in presentation techniques.

What they don't seem to realise is that is the realm of theory. Theory they have often acquired umpteenth hand somewhere along the way, liked the sound of and adopted into their lexicon or practice without a second thought.

I find this irresponsible. Surely, before you impart something, and/or allow something to influence the way you teach/train/facilitate, you should explore it to make sure that it is sound? Otherwise, how is it any better than perpetuating rumour?

I was chatting to a young teacher friend last night and she was talking about the ways in which her school is attempting to engage parents in the education of their children. To get them to see that they are in fact their children's primary educators (music to my ears!) and their responsibility to their kids extends beyond dropping them off at the school gates washed and dressed each morning.

Some years ago, I had to receive therapy after a cycling accident. As we discussed my symptoms and my proposed treatment, my therapist asked if I were medically trained. When he saw my puzzled face, he estimated that at least half his patients (in an affluent town with an educated populace) would have trouble distinguishing between their liver and their kidney and saying with certainty how many they had of each.

I could cite a few more examples, but had best stop before I get into full spate. It seems to me that, in this age when almost any information you want or need is available to you at the click of a button, there are still far too many people seeing it as someone else's job to know stuff.

Well, whose job is it then? Whose job is it to know whether the content of your learning materials is sound? Whose job is it to know whether the management style model you're applying is reliable? Whose job is it to know what your children are being taught at school... and how well they're coping with it? Whose job is it to monitor the health of the only body (and mind) you're ever going to be issued?

I guess it's a symptom of my irredeemable geekhood that I simply can't understand how people can not want to know. How they can not be consumed with curiosity about the stuff that impacts their lives and the lives of people they care about.

Of course, none of us can know everything. And we certainly can't understand everything. There are times when even rampant curiosity is not going to be enough. When we want to know something, but simply don't understand it. Then you have to decide whether it's worth it to you to invest the sort of time and resources necessary to acquire that understanding. Often it isn't, so you cut your losses and move on.

But then don't present that material as fact to hordes of people and claim that it isn't your business to know the theory.

Looking back over the furrow

This morning, for some reason best known to itself (possibly due to the partnering with Ingboo) my Technorati search on my name returned 200 hits. I'm sure there are some people for whom this is a daily occurrence. I am not one of them. My name crops up only occasionally, so I had a moment of panic when I wondered what I might have done to cause such a flurry of interest.

As it turns out, none of them are new. But I found myself reading back over old posts from a number of people with whom I have I have engaged in online discourse over the past few years or so.

I also found myself rereading some of my own posts and was really glad of the title of this blog. Because, boy oh boy, I don't exactly plough a very straight furrow! But I'm not a farmer and straight furrows are not among my goals. This is a learning journey. And I have learned. A lot. I have also, and this never fails to fill my insecure little heart with joy, been a part of other people's learning journeys (for good or ill).

As far as I can remember, today is not a red letter day. It is not my anniversary as a blogger, or my x thousandth post. It's just an ordinary day on which some small thing outside of my control made me pause and look back.

If you're reading this post, you have been a part of that crooked furrow. So I'd like to thank you. Just off the top of my head, a few names that deserve special mention are (in no particular order):
Harold Jarche
Janet Clarey
Stephen Downes
Wendy Wickham
Christy Tucker
Virginia Yonkers
Tony Karrer
Don Taylor
Mark Berthelemy

Virtual hugs to you all!

On passion

I watched the recent men's Olympic ice hockey finals with bated breath. How Americans and Canadians managed to get through it without a coronary is beyond me.

But I was tickled by the iconic status of the Canadian netminder (read goalkeeper) Roberto Luongo. Of course, he was a local boy, playing as he does for the Vancouver Canucks, but I doubt that that was the only explanation for the basso profundo roar of "LUUUUUU!!!" that went up every time he touched the puck. The commentators were at great pains to explain that the crowd wasn't booing, because it did sound rather like it.

The South African rugby team has a similar figure in the form of Tendai Mtawarira aka The Beast. Every time he touches the ball, the entire stand thrums as every supporter chants a throaty "BEEEEEEEEAST!!!!" As we watch him play, at a remove of several thousand kilometres, and sometimes several hours (or even days) my family does it, too. Four throats joining in with the many thousand in the stands.

These characters have inspired an astonishing level of devotion among their supporters. In an odd way, Kwame Nkrumah Acheampong had a similar effect. Apparently the crowd was still chanting "Ghana! Ghana!" an hour after his run. So we can tell that it isn't necessarily about superior skills.

I suspect that it is about passion. All these men (and I'm sure there are women like this, too) share an indomitability. They simply don't know when to quit. They. Will. Not. Be. Stopped. In this civilised age, I find it heartening that we are so ready to be won over by this level of passion. There is nothing civilised about the responses to the endeavours of these sportsmen.

In fact, let me tell you a little tale. Some years ago, I attended my sons' school sports day. All the parents were doing the usual thing of yelling their heads off for their kids and their friends' kids. Then up stepped a lad I'll call David Michaels. David had a particularly virulent form of muscular dystrophy and it was evident that this was the last year he would attend sports day on his own two feet. As the children lined up for the race, David was given a huge head start. Believe you me, there wasn't a dry eye in the place and, regardless of who they had come there to support, every child, every teacher and every parent present roared for David. Even with the head start, he wasn't able to win, but he did finish second, and the roar that went up was greater than for the rest of the events combined. David would not quit. In fact, the next year, he was back. This time in his wheelchair, being pushed by a willing volunteer.

I understand this level of passion. I'm a passionate person myself. As such, I know full well that these people have encountered naysayers, detractors and Job's comforters at every step along their journey. In order to get to where they are (even young David, who may well not even be alive any more), they will have had to refuse to buy into the 'good advice' that people have given them.

There are times when our battle on the learning front gets tiresome. There are days when we are tempted just to pack it in and go back to designing mind-numbing tunnels of back and next buttons. On those days, I reckon we could do worse than watch a brutal, uncivilised clash of sporting Titans to stir up the blood again. To remind ourselves that we might be fully clothed, erudite grown-ups on the outside, but every now and again, the inner savage needs a bit of legroom.

How's your inner savage today?

;o)

Keeping things current

As you may know, I am in the process of acquiring a new passport, my previous one having expired.

I visited the space that glories in the misnomer 'website' to find out what I need to do. The website consists of one page, regardless of which of the links one selects. The only thing that changes is a line of introductory text across the top.

I printed off a checklist of everything I needed to take with me, and made sure I had it all. Two forms, completed. Check. Previous passport. Check. Two certified copies of data page of passport. Check. Two certified copies of full marriage certificate. Check. Four passport photos of an old and haggard looking woman that people will insultingly believe is me. Check. Cash to pay for passport (no other tender accepted). Check.

I joined the back of the queue outside the consulate. The man in front of me told me he had come to collect his passport. He applied for it in July and received an email yesterday to tell him it was ready for collection! Speedy service it isn't. I only hope mine is quicker than that, I have a fair amount of travelling planned.

While I was waiting, I noticed several people being sent away to a nearby photocopy service to get this or that document copied. Two thoughts occurred to me about this. First, the website informs visitors that documents can be copied on the premises. I had chosen to get mine done in advance because the cynic in me wanted to avoid the possibility of "the machine, she is broken" - heard all too often in South Africa. Second, why hadn't these palookas printed off the list as I had done, to ensure that they had everything they needed. I began to feel a little smug. Obviously, the machine, she - blow me down - was broken, and I was going to be one of the few who had prepared for this possibility. Ha!

When I finally got the front of the queue, I opened my neat envelope and handed all my tidily organised documents to the lady on the desk. She told me my application was incomplete because it did not include two certified copies of my UK permanent residence permit. I pointed to my neat list and explained that this was not a requirement for this application. Oh, but it is, apparently. The website is wrong. I would have to go around the corner to a photocopying place and have it done. I reminded her that the website clearly states that copies can be made on site. I asked if the machine, she was broken. Apparently not. Apparently the website is incorrect on this score, too.

So, like all the other 'palookas' before me, I had to go off and have some additional items copied.

Some time ago, I created an online resource for a client. Included in the deal was that I taught them how to update the site whenever any of the data it contained became obsolete. I encouraged them to use fresh, up-to-the-minute material, but to keep a weather eye out for the need to change it.

In a situation where users are dependent on the accuracy of the content of a site, it is important not to let them down.

Sadly, although I'm sure several people have tried to explain this to the South African Consulate (myself included), they seem to think that it is sufficient to simply say to a person who has gone to significant expense to be there in person (my train ticket was over £80!) that the website is wrong.

The machine, she is not the only thing that is broken!

On requirements that can no longer be met

Recently I reflected on actions that people continue to do, long after they cease to add value. Today I came across a related situation.

What about requirements that can no longer be met?

I have to apply for a new passport, because my last one has expired. Among the requirements for the new passport are a copy of the data page of my passport and two copies of my original marriage certificate. Fine. I have these to hand.

The problem is that they have to be certified copies of the original.

I used to work for a local authority in the Town Clerk's department. The Town Clerk, his deputy, the Town Treasurer and his deputy were all authorised to certify documents. They carried the title Justice of the Peace (if you please). And it was something they were asked to do from time to time. Someone would pop in with a document. We would photocopy it and then certify it on the back. No problem. I even did it myself once when, for a whole day, due to poor scheduling all four of the abovementioned office-bearers were out of town and I was acting Town Clerk (at the grand old age of 23, if you don't mind!).

So today, I took my documents, originals and copies to the police station, being fairly sure that there would be someone there with the authority to certify the copies for me.

Nope.

"We are not allowed to do that any more."

Instead, it seems, the copies must be certified by a professional person (whatever that means) who knows me personally.

"Such as?" I was fairly sure this didn't include my husband. The police officer adopted a pained expression.

"Like your lawyer. Or your bank manager."

Right. Because I am constantly being sued left and right and have a lawyer on retainer. And because my bank manager knows me personally. Heck, who can even phone their bank manager in person these days? It's a good thing that I have an accountant on retainer for my business, because he has agreed to do it.

If someone knows you personally, surely that brings their impartiality into question. I was under the impression that such people had to be impartial witness types. If the office of the justice of the peace has fallen away, then why is this requirement still in place? It's like being asked to turn the crank handle on a modern car before being issued with a driving licence. And what if you simply don't number such people in your circle of acquaintance. For example, what if I was Jo Bloggs the supermarket shelf-packer? I'm fairly sure Jo won't have an accountant. A pastor, then (just in case my accounting was unavailable, I had asked the officer if my pastor could do it, and she assured me that he could). But perhaps Jo Bloggs doesn't go to church. Then what?

If you are simply unable to fulfill this requirement, do you go passportless into that good night?

I can't see why they don't just have a photocopying machine at the passport office, and a person on hand to certify that piece of paper A is definitely a copy of piece of paper B, because he saw it being copied. So there.

And why are are faffing with bits of paper anyway? Why can't we just scan the damned things into the system once and for all and be done with it? So that next time I go there, they still have a copy of my marriage certificate and the data page of my expired passport on record.

Ugh. Now I have to go to London tomorrow and stand in an interminable queue. And the passport might still take so long to be issued that I am unable to make it to eLearning Africa in Zambia at the end of May.

Faff. Faff. Faff.

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong

Meet my favourite 2010 Olympian, a Ghanaian, born in Scotland, an alumnus of my husband's alma mater in South Africa, and now living not far from us in England. I met Kwame at a church meeting in Milton Keynes a couple of years ago and was touched by his ambition. This is a man who seeks to break of the stereotypical mould. For example, he represented Ghana in a tennis tournament in years gone by.

His journey to the slalom and giant slalom events in Whistler has been a tough one. There have been times that he has had to sleep in his freezing van in Canada, because of a lack of sponsorship. Good Samaritans have since stepped forward to help out, it seems, and he has been provided with lodgings.

I love stories like this!

Join Kwame's fan page on Facebook to get an idea of the inspiration he has given to so many ordinary people.

Will Thalheimer on learning styles

If you've been reading this blog for a while, it can't have escaped your notice that I am not an adherent of the concept of learning styles. I have written several blog posts and articles on the subject (I won't bore you by linking to them).

Like Donald Clark (to whom thanks for the pointer) I hope that this blog post from Will Thalheimer, and the research it cites will finally begin to draw a curtain on this silliness.

There is... a great gap from... heterogeneous responses to instructional manipulations—whose reality we do not dispute—to the notion that presently available taxonomies of student types offer any valid help in deciding what kind of instruction to offer each individual.

Enough now.

Happy anniversary, Madiba

Just before midnight rolls around and brings an end to this red letter day, I would like to just mark the fact that 11 February 2010 is the twentieth anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison.

A very important day in the history of South Africa and - arguably - the world.

On being knocked off kilter... by Hitler

Be informed that comment moderation is in place on this blog and I will not allow this post to be the springboard for the expression of anti-semetism, neo-nazism or holocaust denialism. Any such comments will not be published.

This post has been very hard to write. This has been an uncomfortable learning experience for me, and I am assailed with uncertainty as to the reactions it will garner. I implore you not to misinterpret it.

Last night I watched a documentary called Hitler's Private World (see part 1 here). It made me horribly uncomfortable. Not because it revealed what a monster he was. I already knew that bit, and was enormously comfortable with it. I was happy to think of Adolf Hitler as a terse, inconsiderate man. If I thought about his personal relationships at all, it was to assume that he was cold and distant. Unfeeling. A psychopath, even.

I was not prepared to see him as warm and affectionate. I was not prepared to see him as someone who adored children. I was not prepared to see him as someone who cared about the environment. Someone who saw the potential for user-generated content.

I was happy only to know that he was responsible for the mass slaughter of umpteen million so-called undesirables (Jews, Soviet PoWs, Gypsies/Romanies, Poles, left wing political prisoners, homosexuals, the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholic clergy, eastern European intellectuals, etc.) and then to welsh out of facing up to the consequences of his appalling actions by taking his own life.

Don't get me wrong... the documentary was not a pro-Hitler rant, and I am not about to join the ranks of those who think he was 'just misunderstood'.

The documentary was made using home movie material overdubbed with dialogue as ascertained by automated lipreading technology. It showed Hitler flirting with Eva Braun, gossipping about the likes of Goering and Himmler, playing happily with children, affectionately commending young soldiers.

It forced me to see additional dimensions to a man I prefer to think of in only one dimension... and it made me very squirm because, as the narrator pointed out, if this man had the capacity to care about the things I care about, to interact with people as I do, then perhaps he is not as different from me as I would prefer to think. On some subconscious level, I think I had ascribed him to a different species, but material such as was shown last night forces me to acknowledge that this is not the case.

Here was a man who grieved to see trees being chopped down. A man who wanted every German family to have a cine camera to record history from their own perspective. A man who could not bring himself to eat the flesh of a living creature. A man who adored children... something which showed plainly on his face as he interacted with them. A man who patted the young members of the Hitler youth with what seemed to be genuine affection as he inspected their ranks. A man frustrated by the effects of Parkinson's disease.

In some of the footage, perhaps with the help of the suggestive voice of the narrator, it was possible to see him psyching himself up, putting on the role of the orator at the hands of a (Jewish, as irony would have it) spin doctor.

Where was the monster?

Of course, his monstrous legacy remains and speaks for itself, but in his private life, he was disturbingly ordinary. I am struggling to find space in my mind for this new information.

I encourage you to watch the footage yourself. I'd be interested to hear how you respond to it.

Things my Granny knew

Have you heard this story? It's probably an urban legend, but it amply demonstrates a point:

A new husband was adoringly watching his young wife cook the Sunday roast. He noticed that she cut a slice off the end of the roast and carefully placed it on top of the joint before popping it into the oven. He asked her why she did that. His wife looked at him in puzzlement and said, "That's how you cook a roast. That's what my Mom always does." The young man expressed surprise, explaining that he had never seen it done that way before (he carefully did not say that his own mother didn't do it that way). The wife gave it some thought and realised that she had no idea why her Mom did it that way, just that it was what she did.

So she phoned her mother.

The mother explained that that was how one cooked a roast. Her own mother had always done it that way. "But why?" asked her daughter. The mother realised she didn't know the answer to this question, just that this was how it was done.

So she phoned her mother.

The grandmother was puzzled for a moment. She had no recollection of doing any such thing and could see no reason why anyone would handle a roast in this way. But as they spoke, the middle aged woman and her elderly mother, the light dawned. "Oh!" explained the old lady, "I remember! I had five children, so I had to buy a big joint. The problem was that I had a rather small oven and a small roasting pan, and the joint was too long to fit, so I used to take a slice off the end and put it on top. But, goodness! As soon as I got a bigger oven, I stopped doing that."

So there are times when we do things a certain way because 'this is the way its always been done', without stopping to question whether this is the best way.

But there are some things my Granny knew.

I still make tea the way my Granny taught me. As the eldest grandchild, it fell to me to make the morning tea when the family was all together in the holidays. I was well-schooled. You use fresh water every time - you don't just reboil the water that's in the kettle. You use a fairly large teapot, to give the tea space to move. You heat the teapot before using it. You put the tea into the pot before adding the water - you do NOT add the tea to the already poured water. And, when you pour the water into the teapot, it must be absolutely boiling - it must not have been allowed even a moment to go off the boil. Tea can be served with or without milk (note: NOT cream) and sugar or lemon. The one rule I break is that I use mugs instead of cups... only because I like a generous portion of tea. My ludicrously small kitchen does, however, include a few teacups, although I regret they are not paper-thin porcelain.

People who take real pleasure in a cup of tea - usually those of advanced years - often remark that I make a 'nice cup of tea'. My Granny would be proud.

I checked. There are reasons for each of those steps, and they still apply.

My Gran also boiled eggs in a specific way... and I have only just learned why. She used to bring the water to boil in a saucepan, then she would add a generous amount of salt, and gently pop the (room temperature) egg(s) into the water. If she was boiling more than one egg, she would write numbers on the eggs with a pencil and place them into the water in numerical order, and remove them in the same order.

I did what the two younger ladies in my first story failed to do. I thought about it and could see no reason to do it this way. I found my own way to boil eggs to my liking.

I keep my eggs in the fridge, because we eat fewer of them nowadays than in my Gran's day, and so need to store them there to keep them fresh. Taking an egg from the fridge and putting it into boiling water is a sure-fire way of cracking the shell. Now the salt in the water is supposed to help congeal the white, so that it does little more than bulge out a bit from the crack. But I have found that all this can be avoided if you just pop the egg into cold water with salt, and then bring it to the boil. Once it has come to the boil, 3 minutes will give you a soft yolk and 5 a hard yolk. Job done.

But wait. There's a thing my Gran used to do with boiled eggs when she was preparing finger snacks that involved the eggs being cut in half lengthwise, the yolks being removed and mixed with a few other ingredients and then piped back into the egg whites. Apparently (and this is the bit I only learned when speaking to my aunt during my recent trip back to South Africa), if you put the egg into already boiling water, the yolk stays in the middle of the egg! I have to confess that my yolks are seldom, if ever, in the middle of the egg, which has meant that my attempts to make my Gran's egg thingy have always looked somewhat amateurish.

But now that I know... just you wait until the next time I am asked to prepare finger food for a church do! I shall produce a perfect batch of my Gran's egg snacks... and even though she's been gone for 23 years, I shall no doubt shed a sentimental little tear as I picture her approving smile at my efforts.

Some things my Granny just knew.

Twitter v IM: a micro-reflection

Donald Clark shared via his Facebook status that "while 7 out of 10 teens use social networking websites like Facebook, only 1 in 12 teens use Twitter - Pew Internet and American Life Project - survey middle of last year 12-17 year olds."

I located said report and found it interesting reading. You might, too, if your life includes teenagers.

One caveat I found quite telling was that "the question wording for teens is quite different from how the question was posed to adults so the results are not strictly comparable."

That said, it seems that only 8% of online American teens use Twitter, while the figure for adults is 19%. It should be noted, however, that the figure for adults varies hugely across different age bands, showing a steady decline from the 37% of 18-24 year olds to just 4% of those over the age 65. So it seems that between their 17th and 18th birthdays, American teenagers experience the sudden urge to make the shift to Twitter. I wonder why? The report suggests that it "may be partially due to our question wording capturing status updates on social networking sites."

But enough of that, I wanted to focus on the 'only 8% of all teens' bit.

My own teenagers are avid users of instant messaging and have been for several years, now. Their usage patterns would not be supported by Twitter.

For example:

• They use a lot of emoticons
• They use extensive font formatting
• They frequently use more than 140 characters per message
• They conduct huge numbers of 1:1 conversations simultaneously, sharing private thoughts they would never dream of sharing in a single, multi-user stream (connected in parallel, rather than in series?)
• They change their user names often, using these as a mini status to reflect their mood, their (frequently) changing romantic status or a significant event in their lives
• They use web cams as part of their conversations (and some parents would be appalled to know some of the uses to which their teenagers put these cameras!)

Of course, this is just a single snapshot, based on my observations of my own sons and their friends, and does not constitute research. But I throw my snapshot into the pool to be aggregated with the rest of the fragments.

Graeme Duncan suggests (on Donald's FB page) "My hypothesis is kids use these media as communication tools but like it to be network building and relationship building. Twitter is a broadcast media not a two way communication channel whilst FB, MSN, etc etc are profile builders and also communication channels."

I have to say that I use Twitter to engage in conversations with people. Many of my messages start with @someone-or-other. But Donald has a view on that, too, to wit: "Spot on Graeme - Twitter is boomeresque (new word!) in that it plays to our need to either receive or transmit, not share and engage in dialogue. Even on Facebook, we're the exception to the rule -far too many boomers simply post their own entries and don't respond - you two [that would be Graeme and me] are very much the exceptions."

I'm trying to decide whether to forgive him for calling me a "boomer". I'm too young for that label, and he should know it ;o)

A fragmented conversation.

I confess, last night was my first conscious exposure to #lrnchat on Twitter. The theme was online learning myths. Jane Hart has captured the event nicely with this post.

It is quite a challenge to capture a cogent thought in just 140 characters! Fortunately a myth can usually be expressed quite succinctly.

Next week's theme is confessions of trainers and learners. That might be less conducive to brevity.

It's worth noting that I came to know about #lrnchat via Jane's Facebook status. It was updating with her contributions to the conversation and Donald Clark and I began to respond to her updates on Facebook. Jane invited us to join the conversation on Twitter. I did, briefly, between the various things and people that clamour for my attention of an evening.

This ties in with a question Wendy Wickham asked on Facebook about blogging:

"Question for the long-time edubloggers - is it just me or are we all getting quieter? How frequently are you posting these days?"

• My response was: "I don't blog as much as I used to. The conversation appears to have moved elsewhere... like here [Facebook], for instance!"
• Harold Jarche's response included: "Maybe life-streaming is replacing blogging for some people, but it's still a key part of my online professional communications and learning."
• Stephen Downes (after pointing out that he wasn't getting any quieter, which is true) observed: "a lot of the 'connector posts' (I link to you, you link to me, we form a chain of conversation) have moved to Twitter and Facebook, etc. Still a lot of good blog posts out there, a lot of good commentary, but they aren't tightly linked the way they used to be."

One thing I've noticed is that threads of the same conversation run through a variety of spaces. As happened with the whole lrnchat thing, I come across fragments of a conversation in one space and follow the trail to where the main body is taking place. Once there, I find and follow links to all manner of tendrils in a host of other places.

Sometimes the links are to contributions I would not have related to the subject at hand (in fact it is unlikely that the original contributor would have done so, either, in some cases), until the connection was identified by another participant. In those situations, it's a little like looking at one of those optical illusion images and only being able to see one perspective, until someone says, "No look. That's her cheek there, and that's a feather in her hair. And she's kind of looking away from you..." Suddenly it all becomes clear and you have an "Ooooh, yeah - I see it now" moment.

But the conversation is everywhere. In all the spaces at once. If I were to suddenly stop twittering or facebooking or reading blogs, I feel as if I would stand to lose a valuable strand. So, even though I have been quieter here than in the past, I feel no less engaged in the conversation.

What is your observation?

Internet addiction and mental illness

The free London paper ran a front page article today on the relationship between Internet addiction and mental illness, as researched by Dr Catriona Morrison.

If people are addicted, it can affect a person’s ability to perform at work or they may be failing to do chores so they can go online.’

However, she admitted more work needed to be done to establish whether addiction or mental illness comes first.

We all know that it is possible to become addicted to things that are otherwise pretty harmless, even healthy. But once things have reached addiction levels, it is a different matter entirely. I once saw a man selling his own children's toys on the pavement in order to get money for the next bottle. In the throes of addiction, people will contravene even their own codes of decency.

The thing is, when you're addicted to something, the only option seems to be a complete break. An alcoholic will never have the control necessary to become an occasional social drinker.

So what hope is there for an Internet addict? Cutting off all usage of the Internet would be akin to a voluntary imposition of illiteracy and near-hermitage.

Is a puzzlement.

First Life - a different take

Listening to a Training Magazine Network recording of Allison Rossett talking about what e-learning is and isn't, I came across this YouTube video. Good for a chortle.



Have you considered First Life for your business meetings, yet? ;o)

Twenty years ago today

It was on this day in 1990 that President FW de Klerk announced the decision to release Nelson Mandela from prison. His actual release date was 11 February 1990. So, once the decision had been announced, the wheels of bureaucracy moved comparatively quickly.

During the next few years, the apartheid regime was systematically dismantled in South Africa and, in 1993, Mandela and de Klerk jointly received the Noble Peace Prize in recognition of the role they had played in this process.

On 27 April 1994, the first fully democratic election took place in the country. For the first time, every adult in the country had the right to vote. 20 million South Africans exercised this right. Many of them standing patiently for hours due to the logistical delays in rural areas.

Not a drop of blood was shed.

It is poignant to realise that Nelson Mandela was voting for the very first time in the election that saw him become President.

On not being 'the type'

I overheard a conversation today between two members of the sales staff at a sporting goods shop. They were discussing someone who wore one of those ankle tag doodads and were expressing their surprise and disbelief. This person was apparently not 'the type'. Too old, too fit and too respectable looking, it seemed.

I was a little surprised to realise that they were talking about me.

Apparently, one of the sales assistants had briefly spotted - from under the fitting room door - the weight strapped around my left ankle, and leapt to conclusions. How odd that in a sporting goods store, their first thought would be ASBOs, rather than fitness! After all, I'm fairly sure that they sell these things there.

Perhaps it's because I only wear one (in attempt to address the fact that my right leg is visibly more muscular and better toned than my left).

I once encountered a woman on a train who was on her way back from having had her tag removed. She was very proud of this fact, and was showing her tan line to anyone who would listen. To my prejudiced eyes, she was every inch 'the type' and she got on the wrong side of me when she tried to light up a cigarette in the train carriage.

I'm very glad that I'm not 'the type'. I'm also glad that I give the impression of physical fitness and respectability. I'm less pleased that I appear to be too old to make trouble! It gets my dander up ;o)

I'm saddened for people who seem like 'the type', but who wouldn't dream of doing the sort of thing that would earn them an ankle tag. That must be quite a barrier to overcome in life.

BOGOL and such

The UK is tentatively sticking its head out from under the recession, so they tell us. The figures show a miniscule growth in the economy during the last three months of 2009. But then, as my 18 year old son pointed out, those are not really reliable data, since we're looking at the period around Christmas, after all.

Some news reports have spoken of slowing down of the increase in the unemployment levels. I haven't found any online articles to confirm this, yet. It is some comfort if it's true, but we are all looking for a decrease in the unemployment levels.

So, most of us are some way from optimistic.

This is reflected by the fact that TV advertising at the moment includes several items aimed at saving money. And, of course, all the major supermarkets are out there proving to us that they have our best interests at heart.

Here is just a random selection of the things that have made a blip on my radar in the last week:

• Asda is offering blankets with sleeves to reduce heating bills. So you can snuggle up on the couch instead of turning up the heating. I'm not sure why you can't just wear a sweater or use a normal blanket. We do... always have done. My husband, my snuggly blanket and the rugby on a Saturday afternoon. Bliss.
  
• Tesco has changed their BOGOF (buy one, get one free) offer to BOGOL (buy one, get one later) in an attempt to reduce waste. Let's face it, if you only need one cabbage but take an extra one, because it's free, the second one is likely to go off before you come to use it. So now, instead of a free cabbage, you get a voucher entitling you to a free cabbage when you need it.
  
• Sainsbury is trying to encourage us to keep and use our leftovers, by handing out little plastic lunch box thingies at the cash points with every purchase.

It puts me in mind of 'Make do and Mend'.

I have to say that, as gestures go, Tesco's impresses me the most. But then, perhaps the others have other ideas that haven't made it onto my radar, yet.

Let's hope that we have turned the corner and that things start to improve soon.

A body of evidence

So I've been on a diet for a few months now, having returned to the sort of exercise regime I prefer once my major project had been submitted. I've been very good about not leaping onto the scales every day, but I have had a little weekly weigh-in and measure up to keep track of my progress (7.6kgs or 16.7lbs to date). A little performance review, if you like.

Today, I poked my scale with my toe to activate it.
Nothing.
I changed the battery.
Nothing.
I gave it a little shake.
Nothing.
I swore at it.
Nothing.
I engaged in a little percussive maintenance (i.e. I smacked it a few times).
Nothing.

I went out and bought a new one.

Now I just knew this would happen: the new one tells me I weigh .8kg more than I did last Friday. I know that I don't, because I lost another 4cm around my waist in the last fortnight, and I've outshrunk (well, what's the opposite of outgrown, then?) trousers I bought in December. It's an anomaly of the way scales work - no two ever seem to tell the same story, so you just pick one and stick with it, making sure the trend is in the right direction. When you have to change horses in the middle of the race, there's bound to be a bit of teething trouble.

Ah, but you see, from now on, my scale will not just weigh me, it will keep track of my weight. It will also keep track of my husband's, our sons' (should they care) and up to 6 other people.

Not only this: the scale blithely told me this morning what my body fat percentage is (in the healthy range), what my total body water percentage is (healthy), what my muscle mass is (no guidance given) and what my BMI is (still in the overweight range - go figure).

So, I have a ton of metrics to work with.

All this makes me think of workplace learning and development (plus ca change!). Here we have this learning department getting on with doing the job. Then we decide to introduce new technology (while, in the case of my scale it was because the old technology was broken, this is not always the case in the world of L&D). While we get used to the new technology, there will be glitches and setbacks. But of course, the powers that be will be won over by the promise of metrics. You will be able to see exactly who's done what, when and how well. Each user's every move will be recorded and reported on.

Ugh.

Now I'm not saying we should go back to a bygone era. I'd be among the last to suggest that. What I am saying is that we get a little happy with our tracking and our metrics. Sometimes we forget that to deliver the goodies on these, some poor blighter is going to have to generate a report, create a few charts.... and the explain what the significance of it all is.

In my case, things are working as they should when I get back into my Levi's.

In the case of a business, things are working as they should, when the business is performing as it should.

No?

Another one for the history teachers and history geeks

The British Library has produced another interesting resource. This time it's an interactive timeline. It starts with the signing of the Magna Carta in the 1210s. I'm not sure why they haven't gone further back than that.

You have the option to select what sort of events you're interested in learning about. So, for example, you can look at the core, or central timeline. Or you can explore politics, power and rebellion; art and literature; sacred texts; everyday life or medicine, science and technology. The container for the timeline options is not full, so one assumes they plan to add more at some point.

Once you have selected your timeline, you can scroll left and right through the events listed, and select one of your choosing. In the medicine, science and technology timeline, for example, I chose an event dated c. 1300 called 'examining urine'. There is a brief blurb and an image. The blurb ends with the library's shelfmark, while the there is an option on the image to zoom in. There is also a link to a page about medieval times on the library's website.

One option I found very interesting was being able to draw comparisons between key events in two of the timelines. For example, I chose literature, art and entertainment, and compared it with medicine, science and technology. This is a great way to see how developments in one field influenced another. At the moment, I am playing with medicine, science and technology vs everyday life. Very interesting.

Best of all, you can create your own timeline. Unlike the historical objects database I posted about a few days ago, you can't add your own items to the list. But you can 'favourite' objects from any of the timelines to create a customised one of your own.

One small point worth mentioning, there are a few options to manage the display - 2D and 3D, a choice of four backgrounds, and the option to view full screen.

There is such a wealth of exciting material out there at the moment, that I can't decide whether it would make being a teacher more interesting or more frustrating. More interesting because it provides a wealth of support materials to bring into the classroom, or more frustrating because the national curriculum restricts the extent to which one can explore such resources with students.

I certainly intend to introduce my sons to the timeline, particularly the younger one who, as I have mentioned before, is about to start studying history with the disadvantage of no prior exposure to the subject (other than endless museum trips with his geeky parents, that is!).

I made history. And so can you.

The BBC's Radio 4 and the British Museum have joined forces on a series called 'The History of the World in 100 Objects".

What's really nifty about it, is that you can add your own objects to it. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may recognise the object I added, since it has appeared here before.

I really like the folksy, common man feel of this project.

Of course, while the radio series is in 100 parts, the website is going to wind up with a whole lot more than 100 objects on it. This got me to thinking... if I were to name 100 objects that summed up my perception of the history of the world, what would make that list? The wheel would definitely have to be there, of course, as would the internal combustion engine. But then what about the intangibles that have changed history so much more than any object. Does fire count, for example? And what about the Internet? It's quite an interesting challenge.

Then I thought, if I were to personalise that project and make it my life (thus far) in 100 objects... what would make that list, then? My first car. My wedding ring. My Bible. A cryptic crossword puzzle. My laptop. Photos of my kids. That sort of thing. Would I be allowed to include a geographical feature, like Table Mountain?

And what if someone were to take on such a project after my death? What 98 objects would they place between my cradle and my grave? How different would those two lists look?

My mind is churning with this idea, now, and for a fleeting moment, I wished I were a history teacher to set my students the task of creating a history of their own family in 100 objects... but it was just a moment before I remembered that the national curriculum would put paid to any such ideas.

What about you? Is it an idea that has appeal for you? What sort of objects would make your list?

Another learning discovery: The Gates Notes

Just moments ago, my husband sent me a link to The Gates Notes. In case, like me, your immediate reaction is to wonder how you managed to miss that, fret not - I gather it only went live yesterday.

One huge advantage of being obscenely rich is that Bill Gates can dedicate a great deal of time to learning whatever he likes. Oh for the freedom to do that! The geek in me is green with envy. However, the fact that he's out there doing it and then sharing it on his site, means that I can learn vicariously from his experiences.

As a learning geek professional, my interest is particularly piqued by this post on learning and can't wait to get started on watching the lectures he mentions, simply to feed my rampant curiosity about anything and everything.

It also has more specific relevance to me. My younger son is bravely planning to take history for sixth form without ever having studied it before. Perhaps the Teaching Company Gates so highly recommends will prove to be a way that we can give him a grounding so that he doesn't start the course at a total disadvantage. The down side is the price tags on their materials for a mere mortal with an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

Ho hum, was it Benjamin Franklin who said: "If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."

Learning opps to share as a family

Yesterday, for the first time in ages, I had a long car journey to make, with which, in my geeky little world, comes the opportunity to listen to several hours of BBC Radio 4. In the space of yesterday's journey, I discovered three learning opportunities to share with my family.

The first of these is 1001 Inventions. A travelling exhibition (currently at the Science Museum in London) of discoveries made by men and women in Muslim civilisation during the period in which Europe was experiencing it's 'dark ages'. It seems it wasn't dark all over the world. The exhibition opened yesterday and runs until 25 April. Like the rest of the Science Museum and most British museums, it's free. We plan to visit soon.

Just listening to an interview with one of the people involved in the exhibition, I learned something. Did you know that algebra originates in the Arabic world and that the word comes from 'al-jabr' which means balance, reunion and reconciliation?

The second is a Radio 4 series called The History of the World in 100 Objects, but I want to talk about that in greater depth, so will do a separate post on that.

The third is a three-part BBC 4 (a television channel, not to be confused with the aforementioned radio station) series that started last night called Chemistry: A Volatile History. This series charts the discovery of the elements in our modern periodic table. We watched the first episode as a family and were riveted. The producers have included loads of practical demonstrations that make the programme appealing to viewers with shorter attention spans (or lower tolerance for anything that it isn't a sitcom), and they've managed to pitch it at a level that will work for a wide range of people.

With the benefit of hindsight, the existence of some elements seems patently obvious, and my younger son was amused that serious minded researchers once believed in the existence of phlostigon. Since he is planning to study chemistry when he starts his A levels in September, the programme was perfectly timed for him.

Choosing the future

I attended an ELESIG symposium today (major downside: no connectivity in the venue) at which Richard Sandford delivered a presentation based on Futurelabs' research into possible future scenarios.

He reminded us of something I think we would all do well to remember... and to remind others about: the nature of the future isn't a foregone conclusion. Neither is it up to the ubiquitous-yet-mysterious 'them' to shape it. We will have (and already do have) a role to play in what the future looks like. If we think things are headed in a direction we're not happy with, we need to be lobbying for and trying to bring about a different sort of future.

Now that may all seem a bit 'well duh', but...

It also occurs to me that the education curriculum implies that we have identified what the future is going to look like, simply by virtue of the preparation we're providing. In preparing school-going children for one model of the future, do we not run the risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy? I mean, if the entire cohort of school-going children within a nation is being prepared for one version of the future and not being encouraged to entertain other possibilities, will they not move inexorably toward that future? Should we not be tasking them with imagining the future of their choice and figuring out what they need to do in order to try to ensure that that model becomes a reality?

If we're going to be preparing kids for just one future and, in so doing, bringing that future into being, we'd better be damned sure it's one we all want!

Charging the iPhone

So there I was, on the train to London, when my iPhone died on me. Not in any permanent sense, you understand. Just in that all too frequent battery-needs-charging kind of way. The evening before, there had seemed to be a fair amount of charge left in the battery so I had made the mistake of not plugging it in. I had made the even worse mistake of leaving the house without my charger. All iPhone users know that you simply don't do this. iPhones chomp through their battery life at a notorious rate!

As it turned out, it would have been preferable if my phone had not chosen that moment to die on me because, shortly after the trained pulled out of the station, the convenor of the meeting to which I was headed tried to phone me to tell me it had been cancelled due to the weather. While it was too late to save myself the cost of the ticket, I could have got off at the next station and come back home, saving myself a lot of bother. London is a place I only visit out of necessity - when that necessity is removed, so is all desire to head towards the Big Smoke. As it was, I only learned of the cancellation when I arrived at the venue covered in a light dusting of snow with ice blocks for feet.

In the absence of my charger cable, I had popped into a few places on St Pancras station, looking for one of those one-off battery doodads that you plug into your phone to give you a DC power supply. No-one had them. Sod's law. At one stage they were everywhere.

I did find one option at Vodafone. They have a tower of coin operated charging bays in little lockers. They work pretty much like a parking meter. You plug in your phone, pay your money, lock the box and go and amuse yourself for half an hour (or whatever). Sadly, my phone wasn't having any of that, and the battery was as flat when I returned as it had been when I left. They refunded me my £1 (which was the cost of a half hour's charge time) without even being asked.

But perhaps it would have been better if I had had one of these two things for charging up the iPhone, as reviewed in PC magazine (and drawn to my attention by my sleep-in technical support man). I love the description of the solar charger as being "as much use a cat flap on a submarine in Britain’s current climate". Perhaps I won't dash out and buy one of those, then! Especially at that price tag. The Dexim P-Flip, on the other hand, has promise. I might have to explore that.

Tactile books for visually impaired pre-readers

I am bursting with pride right now. My friend Lynette Rudman (who has been featured once before in this blog) has been honoured in an international competition for her tactile books.

Some years ago, a blind child enrolled at Lynette's nursery school. Lynette quickly discovered that were no picture books aimed at such a child. Until a blind child learned braille, they were restricted to a vicarious enjoyment of books. She decided to fix this, and set about creating a series of tactile books called 'I read with my hands'.

The books are handmade by Lynette and her faithful team.

On impulse, Lynette entered one her books into the 2009 Typhlo and Tactus competition... and won!

If you work with any visually impaired littlies or have visually impaired children of your own, you might be interested in Lynette's books.

Well done, Zinky. Proud of you, girl!

Knowing your place

Sort of related to my musings on class, I had a minor epiphany (if that isn't an oxymoron) during my recent visit to South Africa.

My sister was talking about a singer in her church and I asked, "You mean Irene who sang with me that time?" to which my mother instantly responded, "I think you mean you sang with her!"

Now Irene is a rather prominent figure in the city's music scene, it is true. But, many years ago, she and I had rehearsed together for an opera. As it happened, because of some or other problem with the venue, the opera never took place. But she was to have played Gretel, while I sang the role of Hansel. As far as I can tell, those are the two title roles of the opera, and Gretel is as much singing with Hansel as the reverse. But my mother had a very Calvinistic upbringing, and was discouraged from anything approaching vanity or thinking too highly of oneself. As a consequence, she has tended to have this knee jerk reaction whenever one of us has appeared to be getting 'above ourselves'.

I didn't even notice it on a conscious level until that moment, but numerous other little events came flooding back to my memory. Times when she refused to accept that I had said, done or thought of a certain thing all on my own, insisting that I must have had help. Times when I was discouraged from being too pleased with myself for some or other achievement. Times when my achievements were put down to some or other coincidence or fluke.

When I described the adoptive parents I had chosen for my daughter as a radiographer and an architect, she mused that they were obviously far more intelligent than the biological father or myself, and wondered if it was a wise placement.

Now she doesn't do it on purpose, and my mother is inordinately proud of me and my achievements, but this is how she has reacted all our lives. And I wondered if this explained the whole impostor syndrome thing.

I share this story because - whether you're a teacher, a parent or both - I want to encourage you not to place limits on your kids' expectations of themselves, or their ambitions. So what if they're unrealistic? Let them dream big. Let them believe that they can achieve greatness. Who are you to decide that they can't?

If you think about the phrase 'being put in your place', who empowered that person to decide what your place is, anyway? Surely that's not a given.

Let's not put them in their place. Let's try to help them reach the place they're aiming for.

Why not?

On this class thing

I was having an exchange with Donald Clark on Facebook today that got my brain whirring on the subject of class.

Anyone who knows Donald will know that he detests what he calls 'middle class snobbery'. I guess I don't understand the class thing too well, because I can't for the life of me figure out what a 'middle class' person would have to be snobbish about.

I am told time and again that the whole class thing is dead, over, forgotten, past history, yadda yadda. But it comes up so often in conversation that this is quite obviously not the case. And I remain convinced that part of the reason we have not readily been absorbed into English culture is that we don't fit neatly into any of the class categories.

If I were pressed, I would probably say that:

• Working class people are people who work with their hands. Largely 'blue collar' jobs. But is - for example - a nurse or a policeman a blue collar worker? I have no idea.
• A middle class person tends to be educated beyond high school and works in a 'white collar' job. But very few people wear 'white collar' type attire to the office any more - it's all jeans and polo shirts, these days.
  
• Do we still even have a ruling class? Would that be the titled people, even though they definitely don't rule us any more? The mink-and-manure set, even though so many of them are all title and no money?
  

Who knows? And where does that leave people with no job at all? The idle rich and the idle poor. Trust fund beneficiaries and lifelong benefit (dole) recipients. The hackneyed cliche is that the working class doesn't work, middle class isn't in the middle and the ruling class doesn't rule.

I suspect each person formulates their own boundaries to fit themselves in where they feel they belong.

My husband and I both have a university education. Mine is to postgraduate level. We own a large-ish house. Our children will both almost certainly go to university. Are we middle class?

But what about our heritage? How much does that count?

My husband's parents were both indisputably 'working class' and of 'working class' stock. Blue collar workers who took pride in an honest day's work. His maternal grandfather earned his keep with a little fishing boat, as did many people on the island. My husband's university graduation was a red letter event in the history of the family. To this day, my husband treasures his friendships with men who work diligently with their hands. I think they remind him of his late Dad. So is he working class?

My own parents were office workers. My grandparents consisted of a shop-assistant-turned-librarian, two teachers and a civil servant. Does that constitute middle class? Lower middle class? How many strata of middle class are there? Does it matter?

How far back do we go? Do we go back to my titled ancestor (Earl or Lord Grenville or Granville or something) who disowned his daughter for her dalliance with a hired hand, and packed them both off to South Africa with a financial settlement, on the understanding that they never darkened his door again? How very Thorn Birds! Or how about the branch of my family that glories in the surname Bastard, being the descendants of some or other illegitimate off-spring of some or other king or noble or something. Or how about my loony ancestor, the self-styled Emperor of San Francisco (note: this account differs quite significantly from the hard copy accounts I have seen - it is far more flattering of Norton I!). Does this make me ruling class?

When we first moved to the UK a decade or so ago, we deliberately chose a 'working class' village school for our children, believing they would be among salt of the earth people. Ha! On every hand we were accused of thinking ourselves better than other families. And yet we never consciously did anything to give that impression. We found ourselves looked down upon by what I assume were middle class people, because we weren't posh enough or rich enough or something enough. And the only time I met a titled person, I caused outrage among my colleagues at the college by treating him as I would anyone else, inviting him to join me in the kitchen as I made him a mug (a mug, mind you!) of tea. To give him his due, Lord Mayhew (for lo, 'twas he!) was completely unfazed and chatted away to me as if he had known me all his life.

So no. I haven't quite got this class thing sorted. And in a way, I hope I never do. I'd rather you took me on merit, and I hope you won't mind if I do the same. Whoever you or your ancestors may be.

Victim culture

Continuing (after a fashion) my theme on air travel, this article in Time struck a chord with me. We the people rock.

There is a limit to what the state can do in terms of an individual's personal safety. To protect people completely is to disempower them. Surely I have not yet lost the right to make stupid choices and endanger my own hide in so doing? Surely when said hide suffers damage, I have to deal with the consequences of my own actions, take a big girl pill and suck it up?

I'm more than a little tired of attempts to legislate against all potential sources of harm.

People are wonderfully creative, resourceful and imbued with a survival instinct and a sense of self-preservation that is astonishing to behold. Read the article. I mean... go us. Really.

In a weird way, the article reflects where I am trying to go in terms of organisational learning provision. We need to stop looking on ourselves as having the answers. We need to acknowledge that 'the people' are not something other than us. That we are, in fact, all the people. That people have skills and abilities that they are not getting to use because we are so busy trying to teach them something. Sometimes we need to let them get on with the job and, when we do, we will find ourselves astonished by how much they can achieve without a single intervention from us.

Perhaps we just need to get over ourselves.

Can we agree to find new ways to empower people to 'do' this year, instead of being so flipping focused on what we want them to 'learn'? Let's stop throttling the life, the zest and the uniqueness out of people by shoving yet another learning solution down their throats, huh?

Fear of flying

Well, well! So it's 2010. I have been away for much of December, visiting family in South Africa, with no access to the Internet, which was very difficult. I hope you have had a wonderful festive season and that 2010 brings you all manner of good things.

One of the necessities of visiting family in far flung places is air travel. I hate flying. The merest hint of turbulence, and I become convinced that I am about to experience a plane crash first hand. The day before my return journey, my 'sensitive' stepfather regaled me with the story of a flight from Dubai to Durban that, he claimed, pretty much fell out of the sky. Charming. He was adamant that he was being helpful, because, as he pointed out, no-one actually died.

The thing is, I'm not scared of death. I just want the bit between being alive and being dead to be pain and terror free. So those people may have escaped death, but they all experienced something really scary. I don't do scary. I don't even go on fairground rides and I'm pretty much scared rigid on a ski-lift or cable car.

As luck would have it, the second - and by far the longest - leg of my return journey was pretty much turbulent all the way. After about an hour and a half of smooth flying, we encountered 'mild turbulence'. This lasted for about five hours. Then we had the joy of 'severe turbulence' the rest of the way to Paris.

I had been a nervous wreck during the mild bit. I lost the plot during the severe bit.

Several people near me were being sick. This was unfortunate, since Air France had neglected to provide us with barf bags. I managed not to be sick. I did not, however, manage to hold together any other shreds of my dignity. In my defence, there were several others who were moaning in fear, too!

I have been flying since I was a small child. From the age of 6, I flew with my 2 year old sister to visit our grandparents, and later to visit our father. We flew, if you can believe it, as unaccompanied minors, and there was no special provision for us the way there is these days. We were expected to sort ourselves out. I was the older child and therefore the target of my sister's expressions of fear and uncertainty. I have no doubt that this contributed to my current attitude towards flying.

On one of our flights, we were delayed on the runway in Johannesburg for an hour and a half before finally being cleared for take off. Because of the lateness of our eventual take off, I fell asleep. Unexpected turbulence threw me from my seat (we used to keep our seatbelts unbuckled in those days) and I woke up as I was making the express journey down the aisle. The pilot announced that the conditions made it too dangerous to land at our destination. Instead, we would fly to Port Elizabeth, where we would spend the night in a hotel, and be flown back the next day. My sister went ballistic. "My Mommy is waiting for me, down there! She will think I'm dead!" The cabin crew tried to assure her that her Mommy would be informed, but she was having none of it. We had no telephone at home and there was no other way to contact her Mommy. To this day, part of me believes that that brave pilot put that plane down in East London in order to shut my sister up!

Be all this as it may, I have decided that this is my year to overcome my fear of flying. So I have enrolled on an online programme. Another aspect of my lifelong, lifewide learning journey. I am fairly sure that fear will be diminished by knowledge and understanding. At least, this is what I hope. Thus far, they haven't told me anything I didn't already know, so we aren't winning, yet! Watch this space!

You could have knocked me over with a feather!

So there I was in this pre-conference workshop at Online Educa. I wasn't the oldest person in the room, but I was certainly helping to raise the average age.

We were talking about how to meet the learning needs of an increasingly digitally literate workforce. One woman expressed the view that our generation wasn't going to be able to achieve this. That we would have to leave it to the next generation. She also seemed to feel that it would have to wait until things had slowed down a bit, so that L&D could catch up.

She wasn't talking to me. She was talking to the panel and I was not a member, but I felt compelled to answer. No doubt this was both poor conference etiquette and poor manners, but I couldn't hold my tongue.

I asked how she thought the next generation would have it any easier, since they will in their turn be followed by younger people who are more comfortable using technologies that have yet to be invented. She was confident that their current literacy would enable them to make the shift. I'm not so sure. Every generation - in fact, I don't even want to use the word 'generation' since it implies a bigger timeframe than is the reality in my experience - will see the tools with which they are familiar rendered obsolete by new inventions. We don't know what hasn't been invented yet and it may be as different from web 2.0 (and 3.0 and 4.0) as 2.0 is from 1.0. We don't know that it will be any easier for our kids to learn the future technologies than it has been for us to learn these ones.

I am also pretty certain that the rate of progress and change is not going to slow down. In fact, I suspect quite the opposite will be the case.

I find it odd that, surrounded by people whose mothers may well be my age, I am often the most 'radical' person - or at least one of the most radical people - in the room.

How can this be the case? Perhaps I am the one who is deluded.

Time will tell.