Ten year Plan - How it is going!

With Hindsight!

Word Count 833 

A friends wedding nearly six years ago  prompted me to start considering where I was heading.  It may have been the beginning of the "mid-life" crisis or a realisation that we were heading for major changes in my career path at the time.  At the time I did not realise quite how much of the crowd I was!

An interesting career that had experienced a lot change up to that point http://www.linkedin.com/in/philipspalding66, was about to become more interesting.  I sat down in the pre-wedding gathering in Weymouth (it had only just been announced as an Olympic venue) and contemplated the 10 year plan.  I made a statement that I would not be teaching full time in the classroom by the age of 50 (Eddie Izzard's new 40!).  I had an early night on the final night went back to the B & B.  Early next morning I boarded the ferry from Weymouth to Jersey.

In Jersey I stayed at my usual hotel in St Helier, the Mountview, and contemplated my statement.  I had a few pints in the more traditional pubs in the West End of St Helier.  A very good one with sporting prints from "antique" times was the venue to watch the Test Match and listen to the sage at the bar who also turned out to be the chairman of the Jersey Cricket Federation.  Picked the right pub!  But then you only have to look at the outside of the pub sometimes and know it is not going to be just q quick half to test the beer and atmosphere.

A few days of visiting my distant cousins in the north of the island (http://www.durrell.org/).  The orangutans seemed well, the funky gibbons were being funky.  They share an enclosure to simulate the Sumatran and Borneo rain forest habitat.  By the end of the break as I flew back into Stansted I had a bit of a plan.  Not quite a cunning plan but one that had light at the end of the tunnel which did not seem to be generated by a Eurostar! 

Another year on from this the following August and certain career paths appeared to be getting narrower (now we see the result good or bad?  http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_cabinet_member_under_fire_after_suffolk_slumps_in_league_tables_1_1472060 ).  I was sitting in the bar in Pefki, Rhodes with a good friend shooting the wind as we  prepared for the Wedding.  A Rhodian escape started to be planned.  The mad engineer friend of mine combined with the agri-IT-scientist-teacher came up with a cunning plan.   A sustainable living/ well being plan, but in essence still a plan.

Two days alter back at work and the plan was shelved for another year until I went to Crete.  Fabulous island, cradle of European civilisation (forget mainland Greece)!  Schools Organisational Review (SOR) was just stating to come in and Haverhill along with Lowestoft was in the firing line.  A little bit of relaxation in Hersonissos led to realisation that work-life balance was really not balanced favourably on the cliff edge.  A couple of good nights spent in the company of a very attractive and relaxed Irish girl from Dublin and we started planning again!

The plan was expressed graphically in the Logo above. Sometimes you do not always need to write things down since the written word can always be misinterpreted by "experts".  Visit to a local print shop, and day later had the plan on a disc, five polo shirt (I went there and got the Polo Shirt, T-shirts were not good enough quality).  Scratch Rhodes, Crete would appear to be part of the plan! 

So back to work and another year of battling career change I finally hit the buffers.  An article in the Harvard business review started me thinking.  A position I had occupied through major career traumas such Ofsted, special measures, six (not really sure if some were actually allowed to be) head teachers and school federation was that of a Middle Manager.  The Harvard Review produced some insights (http://2pointfiveageofman.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/death-of-middle-manager.html).      I had started to blog by this time.  The following March, I made a clean break and walked away from the pressure of achieving continual goals against the trickle down management culture of similar to First World War Generals.  Whistle goes and then over top! (Blackadder Goes Fourth clip here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IglUmgYGxLM).  

Two years on from the break with the treadmill and the BlackAdder goes Fourth clip seems apt in the context of the East Anglia Daily Times article  http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_cabinet_member_under_fire_after_suffolk_slumps_in_league_tables_1_1472060.  

Still have weathered all this, the ten year plan is half way through!.  I have achieved the stated aim of not needing to be in the classroom full time or managing change (for change sake?).   Last time I jumped out of a plane I definitely had a parachute, this time I have to construct it on the way down!  Necessity does become the midwife of creativity and invention!  Here is to more blogging and on ward and upward up with up hill skiing!

Καλημέρα σας και είναι εδώ για τα επόμενα πέντε χρόνια! Ή θα έπρεπε να είναι ένα νέο σχέδιο δέκα χρόνια!

Web 2.0 for business and Educators

Started Tuesday 22 March 2011 0550 GMT
Words 394
S.I.= 78.8 %

Twitters Fifth Birthday


A social app has reached what used to be in this country one of those milestones five years old.  I have been watching the news coverage of Twitter.  I am anthropomorphising the Microblog site because the more I look at it the more it seems to have some functions of a living organisms.  We teach young children in the UK the seven characteristics of living things (or used to not so sure if they are supposed to discover the knowledge themselves).     MR GREEN is the mnemonic often favoured.

M- Movement
R- Reproduction
G -Growth
E- Excretion
E- Excitiability ie senses itself and own envionment
N- Nutrition

So at the age of five we would a few years ago we would have been sending our children to school for the first time.  Now they are taught and formally assessed from the age of three.  In Europe formal education starts later at seven.  Twitter being five, is already drawing predictions of its demise.  Before it's character has even developed properly ( children learn the most before the age of five) it's imminent metamorphosis into a bad character is being predicted.  This is also being mirrored in the UK by the constant inspections that we have been subjected to over the last 30 years.

The effect appears to be a society that has not matured beyond the age of 13.  A society that is still reacting as though in the playground and the biggest bullies are people who are supposed to protect those who cannot protect themselves by this I mean the old, the young and the vulnerable.  The bullies are the local and national  service providers funded out of the taxpayers pocket.

The sixties cry "you and whose army" and "talking about my generation" appear to be beginning of the ME generation, also known as the Baby Boomers.  As they have progressed to leading society from the 1960s, great population expansion, new towns the race for land in Kent then Essex the do as I say don't do as I do has become more prevalent. George Orwell's Animal farm personified.  Nowadays the  pigs with their snouts int the trough are usually paid for by honest hard working tax payers. Is it time to get off the merry round?  I certainly am not enjoying all the fun of the fair!

PS Budget day looming!   

Web 2.0 for Educators - Part 4

Started Tuesday 25th January 2011   0913 GMT   Location Liverpool Street Station
Words 274
S.I. = 54.8 %

In the footsteps of Isaak Walton, trying not to become the Complete Tangler.


In the very circuitous route today I have been to London and back to meet with some very forward thinking people called the Teleworking Association.  This is a Nationally operating not for profit group that promotes and propagates smart solutions to today working environment.   Previous blogs have outlined some of my opinions on the way that Teleworking can transform peoples overall Wellbeing and be of benefit both to worker and the person who buys their services.  Over the coming weeks the Teleworking Association will be working towards explaining new ways that people can access Web 2.0  Technologies.

It has been a long day so this will only be a short post.  I boarded a bus at 5.50 am this morning to Cambridge Railway Station.  I then took the train along the route of the River Lee.  This was made famous by Isaak Walton in the Compleat Angler.  In the subsequent centuries the unimportance of this valley saw a canal and later a railway  built along the same course.  In some places the canal actually runs almost under the railway.  Even then there were problems securing land for infrastructure from landowners.

Well I am going to end here (it is now 1848 GMT) since Ipswich are playing Arsenal in the Football League Cup .  As I returned to Cambridge on the train from King's Cross Station I passed the Emirates stadium.  Unfortunately not having a ticket and the need to return to see my cat (arrangements had been made for someone to go and check on her during the day) means that I will watch it on a TV screen on BBC 2.

Week 2 A River runs through

Started Monday 10th January 2011 Started 9.20 pm

Words 350

A very large amount of water flowed past the bottom of my street.  Still the artery is now cleansed, still has the odd shopping trolley here and there.

Previous post set the aspirations of what turned out to be a busy weekend putting the finishing touches to the structure of this blog page.

The next steps for this week are to publish details of the courses I am making available on Schoolsforeverything.  The link you will see in the bar below the article title.

The structure of the blog is such that all information on this page is free.  Links away from the page may lead to opportunities to buy services from or via me.  Alternatively they may just be informative or empowering allowing you to also benefit economically  ie the pay free links to the FSB and Teleworking Association.  My aim is to provide links to websites that promote those aspects of social and micro-entrepreneurship.

This is not about who has most desirable shiny objects and charging the Earth for said baubles. As I have tried to explain in some of my previous blogs (the demise of the role of the middle manager being one example) how managing the change that many people are experience in the UK is a challenge but only another a mole hill.  The trick is to step over the molehill.  If you are feeling extremely small and put upon by the systems you have been working under I can empathise in the true sense of the word.

So by the end of the week one brick in the new foundations of my personal wealth and wellbeing (wellbeing being the more important) should have been put in place. I will repeat the mission statement I made in last night's blog.

In 2017 I will take home the same salary as Steve Jobs.

I will earn $1 salary for the work style and incomes I am involved in at this instant.  This will be more than just enough.

Tomorrow's blog as promised last week will be part 2 of Web 2.0 for Educators.

   

Death of the Middle Manager?

Minoan Bull jumping a career that
became redundant

 Minoan bull jumping must have been an activity that people occupied their time doing.  we only know that it took place because somebody thought it was important enough to record.

Having worked in education for a number of years I noticed about five years ago the term middle management start to become very prevalent.  This has latterly also coincided with the removal of single heads of departments and super groups becoming established across many subjects in schools.

The upshot of this was that many people who had previously enjoyed a management remuneration ceased to do so as new posts were conceived.  These new posts  had the much more "beneficial" TLRs which were directly related to childrens' learning but did not actually balance financially the equivalent posts and work load that had been rolled into one.  The creation of further senior management posts of Assistant Heads also seemed to further skew the management structure.  There were more people  monitoring than had previously been there.  Fewer people were in effect Middle managers  creating almost two pyramids, one inverted and resting on the apex of the other.

In my Kindle experiences  of today I came across the article "The End of the Middle Manager" by Lynda Gratton in the Harvard Business Review (28th December Edition).  A number of points struck me in their relevance to my own management of career change or modification in relation to the present economic climate.

The points made in the article of the use of technology for data gathering and analysis is one of the  factors  I have noticed in my ten plus years in education delivery.  We have a way in the UK on predicting where children should be in their achievement levels many years in advance based on certain way points.  These are used by managers to monitor pupil progress via different tools of which SIMS is the prevalent system.

The underlying data is not generated in school but by a national foundation.  Simplistically this is then used to judge pupils' progress across the whole country and ultimately rank schools and measure effectiveness.

The key point is that middle managers within a single organisation are irrelevant to this process.  The unit of delivery is the individual teacher.  A general manager is therefore irrelevant in the responsibility chain as to what is being measured.  The previously remunerated activities of the process of managing resources, drafting policy and reporting information is not needed at middle management level.  What is focused on is the end product.

The technological revolution has in the words of the article, changed the very nature of how people work.  ike the Minoan bull jumper we will have evidence that middle managers existed, mainly in the form of certificates for courses designed for middle managers,  but did not ultimately provide skills that were useful outside that institution.  Technology is the general manager.

The article suggests more of a master manager role of mentor and coaching from someone that is respected and I suggest more to the point trusted.  Which for a lot of teachers in the present climate of monitoring is very difficult to achieve as motives are not trusted.  The pursuit of perfection in house (not satisfactory or good but outstanding) has come at a high price in terms of  disaffected teachers.  Hence the rise of consultants and coaches in the last few years?

So if you are a middle manager what is the prognosis?

Change our perceptions of what work actually is.


Development of signature skills is suggested as one must do task.

Join an institute to increase visibility,  to allow increases in skills and independently accredit skills.  Probably for educationalists in the UK a possibility with the demise of the GTC.  The GTC was supposed to have some sort of role like this but was set up with the premise that all teachers were bad teachers.

Develop new areas of proficiency or moving into adjacencies (might need translation here  or a skills psychometric profiling test) are also must do recommendations.

The areas to look  to develop competency in are suggested as:

advocacy - I suppose we always need lawyers, champions  and  arbitrators

Social and micro entrepreneurship -    This is elements of Big Society  I suppose. There is now an Institute of Entrepreneurs they have a website front door  but the lights do not yet seem to be on.  There is also an Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs   which seems to be a site of enterprising entrepreneurs offering training to entrepreneurs (is this run by former Buinesslink advisors).  Federation of Small Businesses may be a good starting point also.

Life and health sciences -  as physics research projects  gets more expensive and theoretically less applicable to mass market sales, physics of the wheel although is  long running market ..... choose life there are over 6.5 billion potential users of life and health sciences and still growing

Energy conservation -  can this really be done in small enterprises .......... needs investigating.  Public sector (governments) still really dominating with education and legislation issues.  Although I did see that someone related to the Bathstore has had a Eureka moment and come up with a freestanding insulated bath, which links into the next area ....

Creativity and innovation -  the Daedalus factor (he allegedly did his best work on Crete so probably witnessed the bull jumpers)

Coaching - I have already mentioned why this may be a goer for some educationalists, maybe career planning    without it being linked to a recruitment agency cost centre

Lynda Gratton is optimistic that these are areas that will remain needed for the coming decades.  A potential  business plan  spanning a generation rather than a five year plan?

Points to ponder and maybe add to my personal career change strategy.

Monday and 2pointfive_age_of_man is reading the digital ocean - via Kindle

Started Monday 27th December 2010: 7.00 am GMT.  All URL mentioned accessed on this day.  There would be a picture but the Picasa service I praised yesterday is currently unavailable.

Bloggin' could become a habit.  There is a bit of Old St Paul's (pre- Great Fire of London) atmosphere pervading the experience.  Old St.Paul's at that time was where the intelligentsia of the 1600s, namely anybody that could read, went to buy books.   An agglomeration (wonderful word) of small printers, would the turn out pamphlets and news sheets for anybody and everybody to hawk on the steps of the old cathedral.   These were the bloggers of their day   This is almost a diarists type experience.

I have looked up the diarist Samuel Pepys, for the day 26th December 1667 .  The temperature for that day in London was given as the monthly average of 3 °C.  The temperature for the present day is predicted to between 1°C and 3°C in Greater London.   Little change in the experience for the average Londoner over the span of 343 years, which leads to question of  climate change or just weather.  This links nicely with the today's activities so far.  There is talk of floods in the UK (now where did I hear that yesterday or the day before?) 

I have been awake since about 545 am catching up with the news bulletins on how England are progressing in the latest cricket test.  Geoffrey Boycott is probably being made to listen repeatedly to his expert commentary made 12 minutes into the BBCs coverage yesterday of where he could not see the England team having a hope of defeating the Aussies.   Maybe he should stick to just calling himself a commentator (If you had the chance to hear the banter glasshouses and stones come to mind.  Anyway he was a successful batsman despite the Boycott and Botham story related by Dickie Bird on the Wit of Cricket.)  As I was listening and fiddling with the Kindle the newspaper arrived.  I have only been re-connected to the Internet since last Tuesday (14 days of absence) but now have the benefit of super fast Broadband to my wireless router.  I have been busily exploring the Kindle library of free-trail subscriptions, free books and occasionally buying a paid copy.  Kid in a sweetshop resemblance here.  


Now I used to be a Telegraph subscriber because it was conveniently a lot cheaper than the cover price on the news stand.  I did my bit for the local economy by paying for delivery.  I cancelled  the subscription a number of years ago as I did not really have enough time to read everything.  The fortnightly blue bin recycling collection was never rapid enough to cope with the newspaper and all the paper I seemed to acquire as part of my job (see yesterday's blog , I can self-reference !).  Plus all those lower backs of paperboys that might have been problematical in later life were prevented.

I had caught up with the Sunday Edition of the Telegraph late last night.  I have experienced a few problems with Kindle wireless delivery when the Kindle has gone to into what appeared terminal sleep.  After much fiddling, charging  and finally resurrection  I received the wireless delivery  I was intrigued by the Web 2.0 phenomena of  Thom Coststello and UK Uncut.  (I hope I have the right character as I have only just clicked on that part of the line on the Kindle screen that allowed me to keep today's edition).  The PhD student acting as his own case study appears to be attracting a lot of media attention for the facilitation of attacks "on the establishment".  (Orchestration is too strong a word as people choose to turn up to sit on shop floors or slow queue, although didn't Norman Cook do this for a pop video. An  I was there aside, I saw him live, I did, when I was a student when he was part of the Housemartins, who'd have thought he had all that creativity in him )   Unlike other media grabbing  anti-establishment trends such a Punk Music the focus of the disruption is that socially moral crusade against tax avoidance.  We can't say it's tax evasion as it is legal.  He has probably made it onto a  watch list as a danger to society, much like Mick Jagger did at his age.  But now look at Sir Mick's privileged position sitting next to the great and the good at England football matches. 


The raised eyebrows that could be sensed in linking UK Uncut and the fact that the PhD research at Royal Holloway was being funded by a grant was amusing.  It is probably the best piece of state research investment ever.  With Mr Costello's marketing skills we should be thankful that his talents are fully occupied on what he claims is also part of an academic exercises.  What would happen if he followed his role models that have also had dealings with "labour leaning Demos"  and cashed in on the commercial world?  Would his viral marketing skills, if  snapped up by an Arcadia type organisation, result in a greater amount of money flowing to a company making tax efficient decisions (another euphemism)?.  Let's give Thom Costello a chair at  a prestigious University and save the national wealth for future generations.  It should be an anthropology chair as he certainly seems to be the foremost expert in understanding the way to manage human behaviour (no disrespect to Desmond Morris).    

Back to today's stories that fall within my sphere of interest and curiosity.  I have taken up the trials for the Telegraph and the the Mail.  So far only these in this country, although I have garnered everything  from the New York Times, Harvard Business Review (useful for the end user of exponents of the "do as I say but not as I do school of Emotionally Intelligent Managers") , Shanghai Daily, etc.   I will get round to assessing their relevance in the next few days.   I probably need to also find out how to change my Amazon affiliate recommendation so that Amazon.co.uk is the featured site and not the American site.  There seem to be fewer references to the relevant products I am seeing in the UK. So stories that are interesting me at the moment on the Kindle editions.

Telegraph -  Students face entry tests.... by Graeme Paton.  I remember as a Sixth Former in the mid-eighties taking 4 A-levels (Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology not an Art in sight)  at a newly opened Upper School universities did have their own exams (not just the ones they administered as Local Examinations Syndicates before the rights were sold to people like Edexel).  Even then there was still a potential for US state pupils to sit the local University (Cambridge) entrance exam.  The traditional time to sit this if I remember correctly was in term 7 ie after the end of traditional state sixth form.  Gap years had not been invented at time, they just existed if you did the Oxbridge entrance.  Is this change?  The same light seems to be focused on GCSEs in "it's time to scrap GSCEs" by a staff reporter.    I have blogged already a little on this  http://2pointfiveageofman.blogspot.com/2010/12/1603-and-all-that-ever-after.html, I would have blogged even further if I had not lost connectivity owing to BT (see previous blogs) under which I now draw a lie until the next attack of the Big company syndrome 

Just had a minor electricity outage that caused the interruption of the flow and the computer to restart. Everybody must have started to cook breakfast and the local factories switched on the oven to roast peanuts for the next seasonal occasion.  Which brings me to another story  "Power cut risk from ageing networks" ...... by Rowena Mason .   We have been warned or is it so long since the last warniing everybody has forgotten and nobody has done anything about it    


Telegraph -  Wildlife flourishes in good old British weather  .... by Richard Saville.  Good for farmers too. Cold winters remove aphids so cuts down on pest and viral loss to crops, so here's to a hopefully smaller chemical inputs in the British countryside. 

Telegraph -  Record day at sales .... by Tim Ross.  Apparently Amazon have had an e-book frenzy, I am not surprised I am one of the frenzied.




Telegraph -  Health Wealth and Happiness .   by  a Staff Reporter....... a good toast but does everybody have to come and live in the South for these, surely not in the 21st Century.

Telegraph -  Airports face fines for failing to cope in winter .... by Steven Sainford.  who gets the fine and how will this make sure that that money could have been spent on infrastructure and prevention ..... actually is.  Sounds like a dastardly conspiracy of legal advisers (what does LLB stand for Lying Little B******** or is it something else) or is this another way to stop the bonus culture?

Telegraph -  You pay five times for PFI schemes ....... by Rosa Prince.  Enough said, career wish list for average 6th former to be CEO of a PFI?

Telegraph -  Calls to scrap inheritance tax ........ Fully agree


Just  a few of the stories that I think will become quite important this year.  Especially the infrastructure issue,  a story I recall about CBI wanting fewer taxes but more investment in infrastructure spring to mind.

To end the blog before another Power Outage strikes didn't  mention any Mail stories as they seem to have much the same thread as the subject areas mentioned in the above articles.

Looking at Pepys' diary for the 26th December 1667 again he would appear to be spending his day doing not dissimilar activities to myself.  He visits a pub and possibly indulges in  a little preparation for some tax evasion  (it wasn't illegal then) by talking to somebody from the Exchequer, although I seem to recall he was a government official himself as quartermaster to the Navy and may also have been a tax official.  I will be visiting a pub called the Royal Exchange for a quick pint a little later but doubt I will have the opportunity to discuss tax or want to.   He visited his bookseller, which I have done with Amazon today.

A visit to the theatre is remarked upon where Nell Gwynne was playing. I shall probably watch a little TV the modern day theatre in my home.    A conversation with the father of William Penn founder of the colony that became Pennsylvania was had by Pepys.  I doubt I shall meet  a father of a  nation builder unless I bump into one of the Zimbabwe law students we have in the town at the moment.  Cosmopolitan little place this part of West Suffolk.  Pepys indulges in a little society gossip which I have received second hand from the newspaper.  Apparently the forces are good for Old Etonian future Monarchs as they have an independence that even runs to doing the dishes.  Which reminds me....

And finally winter fluxes struck Pepys' family and the subsequent funeral he was unable to attend.  Swine flu and slippery roads of modern times?

  Does anything really change?

Boxing Day prompts memories of a decade of digital imagery

Looking forward again to views
 that aren't ice tinged

Boxing Day.  A day for reflection and contemplation.  The BBC iPlayer is playing a few comedy sketches from Radio 7.  The next tab is keeping me informed of the latest Boxing Day football.  We do not have a Premier League team convenient to my part of Suffolk, even if felt like spending an exorbitant amount to see a game.  ESPN has shown some very unseasonal Beach Football featuring a  Brazil team versus the rest of the World.  So with these distractions in the background I thought I would use this afternoon to organise my thoughts on Web 2.0 and find some of those very old photographs that have been sitting on a hard drive.

I was put in mind of doing this by the gift of a photo frame that my father received for Christmas.  My sister had preloaded a set of family photographs onto the flash USB card (also XD card) can be used so starting to be quite use able. I bought one myself several years ago when they first started to appear. I have to admit to admit the novelty had worn off a little with the frame now gathering dust.  As I was watching the slide show I started thinking of how many images I must have taken over the years or used personally or as part of  my role as a head of science and also ICT in a school.

The number of ways of capturing images that were cheap and to greater or lesser effective has been interesting to chart over the years.  I have used scanners that started off as almost the size of a couple of  reams of A4 down to what is now a almost a thin A4 book in size.  The usability of these scanners was normally determined by the sophistication of the software.  I was using Paperport  in the late  1990s and early 2000s as a means of trying to keep my house paper free from the avalanche of documents that were produced as part of the National Curriculum.  I certainly didn't have time to read everything as the department I started managing at the time was in a school on the dreaded special measures.  This was was also before the widespread use of PDF format that appeared with the Literacy and Numeracy initiatives.  At the time I was using Epsom scanners, but was rapidly converted to Canon 660 (later LiDE range)  and Canoscan software technology as their portable scanners appeared.  PDF technology made life easier and I rapidly started to become  paper-free.

The ability to show and record a piece of work produced by a pupil at the time it was produced via a scanner and projector was a favourite of pupils as they could share their work with the rest of the class.  The digital classroom in action rather than endless multimedia productions that seemed to be the norm when computers invaded the classroom.  The use of digital tablets also enhanced the experience.  Needless to say these were not provided by my bosses at the time but I took the view that these were tools that fitted in with the drive to a 21st Century classroom so I purchased them myself.  I took the view this was no different to what countless other colleagues were doing when they bought pens, pencils etc to lend out.  Plus I was educating myself in the new technology often ahead of the ideas that county advisors were advocating.  It does make me feel a little bewildered that ICT is still only used for endless searches and often as pointless typing up of written work.

Sport and drama certainly should have been leading the use of computing time with the use of video technology.  I purchased 8 years ago as an ICT department expense for our PE department a video analysis (Dartfish) package.  We were the only the school for a quite a few years that had this in the East England.  A great piece of software akin to the type golf professionals now use to coach people o their swing.  We did not use this effectively because of the demands placed on the time slots in ICT where core subjects had to demonstrate use of ICT as part of the National Curriculum.

The top down development nature of the national curriculum missed a great opportunity of embedding ICT not as subject but a tool.  Teaching people ICT skills is not an end in itself but a means to enhance the basic communication skills of what you already do.  The literacy skills of many pupils might have undergone greater development if the rush to provide very expensive ICT equipment with a short lifespan had been resisted.   Often the equipment was overpriced as it was being supplied to a local authority body by preferred tenderer.  But, we will be asking the question for many years to come of what advantage ICT give the under nines in the acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills.  Here endeth the whinge about National Curriculum and missed ICT opportunities.

I am waiting to see an application of the sports coaching potential of the new Xbox kinetic.  I can see great potential for the coaching of squash and also fencing as the variables involved compared a team a team sport would be less complicated as these sports are usually played in fewer axes of movement.  As a former qualified fencing coach I can see the potential for the spatial recognition technology to be applied to these sports.  The techie approach might also keep the interest of beginners as they acquire the discipline and skill to have an effective bout.  Virtual coaching and opponents not a great step away?  How good would it be to knock the French off the premier spot in fencing in the next European championships?


Returning back to the subject of digital photography. My father has become quite a digital photography buff.  Since his retirement he has been snapping anything and everything of interest.  As he is a very active member of the University of the Third Age (u3a) history and art/painting groups he has accumulated thousands of images.  I have spent many a Sunday morning instructing him in the arts of folders and photo-editing software.  Just before my nephew and niece arrived I downloaded Picasa.  I have previously used of and on over the last 8 years or so the yahoo owned photo storage facility that has become Flickr, primarily as a I am a BT customer.  As I am now using Blogger I decided to give Picasa a try. The Picasa technology downloaded quickly and began scanning the pictures. It was surprising how many pictures in the relatively short time of a few years my father has taken. I have been using a digital camera for the past 10 years so I dread to think how many images I might hae on various different drives and older computers languishing in dark cupboards.  What intrigued me was the facial recognition software.  Family resemblances even seemed to be recognised as I started naming the various faces that my father had snapped.  The tagging and indexing will allow a huge reduction in the time spent looking for that elusive photograph.

I just now have to teach my father to use the programme!!

I have blogged enough for this post I will have to save a few ideas for other post of what is now becoming habit forming.  My own computers are staring to mine the folders of images with Picasa and I am already finding nearly 10000 images from the last few years of holidays, air displays, cricket, plants and walking clubs.  Many years ago I used organise a social rambling club on a Sunday that met at one pub and then walked to another couple in a circuitous route.  Our post-Boxing Day walk involved over thirty people dressed in Santa hats with assorted dogs in tow.  I have yet to find the photographs but there could be a few for the Blog.  

Well I am now going to listen to the highlights of yesterdays Cricket and then maybe find my Wisden to compare a few performances

2pointfive_age_of_man



Moon on Rhodes

 Is this moonshine? 

This picture was taken in Rhodes on the 29th August 2007.  At the time the moon was at it's closest to earth, only 30,000 miles away.

The sun was just rising, the moon was in the west.  The direction of the photograph was exactly an East-West axis.  To explain the light on the sea you have to take my word for it that the sun was behind me. 

In other words without being there at the time you might believe the moon was producing its own light.


Does the moon shine is one of the fundamental science questions that most children struggle with.  They can see the light from the silvery moon but they cannot see the sun.  They are told that the light from the sun is reflected from the moon to us. They often have difficulty remembering this.  Why? Their senses and experiences tell them different.  This is first age  "man"  experiencing the "everybody says so it must be true".  Even though it is.

I have entered the second age of man.  Probably half way through, the 2.5 age of man.   I also am entering the why age again.  I probably never left it, but now I am asking again why.


I started this blog as I have some time on my hands.  I have now experienced 3 recessions.  I am of the age where I could be a child of Thatcher.  I have a prime-minster only marginally younger than me ( not only police officers suffer from this phenomena it seems).  The second age of man is upon me.  How is Big Society going to lead to my third age of man?

This is why this Blog has been called the 2pointfive_age_of_man.  

One of the mantras of Education leaders schools is the notion that the jobs we train our children for now will not exist in 20 years time.  The question now is do we  train people for jobs or is it careers? Often we appear to train people for lifelong learning. I have experienced the explosion of the university sector  first hand as an undergraduate and postgraduate.  Returning to education periodically in the last 25 years has left me with a sense of participating in  something that could be really good, but have a slight feeling of having participated in either a pyramid selling or ponzi scheme.

The idea 25 years ago was that people would have more leisure and would probably retire earlier.   Some have, although it would appear to be those people that have reached that advertisers pollsters category of 44-54 or later.

So how do I claim back my 2pointfive-age-of man?  I have a few ideas that I will share in this blog, but anybody else more than welcome to share their ideas or experiences.  After all we are in the society of lifelong learning (we always were but it now has a strap line).