Posts Tagged ‘best laid plans’

Addicted to Trash

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Posted 29 Aug 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category diary, thought

I have a confession to make – I am addicted to free online Flash games.

I can’t stop playing them, every moment I get. I love playing them, but when I finish playing them I feel somehow lessened and unfulfilled, as if I’d just been stuck in traffic for hours.

This has not gone unnoticed by my ever-loving wife, who has pointed out that this may be some sort of diversion strategy. In fact, she has wisely pointed out that I may find myself being more fulfilled by, perhaps, cleaning the house or, just maybe, cooking us our dinner, or even – who knows? – doing some shopping.

Now, a couple of days ago my wife and I were musing over the possibility that we don’t have anything that stimulates us mentally. Having just completed her degree, and not considering herself an intellectual, she was surprised to find herself enjoying her dissertation. We decided to do a little essay each over the next fortnight. We will choose a topic, research it and write up our findings. The results will be presented to each other one evening over a bottle of wine.

So, having found this quirk in my character that enables me to eschew my responsibilities and focus only a 17″ screen for hours on end, I’ve chosen to investigate the psycho-physiological effects of video gaming.

Results will be, undoubtedly be posted here in a fortnight.

Game on!

PS: God only knows what my life would be like if I’d ever ventured into serious MMRPG games such as Halo, World of Warcraft and others… you would literally never hear from me again!

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Crikey, it’s interview fever!

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Posted 26 May 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category Rant, diary

Okay, so I went to an interview on Monday – and I got the job!

Sweet – a part time design & technology teacher in a nice school in Norwich – exactly what i was looking for.

But then…

Then I heard back from the SSAT. They were looking for a National Network Coordinator on secondment, which on paper pretty much looked like my dream job – travel around the country talking to specialist D&T departments. Lovely.

Except now I already have a 0.5 appointment. I wouldn’t want to change that; they are extremely nice and I’m really looking forward to starting in September, it’s just that the SSAT job was the one that i originally wanted…

However, the SSAT have kept me waiting OVER TWO MONTHS after the application date to inform me of the shortlist. Okay, they were waiting for the election and some certainty about their funding. (goodbye BectaX – the right idea, just a little too late!).

So, what I am going to do is go to the interview (tomorrow – short notice!?) and see what happens. I think some negotiating is going to be called for.

But… if i get the secondment as well, what am I going to do about my RDTHSC training? I won’t have any time left to go and train teachers how to use their workshop machinery. Crikey.

Onwards and upwards. In other news, I’m still making oak boxes, fully mitred, for my wife’s degree show, selling our campervan, renovating my Vespa, moving house and progressing with the DVDs. Will this ever calm down? A part of me hopes not!

Cheers,

Philip

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Another Lesson

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Posted 23 May 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

Hooray! Another interview tomorrow! And this time the mini lesson is everyone’s favourite – scales of production!! The one you’ve all been waiting for!!!!

Or perhaps not.

This is going to be a real challenge. There’s not much you can do in 25 minutes that engages students with the dull facts about one-off, batch and mass production. And tomorrow I will be demonstrating that fact.

What I’m thinking of at the moment is a brief intro to outline the different scales, pointing out that the students have already done one-offs. This will be followed by a ‘batch production’ exercise, where each table will try to produce as many of a given product (not sure about this – paper planes? Birthday cards?) in a given time. Each person on the table will have a different job, in a production line type set-up. Whoever produces the most (insert product here) wins!

We then round up by questioning what we would need to make our batch production line into a mass production one, with the likely answer being something like having a machine to do it all for you. Of course that means that most of the students on each table will lose their jobs, but that’s the way of the world, kids!

So far so nebulous, and I really need to pin down what we would make – my wife has a set of printing blocks and ink pads, so I’ll most likely take those along. What are we going to print? I don’t want paper planes flying around the room, and birthday cards don;t have enough challenge in them…

The search continues.

Cheers,

Philip

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Today’s Lesson

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Posted 13 May 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

Well, this is a first.

Can you see what I'm doing wrong?

Looks like I’m using my blog to help me deliver a lesson in a ‘foreign’ school! This lesson will take place in Norwich, which I’ll have to get to by starting out at seven in the morning and travelling until eleven.

After that, I’ll be in interview mode. For a teacher this means doing a sample lesson, sort of like try before you buy. Its a funny old situation, as you have no idea about who the students are, where they’ve come from, what their day might have been like, or anything.

For the lesson I’ll be using eggtimer (thanks to @chrisleach78 for finding it).

The school gives you a topic in advance, and some basic information about the students i.e. how many there might be, and you have to come up with a lesson to fit the slot you’ve been given. In this case twenty minutes.

My worst fear is that another teacher, given the same broad topic (exam preparation), has chosen the exact same detail to focus on. Of course you don’t find out until afterwards, so i guess you can’t worry about it too much.

The reason I’m typing this up in the blog is simple. Going to a new school, with various different IT solutions is a tricky business. Will your powerpoint work? Will their computers recognise the file type? Its all a bit of a nightmare, so I thought ‘why not put it all on the internet?’ I know they have this, and have asked the head of department if they can see my blog, which they can, so all good.

The lesson is simple – the topic is exam preparation and the learning objective is to gain an understanding of what makes for an effective study environment.

  • Show the first picture (me in my untidy spare room) and ask for comments about what I’m doing wrong vis-a-vis study
  • then get students to write or draw in detail what their own study areas are like (with the timer),
  • share with a partner (timer again)
  • note down some comments for improvement that their partner suggests
  • round it up with some examples fromt he various people
  • finish off with the second picture, showing me putting into practise what it is that I’m preaching.

What have I changed?

Lovely.

Hope you enjoyed the lesson. Wish me luck!

Cheers,

Philip

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Time for a TeachMeet?

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Posted 19 Apr 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category Ideas, Rant, diary, thought

Okay, I want to meet teachers and students and anyone who can help me understand why education isn;t working (IMHO) and what we can do about it!

So I went to Becta-X and that was fun and techy and information overload but I didn;t feel that it really hit the mark for, just identified that there was a mark that was being missed.

It may have been there that I picked up the habit of writing really long sentences with no punctuation but I guess hey thats just speculation.

So anyway, there seem to be these things called Teachmeets, they are a type of ‘unconference‘ that you organise yourself and then people come along and you all talk and there’s no agenda and thats it.

This sounds perfect I just want to meet other people who think differently to everyone else and can kind of see there’s a problem and want to DO something and not just wait around for someone esle to do it and then complain that that wasnt what should have been done.


Fast Tube by Casper

Does anyone out there want to join me? I have no idea what I’m doing, othere than the speaking to other people thing which i believe  i already mentioned – i’m going to need a date a venue and a sponsor to start and somewhere along the way there’ l be people invited nad then it’ll happen and who knows what.

We also need a title – i was thinking of something like ‘SATs: Secret Agent Teachers’ as one that would bring together people who see that there is a deficiency in our current system but who also see that change will not come from that top, we have to be agents of change ourselves – hence secret ‘agents’.

This is for people who are in the system and want to change it from within.

So, are you with me? It would be really cool if you could join in, like I said, so just let me know or stay keen and then maybe I can eventually get to the end of this incredibly poorly-structured blog post.

You will hear more about this!!

Cheers,

Philip

PS: I’m looking at Friday 11th June as the date. We’ll do it in the evening, its after school, its the week after half term so teachers may have a chance of still being fairly fresh and we’ll keep it small and tidy and fun. Normal syntax will resume in the next post :)

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Education: What do we DO?

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Posted 13 Apr 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category Ideas, Rant, thought

Reading this book at the moment “What’s the Point of Schools?” by Guy Claxton.

Very interesting, so much so that I want to spend the whole day reading it, neglecting the renovation of my campervan that i was going to do.

My wife tells me that I always do this, it’s like OCD or something, but then I lose steam after exhausting my interest and go on to something else.

Something tells me I should listen to her. I think this is important enough for me to take it slowly and let the interest build, so I’ll just post my impressions so far.

What I’m feeling at the moment is that it is extremely annoying that education in this country is not better. There are so many quotes, anecdotes and solid statistics over the last century, that for us to be in basically the same position is a joke.

It is a joke that makes me very angry, to be honest.

What i want to know is, what are we actually going to DO?

The whole system feels like its in gridlock – schools, students, parents, governments – no one can do anything because they are all tied up together in a vicious-circle, self-fulfilling prophecy state of affairs.

So this is what I’m thinking of doing.

At Becta-x the other week, I was talking to Kate who basically challenged me to run an unconference about education.

Damn it, it looks like that’s what we’re going to have to do, because I just don’t see any action out there at the moment to suggest otherwise.

I have no idea how to do this, so if anyone feels like coming on board, please give me a shout. We’re going to need people to turn up, too, so get prepared to spread the word.

We’ll start off small in a central London location, of an evening, so that teachers can attend. This will happen by the end of the school year.

I want to know what other people, face to face, have to say about education – any part of education – and what we can actually do to improve it.

That is all for now. I’m off to read my book – no, work on my campervan!

Cheers,

Philip

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The world of education

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Posted 22 Mar 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category Rant

Loved this amazing video by Ken Robinson – almost brought a tear to my cynical eye!


Fast Tube by Casper

It really is time for a systemic change in the education system. I’m going to work out how to do it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of their lives.

Cheers,

Philip

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I’m looking at Education

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Posted 19 Mar 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category Ideas, diary, thought

Good news, people:

I’ve decided I’m going to concentrate on one thing – education!

More specifically I’ll start with design & technology education reform, then move swiftly on to changing perceptions about what education for young people can be.

This is going to be a lot of fun, but first I’m to meet someone for coffee ;)

Actually, you might like them - studiomold is a UK designer couple who have some really intelligent use of form, coupled with a fresh take on materials use.

Damn, now I’m running late!

Cheers,

Philip

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Take 3… We’re there!

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Posted 14 Mar 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

Looks like its worked this time! Hooray!!

I’ll be back online sharing what’s going on in the big compost bin in my head.

Cheers,

Philip

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This Is The Week That Will Be

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Posted 22 Feb 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

Morning all,

Just a diary entry, this one.

Supply teaching still looks to be a bit thin on the ground, so I’m going to focus on getting my agencies to get me more work by hassling them.

Today, as it looks like I’m not going to be in schools, I’m going to pick up my mates’ scooter from town. He crashed it and broke his hand a week ago, and the scooter is sitting in a car park in Paddington. Pity its raining.

Also, some editing of the script for the first DVD might be in order, as well as a brief script for a ‘how to..’ video for sharpening a chisel. this one is interesting as i’m just trying out the short format video, as a sort of taster.

All that will go on the Mr Watson blog that i will be starting today. hopefully I’ll also be able to transfer both blogs to their websites, rather than have them here on wordpress.com. That is quite techy so fingers crossed. If i manage it, it means that I can have stuff like videos automatically posted ont he blogs, which I think will be  a nice touch.

Chasing a couple of inventions as well – an idea for eco toys and the back support. Just emails, keeping conversations going, you know.

Later on a friend of ours is opening her play, for which she has done the set design, so I’m looking forward to that, too.

All in all a busy day!

Cheers,

Philip

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