Cranial Compost / Tag Archive

Posts Tagged ‘thought’

Addicted to Trash

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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Tags: best laid plans, diary, existential, fun, games, good intentions, investigation, lifestyle, play, procrastination, question, research, scanner, self-doubt, thought, world gone mad

You want to ban THIS?

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Posted 26 May 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category Rant

You want to teach Design & Technology in your schools, but you don’t want your students to use these:

Do you have any idea what these things can DO?

This is not an advert for mobile phone companies – it is a call to arms against the anti-tech tyranny!

Do you, school leader or administrator, have any idea of the capability of these devices? Can you not see that all students, from all backgrounds, already have and regularly use one of these devices? Most of them have better ones than i do!! They can do more things, faster and easier, than most of the programmes supplied with my free teacher laptop! And the students ALREADY OWN THEM!!

Yet you want me to teach Design & Technology like it mattered, whilst pretending that nobody has one of these, that we’re all in some era where D&T is softwood mortice & tenon joints and ‘chalk and talk’ lessons. Ridiculous.

Rise up, D&T teachers of the world, (well, the UK then), and unite against evil tyranny of technology oppression!

Petition your headteacher and Local Authority to allow the use of mobile phones, in order to raise student engagement and cut unnecessary spending on duplicate resources. Throw off the yoke of alleged cyber-bullying and educate your students on the use of digital technology – send them the message (via text? <ouch>) that their culture is not subversive, but that it is the future!

You can do it if we all do it.

Cheers,

Philip

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Tags: 21st century, education, fun, future, good intentions, manifesto, petition, question, school, technology, thought, world gone mad

Thought Patterns

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Posted 28 Apr 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category thought

I firmly believe that the way we think forms habitual channels in our minds. Neuroscience bears this out, with works such as ‘What the Bleep…‘ and, dare I say it, ‘The Secret‘ following the trend.

As such , I now find myself having to think creatively – making stuff for the ‘Mr Watson…‘ DVDs that I’m making. Trouble is, I’ve been doing do much analytical thinking, my brain is just stuck on that “analyse the inputs, process, produce an output” kind of stimulus-response behaviour, to the extent that my creative muscles are totally dead!

For anyone stuck in the same situation, take some heart from the fact that we can reprogram our brains, with just a little effort.

If you’ve ever had to think creatively (and I don’t just mean doing a piece of ‘art’), then the way of thinking you used will still be in there, somewhere. All you have to do is try to start thinking like that again, and it will surely follow.

For example – cast your mind back to the time that felt that you were coming up with creative solutions to stuff in your life. Where were you? Who was around you? What was the atmosphere/ambience?What did it feel like? What were you physically doing? What period of your life was this? What were the overiding themes of that time? Reminisce

Then do a few simple exercises. Creative thinking is ‘right brain‘, where most of the activities we do day-to-day tend to be ‘left-brain’. Make the shift by taking an object and asking yourself weird questions, like ‘what would it be if it were made of ice/could fly/was gigantic/ covered in grass/ made out of a gas/ you could drive it/ could live in it/ it was microscopic/ 2,000 years old/ furry/ made for people with no hands/ to be used by fish-people/ worked by magic/ was free/ could only be used once?

Okay, no actual, useful results come out of thoughts like this – but that is left-brain thinking! The result is that you can start to think more flexibly, more creatively. and that is the kind of result you are looking for (it’s not a ‘left-brain’ result because its ’soft’; not measurable or quantifiable). I’ll bet it feels pretty good, though!

There’s also an interesting exercise somewhere, about reading out the names of colours that are coloured in the wrong colour, e.g. black, red, blue, green, orange. Now go back and say aloud the colours of the text for each word. if that makes sense.

Anyway, that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve got to find an image to match the word ‘product’, but al I can think of is ‘iPhone’. Appalling!

Cheers,

Philip

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Tags: bad spelling, creative, fun, thought

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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Tags: audience participation, best laid plans, change the world, creative, cynicism, education, fun, future, good intentions, manifesto, question, self-doubt, thought, unconference, wisdom

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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Tags: 21st century, best laid plans, creative, cynicism, design, designers, diary, education, future, good intentions, manifesto, question, self-doubt, technology, thought, wisdom

Thought for the Day – the Sun

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Posted 04 Jan 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category Ideas, Uncategorized, thought

So, if the sun is the source of all heat for our planet, why does it get colder the further away from the earth’s surface you get?

Why is the vacuum of space -273 degrees C? Surely, with no atmospheric protection from the rays of the sun, one should receive the full heat straight away?

Indeed, should there not be a point where one can float, nearer the sun than we are, where space is actually quite hot?

This massive ball of gas, our sun, cannot just ‘end’ at a definite point, surely? It is, we are given to understand, a flaming ball of gas – surely it’s not a million degrees at one point and then, where ’space’ starts, it’s -273?

I propose that there is a distance from the sun that one can stand, that is actually a comfortable room temperature. Beyond this point it gets progressively hotter, much like a terrestrial ‘barbeque’. Indeed, from this point in space, one could potentially offer a suasage on a stick in the direction of the sun, and in no time at all it would become a tasty, well-cooked snack. (space-chefs should note that, depending on the length of the stick, it may also become a, so familiar to the terrestrial bbq, ’sausage-shaped lump of carbon’).

So confident am I of this prediction that I propose to send a dog into space on the next NASA mission, equiped with marshmallows, (to keep it simple for the dog), and a series of sticks of varying lengths.

Anyone who wishes to contribute towards the funding of this project, and hence share in the undoubtedly ‘astronomical’ rewards can visit our companion site, wiseacre.com

Cheers,

Philip