>/reboot

The end of an era or the beginning of a new dawn?

Which ever way you look at it – my life has changed dramatically over the past month or so.  My job at Birkenhead Sixth Form College officially ended yesterday… so what next? What indeed?

I’ve already signed-up for an MSc in Computer Science at the University of Liverpool, starting in September.  Before that, I need a job (or two).  I decided to try and set myself up in the Vintage clothes/curios market – trading on eBay.  This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – so I might investigate about business start-up grants when I have my first (and hopefully last) Job Centre Plus interview on Monday.

I also decided to keep on with my ‘day job‘, working in Edu-Tech, and am setting-up as a Consultant Technologist – so if you want to contact me about any work you have or would like to discuss what I can do for you, simply drop me a line in whatever manner you wish.  I’m on most social sites as ‘colhawksworth’ or you can email/txt me if you already know me and I’ve given you my details.

Creating a video CV

[flickr video=5508762467 show_info=true w=260 h=146]
Creating a video CV a video by colhawksworth on Flickr.

I spent the morning making a much improved online CV (resume) and also a video about the actual recording process. So two for the price of one… As you can gather, I’m neither a film maker or actor – but I know how to use the tech. Listen out for the funky soundtrack, which was created by ‘Three Disturbed Souls’, a music collective that I was in during the mid-1990s.

As Madness would say. “Don’t watch that, Watch this…”

Related Articles

• Blog: Breaking the mould? The Social CV (musingsfromsussex.com)
• Strike a pose with your CV (transcendexecutivesearch.wordpress.com)
• Testing, testing, 1 2 3 (colhawksworth.wordpress.com)
• Thank you ladies & gents, boys & girls… (colhawksworth.wordpress.com)
• Career advice: How to build a great CV (telegraph.co.uk)

Testing, testing, 1 2 3

[flickr video=5505604083 show_info=true w=260 h=146]
Col CV a video by colhawksworth on Flickr.

A couple of months ago, I remember reading about video CVs and how hip & cool folks are uploading a short clip about themselves to sites such as YouTube, for prospective employers to view.

Thought I’d give it go today – obviously, being ultra hip & cool helps… undaunted by this, I sat in front of my laptop and after a couple of takes, I had something usable in the can. I used ScreenCast to grab a couple of my websites and overdubbed the audio track. Then I added in a few transitions and a credit title.

Not bad for about 30 mins work. It’s my first attempt (and possibly my last) at being hip & cool in the job market.

Related Articles

• Creating a video CV (colhawksworth.wordpress.com)
• Thank you ladies & gents, boys & girls… (colhawksworth.wordpress.com)

afterglow

You know that sinking feeling you get?

The one right after a big event is over?

The feeling of emptiness and reflection?

Well, that’s essentially how I’m feeling right now.  BECTA TEN & MoLeNET have both been and gone (I’m sure I’ve written about this before) and there is unlikely to be anything similar on the horizon for a while, due to cutbacks in education and more specifically, educational research.

Yes, I’m putting the same amount of energy and enthusiasm into our work within the department and college.

But…

And this is the but – what we do here will only make a difference to our own learners and perhaps a few other groups of people who use our systems and facilities.  What about the learners in schools and colleges where they are not so lucky (and I use the word ‘lucky’, deliberately) to have had large-scale funded technology projects?  Or where there is no positive dialogue going on between learners, tutors and technical staff?  Or where there is no real emphasis being put on the benefits of technology in teaching & learning?

It might sound a little odd – but I do genuinely worry about learners NOT getting access to technology or NOT having equality of opportunity due to a lack of funding, staff motivation or institutional policy.  It’s not fair and it shouldn’t be happening in the UK in the 21st Century.  Why do I care?  Well, there are a number of reasons… chiefly, I feel that the education system let me down quite a bit – because we didn’t have equality of opportunity at the schools I attended.  Yes, things have improved since then, but in all reality – 25 years on, there still appears to be a lack of an effective and cohesive, education policy (and practice) in this country.

We’re now faced with a period of ‘austerity’ across all public sectors.  Well, this will have a knock-on effect in years to come.  There will be learners in schools, colleges and universities now, who will not be able to get a job or have the relevant skills and qualifications for the jobs that will be available to them in the future.  This is essentially what happened to us in the 1980′s and it created whole generations of unemployed and unemployable people.  We still feel some of the fall-out now.

Education & Technology projects are key to embedding effective practice for the future generations of teachers and learners – what we do now, will affect the future state of education.

So, what should really be a feeling of warm afterglow, is more likely to be the cold dying embers of sustainable technological development…

by mynameisharsha

Confession

Forgive me father, I have sinned – it’s been two months since my last blog entry.

So, what’s been going on then?

Well, BECTA Technology Exemplar Network is finished, MoLeNET has also finished and we’ve completed our college enrollment.  BECTA TEN was enjoyable, I made some new contacts (as well as renewing old ones) I got to learn about life in the WBL (work based learning) sector and found out about some amazing work with the homeless & refugee community on the south coast.

MoLeNET was a great experience and our project generally went well.  The technology element was outstanding and I pay public tribute to Martyn Coleman and John Paul Szkudlapski for their technical wizardry and commitment to ensure the technical aspects of the project were flawless! Thank you guys

I think if there’s one thing I’ve learned from working on projects, it’s that with the best will in the world – personnel will let you down far more often than technology will.  That said – I loved working on the project and would get involved in more, if the opportunities arise.

Back at college – it was another hectic summer of upgrades and installations, which (if you’re interested) you can start to read about on our new departmental WordPress site.

Testing – One, Two

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31442459@N00/3401102797

I was lucky enough to be invited to join an ELESIG Webinar yesterday – facilitated by Dr Rhona Sharpe, as part of the SLiDA project.  Perhaps naively, I thought I was just going to listen and perhaps answer a couple of questions – but then realised Rhona actually had me down to present about our involvement in SLiDA and more specifically how our work with Learner Owned Devices was actually a bottom-up revolution – driven by  the learners’ valid academic need to connect up to our systems.  I think the whole webinar will be available via ELESIG Ning.

It was a really interesting Webinar and was refreshing to hear what colleagues from other institutions were doing in similar fields and how their work is being fed into SLiDA.

After a slight technical hitch with my headset microphone – all went well and I guess everyone could hear me.  I found the content to be really useful and also gained some valuable experience as to how a good webinar is conducted.

eVoting

Following reports that there were large-scale problems at Polling Stations in the UK General Election 2010…

Source: meddygarnet

I got thinking – How can we ensure a fair, legal and representative vote? I propose we use the National Lottery technology infrastructure, and here’s why:

- The system is very secure (don’t forget there’s millions of £ at stake every week!)
- the ticket reader copes with multiple choice (good for proportional representation)
- the ticket is read and recorded instantly (no need to have ‘counting’ all nite)
- there is a standardized cut-off time (no more voters unable to vote)
- voting could take place all week (less excuse ‘not’ to vote)

That’s the positives so far.
I’m working on the negatives now – I know there will be the obvious problem of Voter authentication, but don’t we already have that? At the moment all you have to do is turn up to vote, be able to quickly scan a page of names & addresses upside down and pretend you’re someone else! Why don’t we need ID at the Polling Station??

amateur time-travel & assorted electronica

On a crisp New Years’ Day 1984, I was sitting with my friends in a public shelter learning to play 1980s electronic music on Casio keyboards [if you know Wallasey - it was on Strouds' Corner by the quarry], we were mulling things over  – as you tend to do during New Year. Space, time-travel, the after-life, etc… all the usual topics 16/17 year olds talk about (or maybe it was just us amateur time-travelers?) [have I ever mentioned my theory on the weight of light?]

I remember us thinking about how old we’d all be in the year 2000 – it seemed so far away at the time, Jeez – we’d be in our 30′s!!  Would we all have purple hair and wear silver space suits?  Would we have hover cars?  What would life be like in 2000?  Where would we be, what would we be doing?

Source: Michael Verdi

Well it came and went… forget the hype – 2000 wasn’t much different in the end was it?  Lots of physical and metaphorical fireworks – but life stayed pretty much the same.  There were a whole heap of innovations and inventions but mostly there were the usual incremental changes across the broad spectrum of technology. Oh and there was that Internet thing, but that’ll never take off.

Now there is one thing that always stands out when I think about the future and that is… buildings.  It puzzled me – how could future technology change, if we all continued to live in old houses?  I’ve always lived in Victorian or Edwardian houses; the house I live in now, is 108 years old!  I like old houses.  How do I incorporate tech in my old house?  Relatively easily of course.  Electric sockets have not changed that much, TV aerials have morphed into satellite dishes, in fact we still have TVs… not the two-way screens in Sci-Fi films.  Most of my tech is mobile and wireless – now that IS a huge innovation.

What am I trying to say? Well, the core infrastructure of our lives has not changed that much – our consumer tech has changed and it has become more throw-away, a lot of tech has inbuilt obsolescence.  Do you remember when TVs, washing machines, fridges and cookers lasted forever?  What would happen if the development of our tech suddenly had to slow down and devices had to start lasting a little longer?  Will that happen in the current world recession?  Will it happen when we start to run out of raw materials?

Excuse me whilst I use my time-machine to jump back to 1984 and carry on playing  Human League on the Casio VL-1 whilst I think about the future.

Gadget Show Live 2010

I joined my brother & nephew at the ‘Gadget Show Live’ in Birmingham (UK), last week.  I didn’t plan on going to this event, my brother invited me – he’s really into the Gadget Show.  The event was at the NEC, in about 3 of the large halls – pretty impressive and there were certainly plenty of people there (we did go on the opening day!)

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting really.  Having been to plenty of education conferences and events, perhaps I’d been used to stands where people actually have a chat with you about what they have on offer – rather than these sales reps and imaginatively dressed ladies handing out advertisements, who were clearly not there for an in-depth conversation about technology.  I guess I should have thought on that it would be a giant trade fair…

Perhaps I was going to see some really cutting-edge gadgets (not yet available in the shops) – but no.  Anyway, we had a good time. My nephew enjoyed the Game Zone, which I believe had some brand new titles to try-out.

In the main arena, the general feel was that 3D TV is currently the big thing.  There were some really impressive systems to have look at.

For me, the highlight of the day had to be a live event going on in the Game Zone.  A large crowd had gathered, there was an almighty guitar blazing away and live video feed of some incredible fretwork.  On the overhead screens, ‘Guitar Hero’ was blasting through 10,000 – 20,000 points…. (apparently, that’s your score without any mistakes!)  The song was incredibly fast and technically complex.  The crowd was going crazy.  Finally, the music stopped and the MC thanked ‘The Guitar Hero World Champion’ – as the crowd began to break-away, I expected to see some long-haired, leather-clad rock-god.  There on stage, stood a lad of about 16 in a rugby shirt and jeans!  Fantastic!

This is him winning the World Championship… ff to the last few minutes and you’ll see what I mean.

To me, there is a clear technology trend toward interactive home entertainment and gaming.  Not necessarily hand-held devices, rather the opposite – beast-like 3D TV sets, with immense speaker systems.

Check-out my Flickr photos of the event or listen to my iPadio Phlog live at the event

lunchtime lecture for laggards

Found myself, once again, revisiting a Blog post I made in early 2009. I’ve even renamed it ‘Early adopters or early majority?‘ I seem to be getting a lot of visitors to this page.  Perhaps I should have made it a Wikipage, rather than a blog entry?

Something that has been on my mind for quite a while now, is – how can we effectively move ideas, innovations, technology, research, etc. from out of the domain of ‘the few’ to the wider audience in education establishments?

Having been involved in many case studies and project reports, I often wonder how effectively they (case studies and good practice reports) are taken-up by the early majority, late majority and laggards at my own college and other education establishments?  I have voiced my concerns many-a-time, as I am genuinely worried about schools and colleges where there are no innovators/early adopters to help drive the take-up of new technologies and learning methodologies.  What happens to the learners and what effects are there on the staff in terms of embedding technology into the curriculum?

Now I guess you could argue that schools and colleges don’t need to be operating at the cutting edge in order to achieve results.  Which brings me round to wondering if education is about ‘results & statistics’ or about facilitating a ‘useful rounded education’ that prepares learners for life.

Anyway – that’s my lunch hour over… I’ll just get back to some un-innovative paper work.