Personal Blogs

As the recently appointed Head Coach at Hailsham SC this paper will be my bible. It has been used for the last few years at Mid Sussex Marlins SC where I have been coaching since 2008.

To conclude a sabbatical after the desperately sad loss of his wife Frederic sets off (two of them) tio traverse the Greenland Plateau. It is supposed to be covered in snow. Rain has washed the snow away leaving bare ice. Dragging a sled is impossible. After a few days years of training and months of planning comes to a sad but sensible end. 

Take a sequences of video clips on your phone. If you got the shot first time and you have them in order that is you instructional video.

As the safety helm for a sailing club I need to remind myself every few months when I got out how to get away from the birth. A quick look at this helps. It works better than their training manual of photos and text.

It even has someone talking me through what to do. 

Good enough. 

My instructional design journey begins as I prepare to interview a subject matter expert on independent travel for students with special educational needs (SEN). I am posing questions against a 'learning journey' frame so that as I ask questions I can build these into a story. 

It is this story, and the ability to successfully and effectively bring the story to life, which will decide whether or not this elearning experience achieves its goals.

Projects for the next four months with Open Access release in the New Year. 

Using a Cash Machine (ATM)

Learning points: 

1.       How many numbers are in an individual pin

2.       How to protect yourself from others seeing your pin number

3.       The colour of the button you press once you have entered the pin number

4.       In the home screen what does each tab mean i.e. cash withdrawal, printed balance, onscreen balance etc

5.       Who should know your pin number and why is it important that no one knows your pin number (outcomes)

Approach: Linear video with synched slides and bold caption on Planet eStream. 

Crossing the Road/Puffin/Pelican crossing

Learning points: 

1.       Where and how to stand when crossing the road (well back from the edge of the kerb, looking and listening for dangers etc)

2.       Look at the dangers of crossing the road (not paying attention, walking across the road when traffic is coming, not using crossing points)

3.       Colours of the Pelican Crossing lights – Green mean go or stop

4. When crossing still be looking and listening out for traffic

Approach: Linear video with synched slides and bold caption on Planet eStream. 

The Learning Resource Centre, Broadwater 

Learning points: 

1.       Who to go for help and what help they can offer (buy pens, change password and computer advice)

2.       Where the quick read books are within the LRC

3.       360 tour of the LRC, especially chill out room (is it a chill out room?)

4.       How to start the computer

5.       How to use the printers

6. Swiping in and out of LRC

Approach: ThingLink 360 tour with interactive hot spots, tour links and voice over narration. 

Independent Travel Training

Approach: Scenario-based elearning. Video with voice over, text and interactive prompts.

These are at the core of G Suite for Education.

It might be as basic as learning how to drive - but you still have to learn how to drive and then set off on a journey where the road signage changes, and slow side roads become slick interstellar space ports overnight. Accepting constant change is part of working in digital.

I have taken an educator through Google Classroom and Google Drive twice or three times in a year so doing this requires me to revisit what I knew then, check all updates and give things a go myself before hand. The tutors themselves, with there 25+ students and a term of assignments to prepare are more versed in it than I am.

This isn't how I would chose to be, or not to be in my case - an industry expert. I need to be doing on a daily basis. What I currently do on a daily basis is Twitter, WordPress and Umbraco, and every few months a newsletter using MailChimp.

For me to develop a skillset requires time and constant practice.

So I am back peddling and using time set aside this week to work on video and scenario-based learning for SEND students.

I'm not the kind of person who handles these kinds of frequent adjustments in direction well.

How things come around.

Starting out in corporate video training and information films in the 1980s I found myself working with an ex BBC Money Programme Producer Alan Scales who won the contract to replace a carousel slide show (really) sent round to all branches, with video. One of the stories we covered was the opening of Abbey National's first cash machine at their Baker Street Branch (and HQ). That was 1985 or 1986.

Here I am in 2019 planning to create a simple 'how to video' for Students with Special Educational Needs (SEN). This will include how to use an ATM and to use a Pelican Crossing. No production team - just me, a camera and tripod, student actors. No budget so no producer role. I'll cut it on my desktop. It will be 'hosted' on Planet eStream, as a play alone video, or with a second screen of synchedslides. 

I would have hoped after 34 years to have moved on but my 'career' has been a constant spiralling up and down and off in all directions as I catch fermal, or come to earth with a bump, or jump out (with or without a parachute

Students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities [SEND]

My interventions, advise and efforts to date have been aimed to students without specific needs. I am now looking at what provision is available for our SEND students and how I can support them and their tutors.

SEND students will have difficulties with:

• Communication and interaction
• Cognition and learning
• Behaviour and social development
• Physical or medical needs

Differentiated and personalised, even 1:1 teaching is required, rather than the teacher teaching from the end of a classroom and hoping to keep order and anyone engaged.

Personalisation and carefully structured lessons are key.

The aim is to provide help so that students can access the parts of the general curriculum that is available to all students. It is at the frontline of accessibility. Assessment is important as there is a constant need to understand and develop students’ progress. Observation is equally important. 

Some things I can read about (the rest I will have to pick up first hand)

• If too detailed some students may feel threatened and disillusioned.
• If the challenge is too great, work becomes boring and any effort is a waste of time. 

Suggestions include:

• Creating a self-compiled visual dictionary for subject-specific vocabulary
• Chunking the work
• Using visual clues
• Having a ‘lesson menu’ and tick off as the student completes tasks so that they can identify their own progress.

Some specific suggestions include: 

Unable to focus (ADHD)

• Small sections
• Have ample ‘time out’
• Used realistic timed targets
• Phased classwork and homework
• Reading and writing is a challenge

Dyslexic

• Use of coloured overlays to reduce glare and jumping letters
• Keep instructions simple and short

And in general: 

• Facilitate 1:1 tutorials
• Record lessons by phone or laptop
• Use visuals to support written text

SEND students need to be catered for in a non-discriminatory way, in an inclusive environment, can only enhance the self image and self worth of young people.

Objectives

To achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success.

Integration can reduce social stigmas and improve academic achievement. 

Where can technology help?

A special education program should be customised to address each individual student’s unique needs. 

Individualised Education Program

This will address each student’s unique learning issues and include specific educational goals. 

To help them participate in the educational environment as much as possible.

There are five broad categories of provision

1. Inclusion

2. Mainstreaming

3. Segregation

4. Exclusion

5. Co-teaching

Individual Education Plan (IEP)

• Targets
• Provisions
• Outcomes

What strategies will be used

What provision put in place?

Identifiable outcomes to monitor progress.

And include:

Likes, dislikes and anxieties

Home-based tasks

Specific: it is clear what the student should be working towards.

Measurable: it is clear when the target has been achieved.

Achievable: for the individual student.

Relevant:  to the student’s needs and circumstances.

Time-bound: targets are to be achieved by a specified time.

There are 14 categories under special education (in the US):

1. Autism

2. Deaf-blindness

3. Deafness

4. Developmental delay 

5. Emotional and behavioral disorders

6. Hearing impairment

7. Intellectual disability (formerly referred to as mental retardation)

8. Multiple disabilities

9. Orthopedic impairment

10. Other health impairment

11. Specific learning disability

12. Speech or language impairment

13. Traumatic brain injury

14. Visual impairment, including blindness

A slide show can be synchronised to run alongside a linear video using Planet eStream. The slides might reinforce what is being said, or ask questons. I would like a clearer two screen display with images side by side though.

This is a way to make content and interaction accessible for those who would struggle with smaller text and tricky tools to activate and complete an interactive quiz.

Working with Anna Sabramowicz I have been introduced to the following scenario-based projects. This is what I would like to create to teach compliance with asthma drugs, and so much more ...

Broken Coworker : https://brokencoworker.com/ 

Connect with Haji Kamal : https://www.worldwarfighter.com/hajikamal/activity/ 

How to survive a nuclear bomb : http://how-to-survive-a-nuclear-bomb.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk/index.html#

Our World War : WWI BBC :https://our-world-war.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk/ 

Life Saving : Life Saver:http://life-saver.org.uk/#/REAL_STORIES

Will You Fit In? Deloitte:http://www.raptmedia.com/customers/deloitte/

I break the process down into six parts: 

1. Business Alignment : are you a match for the client. Do you understand what they want and where your skills lie for delivery of interactivity.
2. My Perfect Learner [Persona profiling] : get it down to one learner. Know who they are so that you can talk to them. 
3. Interview. Call preparation and the story journey questions : interview the life out of the Subject Matter Expert (make sure they are the SME and you're not being fobbed up with an apprentice or someone tangential to the learning problem).
4. Character Identification Criteria : build a profile of the protagonist of your story. The hero. It is their journey. 
5. Write the Script : like any great storyteller, made all the harder with what is in effect a short story with a number of parallel routes.
6. Produce it: find an illustrator, get a developer. 

Learn from a Master of their subject from the youngest possible age. Picasso studied under his father, a university art teacher, from a young age - from the moment he could pick up a pencil, crayon or paint brush I imagine. His talent is extraordinary and takes off someone between the age of 10 and 14 by which time Picasso could produce works such as this:

Having visited the museum before my interest this time was drawn towards his life drawing studies - such a vital skill. Seeing his anatomical drawings as well as life model drawings brings it home. He had the skills. He did the preparation work. He knew what he was doing - even if for now he is under the direct guidance of his father.

Annotated anatomical drawing by Picasso. 

9 Museums, 13 exhibitions, 4 days. Mostly visited on foot from a small Barcelona Air BnB off Rambla del Ravel. 4 wonderful vegetarian/vegan restaurants too. 

I used to have this gripe about Microsoft - that on a PC the default on a computer bought in the UK was for US English. Why has it just taken me 10 minutes of pain trying to change the page settings in a Google Doc from inches to centimeters? Because the default on thousands of college computers is US English,  and with that all the spelling, punctuation and measurement defaults.

It no longer surprises me how much American English is now used in England - not just spellings, but pronunciations too. But I am no longer my mother's son, ready to do as her generation did - correct anything that wasn't 'Received Pronunciation'.

I see it is indicative of multiculturalism and welcoming constant change. I am the antithesis of conservative, laggardly tradition.

On 7th July the Environment Agency were called out to investigate the condition of Piddinghoe Lake, East Sussex as there were a number of dead fish. Acting quickly to test the water first an emergency pump and then two industrial scale pumps were brought down and set to work re-oxygenating the water.

Speaking to Mark Bennett, Team Leader at the regional headquarters of the Environment Agency, Worthing an explanation was offered. Warm weather, a lack of shade on the lake and little wind or rain lately had caused the temperature to rise. This had resulted in an algal bloom. Not a worry in itself, these blooms might crash suddenly at night or even with a thunderstorm. 

Blooms such as these are a summer event. It is rare but not unknown for these to occur as early as February. Algal blooms like these have been occurring more often in recent years so there is no doubt that climate warming is a factor.

This event impacted on the larger fish and eels. Smaller fish and carp have proved more resilient. 

The water is not a health hazard so long as people don’t ingest the water and you wash your hands before eating. There were no signs of the blue/green algae which would have been a cause for concern.