I've just noticed, that whilst the OU spellchecker recognises e-learning, it does not recognise elearning.
What about eLearning?
No.
Or e.learning?
Yes.
If I am corrected for using 'e.learning' am I right or wrong?
Does being right or wrong matter?
It's just a word.
It's not even that.
It's a letter.
e
Reading (do we say that still) H807 'Innovations in E-learning' ? (there is still a good deal of reading!) ... read or plan to take H807?
You'll like this
'Stop the Innovations War'
The idea in brief, to make innovation a powerful business tool is to treat
'innovation initiative ... as a partnership between a dedicated team and the group that handles ongoing operations, the performance engine.
Although conflicts between partners are inevitable, they can be managed, by following three steps:
Divide the labor
The performance engine should take on only tasks that flow in parallel with ongoing operations--along the same path, at the same pace, and with the same people in charge. All other tasks should be assigned to the dedicated team.
Assemble the dedicated team
Leaders must approach the dedicated team as if they were building a new company--from scratch. Breaking down existing work relationships and creating new ones is an essential task, which outside hires can help expedite.
Mitigate the conflicts
The innovation leader must take a positive and collaborative approach to working with the performance engine and must be supported by an executive senior enough to prioritize the company's long-term interests and adjudicate contests for resources.
Go read and let's discuss?
Jonathan
H808 First Impressions
Someone’s been busy over the summer recess.
There are several noticeable differences:
In addition to the tutor there is a technical expert (Hi Helen) ‘embedded’ in the course to take a proactive role ensuring that none of us get the hebegebes with the technology. Even the basic functioning of the OU platform and its myriad of tools, attributes, quirks and foibles, can be daunting or at least irksome for the IT proficient. I doubt I am alone when I find at times I ‘just don’t get it’ when all it needs is someone to look over my shoulder and say, ‘try pressing that,’ or you’ve missed out a letter, or ‘there’s a really easy way to do that.’ I am at that stage where I am tripped up by a single letter of HTML code ... only to find that I don't need to be reading or trying to read code, if I understood how to use the e-tools being offered. Curiously this role may do more to bring students from the different tutor groups together than the mere offering of forums for this purpose ... a cafe where there is no coffee.
The tutor is around a lot. (Hi Trevor).
(I have not lurked around other tutor groups to see what is going on, so perhaps we can have a pow-wow on this or what I read in an article on e-learning, a 'tribal meeting; which I suppose is a meeting of department heads, or vice-chancellors i.e. the chiefs?).
This may just be a start of course thing, but I sense a wind change that is going beyond the basic set-up to support collaboration elucidated by Salmon regarding e-moderating. My prediction is that the call-centre like support, online and on the phone, that is offered corporate e-learners and e-trainers may become something that H.E. institutions need to provide, populated by undergraduates (2nd years as it were), as well as graduates, not just the traditional PhD student as part time tutor and lecturer ... as well as Senior Tutors.
I’d like the occasional host guest or a heavy hitter too, the participation of those who wrote the module, designed the course or whose work is most often cited.
The title 'H808 Environment Map' is an unnecessarily disingenuous term for a fantastic, indispensable guide. This isn't a map, it is 'The Lonely Planets' map, plan and guide pocket book for H808. It should be on the inside cover of what is the H808 Course Book. It should be wall-paper on the homepage i.e. you go nowhere and try nothing until you have consumed it. I'm going to print it off, laminate it and put it on my desktop, the tabletop wooden one i.e. extract it from its binary code and give it form on paper.
Something’s been refreshed in the OU Library.
My first impression would be to say from a design point of viewit has been ‘Google-ised,’ i.e, its appearance has been cleared up and simplified. Is it that designers and programmers in time can prioritise their choice of tools and offer in a more clinical way the tools they know users will need as they progress through their search rather than offering a High Street DIY store cornucopia of e-tic-tacs and e-tools that may or may not be required and probably do little more than scare and confuse in equal measure.
The resources and supplementary reading have all been accessed within the last couple of months and the links work.
In H807 it was a bugbear, not overly regular, but frequent enough, to find that links did not work so documents were not found speedily. The sifting out of redundant papers and reports (their points of view have been superseded by the technology and actual practice rather than the conjecture and hyperbole of some academics and commentators) as well as the checking and fixing of links is important. It is a considerable frustration, though understandable, that published version of books.
Not overly burdensom or keen to read two study-related books over the summer (July/August) Weller’s Virtual Learning Environments(2007) and Conole and Oliver's (eds) Contemporary perspectives in e-learning Research (2007), that very few of the links to URLS given to follow up references work (very few, may be none!) and then seeking them through the OU library doesn’t always prove successful either, no fault of the library, but links into this amorphous universe that is Cyberspace leaves some e-references wanting. And being who I am I want these references as qualifying and verifying is part of the ‘bonding process’ that this student requires to feel thoroughly engaged with the material.
Might I suggest that putting an URL for an article or blog comment into a print-published book is about as lasting as putting a sparkler in a birthday cake - by the time you want to eat the cake the sparkler has burnt out.
I like the new 'tick box' alongside the study planner to help mark off your progress.
Happy Days, Exciting Days in OU Land
P.S. Did you know you have access to the Oxford English Dictionaryonline as an OU Student. This is like being invited to Versailles during the reign of the Sun King. Brilliant. Except it can't help me with 'hebe-gebe.' A term used by my family, or a Geordie term for feeling a bit nervous, gets the goose-bumps up, a tad scary in a Ghost Train ride kind of way?
P.P.S. Just learnt a few tricks to search for a word in the OED and found 'heebie-jeebie.' A feeling of discomfort, apprehension, or depression; the ‘jitters’; delirium tremens; also, formerly, a type of dance. (OED) Far from being my native Geordie, it is 1920s New York American.
6.00am and I've learnt something new already!
9/9/10 is going to be a fun day.
8/9/10 was magic.
I wonder why?
I have for the last six months survived H807 with a toy plastic sword.
The gob-smacking revelation that everything is achieved with far greater ease when you have an up-to-spec computer is ... or should have been obvious.
I am borrowing a club lap-top. Design - hideous, Feel - awfull. DEsire to even tap at this QWERTY keyboard ... very low.
Once was a time for a few quid you could distinguish yourself and feel distinguished with a fountain pen. Not a Parker, but a Schaeffer ... or if you had a 21st or a 40th or some such celebration coming up, a Monte Blanc Cuban-cigar like phallus of a writing thing.
There's nothing phalic about a cheap Toshiba QWERTY keyboard.
Not upgrading a PC or MAC for six years leaves you squeezing ideas through a straw ... and a world that wants to pipe megatrons of info through your home and into your head FAIL ... if your didgeridoo, or straw, just don't come up to spec.
e-didgeridoo
Now there's a thought, and a word ... a s*** e-word.
I feel as if I have spent six months in training, and suddenly, fighting fit I am provided with the tools I need to communicate.
Voice recogntion?
In French, simultaneously ...
If the French language is to die in fifty years then il faut que je ... essaie ... de reflechire en francais.
“Debates around terminology and definitions often generate more heat than light with their length and ferocity almost indirectly proportional to their usefulness.” Weller (2007:4)
Whilst true it is difficult to accept another person’s definition of an invented word whose meaning shifts constantly and means different things to different people.
“It was through the rise of the Internet that the ‘e’ prefix came into popular usage, and in line with e-commerce, e-business and e-government, it is the internet that is really the defining technology in e-learning.” Weller. (2007:5)
If it is the case the Internet (capital ‘I’ anyone?) is the defining technology of e-learning, then it isn’t e-learning, it should be i-learning. Or was that term nobbled in the 1980s for ‘interactive’ learning.
What about www-learning?
It’s suitably polysyllabic to appeal to the academic community and no more unpronounceable than some of the terms academic writers feel it necessary to construct.
‘E-learning. Any learning experience that utilizes internet-related technologies to some extent.’ Weller. (2007:4)
Imagine this definition blown into a party balloon then let loose into the atmosphere of cyberspace; it will buzz about who knows where until it loses itself in the multitude of tools ‘out there.’
Will we reach a stage where we return to the more established global term ‘learning?’ that would embrace all these Is, Es and Ms.
Or as Weller, it’s not worth the trouble, just run with it, as we must run with podcasting and iPod, iPads and googling and so much more. Banned though should be the polysyllabic babble that academic writers prefer to use in favour of a couple of words in plain, unpretentious English.
The word I loath more than all, too often used by certain authors with abandon in relation to e-learning, is ‘enculturated.’
I don’t think much of ‘situated’ either.
REFERENCE
Weller, M. (2007) Virtual Learning Environments. Using, choosing and developing your VLE
It is the holidays, so this norming I read Michael Faber's 'The Fifth Gospel.'
Fun and quotable. And this easy and quick to read. A 3 hour train journey would do it.
Over the previous few days I have read Stephen King's 'Cell,' which begins like a text book, 'throw them out of the aerolpane' thriller but turns into such daftness I skim read the last half at great speed. You must admire his hutzpah.
Over the previous week I have not been enjoying Simon Schama's 'History of Britain' as I feel I'm getting too much of him and not enough history (He's very good on Caravagio though) ... while Andrew Marr's 'The Making of Modern Britain' at least had some micro-factoids to interest in a journalist sort of way.
Then I found my old copy of Norman Davies 'The Isles' which I read a decade ago and plan to read again ... followed by his History of Europe.
Unsure why I'm trying to pack my brain with such stuff, but it is in part due to my mind being re-awoken from a period of slackness courtesy of the OU.
From the Good Study Guide – (OU) 1990 by Andrew Nortledge.
p65 ‘Where the lecture comes into its own is in helping you to understand how the ideas in the subject work. The lecturer can ‘project; meaning into the words for you. The sense of the word is signalled through tone of voice and embellished with gestures and fluid expression.’
A gem I fell upon serendipitously when my daughter emptied her bedroom of childhood books, including this one, sent to her rather hopefully by her grandfather when she was 12.
The relevance here is on why face-to-face lectures and tutorials will continue to have such an important role to play. Maybe fewer of them (per student) so that a far larger student cohort can be taught and managed, but necessary all the same.
I was judgmental on Martin Weller quoting himself in H807 ... but I have just bought the book and buy into.
So why do I feel so uncomfortable about Weller or any other 'academic' quoting themselves.
Surely there are standards and expectations?
Who are we to quote ourselves, just because we got into print or had our words used in a piece of academic study to then cite ourselves and in so doing award ourselves additional recognition?
Imagine Simon Cowell deciding to get up and sing ... and then judging his own performance and deciding to award himself credibility?
Is there some etiquette regarding this kind of thing?
(Must be, academia has rules for everything, no wonder it's so dull)
Academically stimulating, but hardly a Caravagio.
At what point do you become 'self-quotable?
Did Churchill quote himself?
As Churchill said ... (he says) ...
(Or by writing your own speeches you are quoting yourself? Ditto lectures)
Can I quote myself as if this has some value ... things I posted online in 1999? Or put in a dairy in 1985? Or even wrote in a History essay on the Reformation in 1977? (Files saved, in a trunk, in an attic, in a room, in a building ... and could just as well be scanned and banged up online
Or is this lacks credibility then short films broadcast on mainstream TV?
Or things I said to important people ?
Look up the correct use of disinterested Mr Weller – (do you have an editor or proof reader?) It does NOT mean ‘no interested it means ‘not committed to one or other point of view, rather as a judge should be in a trial i.e. interested, but not taking sides.’
Odd how the pinnacle of my irritation is indicative of my reaching a tipping point
This is a watershed, where my opinions are expressed in increasingly frustrated ways until I find myself screwing up my face, then edging down the other side, won over to the opposing view, having convinced myself that black is now white. That ‘they’ are right and I am wrong ... I become evangelical on their behalf, whether they want it or not, before coming to some grey compromise.
I’ve just about read enough on learning theory to be able to categorise my approach to learning.
It is ?
This comes from reading ‘Contemporary Perspectives in E-Learning Research. 2007. Edited by Grainne Conole and Martin Oliver.
The turning point, the ‘flip’ came with looking up a reference for Martin Oliver ... and deciding that I needed to see fourteen points of reference. His book, his privilege. He’d wrong-foot himself did he not refer back to previously published papers.
I've got Martin Weller in box too, bought the book.
I think not.
You can keep it private, or share it with the OU community or the wider world, but you can't personalise it.
Nor do you get to keep it afterwards.
Perhaps the OU should offer a blogging platform along the lines of EduBlog or WordPress and treat it as a worthwhile piece of PR, marketing and goodwill.
Afterall, why encourage people to blog for the first time and quickly lose them to another platform?
So what is this?
I don't mean for this to sound derogatory, but dwelling on this through the night, as you do (it is 02.53), I liken this to writing on a piece of loo roll. OK, it lasts a little longer (two years) and can be re-ussed.
Well, I won't stretch that analogy any further.
Scroll is the world I am looking for.
Like a papyrus scroll from Egypt 4000 years ago. Slung up over a line for all to see (or not).
Not a blog though.
Few, if anyone, posts an entry every day, as you would in a journal. Even if you go down the private route, it doesn't feel private, somewhere to disclose private thoughts, health, financial, family and political problems and views.
A learning journal? Part of the e-portfolio package? For reflection.
Yet again, if I am holding up a mirror to consider my experiences this public arena is surely NOT the place to do it?
Somewhere to paste stuff that is over 500 words long ... somewhere to link extended musings when you approach the 500 word mark in a Forum?
Some think 200 words in a Forum is about right.
So how many words for a blog entry?
Blogging mates from a decade ago struck on 1,000 words per entry. We also ran with the idea that is must all spew forth in one go. So in some respects perhaps my lavatorial analogy was the correct one.
I know exactly how you academics and intellectuals and non-obsessive journalers view this kind of thing.
How many characters in Twitter? I forget.
Perhaps the OU should set some parameters in forums and Blogs, as it does for assignments and limit us to 300 words in a forum entry and 600 here?
Or not.
Parameters serve a useful purpose. Give a sculptor a mountain and look what they do. Give me a e-scroll and look what I do.
Parts 1 & 2 v.good. I like the writing style. vs Reflection seems a bit of a rant (My wife, 2010, this afternoon)
Me rant! Whenever?
OK.
This is the most tender exchange my wife and I have had in two years. She lives in another room in the house, rarely to leave, where at great expense to the pharmaceutical community she turns interviews with medical experts (in French and English) into multipage, overly quoted, qualitative reports which make an OU ECA look like a kindergarten doodle.
(A decade into this she is a better pharmacist and GP than our local ... pharmacist or GP. She has vetted and reviewed everything well ahead of it being issued. Which may explain why I have yet to die from asthma. I'm always pumped up with the latest best thing(s)
In an hour I'm poolside coaching Britian's future Olympian swimmers for the next few hours (think Rio in 2016 and beyond, some of them have only just turned 9).
I have a mindmap - hideous term, hateful concept, but when I've done one for a TMA and stuck to it the (bleep, bleep, bleep) things seem to provide structure for my unstructured way of thinking.
800 words of reflection.
Could I say it four ?
'Been there, done that?'
or a few more ...
'Been there, done that, enjoyed the learning journey, up for more.'
Not really worth 20% of the marks.
Meanwhile an eventful day in other ways, prioritise as you see fit:
A statue of Tom Paine was revealed in Lewes (where we live). It is July 4th. He had something to do with the 'Rights of Man.' (Or the rights of one man, him ...) as he was pissing off everyone in Sussex when he jumped ship to the Americas.
I found four baby guinea-pigs in the hutch that has been my responsibility to clean out for the last decade. Daughter just 14 couldn't give a monkeys, though 'til two years ago she adored them. I have called them: 'E,' 'C,' & 'A,' and 'H807.' As the children are finally beyond naming them. Though my son, now 12, did call them 'bite-sized.' Our dog, who has come to replace the G-Ps in our affections, is tender ... she was introduced to guinea-pigs as puppy and just about understands that they are neither small tennis balls or food. We have had some wonderful adventures with out pigs these last ... 12 years.
We haven't had rain for 17 years (or is that days, or weeks) so I felt I had to water the garden. This is having had rain from October 13th 2009 to March 11th without a break).
The papers are declaring it the worst lack of rain in the the first six months of a year since ... well, since the last time this happened in 1992, 1998 and 1976. I have been attempting to syphon water out of the bath into the garden as I did in 1976 age 13 ... and face the same problem. Gagging as the stuff reaches my mouth and finding the lip over the windowsill is impossible to overcome. Do I buy a pump?
What next?
My brain is yours for £ and $.
Oh, and a nine year old headache from my late father's estate that suggests I may be taken to court in France. The joke is the letter was sent by recorded delivery that requires a signature is unintelligible to our Postie so he just put it through our letter box. My wife suggests we could (and should) ignore it. Why when I write to France I do so in French ... while the French when they write to English speaking countries do so ... in French?
Anything else?
Not for now
800 words is probably harder to write than 2,000.
And what is reflection anyhow?
Not a rant, not 'stream of consciouness.'
An essay?
A grovel for marks.
Your choice.
But no one reads these things anyway.
Lurkers please say 'Hi'.
You'd hope after 19 weeks!
TMA01 the first draft of this 3000 word report was somewhere around 12000 words, too over 20 draft to cut down and looked dreadful in what might have been the final version.
Then I started again, off the top of my head, as if writing under exam conditions.
Success after much pain.
TMA02 the first draft was around 8000 words. Adopting the same process of putting everything in, then precising, prioritising, was still the approach. i.e. why use one quote when six will do
Before submitting I felt there was a misalignment between the question and what I had written. Trying to weave a tapestry to someone else's design isn't my style. Six re-writes to the final version. Happy.
TMA03 got me to the stage where I thought I was writing like an academic - I had nailed an 80% score on a thoroughly researched, well researched and justified piece. It needed a day or two to subtle, and someone else's eyes to point out that I had forked away from the question in the second part. Unspotted, the TMA went in. Disaster. From my perspective. And major disillusionment. In the 'real world' this doesn't happen because you are working with colleagues and collectively you are far more likely to stay on brief.
ECA. Still to complete, but the huge suprise was when I broke it into three parts having assembled it over the last month or so ... I came in several hundred words UNDER the required word count. i.e. I am now building something, rather than taking away.
Perhaps I should adopt the Graham Greene approach to writing. 500 carefully chosen words a day, rather than my preferred approach of the last decade, which is, as here, to write a stream of consciousness, at a jog, never looking back, except to spellcheck.
Piper Alpha - Disaster on an oil and gas platform in the North Sea, July 1988
Background / What Happened
A series of explosions and an oil fed fire on the Piper Alpha oil and gas platform in the North Sea on 6th July 1988, 120 miles Northeast of Aberdeen, killed 167 men. (Wikipedia, 2010)
Also see the moving BBC Documentary of 1989 'Spiral into Disaster.
An avoidable gas leak, followed by an explosion, that compromised other safety measures led to further cataclysmic and fatal explosions, which were compounded by a sequence of failures in safety procedures that weren't suitably 'joined-up' or authorised at a junior level. The explosions and following fire led to the death of 167 men, the loss of one rig and the closure of two others.
Lessons learnt should have resulted in a permanent shift in health & safety procedures in the oil & gas industries; events in the Gulf of Mexico would suggest otherwise
Oil production stared in 1976 on Piper Alpha with about 250,000 barrels of oil per day produced, increasing to 300,000 barrels. In 1980 the rig was converted to gas recovery ... wherein lies one of the causes of the disaster. Poor repurposing where safety was compromised.
The Piper Alpha platform comprised four modules which were initially separated by firewalls with the most dangerous operations distant from the personnel areas. The firewalls were 'firewalls' only - they were not designed to withstand gas explosions. When the rig was converted to gas some dangerous operations ended up being placed close to one of the command 'module.'
Because the platform was completely destroyed in the explosion and fire of July 6, 1988 and so many died, the chain of events leading to the disaster can only be suggested. (Wikipedia, 2010).
It reads like the run up to the sinking of the Titanic, a series of minor errors of communication and procedures comprising more series failings meaning that a single event quickly results in a cascade of other, often cataclysmic failures.
The were two pumps, A & B. The pressure safety valve on Pump A was removed for routine maintenance and replaced with disc of metal (a blind flange) with instructions that this pump must not be switched on under any circumstances. The work on maintaining the pressure safety valve was not completed when the next shift came on at 6.00pm and poor communication (failure of communication of something so important as 'DO NOT operate Pump A' failed to get through to the duty custodian. This would have not been a problem, and perhaps this situation had arisen before, but because chance would have it that Pump B lost pressure the need to operate Pump A arose. Not finding any communication to say otherwise, indeed, confusingly finding a docket that said the Pump was due for shut down for some other maintenance reason shortly, it was assumed to be OK. Fatal. When pump B stopped suddenly the Manager had only a few minutes to bring Pump A back online, otherwise the power supply for the offshore construction work that these pumps supplied would be compromised. Not being aware that there was no safety valve on Pump A and that it had been replaced temporarily with a disc of round metal across the pipe, when it came online, overpressure caused this loosely fitted disc to give way. Although six gas alarms were triggered the gas ignited before anyone could act. Further compromises in the safety system facilitated further explosions resulting in the gas line melting which released 15-30 tonnes of gas every second into the fire ... which was soon being fed by oil from two separate rigs that shared a communal oil pipe. The accommodation module where most of the men who were killed were sheltering, collapsed into the North Sea
Main Causes
106 safety recommendations were made coming out of Cullen enquiry which suggests there were almost as many causes for the disaster.
Occidental had a superficial attitude to safety the enquiry states.
‘I wouldn’t put it above or below other disasters. There’s an awful sameness about these incidents. They are nearly always characterised by lack of forethought and lack of analysis and down to poor management. It’s not just due to one particular person not following a procedure or doing something wrong. You always come back to the fact that things are sloppy, and ill-organised and unsystematic right from the top of the company downwards.’ Dr Tony Barrell, Former Chief Exectuvie North Sea Safety
I see it as a domino cascade in which each domino is twice the size of the one before ... the first domino is nothing more than a piece of paper not getting into the hands of the person who mattered, with the last domino being the collapse of the accommodation module into the sea. The BBC docu-drama on the subject was titled ‘Spiral into Disaster.’ There was an interesting interview with the former Chief Executive of North Sea Safety.
There are many contributing factors.
There was or can be ... and there was in this case, ‘a conflict between production and safety.’ Dr Tony Barrell, Former Chief Exectuvie North Sea Safety
Occidental new from a report published the previous year that there was potential for a high pressure gas explosion of such magnitude that it would be unstoppable.
* Pressure valve Pump A removed, this procedure poorly communicate to those who mattered.
* A second docket had been approved to take Pump A out for two weeks for routine maintenance. Failure to link these two permits proved disastrous.
* Replaced with ill fitting/unsuitable metal disc.
* Change of shift further compromising the failure in communication.
* Failure to ensure the new shift manager understood the state of Pump A 'because he was busy.'
* Simply put, the ‘procedures collapsed.’
* Loss of pressure in Pump B. It repeatedly failed to start risking the drill in operation getting stuck and all kinds of financial compromises and problems this leading to the necessity of calling in Pump A – which would not have happened had the docket saying it MUST NOT be started been seen.
* The pressure of gas once pump A came on was so great that it leaked passed the temporary metal plate.
* The safety valve that had been removed was sighted 15ft up and out of sight – otherwise someone may have noticed that this vital piece of equipment was missing.
* The first explosion
* Compromised by
* a) 1 of 2 parts of the automated fire fighting ‘deluge’ system on manual as for 12 hours of the day divers were in the water. (If activated the system would have possibly sucked them into the water drenching system). It was switched over regardless of where divers were working – on other rigs it would be isolated only where the divers were working, and only when they were in the water – not for longer, indiscriminate periods.
* b) proximity of a dangerous appliance to the command module (a failure in rig design when it was repurposed from oil to gas in 1980)
* c) modules not built to resist gas explosion, but only fire.
* Two men attempted to reach the deluge system to activate it. They left the accommodation block risking their lives ... and were never seen again.
* oil was being fed from two nearby rigs into a communal pipe. Due to loss of pressure on Piper Alpha this oil was drawn INTO the fire, feeding the flames which instigated such a powerful explosion that is engulfed the accommodation block and killed two rescue workers in a craft at the rig's base.
* riggers on these other two platforms felt they had no authority to shut off the oil that was evidently feeding the flames that were nearly 100m high. This delay because they felt inhabited from acting without the OK from senior managers who were hard to contact (on land) ... sounds like junior officers being unable to take the initiative from their generals in the First World War!
* Flames and smoke were being blown across the heli-deck preventing any rescue from here.
* Whilst fortuitous that the Occidental fire fighting vessel Tharos was at Piper Alphas it had to compromise on the powerful water cannons a) which were started to fast, jammed and had to be restarted over a ten minute period and b) they could put into operation as being hit by this powerful shot of water would kill a person c) the bridging crane would take an hour to extend to the platform ... when the next huge explosion occurred release 3 tonnes of gas per second, the Tharos had to retreat.
Those from the accommodation block who survived had ignored what little safety training they had been given, made their way under the rig and eventually jumped the ten storeys into the North Sea – some survived this, not all.
Main Effects Short Term
* 167 men killed.
* 167 grieving families and funerals.
* A memorial statue in an Aberdeen Park.
* An enquiry.
* New safety procedures adopted.
* Responsibility for safety on the rigs taken from the Department of Energy and put into to the Department of Health & Safety.
The Cullen enquiry concluded that the initial condensate gas leak was the result of maintenance work being carried out simultaneously on a pump and related safety valve. The second phase of enquiry made 106 recommendations for changes to North Sea Safety procedures, all of which were accepted by the industry (though you wonder what BP have been doing the last decade)
Occidental sank the remains of the Piper Alpha rig a year after the disaster and sold its interests in North Sea oil & gas exploitation.
Main Effects Long Term
Health & Safety measures and standards improved ... across the industry?
Billions spent on redesigning and improving the North Sea platforms. And all offshore platforms?
Putting in seabed shut off valves.
Lifeboats brought under the accommodation blocks
‘So much has been learnt from it, at least future events will have been prevented.’ Dr Tony Barrell, Former Chief Exectuvie North Sea Safety (Until 2010)
There are typically 10 gas escapes of the type they initiated the disaster on Piper Alpha a year ... it’s taken 22 years for another disaster on the scale of Piper Alpha to occur again.
Creation a the Piper Alpha Package .. . yours for $595. Obviously a price BPs' training and/or heath & safety department haven't been willing to play.
Health & Safety
'Important to think the unthinkable.' Dr Tony Barrell, Former Chief Exectuvie North Sea Safety
Not inclined to spend a lot of money on things that are considered extremely unlikely ever to occur.
Local Impacts
Any oil on the North East coast? Not aware of any
(Though as a child enjoying these beaches in the 60s there were patches of oil washed ashore from time to time that killed birds and threatened the bird sanctuaries and grey seal of the Farnes Islands).
Minimal. The North Sea Oil & Gas continued to thrive as long as there was/is oil and gas to retrieve and a market for it.
A number of men from Aberdeen and Oban involved in the rescue attempts receiving the George Medal for bravery.
A play 'Lest we forget' recalling the events of the disaster being performed on the 20th anniversary.
Global Impacts
The oil industry has had to pump more into health and safety .... more than it and its shareholders would have liked?
BP has set $20bn aside to alleviated the impact on the Gulf Coast. How will other oil companies behave? How will the insurance industry respond?
Substantial sums will now be set aside to alleviate future potential environmental impacts.
Offshore oil exploration has had a set back.
Will this see more emphasis going into nuclear ?
Things that have changed as a result of that event
Not enough, evidently.
As above, in theory 106 changes in practice.
Dearnley's paper (Dearnley, 2003) considers the support required to aid Enrolled Nurses (ENs) to become Registered Nurses (RNs) and the necessity to run open learning courses given the demand created in 1987 when the EN role was to be phased out.
The ENs were:
(it would be useful to know how far they had taken formal education, to GSCE/O'Level leacing school at 16 I guess?)
There were, in Dearley's words 'existing life responsibilities and events." (Dearnley, 2003)
MORE TO FOLLOW!
(Just been handed the final 'birthday list, edited by my wife, for my son who is 12 at 3.23am tomorrow morning and will no doubt be up to celebrate the moment. As I delivered him (with some help from my wife) it is an important memory for me too ... long story, but our Midwife was 45 miles away and turned up 35 minutes after the event ... an ambulance arrived 10 minutes after the event and said 'you seem to be doing fine' and went off and made themselves a cup of tea).
Oh joy.
"Emergency Home Birth" in the book we had was a chapter, but also for those in a real emergency a half-page check list. Guess which I used? Scissors, string, hot water and towels come to mind! And what to do if the umbilical chord threatens to throttle your child ... just as well, it nearly did, so I at least knew how to disentangle this Japanese knot-weed come power cable ganglion of rope).
There's a picture of father and son asleep, him on my chest, about an hour later. My wife was in the bathroom with the Midwife taking a bath and ensuring that the placenta made an appearance.
An 'event' to say the least.
(Six hours later I was in the West End of London presenting the final cut of the conference opener for the launch of the European Stock Market. It NEVER crossed my mind however to call my son 'EASDAQ' !)
WHERE WERE WE?
Dearnley can wait ...
I understood from the heading for TMA03 in H807 that 'it is permissible to use an extract from a very long message.' I therefore deleted the 900+ additional words that on two occasions occurred in a forum message.
Now the building blocks come out. What stages must be passed through, what needs to be included, to create an effective e-learning course.
Not a teacher, so the reading will be gone over with great care.
Fascinating. Something I should have studied long ago, in the 1980s when I become involved in the production of training videos, in the 1990s when these become interactive in from 2000 as we went online.
My role? Writing and directing the video material that anchored the learning, as 10-20 minutes narrative pieces or as case studies, or vignetters to be inserted into a learning design that was of no concern to me.
Now it is.
Everything here in will be thought through not only with the ECA in mind, but with the scheduling, costing and team-creation for this project which will start looking for sponsors in July.
A focus and an incentive to learn.
Whilst I Adore being online, and feel it offers something to learning ... in many cases, certainly longer or more demanding coruse, face-to-face must be a built in component.
Oxytocin
BBC Radio 4. 25 MAY 2010. C 10.30.
Why face to face is better than Facebook, because with out real human contact you don't get this hit of oxytcin.
Passion for a subject is self-evident when you meet fellow students with such passion. Try this online when of your 15 strong tutor group only FIVE have made much active contribution.
Yet our 'access' to other tutor groups is restricted or throwned upon.
Imagine going up to Oxbridge and finding you student life (and education) reduced to that with your allocated tutor and tutor group ... with the doors to the JCR locked. (And the MCR & SCR for that matter).
Is the learner-centred education at its worst or institution-centric learning at its best?
Bereft of sharing such views at the 'front line' I am now reduce to pasting them to a hidden wall, in an underground tunnel. i.e. where my fellow tutor group, and fellow students are least likely to pick it up.
Am I learning something about online learning? Of course I am. H807 is in desperate need of 're-invention' Rogers. 2003
REFERENCE
Rogers E, M Diffusion of Innovation(2003. 5th edition)
Hungry for face-to-face interaction I spent 90 mins sharing ideas on e.learning with the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA). This is an exciting time for sport in the UK with the London Olympics 2012 fast approaching - indeed athletes who hope to be on the podium have been working towards this goal for some time already.
How do we get more people to swim and win more medals?
E-learning has a part to play in this and I'm confident that the ASA will deliver.
I'll do my bit by addressing a specific learning problem that can be addressed with a simple, innovative, e-learning idea.
Frank Cotterell-Boyce the English playwright and author was featured on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs a few weeks ago. He remarked that as a boy he was held back in the final year at Primary School because he was too young. Far from being a negative experience he said that it empowered him - he had done it all before, of course he knew the topics.
I feel as if I should sign up for 'Innovations in E-learning' H807 next year, not just to get my head around the topic more fully (its a gargantuan topic on which you could never know enough) but because by then there will of course be new innovations to talk about.
I've just printed something off for this H807 Course on 'Innovations in e.learning.'
I've printed of the Assignment Guide ahead of putting TMA 1 togethe
Until now I've baulked at the cost of printer ink ... indeed I 've only had ink for the last week anyway.
It wasn't just that, with no shelves up and stacks of files I have been finding that anything that does get printed off gets lost.
So it gets filed offline & backed up.
In the last 24 hours I have been telescoped back to 1982 and my many adventures at university. I had a video production 'business' called Last Stand Video. I have a dozen Betamax tapes from this period which I have been meaning to transfer for decades. I will now see if I can view & log them, then transfer (i.e digitise) the juiciest bits.
There's a copy of production of Romeo & Juliet in which I played Mercutio. During this particular fight with Tibalt the nappy-pin holding up my pantaloons broke so I cutched them as well as my 'wound' as I died to hysterical laughter on the marble floor of Magdalen Chapel.
In an environment in which the coining of phrases is endemic I wish to invent the term wet.learning - learning that is conducted in and around water in relation to teaching people to swim and teaching teachers and coaches how to teach people to swim.
By defintion you cannot have anything electric or electronic around water; this negates e.learning of any kind.
even paper learning (p.learning) can be problematic as the stuff invariably gets wet, goes soggy, tears and is binned.
so we are left with orginal learning (o.learning), which like orginal sin committed by Adam & Eve is done in a semi-naked state.
I mock, I must. I've been involved in education, mostly corporate, and have never deemed it necessary to call it v.learning when we used video, though interactive learning & training became common place (though never called i.learning or i.training) - it was sometimes called 'clever' or 'smart' learning though ... but never c.learning or s.learning.
So back to wet learning ...
undertaken poolside where the acoustics are atrocious we often resort to grunts, sign language and waving our arms & limbs about in demonstration.
Did our ancestors in cave teach cave-kids to paint in such ways?
If there is to be any final definition of e.learning it should be 'effecitive learning,' the alternative be "*.learning."
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