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Scenarios not conversations

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This is a scenario framework for learning.

1) There is a situation

2) There is a certain response

3) click

4) and there is an outcome.

This is NOT a conversation.

It is a situation that will have consequences, a decision is taken to do one thing or another, and there is an outcome.

In this instance I guess they've gone for a beer rather than gone to the movies, or had an argument and gone their separate ways.

Having developed a script along these lines to support age group swimmers with asthma, I am now looking at Independent Travel Training for Students with Special Educational Needs.

My mentor/tutor and guide is Anna Sabramowicz.

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Design Museum

Lunch at 4:30pm

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The idea is that you leave 5 hours between meals during the day and 12 hours overnight. I just forget to have my lunch. I was 'pooliside' half an hour before the National Squad turned up. Perhaps I should have waited until they had arrived in order to run through some tips on nutrition.

This is  no longer a diet: I lost 6 kg from 1st to 31st August eating like this - low to no carbs, no sugar at all, and plenty of veggies.

Changing behaviour takes a great deal of effort by someone.

In this instance it was my wife and a year of reading up on gut microbes. Then she has taken time off work and decided that I would be her 'proof of the pudding' to use the wrong expression. I have cheated now and again: a few bears, packets of crisps.

And then has been running. Supposedly a couch to 5k, but getting a run in during the working week is proving difficult.

Monday: at 6:30am I can't do that too often

Wednesday I can get one in 4:30 to 5:30 before swimmers.

 

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Design Museum

Readability for Scenario-Based eLearning

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http://www.hemingwayapp.com

Recommended to make you sentences short, focused and clear. 

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It looks like a sausage roll, it feels and smells like a sausage roll ...

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What do I know until I've tried it?

The Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll. It looks, smells and feels like one. The grease, pasty and taste all say sausage roll (albeit a cheap one). Is it better to support veganism in this way or is it all about the bottom line? Being vegan I loath the meatiness of this: the taste and grease are an unpleasant reminder of what meat recovered from a carcass and disguised in a product can be like.

Don't eat meat, don't eat fake meat - turn to veggies.

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Design Museum

I'm going to take a bus

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I'm going to take a bus an imagine it is the first time I have ever been on a bus. I must have taken a bus with a grandparent, or an older sibling. Unlike kids today I was taking the bus a couple of miles up the road to school when I was 7 or 8. Perhaps age 6 with my older brother. 

I remember taking my young son on a double-decker bus for the first time. He was so excited about the bus with the 'windy stairs' to the top deck. Similarly on his first train journey he held up his ticket thrilled to be going on such a trip.

I am getting into the head of a young person with special education needs as I work my way through a 90 minute transcript with an educator who works with SEND students. 

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Design Museum

BSKB Maths, English and IT

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As an FE College we need to assess levels of English, Maths and IT skills. We do this using BSKB.

This task was somewhat curtailed today by the IT sign ins changing, slow speeds and no staff. I resorted to looking up a get around ... on my private blog, my learning journal for college stuff. THIS is where I see the greatest value in a blog, a learning journal or a work diary, is to keep brief details of what you do, tagged in a way to make it easy to search.

I looked up BSKB and could relive my first run through the system and then the get around. The only pain is that the get around requires typing in a 76 character URL of mizxed upper and lower case, numbers and signs. 

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Design Museum

Great Day until this happened !

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Ending my first 12 hour day, 7:30 am out of the door, 7:30pm home, a pheasant 'floats' into the road and hits the wing mirror hard. It cops it. I roll down the window and grab the mirror before it clatters and breaks too. Its neck broken (the wing mirror, and no doubt the poor pheasant too) I can see that the entire unit will have to be replaced. That'll be £125 parts and labour sad

Otherwise the Digital Editor, Learning Technologist and Head Coach had a great day: an item added to The Western Front Association website - ironically the Gallipoli Association annual conference, a day developing the Students with Special Education Needs projects - transcribing the interviews and seeking ideas and assistance from colleagues internally, and then my first evening 'poolside' as the new Head Coach at Hailsham Swimming Club.

Home as our son gathers up his belongings to head for Paris on a six month placement with Kenzo (male fashion design - though they want him for his graphic art/illustrator skills).

I'm reading stuff and nodding off in bed by a shocking 8:45pm

I'm not so much as 'keeping the wolf from the door' as having the time of my life. 

Throw in some sailing and safety boat duties on the sea, some life-drawing and vegan cooking, running and walking the dog ... 

 

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Testing Ricoh Theta SC for SEND Project

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Revisiting my skills at using the 360 camera to create a VR tour through the Learning Resource Centre and several things occur:

1) I had forgotten how tricksy it can be to set up.

2) Once connected between the 360 camera and my iPad I then had to remember how to use the manual settings for White Balance and Exposure, and using the self-timer so that you are not caught in the picture

3) The results were either soft, or, had this ring effect.

I hope it is a further quality setting that I need to engaged - i.e. High Resolution images. I did lend it out for three weeks. 

The trials and tribulations of the learning technologist continue.

 

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Design Museum

The State of the Union - the United Kingdom one. Tattered!

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This blowing in a strong south westerly breeze sums up the state of the United Kingdom: should see Ireland United, should see Scotland taking a referendum on independence. I'm less sure about Wales. Check your history. Was it ever a country? It was at best three regions: North, South and the Marches.

 

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Design Museum

Sidling up to Asa Briggs

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A bust of Asa Briggs graces the Lewes Town Council Chamber after a Cllr Ruth O'Keefe was asked if she could find it a home by the family. I used to see him, in his 90s. on Keere Street or in his garden. I pay my respects at every monthly full council meeting. 

 

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Design Museum

RIP Democracy or birth pains of a new order?

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One of the many participating in the Stop The Coup gathering on Cliffe Bridge, Lewes on Saturday. Is it RIP Democracy? I wonder, wearing an historian's hat, if this is more a case of going through a painful transition to something different, more modern, more accountable and more representative. 

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Design Museum

Casual Litter Picking Reveals a Trend

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Feeling a certain civic pride and duty as a Town councillor I know pick up litter when out walking or running. There is a pattern: takeaways, plastic bottles and untouchables. I don't pick up used tissues! 

In Lewes, until recently, we had none of the take away chains - yet I find Macdonald's milk shake cups, bags and happy meals. We recently had a Subway open and within a 5 to 10 minute walk from their outlet in all directions you can now find a wrapper or coffee cup.

Then there are the plastic bottles.

If we are banning plastic bags, then why not plastic bottles? The town has plans to reinstate water fountains and to add others.

I would oblige take away outlets to at least have promotional advertising on 'Littering' in the outlet, and potentially on the offending litter.

'Please put me in a bin'

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Mindhunter, Mindboggling

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Great stuff. I only turn the TV on to watch it. 

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Coach Vernon

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 30 Aug 2019, 17:33

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.

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Design Museum

Fifty Years. Young Tutor, Retired Tutor, Very Old and Wise

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Dr Zbigniew A Pelczynski 1958 ti 1988 to 2018. Catch him on the radio on Saturday. Polish born he was 14 when Germany invaded Poland, 19 when he took part in the Warsaw Uprising and survived only to be put in a concentration camp. Some story, finally relieved in 1944 he joins the British Army. A visit to Oxford in 1946 and he falls in love. Learns English in Gateshead, gets a scholarship to St Andrews, then turns up in Oxford for his MA and PhD and then he picks up tutoring jobs until he finds tenure at Pembroke College where he tutors Philosophy and East European History. 

There's much more besides: he set up scholarships to brings Polish students out of communist Poland and when communism fell he was invited to advice the government on how to set up a civil service and he went on to set up The School for Leaders.

Has he retired? He is blind. He is almost confined to his home. Always an early adopter he has had a Mac for ever, then an iBook for reading very large text books and over the last two years Alexa is his savour for reading books, finding radio stations and even calling his family - whether they are elsewhere in the house or 100 miles away.

He's my father in law. 

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Design Museum

Climate Change Close Up

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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. 

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Design Museum

Too hot? Try this.

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Is this a cold hot water bottle, or a cold bottle? Or simply insane! Get yourself a fan or air conditioning?

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Design Museum

Instructional Videos; How to ...

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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. 

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Design Museum

Taking the piss: Big Bear, Little Bear and Baby Bear

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Independent Travel eLearning for Special Education Needs and Disability Students

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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.

 

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Design Museum

So much to love in Barcelona

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The off chance one-off exhibitions were the greatest surprise, such as Olin Maspons the Spanish photographer. 

You see quickly that he frames every shot as a painter would. They are masterfully done, often witty, sometimes shocking and usually arresting. As much photo journalism as model work.

As I find across Barcelona a great deal of thought, care, expense and preparation goes into these exhibitions. Barcelona behaves like and deserves to be the capital city of an independent nation.

 

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Elearning for Students with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND)

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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.



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Design Museum

Beat Asthma Before Asthma Beats You

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My asthma awareness script for age group swimmers is now done. The next step is to cost it, fund it and produce it. I feel like the teenage who got into video production age 17 - 40 flipping years ago!

Am I as excited? A bit, though I lack the drive and have far too many other distractions.

 

 

 

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Google Classroom and Google Drive

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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.

 

 

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Design Museum

How I Forget Things ?

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I've been fascinated in Ebbinghaus ever since the OU introduced me to his work. I've come to believe that this is a generalisation. Like all populations there are outliers: in this case, those who are better able to hold onto information and those who are not. I am on the 'do not' end of the scale. A lecture or class followed by review and homework and testing, then further prompts and exams worked for me. Anything less and I lose it. I don't concentrate enough in the class or lecture anyway, even note taking becomes mechanical.

This work offers explanations and methods.

REad the short paper by 'The Forgetting Curve' by Dr John Whitman 

 

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