Personal Blogs

Fig.1 A USSR Second World War memorial in Bulgaria

While the above in Bulgaria is considered by the Russian Embassy in that country to be graffiti, I rather think that it brings the memorial to the attention of a contemporary audience. I know of and have photographed many such monuments around the UK which could be brought to life.

From Oxford

Fig.2. A coloured-in plaster-of-paris replica of a Roman Statue

See how Roman statues originally looked. How about applying this approach to our statues and memorials too? Many are already getting 'walk-by' voice over tracks. Why stick with augmented reality. Go the whole hog. 

From First World War

 Fig. 3. Lewes War Memorial

A golden angel with silver wings perhaps?

Imagined your local war memorial in gold leaf? in silver? 

From WW1 Memorials

 Fig.4. Sir William Goscombe's 'The Response' - Newcastle City Centre

Imagine painting these figures in vibrant natural colours and lighting it at night? That would get the attention of the crowds going out on the town (Newcastle) at night.

From E-Learning IV

 Fig 1. Essential reading on British Forces on the Ypres Salient in 1917

I take back what I said a couple of days ago about a module (not OU) that comprises a reading list and set of essay questions. Sometimes I feel the OU modules I have done are too prescriptive, that all of us are passengers on a learning train that will not permit anyone to leave the service. You work from and are assessed on the content given - excellent, succinct and contained. This does not suit everyone; never does the scary freedom to read from a reading list. In many cases the variety seen in both approaches, with overlap, is how and when one comes to understand something.

Back to formal reading

It matters that you are directed to the right book. This is the right book on Passchendaele to understand from a general strategic, to operational, to tactical level what took place.

I read 'Passchendaele: the untold story' first in May for a presentation in June.

The purpose was to lay out the chronology of events and compare two battles within the Passchendaele or 'Third Ypres' conflict relating to command. I took notes: highlighted in the eBook which I then typed up in a Google Doc before creating a presentation. Over two months later I read the book again as if I had never seen the book before; on the one hand I worry about my sieve like brain, on the other I am intrigued to understand what is going on.

From E-Learning IV

Fig.2 Notes taken in Google Docs from the highlight sections in the eBook

On second reading, with the tracks and sleepers of the general chronology becoming established and retained knowledge, and with an essay title ringing in my head, the highlights I make in the eBook are, with a few exceptions, totally different. I am reading the same book, but taking something very different from it. I have a highly selective, easily distracted brain - nothing sticks if it doesn't have to. I know a few people with a photographic memory: they appear to read something once then have the entire contents at their fingertips to apply to a problem. My memory is the opposite - nothing at all that I don't deem of importance to the task at hand will be retained. I have, side by side, the notes I took in May and the notes I am currently taking - they could be from different publications; I struggle to find any common ground. 

There will be a third reading

This third reading will have different purpose as in due course I write a comparative history between Third Ypres: Passchendaele and the First Gulf War to fulfil a desire to respond to something my late grandfather said in 1992 'That's nothing compared to Passchendaele' he said as he watched the First Gulf War unfold on TV. He saw the differences between foot soldiers as unrecognisably different, whereas I saw the prospect of having a leg blown off or being gassed as more than faintly similar. Had the generals used the tactics of 1992 in 1917 they would have gained more ground and lost fewer men; something had been learnt in 75 years of war then.

Fig.3. The mud of the First Gulf War

Visualising the above I imagine a desert; the state of my brain before I read, that over time acquires an invasion of cacti, followed by ground cover plants, until eventually there are established trees and a rich ecosystem.

Hardly surprising, but on second reading you pick out more detail; you see things that you missed, or couldn't take in the first time round. I'm the kind of person who would apply this to entire modules: that the student who wants to should be allowed to, for a considerable discount, to re-sit a module they have already done. Why not even a third time if your goal is to master a subject? A' Level students with poor grades will 'cram' for a year to improve on these. Through-out life things we want to do are achieved as a result of tackling the problem repeatedly until we crack it. 

Finally, I conclude, that given how complex we are, so learning needs to offer a similar level of variety; there can be no perfect system, or learning design pattern. We learn in different ways, and educators teach in different ways. E-learning isn't a panacea, it is simply another approach the complements ones we have always adopted, not least learning directly from experts themselves through talking things through.

More of us should be able to or should have been able to retake classes we flunked - with a different teacher, if not in a different institution. It shocks me to see how a student at school can be put off a subject they enjoy as they don't relate to or get on with the teacher - so change the teacher. 

From E-Learning IV

 Fig 1. Read a book ... several times, then submit an essay from a list

This is 'learning design' or 'instructional design' written on the back of a fag packet by a loan lecturer. An occassional lecture and student gathering may be meant to add some variety. One sheet of A4 provides the year's curricullum while a second sheet provides a reading list. And all this 'at a distance' - in my case over 200 miles using a Virtual Learning Environment that makes a beginner's guide to DOS written in 1988 look friendly. NOT the OU. Not dissimilar to my undergraduate degree except that it at least had a tutorial most weeks: one to one, or a small group with a 'subject matter expert' is a privileged luxury that works - though yet to be achieved on a massive scale, even if there is a trend this way with massive, open online courses (MOOCs). 

I can compare a variety of institutions as I have studied with so many: Brookes has a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) that is simple and easy to use- it's a Mini Cooper to the OU's Audi Estate. Birmingham's VLE, ironically as I'm studying the First World War with them is like a deep, impenetrable bank of barbed wire. I've given up on their library and so use Amazon ... not always cheap, but I hope to flog off my substantial WW1 library in due course. 

From E-Learning IV

Fig. 2 SimpleMinds (App) mindmap on 'bite and hold' tactics in the First World War

Meanwhile I'm back to the thrilling conclusion as I plod through the mire of a 4,000 word essay that by reading the above at lead three times I will have an answer. Here it adds variety to read it in print, on a Kindle and as an eBook: each reveals something slightly different. I take notes pen on paper, annotate into the eBook and build a mindmap as I go along. But there is no one to share this with, no 21st century 'connectivity', no tutor as online cataylst and guide, no student forum or blog (not for the want of trying).

Or is learning ultimately always you and your soul working in focussed isolation at Masters level without the distraction of others or the tight parameters of a formal module?

Should you feel inclined to take an interest in Passchendaele then this is the most lucid, objective and reasoned contemporary explanation of how and why the chronology of events turned out as they did.

From E-Learning IV

Fig.3. Sir Douglas Haig, Command in Chief of the British Army

Haig and the politicians of the day can and should be held responsible for the unnecessary slaughter of Third Ypres. What was gained over four months in 1917 was lost in three days in 1918. The depth, detail and objectivity of current scholarship shows absolutely that Haig was profligate with the life of his soldiers, flipped and flopped his policy and would not listen to criticism while Lloyd George having gerrymandered his way into the top job as Prime Minister could not get rid of Haig and so failed in his role to supervise his generals. 

From E-Learning III

Fig.1 Education and qualifications. The fun of it. True or False? 

I paraphrase, no doubt from someone else paraphrasing, but it was said in relation to the results our children picked up last week and are getting today. I'm a parent in the camp of having one of each. We want them to do well, we want them to move on from. 

Results are always relevant to context and so often scrambled by personal circumstances; where you are 'at', family life, health, maturity and so on. 

The worst advice I got age 12 or 13 was to keep my options broad; I became a magpie, rather than a specialist. Whilst it is hard to expect a young person to know what it is they want to do, once they know it is this focus, having a goal, that motivates them to do well.

Fig.1 Great War Diaries

This series, each episode an hour long, features six or so characters per episode, most from episode to episode drawing on their diaries and letters. A lifetime interested in the First World War I am still amazed and thrilled at the stories that are told and the quality of dramatisation. Without any doubt in my mind THIS is the series that our generation will remember in relation to the marking of the centenary of the First World War.

Elfriede Kuhr, featured above, joins us as a 15 year old developing a crush on a German trainee pilot. Born in what is now Poland she went on to marry a Jew and perform in ante-war performances, having to flee Germany in 1933. 

Inspired stuff; though the four universities offering free courses sadly offering little that relates directly to any of this series at all. A lost opportunity. There is a need for a module on the First World War, not niche parts of it, nor a one hundred year sweep from the 1860s to 1960s.

This stunning production, with the highest production values and a budget to match will see many of the actors appearing in movies and TV, with the director surely moving on to Hollywood.

Brilliant

You'd think I'd be more savvy. Recently I've had an authentic looking email and webpage link from the Inland Revenue suggesting I had a small tax rebate ... only on clicking on links from this that looped back to the same page did I realise something fishy was going on. The recent scam of emails from 'me' came about as I succumbed to what appeared to be an email from AOL saying the storage on my account had reached capacity - plausible having had an AOL account since they took over Compuserve in 1996. WRONG! This was the breach which has seen several hundred emails going to my contact list. AOL have now blocked this. If in doubt phone or text me and judge for yourself. Asking some question like, 'what did we call strawberry sauce on an ice-cream in Beadnell in the 1960s might do it!!'

Fig.1 Buyer beware!

Have you come across this? Every so often a book is priced outrageously. Do some people actually buy at this price?! Is it an error? Is it a deliberate error that improves the ranking of an item or a seller on Amazon?

I've been buying ex-library books for 28p +P&P. 

Like old VHS cassettes there are books being 'dumped' - some are out of print gems that have not been digitised so you get to reference directly a book that has been cited rather than relying simply on what others have thought. 

Fig.1. Habit, boredom or an obsessive nature? 

I match the clothes pegs to the item going on the line. I've done this for years and dropped it into the conversation like a confessional at Sunday Lunch. My wife and daughter became very passionate about it - saying I always got it wrong. They in turn confessed to going out and changing the pegs around if I had made a mismatch of colour, or peg type. It appears that the wooden pegs should go with the yellow items, not the yellow 'soft' pegs. We never have enough white pegs and no black pegs at all.

My response to this discovery is to deliberately miss-match all the pegs and then see who is first to go out and change them. 

It goes beyond this too - on how I put items out individually, or hang them over the line *

Can you imagine what life is like indoors?

Because no satisfactory system can be agreed upon the preference is not to put anything away at all: clothes, dishes and books come to mind.

Is there a gene for this kind of thing as it comes entirely from my wife's side: a combination of a desire for order, an inability to throw anything away and disagreement on each other's systems.  My mum had a simple answer: if it didn't have its 'place' it went in the bin; the house looked forever like a show-home where no one lived, but at least you had a reason to get the vacuum cleaner out as you could find more than a patch of carpet to use it on.

With autumn approaching the dryer will be used.

Oh shit. I've just noticed its raining and I've just put the washing out. Now. Do I tug everything off and leave the pegs on the line (my wife), take it all down and bung it in the dryer ... or just leave it in the hope that the sun and wind later in the day will still do its work???!

From E-Learning IV

Fig. 1 M25 traffic - on a good day

This was for a 135 mile journey, mostly M23, M25 and M40. I've done worse : 27 mph the same journey. Sometimes you wonder whether to take the car out or not. Crawling around the M25 has become my recurring nightmare : you've got to plan for lengthy delays with a tank of fuel, water and grub. At least I had our teenage son with me so I got to hear and ask about a substantial part of his iTunes playlist. And an automatic - a few years of stop starting in jams made me a convert. I'll have a self-driving car please then climb in the back to sleep, read, watch a movie or go online.

From E-Learning IV

 Fig. 1 You have sixty minutes. 

I also have one, three and thirty minute timers. I use sixty when I simple MUST get a few hundred words down on the page. I use one minute as a kickstart that can see me happily working away two or three hours later.

This is for some fiction writing. I know that the most crucial thing is to sit down and get on with it. Without distractions. I don't allow myself distractions during this hour. My usual way of doing things is summed up in two words 'anything but ...' Typically I will prepare, research, think about it, jot down some notes ... even sleep on it, even, in fact, especially in the middle of the day.

I've got four or five hours in the bag. I need to lay down a couple more today.

Fig. 1. Kit Harington stars in Testament of Youth

It's a good time to read Vera Britain's autobiographical story set during the First World War - based on the movie trailer we're in for a treat next year when this comes out. There's no escaping the hundredth anniversary of WW1 so go with the flow I say.

'Study a period in history until you can hear its people speak' said the historian E H Carr - correct me if I paraphrase, I've struggled to find the page in his 'What is history'. These days you study in a period until you can hear its people speak and write a screenplay (or radio). 

 Fig.1. British Soldiers struggling in the mud - The First Gulf War (early 1991)

1) The cool, calm and quiet of the early morning - my work space.

2) The dog rolling over on her bed and wagging her tail for a bit of TLC

3) A pot of coffee

Set to go. iPad open on a Kindle eBook on the First Gulf War; Mac Mini in Google Docs. Working on something my grandfather said in 1991 when watching a documentary on a DLI private in Saudi Arabia waiting to enter Kuwait during the First Gulf War : 'That's Nothing Compared to Passchendaele', he said regarding the regional news programme from BBC's Looks North. Was it nothing like the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres July - November 1917) or more similar than different? Scale and technology were different, operation and tactics different due to the technology and lessons of previous conflicts, mud for sand ... but a soldier when hit by shrapnel or loses a mate feels the same pain. And there was mud too (see above). There mistakes and the wrong kit. 

The remark was pointed at the individual soldier's lot. BBC Look North were doing a profile of a 'day in the life of a private soldier of the Durham Light Infantry'. It was when looking at the man's rations and gear that my grandfather, by then in his 94th year, said this. It's had me thinking ever since, not least since the plethora of 'soldiering' we are getting and will get during the Centenary Commemorations of the First World War.