Be open and ask. Speaking with the head coach about a series of classes I will give to swimmers at various levels and their parents and guardians on healthy eating and hydration for sport I pointed out that the videos he'd put up on the club website weren't great: it was hard to hear what the young nutritionists from Swim Englands were saying because they had loud music over what the were saying ... to the point that it drowned the out. He had put them up there without looking at them.

I have by now watch close to 16 nutrition for young athlete videos from the US and UK: I have found a couple that will work better.

I'm still at the exploration stage with this. I am still watching, reading, having ideas ... finding that may others have thought along the same way already - which is reassuring. I'm not going for originality, rather effectiveness, appropriateness and simple enough for me to be able to deliver it and field questions.

Everything is orientating towards the 'Plate of Food' as a way to visualise what should be on the plate, in what portions too.

Using dreams is problematic; you have to get up in the middle of the night. When the dream tells you something you have to run with it. If you don’t wake up, and stay awake to replay and interpret then the dream is lost. Try it someday.

In this dream … each day I go to a place of work, a movie set, workshop or community. Each day the route I drive becomes a little more familiar. Then I notice that rather than doubling back at the roundabout at the end of a long road on the edge of town to be able to get into this ‘place of work’ - a sharp, almost U turn from the side of the road that instead, if the traffic is clear I can hold back and when the road is clear go straight in to the entrance without the extra detour. After which things change. They open up in two ways.

I take my son to work (if it is work, it is more like a campsite) and I notice the incredible landscape on the horizon - it is like one of those kitsch Ben Ross paintings with a mountain top, with ridges and snow. (I never see or hear my son - I just know he is there). 

I say to my son that I should take him up there one day (as If I had ever ventured there). In an instant we have travelled the 15 miles onto the mountain. Another moment and the car is gone and I am on that ridge, suffering from vertigo and not enjoying it one bit. I try to remain chipper and offer false confidence to my son despite my coming to a deep break in the ridge which is full of soft snow.

I am stuck. I am barely able to cling to the precipitous edge. I am as reluctant to go back as I am to go forward. I need to get into the snow to get across the gap, but in all likelihood the snow will be soft and one of two things will happen: I will sink deep into the snow, or snow will collapse and spew me out over the mountain. Neither outcome is good. I wake. I dwell on it. If I get up for an hour and read I will forget it.

I relax back into it, just to take in the narrative of the dream. I find myself reflecting on my current circumstances - as you do, dreams are always routed in your real world. Is this chasm on the ridge full of snow the way I see the challenge of PGCE? Is it even the metaphorical chasm that comes in any development of an innovation?  How should I work with it?

First off , write it down. It is 4.04am. I am up. I woke from the dream about 45 minutes ago.

Then reflect on how I feel and why so often my dreams end on mountains and with snow. It is usually a wish unfulfilled, a challenge to great.

I reflect on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi ‘In the flow’ (only because his name appeared amongst others as I went through my OU Blog yesterday looking for inspiration for ideas from education (and corporate training).

What if, as seeking to get into the flow I overstretch myself, that having bumped along in a generally upwards trajectory, getting bored, finding a new challenge, I now find I have taken on too much - that I have taken too great a leap?

And how often has this been my undoing as my ADHD brain reaches for, then turns out the light of enthusiasm?

What if … I work to get over the chasm? I don’t make any move that will in all likelihood lead to death (even the virtual, dream variety). Currently I can not go forward or back - my son may have been with me on the way up, but he has wisely left me behind. I am on my own.

What if … it was just a dream?

Mihalyi Czsicksentmihalyi got me on the mountain, but Everett Rogers will get me over the chasm. You see I’ve been thinking of his ‘Diffusions of Innovations’ too. 

Diffusion of Innovation Theory suggests there is an S-curve of progression through a new idea’s development, take up, and becoming established. Famously it defines people as innovators, early adopters, late adopters and laggards.

I don’t like the word ‘laggard’ by the way. I don’t see the value of using pejorative terms for people simply because they are averse to change. Why shouldn’t my step-father, retired before the home computer consider getting any kind of device that will get him on the Internet? Why shouldn’t my equally ancient father-in-law not feel, well into his 90s, that any digital innovation that can make his life easier is something to adopt early and wholeheartedly? 

Importantly, and this is stretching my interpretation of a dream quite literally, diffusion of innovation theory developed to incorporate a chasm that would hinder an innovation's progress onto the break-away upwards slopes to adoption and success. 

Later diagrams of diffusion of innovation theory, a theory that developed in the early 50s and gained the chasm in the 70s or 80s (or later) show what to my mind could be this very break in the ridge that is preventing me from progressing onto the slopes that will take me to the top. 

My interpretation makes sense to me because there are two things on my mind: the growing fear, like an actor’s nerves before the first dress rehearsal, that I am not ready to get up in front of colleagues to do a ‘micro-teach’ (part of the week 6 requirements for the PGCE on which I have embarked) and the need to put my thinking on innovations in FE/HE education into a commercial proposition. 

The micro-teach will resolve itself with scripting, visualisation and practice. I know what I want, how I’d like the experience to play out and the outcome; I just have to put in the hours of preparation. Time for reading, looking back on notes is over. I can’t know the subject any less or more. I need to create a set of Rolodex cards (or just use Slides to create them digitally). [I order 100 Rolodex cards from an Office Supply shop). 

Likewise, the commercial proposal needs to become words on a blank sheet of paper, not just ideas in my head.

Remembering Dr Anthony Clare 

BBC Radio 4 7:30am 26 October 2020 and paraphrased from an article in the Times by Gyles Brandreth 

Number One: Cultivate a Passion 

Have something that you enjoy doing. The challenge for a school is to find every child some kind of passion -- something that will see them through the troughs. That's why I'm in favour of the broadest curriculum you can get.

Number Two: Be a Leaf on a Tree. 

You have to be both an individual -- to have a sense that you are unique and you matter -- while you also need to be connected to a bigger organism -- a family, a community, a hospital, a company. You need to be part of something bigger than yourself. A leaf that has come off a tree has the advantage that it floats about a bit, but it's disconnected and it dies.

Number Three: Avoid Introspection.

If you are a rather complicated person, people may avoid you. If, on the other hand, you are a centre of good feeling, people will come to you. The problem of being  introspective is that you find it difficult to make friends. Put an introspective person in a social group and they tend to talk about themselves. It puts other people off.

Number Four: Don't Resist Change. 

Change is important. People who are fearful of change are rarely happy. People are wary of change, particularly when things are going reasonably well, because they don't want to rock the boat, but a little rocking can be good for you. You need variety, flexibility, the unexpected, because they'll challenge you.

Number Five: Live for the Moment. 

Look at the things that you want to do and you keep postponing. Postpone less of what you want to do, or what you think is worthwhile. Do what makes you happy.

Six: Audit Your Happiness. 

How much of each day are you spending doing something that doesn't make you happy? Check it out and if more than half of what you're doing makes you unhappy, then change it. Go on.

Seven: If you want to be happy, be happy. 

Act it, play the part, put on a happy face. Start thinking differently. If you are feeling negative, say, "I'm going to be positive,' and that, in itself, can trigger a change in how you feel."

Remembering Dr Anthony Claire BBC Radio 4 7:30am 26 October 2020

He died three years ago. I've cobbled this together from the replay of an old radio programme and an historical article from the Times with Gyles Brandreth. 

Number One: Cultivate a passion 

It is important in my model of happiness to have something that you enjoy doing. The challenge for a school is to find every child some kind of passion -- something that will see them through the troughs. That's why I'm in favour of the broadest curriculum you can get.

Number Two: be a leaf on a tree. 

You have to be both an individual -- to have a sense that you are unique and you matter -- and you need to be connected to a bigger organism -- a family, a community, a hospital, a company. You need to be part of something bigger than yourself. A leaf off a tree has the advantage that it floats about a bit, but it's disconnected and it dies.

Number Three: avoid introspection.

If you are a rather complicated person, people may avoid you. If, on the other hand, you are a centre of good feeling, people will come to you. The problem of being  introspective that you find it difficult to make friends. Put an introspective person in a social group and they tend to talk about themselves. It puts other people off.

Number Four: don't resist change. 

Change is important. People who are fearful of change are rarely happy. People are wary of change, particularly when things are going reasonably well, because they don't want to rock the boat, but a little rocking can be good for you. You need variety, flexibility, the unexpected, because they'll challenge you.

Number Five, live for the moment. 

Look at the things that you want to do and you keep postponing. Postpone less of what you want to do, or what you think is worthwhile. Do what makes you happy.

Six, audit your happiness. 

How much of each day are you spending doing something that doesn't make you happy? Check it out and if more than half of what you're doing makes you unhappy, then change it. Go on.

Seven if you want to be happy, be happy. 

Act it, play the part, put on a happy face. Start thinking differently. If you are feeling negative, say, 'I am going to be positive,' and that, in itself, can trigger a change in how you feel."

Diagrams and Maps: Peninsula and Isthmus 

I loved to visualise things, to make charts, and maps. For much of my professional career I have defined myself as a ‘visualiser’. I take the complex and make it appear simple through visualisation: photography, illustration, video … 

Peninsula

Pain. Not recommended. Or was it? In the junior school, age 5 or 6 at the very most, we had a morning in the ‘senior’ school at Ascham House Prep School, Gosforth. We had a class, with maps, and Miss Short taught the words ‘Peninsula’ and ‘Isthmus’. I can see those huge maps held on a long wooden pool that were hung on the wall and opened to reveal the ‘Peninsula’. 

At the end of the class, and on the way out before returning down the road to the ‘junior school’ my older brother (age 7 or 8) entered and I gave him a hug. I got a thick ear from Miss Short for stepping out of line. I wonder if I only recall the meaning of Peninsula and that map because of the thick ear I received … or was it because of my boyish wonder at the map? I think it must have been the map - being shown something I had never seen before, and have it explained. Maybe because it gave a description to the ‘Point’ at Beadnell where we spent our holidays. Beadnell Point is a peninsula. At least on the scale of my world, which was the short walk from our cottage to either the rock or sandy beaches. When the tide went out, some of the rock promentories from my bedroom window created an isthmus I could cross. My adventures could now be mapped and shared. 

Give me some skin ! A Lesson in Cool 

I use ‘they’ to avoid identifying the gender of the teacher or students. 

The teacher was as cool as they come. They could not be flustered. Old school I would have pulled a tray out for mobile phones (or the paper bin) and sent at least one person out of the class. That is not the thing to do. Some of the students I learn later are SEND or EHC. 

The purpose of the class was to run through some definitions, like those above, on a template where the words have been left out. Each student had a paper copy to complete. It transpires that one student had done a different course and covered this the year before and could rattle through everything like an undergraduate in medical school. There was one student who very clumsily kept their phone on, just under the desk, as they read and replied to text messages. Intermittently they would interrupt the class with a complaint, or fasile remark. Somehow, I still can’t fathom how, by the end of the class this student had jotted down a least a few of the answers - albeit once someone had given the answer.

As they were a close knit social group having them work in twos or threes worked well to get everyone working together. One group may have had to be a four, as one person didn’t want to be left out, or with someone they didn’t get on with. Understanding and going with the social dynamic was crucial. 

I liken the atmosphere eventually to being more like a Scout Leader around a campfire than a teacher at the end of the desk. 

Far from seeing how digital could contribute here > we had a 3D human body with 3D goggles in mind I rather thought a real 3D model made in Props by the Theatre Students would have the most impact. A giant finger like a large log in the middle of this virtual fire in the centre of the class.  Of course, medical students do get the real thing. That must be impactful. The very thought of it makes my brain prickle. The multi-sensory and emotional experience of cutting into a cadavre to look at the layers of the skin.

NOTE TO SELF: There is a template for more formal evaluations. I will use this, but any posts will be PRIVATE. 

Nothing beats this platform. I felt this from the start in 2010. I guess it migrated from a Notice Board List Serve thing I even remember from 2001. 

It works because it is a hybrid, part blog, part noticeboard. It is simple. You write into a template and have parameters. Parameters are old school, like writing copy for print editorial. Parameters help too. I can't prattle on for too long (or cut and paste an essay). I could add it as an attachment though, and media file sizes have to be compressed too. Wise in 2020 when an image from a fancy phone can be so huge. Just learn to make them smaller and lower resolution.

I can chose to keep this entirely private to me, shared to the OU or shared to the world. 

I wish other institutions took blogging by students seriously and did this too. It worked when I was studying here as fellow students knew exactly where to find me and we could talk/collaborate between each other - fellow OU students only invited. So comments ran well. 

All I was meant to note here, now that I have 'education' on my mind courtesy of the PGCE is that I stumbled upon a letter from my later mother from 2005 in which once again she tried to sell me the virtues of taking a PGCE, even if I didn't have the degree in Art, which is all I could then see me teaching, not Geography (my first degree), perhaps History (gained in 2016) or Education (my MA here gained in 2013) or even sport given my loft Swim England Coaching qualifications. 

Of what value were our school 'reports' from Prep School in the 1970s? Everything is about place in term, place in exams, and the disparaging remarks such as 'Rather disappointing! He is VERY careless over elementary and his oral work is weak'. As I was 10.2 I rather blame the dreadful teaching practices of Mr Denis Sullivan who caned boys who couldn't recall accurately vocab lists he drilled into us. Mathematics > excellent. As it remained throughout school - have I missed something all this time? Geography 'faultless'. Art 'Excellent'. It all makes me cringe. And I learn 50 years on that most of the teachers had no qualifications to teach. What did our parents pay for? 

I have to take notes or I remember little. Or I simple miss what was said. I learnt to deal with this two decades ago by using a dictaphone to record meetings. It made me listen back to what had been discussed to flesh out notes taken at the time and get a fuller insight into what was said, even having a chance to reflect on what was or what was not agreed and the emphasis people were putting on something. That was 1992.

Now I use a phone, to record voice notes, to snatch images of presentations, and what I missed in our Week 5 Class, one student joining remotely who was physically placed at a desk via a laptop so that they could listen in and observe. There would occasionally be a plaintive cry to turn him around or to answer a question. He could hear us and we could hear him perfectly well. Someone offered a story of a partner at a firm of solicitors being wheeled around on a trolley. There are movies where they do this well - science fiction becoming science fact.

If If take notes, old school, like in school or a lecture, then I will miss too much. I won't pick up on conversations, I wont be able to look up and see how the teacher/lecturer is answering a question, or pay proper to what and how a fellow student is replying. My problem, I am ADHD, is that everything is a stimulus to remember something, or think about something else: that font reminds me of a cereal packet, but which one? My fellow student takes photography - has she replaced my colleague who took photography who I only realised had left a week or so yet she has been gone since months ago. Or where have I seen that person before? Why do I recognise her? Is she a parent of a swimmer, someone from Lewes? I will be just as distractable as I go through my typed up, hand written and recorded notes days later but the cumulative time spent ought to mean that I fill in most of the gaps left by the previous pass. 

Being digital I'd say not. 

I do two things regularly as an aide-memoire.

I keep a 'day diary' > once a closed blog, now simply a Google Doc broken into days of the week. I just bullet point and add the odd screenshot or link.

I am hit all week (my choice) by emails, or posts in Social Media . Of late these just get grabbed and weekly or even monthly added to a folder in Google Photos. It is surprising what I can find in there, but it works. I have the 2/4 PGCE classes I have attended as notes, some VoiceMemos, photos and screenshots. I will have to 'get these ducks in a line' sooner rather than later. Historically a process that foreshadows a TMA. I should try and do this ahead of each weekly face to face class so I am ready for any questions about what we have already done. I also need to be more knowledgeable of the two weeks I missed.

My immediate reflection is on the nature of the ever changing world of digital tools and platforms. Blink and they have upgraded, been bought by one of the big players (Microsoft or Google). Cynically I expect everyone of these to be able to do everything in due course. Google Meet will be like Sceencastify and no different to YouTube with plugins ... 

I've just done a simple edit of two Screencastify videos in the Screencastify Video Editor.

There's no escaping it. Of all the blog platforms I have used - THIS is the best. It helps that it is simple. It helps that you can't dick around by scheduling posts for two weeks then abandoning it. And when you get behind, unless I am mistaken - I cannot go back in time. And there is a word limit. And they squeeze file sizes if you post an image. You learn how to compress an image. Parameters help. 

I want to pick up on the PGCE I am taking. A blog is wanted. It started 5 weeks ago. I joined in week 3. I have kept notes in a doc for every class. I keep a 'work diary' daily anyway - no longer formally in a closed WordPress blog, but simply a Doc where I jot down names, people, tasks, links, some screenshots and images. Just enough to remind me what I was up to. Not much better than the Five Year Diary I kept in my teens (from age 13).

I'd like to think there is always enough to job your memory; to remind you what was going on. What 'reflective diary' needs though are feelings: what did I make of that? I did I feel about this? And honesty. So plenty of entries will be closed. And no names, not even initials. But something to indicate to me who I mean.

I am using Google Keep to manage my tasks and time. I like that I can create lots of shot lists of tasks to do to get a thing done. I can be guilty of noting tasks to do that are either such a low priority they will never get done ... or so tortuous that they will left to fester until the last minute. Tax returns come into this category. If I lived by lessons learnt I'd do the things I hate the most first. 

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and ‘Flow Theory’ and Japanese Kaizen in manufacturing were promoting the approach discussed here by Dylan William in the early 1990s. 

How come education, at least in the some parts of the public sector in the UK, has been so slow to evolve? 

Coursera was launched over 10 years ago to create the best learning and put it online. The Open University has been around for 50 years. 

Digital does not mean remote working, it means working with the very best resources in the classroom and workshop, some face to face, some blended, as self-paced learning and for revision.

It requires a culture of continual change and improvement, something I was closely invovled with throughout the 1990s. To say that education has not kept up denies the phenomenal success of some online learning brands. People are hungry for it. What is more, what you create for your class could be as effective for learners across the globe. 

Subscribing to a magazine is one thing; reading it is another.

What do you subscribe to?

I get Time Magazine, and Stand To! The journal of The Western Front Association. I should subscribe to Private Eye - every two weeks I am looking around my local corner shop for the latest edition. 

The new normal in education is constant change. Nothing I learn to do lasts long before a new, better, faster more intuitive way of doing the exact same thing comes along. 

Today I am:

shooting video with a gimbal on my iPhone

learning how to use Pear Deck

trying to take some time off work

trying to get reimbursed from some expenses

And as if these are not equally challenging, 'Estates' decide to lock me in the LRC. Thankfully I have learnt to keep my keys on me at all times - it has happened before.

That and just to make life a challenge I have applied for a job at the Open University ... and at Coventry University Online, and King's College London, and UCL, and ...

Well, you get the picture.

I like change and a challenge.

Do I need a fourth or fifth degree? Would I enjoy it? Of course.

Art History because I want to put this focus on my interest in the history of the First World War - it is artists of this period that would be my focus.

The MEd to keep my hand in. Or an MRes.

Or start a PhD to complete over several years while doing a PGCE at the other end.

All of these or just stick with the garden, Netflix and a bit of light reading.