foolfillment: the blog

Land+Living: Seeing MPreis

The impact of comment moderation… [daily dose of imagery] boats through bridge. Sam asked what the boats in this photo are called, people took it upon themselves to answer, excpept where usually you’d get one comment and then everyone else would not bother, here, because all comments have to be approved before posting there were 74 comments sent before Sam had chance to approve any of them

Read this :Probationers / Don’s BlogThis article by my old heidie links to and excellent powerpoint presentation of a mindmap on how The Curriculum for Excellence could be developed, in this case within East Lothian schools.

While this maynot be a journal entry I wanted to link to it anyway, I have lots to do today and need to remind myself to read this sometime in th enear future. There are some good reads on exc-el for anyone with any interest in teaching, as I said in the last PDf entry there is huge scope for weblogs in education, I need to find time to put my thoughts together on them.

I’ll likely not add to this entry, but poerhaps build upon it in later days.

A List Apart: Articles: Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign

Technology and Society. Preparing a 5 minute presentation to be given next Thurs. A somewhat fanciful topic : The Social Implications of the Internet. In 5 minutes. Taking rather a back seat where possible during this because there is soo much to be covered, blogs are mentioned, but they will not be covered very well. I’m unsure what, if anything, most people on my course know about blogs. The possibilities for their use in education is huge, and something I want to explore when I have the chance to be let loose on my own classes, or perhaps as part of a final year project (I can’t be thinking about that already can I?). I shall write more about this when I’ve had chance to put my thoughts together, it shall be part of the main blog too, not just PDF.

That was followed by two hours of graphics, a chance to have a go at tangency and just a smattering of ellipses. All good fun, unless you’ve got rubbish compasses. A ton of resources to use in classes from Eddie – the most organised lecturere you’re ever likely to find, at leat on the BTechEd – gives a good insight into the potential difficulties of teaching such a tricky set of skills. What I really love about tech is the breadth of the subjects, ther is just so much content in each and all of it far ranging. Graphics in particular I really enjoy doing and hopefully I’ll enjoy teaching it (I want to ensure I get a school that teaches it for the next block of placement), with the enthusiasm I have for the subject and the confidence I have in my abilities for it I think I’ll be in a far better position for being a good graphics teacher than the craft.

Design next, took part in a focus group, gave us some usefull bits and pieces that have left us knowing (or thinking we know) what we have to do to get a good product. What do you think of Robert’s Radios?

And that was the end of my uni day at about 3. There would normally have been some educationey thoughts going round my head but it was my birthday so I excused myself from them for the day.

Today started off with metalwork, I got most of the way with forming the jug, next week I should hopefully get the two poieces soldered together, else have made the base. Prevalant points : remember the folds for the swadges joint before forming a piece! Tin snips must be the worst tools we use, they are difficult to use with grown up’s hands so I can’t imagine how difficult it is for a 12 yerd old.
After that we had the first of our sessions with Eddie Mack, he gave us a really worthwhile session on safety in the workshop. A series of different situations that confront us in the school workshop and made us think about how we would deal with them. It is of course the sort of thing we have to deal with all the time when we’re out on placement yet doing it now you are able to look at it more thouroughly and it showed with the quality of answers people were giving. It’s also good because doing it in a group of about 20 you hear a lot of ideas that otherwise you maybe wouldn’t have. While you may not agree with them, it leaves you thinking about other options.

After that it was off to uni and a Faculty Meeting in the St Andrew’s building, my first as SRC Convenor for the Faculty of Education. For the most part it was pretty uninvolving stuff for me, but it was an insight into how the faculty functions, I woulnd;t like to have to sit in on every meetinfg if it’s like today’s but there are signs that student issues will be put higher up the agenda (once I have any, which over time and copnsultation wit the course reps I will) so that I can leave early if I wish. Everyone was very open with their offers of support and I didn’t get any sense of feelings that I wasn’t welcome there, as I had feared. It will be interesting to see how this year develops in terms of my SRC involvement.

Tonight I have a list of things to do for tomorrow, things I should have done long before now but haven’t.
Graphics excercise for tomorrow, Initial ideas for design tomorrow, a sheet on market share (although this may be redundant not because of information offered by PURE radio) and further developed sheets on customer needs. Also, a number of questions and resources for a focus group tomorrow. I’m going to be busy.

I really should have been doing other things, like designing the layout for lordy’s current project but instead I’ve done some new templates for foolfillment. The main premise being that I’ll write more because of them. I’ve been keeping an almost daily journal to do with my teacher training on another blogspot site and came to realise there was no reason why it couldn’t be posted here, but I wanted it to be different from the usual posts (like this one) so I built the new layout around that, there are three types of category, one that looks like this, with all the text on show. Another like th one before this which is simply a link to something more boring and really only for my own interest, and then there will be even more simple posts which are nothing more than a link to some resource and maybe a little comment from myself. So that’t what you’ve got to look forward to in the future.

I’d been wanting to get more links back onto the front page for a while and at the same time wanted my flickr badge to take more prominance and so these things in combination led to this new layout, I rushed it through tonight so I;m not sure if it all works as it should yet, if you spot sonething that looks a bit funny then point it out please.

For those who are interested and don’t already know, the dog at the top is Barney, for those who do know him a little poser – something is wrong about him up there, what is it?

I feel like I achieved a few things today, which is unusual.

Started off with a lecture on Education and Society, really just a video about class and it’s interrelation with education, quite interesting all in all. Then I had a while off to play with the templates for foolfillment then it was back to uni for another lecture, this time about assessment, a little dull but interesting subject none-the-less. Then the rest of the day pottering round doing little bits and pieces for design and finishing off the new templates for foolfillment (what do you think?) and now bed. Tomorrow I have my first faculty meeting as convenor for the SRC, not sure what I’m supposed to do but I have to take an afternoon off college for it, which isn’t great but that’s what happens when they timetable us in for Wednesday afternoons.

Every year for as long as can remember there’s been a week of solid rain around the end of October, this year’s seems to have started today. Such is my stubborness to use a bus when I’m so close to the town centre (compared to last year’s flat) I walked from Partick to George Square today and got absolutely soaked.

It’s miserable when it rains: eveything takes longer; everyone’s in a bad mood; you get cold; then you get a cold; then people ask if you had chicken for dinner, which is clearly a stupid thing to ask.

With a few exceptions, everything is much worse when the weather’s wet, at least in my opinion. Other people complain about wind but I happen to quite like it when there’s a real gusty day or two. It’s funny to watch people try to keep their hair how they like it, or struggling to walk in a straight line when they pass a gap in a wall.

True it may be colder but when you get inside again you feel all the benefit of it, your cheeks are rosey, your fingers tingle as the blood finds it’s way around again, and really quickly you are warm again. Not like with rain.

The english really like talking themselves up don’t they? I wonder if in 2166 there will be blanket coverage in the media of tributes and ceremonies celebrating Sir Geoff Hurst and his cronies.