foolfillment: the blog

Tomorrow night I’m giving the first of three sessions on Advanced PowerPoint. I’m not entirely sure what I should be covering, as almost all the people coming will have different abilities and requirements. To get around this tomorrow I’m going to miss out most of the actual features and options that the software has and instead talk about why you shouldn’t use PowerPoint!

Because I’m nice I’m making the slides available now for those people who are coming late or not at all. The most useful bits from the file are probably the accompanying notes but you can get away with just looking at the slides. Advanced PowerPoint Session 1. I should make it clear that some of the ideas covered are influenced by a series of posts from the Modern Foreign Languages Environment blog, the first of which can be viewed here.

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I’ve managed to snaffle a wee shot on an Asus EeepPC. Tess Watson visited me at Ross today and has kindly loaned me one for the weekend. So far I’m really impressed, it’s is all dead easy to use, the main drawback so far has been the keyboard size. I’m typing this post on it right now and keep making a lot of typos, that said the machine manages to strike a great balance between usability and portability.

As far as the potential for use in a classroom/workshop, things are looking great. It is so lightweight (yet sturdy feeling) that I wouldn’t have too many concerns about giving them to pupils, and the ease with which they could access information would make it incredibly useful - especially if the school had a wireless network. The integrated webcam is a nice touch but is really only useful for phone calls as it doesn’t move, more useful perhaps would be just a USB wired camera that could be pointed at whatever you wanted. The software that runs with the webcam though is great - it is very fast to capture an image or video. With a maneuverable camera it would be very useful for capturing demonstrations of practical tasks in the workshop or graphics room and then making them available for pupils to run in a loop on their own machine at their bench.

I’ll get back to you later in in the weekend on how I get on, but so far things look pretty good for quick use of the basic stuff. One thing it wouldn’t be great for is graphics work, but that isn’t what this machine is aimed at so not a huge problem, but that didn’t stop me having a look at what linux CAD/CAG programs there are

Clacksblog blogged about a couple of sites showcasing some beautiful work. They are amazingly simple, highly effective, and even strongly emotive pieces of art. Made from only single sheets of paper, they are well worth looking at.

Vanilla Joy and Peter Calleson.

Tonight I was looking around for some tips on getting the right proportions for a picture frame I’m hoping to make and found this instructables slideshow on how to make a frame. It’s well above anything we could do in a school workshop but it gets across the care and thought that has to be put in to any craft project. Instructables is a website I always forget about, but basically it is flickr but with the specific intention of being used to create photosets that tell you ‘how to’ do something. Some of them are fantastic, I should really get some of my pupils to make one.

And finally the other thing, who can find me a copy of Helvetica that I can play in the UK? It is a film about the Helvetica typeface (yes you did read that right, I want a film about a font) but as far as I can tell it is only available on region 1 DVD. I spotted it on Presentation Zen, a site Neil Winton tipped me off on the other night.

Last week I wrote about my visit to Prestonpans Primary School, well tomorrow is the return leg.

At the start of this year, way back in August/September time, I still had the chance to do some observations around the school. I remember seeing a number of 1st year classes and being struck (again) by the huge range of subjects and teachers that they encounter. Our pupils live an incredibly experience-rich life, and the way most of them adapt to all the different personalities - teachers and classmates - they encounter is nothing short of a marvel.

It’s easy to forget about what happens around the rest of the school and become stuck inside your own departmental bubble, and sometimes I think it’s important to take that step back and just marvel at how the majority cope with such a dynamic life. In most walks of life outside of schools you are in a comparatively slow changing environment where the people with whom you have to engage and the subject areas you have to recall do not change every 50 minutes, so when a class arrives at my classroom/workshop and are a little hyper then it is pretty important that there are stable expectations (and the support to meet those expectations) to help them settle down and become grounded again. Without taking that step back occasionally it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting a class to ‘just’ behave, rather than working to see how I fit in with the rest of the school.

The question is, what can be done when those expectations and supports are not clear to the pupils as they move around the school? It must be easier if you have your own classroom (is it?) but when you are in a CDT department and flit between any of 6 different rooms, all being left in different states by different teachers it becomes pretty difficult to keep things settled. I suppose it takes a consistent approach and attitude from all staff in the department, but does that diminish your opportunity to make your own mark on a class atmosphere?

A rather rambling post but, my main point is it will be interesting to see what my primary visitor makes of life in a busy secondary school. I’ve tried to plan a wide range of classes for her to visit tomorrow and I wonder what her expectations of the visit and the pupils are. I think she’ll be astounded :-).