Make poverty history

This weekend is Live8, music and protest aimed at making a political statement and changing the world. If anyone hasn't seen the evocative "Click" video follow that link and check it out.

All okay now

It's fine now. Ruth Kelly has said that we need not worry about Higher Education - phew! That's a weight off my mind!

Struggling to make sense of this

The UK Mathematics Foundation are worried that the state of mathmatics in this country is in a downward spiral and that unless changes in the way maths is taught are made soon we won't have enough maths teachers - which will, of course, add to the problem. On the other hand HEFCE believe that "market forces" should determine which courses are taught at universities and that smaller, struggling, courses will be brought together in National centres. Sir Howard Newby (head honcho at HEFCE), warns against "moral panic" over course closures.

Now I'm probably not the best person to ask about maths but I think there is a contradiction here - how can we meet the shortage of maths teachers if, as seems apparent, for whatever reason there are too few people studying the subject? And in the light of the number of physics departments that have closed are we approaching the end of maths as a recognised subject too? This isn't moral panic - it's pragmatism, once departments close it's a great deal harder to reopen them and the decline in "technical sciences" can only mean that in a few years time we will be a net importer of scientists.

Undefeated in all European competition

The anniversary of Trafalgar sees ships from around the world gathering to celebrate Nelson's defeat of a larger French and Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar, near Cadiz. There is a local link, Victory was built in the Royal Dockyard at Chatham here in Kent. The ships assembled will represent the largest ever collection of warships, 174 will be present and with a touch of irony the largest vessel is a nuclear powered aircraft carrier - from France! And the subject line I've used? It's from a Royal Navy recruiting poster.

Whoops update

No surprise that the Grokster decisions has generated a good deal of debate. The SCOTUS Blog has some interesting discussion about the potential impacts and draws comparisons with the development of VHS VCRs and wonders about the Apple advert that exhorts users to "Rip. Mix. Burn." The BBC technology site gives a great overview of the issues and the ruling and the Electronic Frontier Foundation suggest that the ruling might stifle the development of innovative software. As it stands this could be one of the biggest ever legal cases with regards to software and the Internet.

Whoops!

The US Supreme court has ruled that the producers of file-sharing software are responsible for the way in which the software is used, i.e. if anyone is sharing illegally copied films or music files the makers of Kazaa (for example) can be hauled into court by the copyright owners. This has potentially far-reaching repercussions and may even impact of the manufacture of CD and DVD burners. Further, but not discussed in this piece, might we see Microsoft prosecuted if a terrorist uses Word to write letter leading to a murder? Might blog hosts face court for the content of a blog?Will Bic start issuing conditions on how their ballpoints are used? Where might it all end!

Newsfeed

I decided to add a feed from the blog purely to find out what it was and how to do it. Thus I went in search of a feed reader and ended up with Bottomfeeder and I'm now able to grab RSS or Atom feeds from sites like the BBC and online newpapers and The Register and such like. It's similar to the old Usenet clients but it has the added bonus of being written in SmallTalk - language of the phrogs!

If anyone wants the feed click on the little buttony jibby-jobby on the right though why you might want to is beyond me. Do have a play with site feeds though as it's a great way of seeing what's new on the web.

Puzzled of Bishb'rne here

A piece in the Observer entitled "Tax crackdown on home tutors" has got me puzzled. It starts by warning the parents of pupils having extra tuition that the tutor may be subject to a tax investigation - so what? Why might the parents care? But the bit that I found troubling was

'Home tutors are more likely to be educated and aware of the correct ways of doing things,' said the spokeswoman. 'For this reason, although the majority are honest, those who are not will be given no leeway when they are caught.'

Now call me old-fashioned but there are bits that don't make sense to me. First up - being educated doesn't in any way equate to understanding the byzantine tax system in this country and secondly, being educated means you are liable to stiffer penalties or to less leeway! What kind of system is this??? Is there to be a formal sliding scale? Professors might expect summary execution for being late with their tax return because they are very well educated - in Philosophy or Music or Art in the 16th Century, makes no difference. Leave school with two GCSEs though and you are allowed to do whatever you want with regards to tax because you simply don't know any better! Of course the whole thing is thrown into sharp focus when we condier the enormous amounts in question - people are charging up to GBP50/hr - terrible, the tax being lost on that will have the country on its knees. Damn good job that we have tax compliance officers, who cost nothing, sitting round with nothing to do apart from counting the number of people visiting certain houses. Of course the amount of tax routinely hidden by large corporations isn't worth chasing or worrying about because many of them don't employ people with doctorates.

In a separate piece though it's clear that although academics understand the tax system they can't handle complex sums. It's worth checking out this article as it deals with the ID card and suggests that civil servants will cripple the bill to introduce them. But the Home Office is disputing the findings of a report by the LSE:

However, Home Office officials are thought to be unconvinced by a London School of Economics report, to be published tomorrow, which suggests the total cost of the scheme could be as high as GBP18 billion, more than three times the government's estimate.

The Home Office minister Andy Burnham is due to meet the authors of the report at a meeting of the left-wing Campaign Group of MPs tomorrow. But Clarke's aides began to brief against it as soon as they received a copy this weekend. 'The IT and operational costs are fabricated,' said one Home Office source. 'They have spoken to 20 private IT companies, where we have spoken to 300. We just don't recognise many of their figures.'

The official said that the academics appeared to have simply multiplied the original government estimate of GBP93 per card in order to make the figures look as bad as possible.

So there you have it - academics know the tax laws but not research principles or mathmatics - I hope that helps.

Anovver one

I've added ScaryCheri's blog to the list. I started checking out her blog after following a link from Pyk's blog and I love the way she writes (and I try to do the accents in my head). If you want an intro try "It's free to be Catholic" and as my own tastes are also catholic I think it's a great story.

Voices

Associative links, synapses snapping, neural networks working overtime - you know the stuff.

Here's how I got to where I'm going with this one. I've been sitting here reading some terribly interesting stuff about blended learning and how different providers view it and use it when "The Eagle has Landed" came on TV. Now my immediate thoughts were that this is a fair romp to fill a few minutes, Jenny Agutter is in it, it's wonderfully naive and also that this was one of the first things said in July, 1969 when Neil and Buzz stopped off for a walk in the Sea of Tranquility (actually the fifth to eigth words spoken from the surface of the moon).

Of course this also ties in with technology, and from my point of view it's especially significant because of the computer errors thrown during the landing and thoughts of the difference that 30 some years has made to computing. In fact I often talk to new computing students about error 1202.

Anyway. From there it's a short hop to actually hearing the actors in that magnificent drama, the voices of people engaged in something that had never been done before, men on the brink of immortality. Listen to the voices at http://www.apollostory.com/voices.htm and you can also check out the conversation between Houston and Apollo 13 when Lovell said "Houston, We've had a problem" - changed for the film to "We have a problem".

And I am still in awe of the people who made that all happen and also the ease with which we have access to such historical records now. For many of us putting a man on the moon is still proof that mankind should be able to achieve anything given enough effort and political will. Der Adler ist gefallen oder?

Flipping 'eck!

Got the glasses and I'm amazed at how the world looks now that it isn't blurred! I still have to tame the varifocals but the difference in my distance vision is already apparent and it won't be long before I get used to wearing them most of the time. Fantastic!

I gave them a brief run-in reading the Guardian outside my favourite coffee shop in Canterbury so I'll soon be posting about some of the stuff I found :-)

Domestics

A little more tinkering and you should now see Nogbad in the address field next to the URL for this blog. And if you use a tabbed browser he'll be there too.

Off to collect my glasses soon and that should improve productivity - right now I'm severely limited in terms of when I can read small type, the light has to be very good and it's really getting me down. I'll let you know how it goes :-)

Using technology

Anyone who knows me knows that I like technology and I love it when "big" technology is used in trivial or entertaining ways. So here's the idea. Let's play Monopoly and use London as the playing area. Rather than throwing dice we'll decide which piece is where at the end of each turn by fitting real cabs with GPRS trackers and players will select which cabbie is driving their piece. Obviously you'll be able to buy some property and build a few houses and hotels but after that it just depends where the cabs go and whether you've picked popular destinations. So does this sound like a silly idea? You bet it does - click here to play Monopoly Live - it's fun and trivial and free! I'm currently £47M up so let's see how everyone does :-)

Contrast and compare

Education Guardian has a story today about the cuts in spending on Adult Education at sub-degree level, these are the courses offered at Further Education Colleges and include adult literacy and numeracy courses and Access courses designed to prepare mature students for progressing to degree studies at traditional universities. Government funding for these courses is managed by the Learning and Skills Council and the number of students benefiting from this funding is expected to drop by 10% in the next academic year. At the same time the government continues to fund the Aimhigher initiative aimed at increasing participation in Higher Education by those in the 18 - 30 age group - this is funded, in part, through the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The target is that by the year 2010 50% of that age group will have "some exposure" to HE - this "exposure" is a moving feast and originally meant that they would earn at least 120 CATS points but the feeling is that in a few years time anyone who has driven past a university campus will have qualified as being "exposed". But of course the introduction of "top up" fees will make it harder for some to consider moving on to HE. The final factor to consider is that pupils who stay on after the age of 16 can earn £30 each week as an "Education Maintenance Allowance". This means tested benefit is aimed at widening participation in socio-economic groups who might otherwise not study after reaching the age at which they can leave the mainstream education system. Of course making these payments also keeps these young school leavers off the unemployment figures too - an emergent property that, I'm sure, is unintended. And the introduction of Foundation Degrees is also squeezing FE colleges, universities are offering FDs but delivering them through partner colleges because the costs (to the university) are lower and they still gain a percentage of the course fees and government subsidy. This shift to offering more lower level courses, the ones still being funded by the LSC, and FDs means that staffing in FE is creating problems. Tutors qualified to work on Foundation Degrees are unlikely to work on L1 courses as well. And pay and conditions for tutors in FE colleges still lag behind the benefits enjoyed by university academics.

So where does this leave the poor learner and their local FE college? Does it appear incoherent? Does the way in which these fiscal levers are being used make sense if the objective is to increase the skill sets of the workforce in this knowledge economy? Who knows? And that's probably the most worrying part!

PS Thanks Kat - I had forgotten about this: Please also download and look at the Manifesto for Change.

Blogging II

Ann Stott's Blog is a brilliant example of how a blog can be used to support Open and Distance learners and also a damn good read!

Blogging

An interesting piece on the BBC web site about bloggers in other parts of the world. The Committee to Protect Bloggers lists those bloggers currently under arrest and others at risk. I think that it's also interesting that a Nepalese blogger is commenting on Iranian bloggers - another example of these otherwise impossible associations?

Happy Solstice!

Happy Solstice ladies and gents. I hope you spent the longest day well :-)

DiGRA

is the Digital Games Research Asociation and details of the 2005 conference are here. Take a look and don't miss the animation - brilliant!

Superlambanana

I'm sure everyone knows about the Superlambanana in Liverpool. Well it has been painted pink in support of breast cancer awareness. Of course if you don't know about the Superlambanana you can always click on the image to go to the site.

Relationships

I'm going to try a little weaving now - technical term that doesn't mean I'm turning the PC off and heading for the loom! We don't (usually) think in straight lines, the power of the brain is that it creates neural networks and we make associative links between seemingly disparate pieces of data from which we create understanding or questions that prompt further understanding. Hypertext allows us to "jump" from place to place and create our own pathways but it's still limited - it's still not as immediate as our brains might like. Enter one of my absolutely favourite sites on the web. It's limited in that you only get so many free shots before they ask for money but the underlying technology is just sooooooooo sexy and I've seen this engine used in a couple of different ways. For me it's another generation of associative mapping and I really wish I had access to this kind of kit for some true mind-mapping. Check out the Visual Thesaurus and see what you think. Can you see how it might be used for linking songs and artists? For mapping communities and the relationships within them? For recipes?