Saltmarsh Estuary March 28, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : hi res photos , comments closed
An alternative train journey to visiting central London is to embark from the opposite platform and head out into deepest Essex instead. That was the thing to do on Saturday, the sunniest day of the bank holiday weekend. In no time at all Ilford and Romford are left behind and you’re out into the sort of countryside. Hurrying past dreary commuter towns of Billericay, Wickford and Woodham Ferrers, the train turns onto a single track line next to the River Crouch at Battlesbridge, allowing delightful walks from Fambridge and Burnham, next to the saltmarsh where all is peaceful and quiet. The Blue House Farm nature reserve at Fambridge reopens on April 1st.
Four dichotomies March 21, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning , add a comment
Four dichotomies
Originally uploaded by Andyrob.
This diagram formed a handout which I gave out after speaking to London Wiki Wednesday recently and is still available for discussion at my Online Exhibition or indeed in the Action Researchers’ Coffee Shop
(post backdated 12 months)
OSX Server Maintenance March 17, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning, General , add a comment1) eMACS - to cure the distorted CRT screen problem - reboot while holding down apple+alt+p+r
This restores factory settings to the P-RAM
2) Appleworks file corruption - upgrade to 6.2.9 added to netboot image - also there is a file repair utility now in the shared folder
3) HP 5150 printer driver also added to netboot image
4) kar20uche and Firefox added to netboot image
5) Remote desktop - go to menu SETUP / COMPUTERS to add clients
6) after a restore, set the computer id in System preferences Sharing.
7) local printers should now be settable as default by ladmin, since server managed printing switched off.
Apache runs PHP and mySQL so intranet wiki a possibility, although there proved to be problems with database versions.
NDC funded posts March 16, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentI work in the computer suite, where all the classes come for their ICT lessons. So all the children in the school recognise me - they call me ‘the Computer Man’ or ICT teacher.
With my past experience working with computers, I’m in a position to be able to help the class teachers to interpret the National Curriculum for ICT and make lesson plans that work with the increasingly sophisticated computer equipment which we all have to learn to get the most advantage out of. So I demonstrate appropriate computer skills to the children as a class, and then help them individually as they learn by themselves, and I go round during the activities and get them out of the unusual sticky situations they manage to find themselves in sometimes on the computers. One or two of the children also come along to the “Evening Sessions” ICT courses which I run at the neighbouring Winslade Estate Cyber Centre.
The school website is starting to look a bit dated, so I’m going to be looking at ways to bring it bang up to date with new simple publishing technologies, so it becomes a communication centre for the community and a place to celebrate some of the work that goes on inside the school.
Oh yes, and I play the guitar for the infants singing assemblies as well.
Exhibition and barn raising March 11, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ultraversity, learning, internet, Wiki , add a commentOnline Exhibition now open at
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/?page_id=75
Barn raising for Distributed Action Research - until March 15th at
http://distributedresearch.net/wiki/index.php/Barn_raising
(post backdated 12 months)
School Website Proposal March 11, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentM School Website proposal
Current position
The public website is dated and serves little purpose other than as some sort of brochure for the school. The plain internal website is used during ICT lessons to guide children to resources according to year group. It also appears as the homepage on the classroom networked computers. There are also pages for teachers’ resources but judging by the complete lack of feedback these appear to be little used.
Where do we want to be.
In order to become an instrument which further improves teaching and learning the school website needs to be a well used and frequently updated communication point both within the school and externally. The precise purpose and aims of the site should be widely discussed, refined and made explicit then periodically re-evaluated.
How to get there
(1) The current site could be updated and developed further by one individual doing whatever they think best
(2) or a new site could be created based on attractive examples from other schools
(3) but the opportunity also exists to jump past those stages and instead pioneer a path based on the idea that a website is not a read-only broadcast medium but should be a place to share information, ideas and resources between all concerned and a means of improving two-way communication between the school and a portion of the local community. This might contain a calendar of future events allowing annotations, reports of activities from classes and school council, a growing library of lesson resources submitted
Proposal
Spend a minimum amount of time doing (1) as a temporary stop gap and set up an Action Research project aiming at (3) to start in September 2005.
project requirements
Finance.
Practically nil, if based on freely available open source software and/or free education web services. There is a possibility that it may be decided to use a commercial host or schoolblog service provider but this wouldn’t be more than about £200 per year.
Human
I suggest a small team initially comprising of
AR as researcher/technician
WD as community worker and school council organiser
At least one enthusiastic and interested member of teaching staff, preferably a key subject coordinator.
Any interested support staff with something to offer.
For the project to succeed it will also need the support and involvement of top management. ie Headteacher.
Time
It’s difficult to determine how many hours would need to be put in by members of the team, so this remains flexible for now. Perhaps a weekly half-hour meeting between everybody would be enough to kick-start the initial research phase.
Early findings should be reported back to a full staff meeting to seek wider involvement.
reference:
http://www.schoolblogs.com/
http://incsub.org/
Ricardo’s Blagardo March 5, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ultraversity , comments closed“Ricardo’s Blagardo” is the name of Richard Millwood’s blog, which is naturally worth keeping a look out for, him being the acting director of Ultralab, the people behind the Ultraversity degree course I’m half way through.
Last week he posted an enticing article called “British Council Seminar” which ended with the following:
“I plan to blog each day of the course - just like buses, none come for ages and then seven all at once!”
But then no further blog entries appeared, which could of course be for any one of a number of perfectly good reasons. I decided to post a comment enquiring as to whether the planned seven blog entries had been cancelled or merely postponed but when I went to save the comment I got the following error:
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:
Type the anti-spam text exactly as shown.
Please correct the error in the form below, then press Post to post your comment.
but there isn’t any ‘anti-spam text’ and there isn’t any entry field for it either.
So it’s impossible to leave comments on Ricardo’s Blagardo, and trackbacks are not enabled either. Hence this entry here. Maybe somebody will read this and fix it. Maybe Richard will explain what’s happened to the seminar blog entries.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
