| Digital - teacher | Education in a technological world

A never ending story

I'm trying to complete the quest. The Stephen King Dark Tower quest. I bought the very first book in his mammoth seven book series way back in the last century (suddenly I sound like my great gran when she used to speak about her childhood. Arghhhh), and now I am reading through the seventh and final book.

Well, I say reading through it, but that's just it. I keep reading chapters and sections, but everytime I go back to it and look at the bookmark it never seems to get past the centre of the book.

Now, either I am re-reading the pages over and over again without realising it, or something strange is happening.

I want to reach the end of the book, I want to reach the Dark Tower, I want to see what Roland sees. I just don't think I am going to make it that far...

Rush hour

Whoever came up with those two words to describe the slowest possible way of getting home in an evening? Rush hour?? Were they having a laugh? Being sarcastic, or just trying to annoy the hell out of road users like me?

Tonight I spent 20 minutes queueing along a 1/4 mile stretch of road, just because there were so many cars trying to use it. Being 'rush' hour, an alien would expect everyone to be able to rush from A to B. Oh no. Instead we crawl off from A to a bit further than A, and then we crawl from a bit further than A to an even further bit from A, with no sign of B anywhere.

AND...what's with every major route into and out of my fair city being halved so that buses can travel quickly along their designated routes while the rest of us have to queue. Surely my road tax pays for the upkeep of these roads that now I can't use. So, therefore I should be receiving a reduction in the cost of a vehicle license.

Shouldn't I?

Be Proud

Today, Monday, saw a unique event in the UK. UK Radio Aid was a joint venture by all the commercial radio stations in the UK, along with the RAB and CRCA. In total over 200 radio stations took part in this mammoth fund raising event for the survivors of the Tsunami.

Yet again, the generousity of the British public is something to be proud of. In just 12 hours over £3m pounds had been donated. This, added to the fantastic amount of almost £200m already raised throughout the UK and handled by the Disasters Emergency Committee, makes an overwhelming total of ordinary peoples money that has been donated to assist with the immediate and future aid needs on the decimated regions of East Asia.

All those who have taken part in events, donated online, sent a charity text, dropped change into a bucket at the supermarket or helped in another way I have two words for you:

Be proud. Be very proud. Your generousity will make a difference.

Muppet road designers

I want to visit my local county council. I want to sit in on one of their transport meetings. I want to see the muppets that actually make the rules that make my life a misery when I am driving around the city.

I'd like to meet the monkey that decided 24 hours bus routes into and out of cities is a good idea. I'm not the worlds brainiest person, but even I think that two lanes of cars forced into one won't work. It results in a queue. A big queue. A very big queue of irrate car drivers.

I'd like to come face to face with the one who moved bus stops out from their lay bys and put their bus stop in the inside lane, thus stopping the flow of traffic. What is the point of that? Oh, of course. It stops the flow of traffic.

I'd like to meet the spanner that sets up roadworks on a major route out of the city on the pavement, and coned off an entire lane of traffic for no reason other than to cause traffic jams on all the surrounding roads.

And why is this being done? So that they can then say that the roads are congested, that they need to introduce more stupid measures. Well no, simply give me back my lane that the buses stole, get the bus stops back in the lay bys, and don't cone off lanes for no reason at all.

BETT anyone?

A big show for the use of ICT within education being held in London this week at Olympia. BETT has become the show to go to if you want to see how to incorporate ICT into your classroom practice.

As the website says;

Over 550 leading educational ICT suppliers covering all curriculum areas and all levels of education

Over 100 seminars and workshops from industry experts focusing on current issues in ICT

Be there to see Teachers' TV – the first television channel for people who work in schools, launching early 2005

Visit NESTA Futurelab Innovations at BETT, sponsored by Intel, for a glimpse of what the future of educational ICT may hold. Live demonstrations throughout the day!

Dedicated areas for Special Needs, Software, Publishing, Library Resources, Film Production and Engineering

Find out how to embed ICT into YOUR subject area!

Biased?

It's FACup weekend, and my lowly league two side were playing at home to premiership Middlesborough. I know, I  know, I should have assumed that we would never make it through, but it's the FACup and you never know what will happen. Especially after 90 seconds of the match, and we're leading 1-0. For the rest of the first half things looked quite good. But then came half time, teamtalks and a new premiership formation.
Pretty soon it was 1-1. Then it was 1-2. Full time. Dream over for another year.

It's not so much the fact that we are lost to a premiership club. I expected it really, It's more the fact that across the river our nearest team hasn't been able to win a match for months, they've slumped to the foot of their division, there fans have gone quiet (what a relief that has been!) and the flags, pendants and scarves removed from their cars. That was until they won yesterday. Now the local press, local website, local radio are suddenly full of nothing but praise for them. Fickle. 'You only crow when you're winning'. How apt.

"We've turned the corner" one fan was quoted as saying. I hope not. A relegation battle, financial hardship and then maybe the realisation that they are not premiership material - as they keep falsely claiming - will finally dawn on them.

However, while the local press keep focusing on them only, ignoring the other teams in the region, they'll only go on thinking that they are better than they are.

Biased against them? I might be. But at least I accept that my team are where we are because that is how good we are. Why can't they accept the same?

Respect

Well I have just returned from a quick trip to the Supermarket to get one or two items, not a major shop. That takes place on a Thursday. However, it took a while to get through the store. And it was not the usual reasons of having ten thousand customers wanting to pay, and only one checkout open that caused the delay.
Today was different.
Today all the tills were closed for three minutes as a mark of respect for those who lost their lives in the Asian Tsunami recently.
It was a pleasant site to see all customers in the store, including children, standing in silent respect.
Well I say all. I should say nearly all. You see there was one person who was wandering around still, still pushing her squeaky trolley up and down the aisles. And then - and this shows the total lack of respect she had - her phone rings and she starts talking on it. And of course the whole store can hear her, because no one else is making a sound.
Apart from her phone call to Sharon (I wondered if it was Tracey pushing the trolley at this point) about where to go and drink this evening and what time to get the taxi, the entire supermarket was as quiet as a mouse.

Some people just have no respect for anyone else do they. Still, at least she knows what time Sharon and the taxi will be coming this evening.

To spoof or not to spoof

I had a great email waiting for me when I opened my mail tonight. It was from eBay. They wanted me to give them my username and password to prevent my account from being supsended.

I refused. I don't care. They can come around here with all their bouncers and smack me about the head with wet fish and I still won't hand the details over.

Why? Because I thought that eBay knew how to use grammar, that they wouldn't send me an email with another 20 odd users in the To: line, that they wouldn't have a Yahoo mail footer on the end of the message, and that most of all the email would not actually come from tom_somethingATyahoo.com

I mean, please Tom. If you are going to try and get me to hand over my details then you have got to try a bit harder than the (and let's not mince words here) absolutely pathetically crap spoof that this was. Go get a life, and learn some grammar - "To resolve this problems click here" (of course it went to a fake website). Jeez man. Problem. One of them. Singular. To resolve this problem!

ISPs

So I thought what a great idea to up the ISP package I have for DragonsCavern, seeing as the site is growing.

What can be more simple than migrating to the next package up? I'll tell you what would more simple. Creating the atomic bomb with a pair of chopsticks and an origami booklet. That's what.

Why does the entire website have to be taken offline, and every file I ever uploaded vapourised? All the forms, guestbooks and subscription pages gone too.

Fortunately I had the sense to make a back up of all the files (minus the forms that were held by the ISP) before I began as I had a sense of forboding as I hit that 'upgrade' button.

So, I've spent from around about 1.30am this morning until now reloading files, rebuilding forms, making sure that everything is back where it should be. And do you know what. I have a bad feeling that it's going to go again, when the data finally migrates from the old package to the new.

Clarkson

It's really quite scary.

For Christmas I received a book by Jeremy Clarkson, called (suprisingly) 'Clarkson'. Now I must admit that Top Gear is funny because of him and his comments. I find myself agreeing with his views on car manufacturers and styles.

However, I don't find it funny that I am sitting reading his book and agreeing with nearly every word he says. Apparently I keep laughing out loud at some of the things he writes, especially his views on Americans. I must look like a chimpanzee with CJD.

It's really quite scary that I would agree with Mr Clarkson. After all, he's a grumpy old man. I've seen the show. Does this mean that I am becoming one too ?

Please, someone shoot me before I am converted fully.