| Digital - teacher | Education in a technological world

A degree in stupidity

Today I had the job of driving to an airport to collect my daughter, and my mother, from their holiday. They were due to land at 3.10. I knew how long it takes to get to the airport and so I left with plenty of time. What I forgot to take into account were two things;
(1) The local council have decided to close THE major road into the city from the north, and create a diversion that skirts around the other side of the city. The only problem is that no one is following the diversion they are all taking a shortcut into my neighbourhood and causing a queue. Causing such a queue that it took me 30 minutes to travel 1/2 mile down the high street.

(2) Not only is there this problem, but the high street has been redesigned. The main bus stop has been pushed out with the kerb into the road, and on the other side the kerb has been pushed out too. What does this do? It stops anything from overtaking a stopped bus, and causes tailbacks. Wonderful design. I really do wonder how many A levels the designer had to get before he could be let loose with his wax crayons on the planning board.

I finally got to the airport, and found the flight delayed, firstly taking off was held up. They had a queue of planes on the runway it would seem, and then when they landed they had to wait on the plane before being allowed to leave.

So, what should have been a two hour round trip took 3 1/2 hours and left me wanting to meet and smack the local traffic flow designer.

Deferred Success?

Oh please, this is going to far now. First it was competitive sports days that were cancelled and replaced with 'potted sports' so that no one was seen to lose in a race.
Now this from the Profession Association of Teachers;

"Deferred success" should replace the idea of failure for low-achieving pupils, a teachers' organisation will hear at its annual conference."

For crying out loud, what kind of future country are we going to create where no child has ever experienced failure. You know, that feeling that makes you want to do better and give it your everything to get a better mark.

I sometimes wonder just who comes up with these things, and why.

Reading time

I haven't seen my daughter all day. Not since we walked down to Asda and bought the latest Harry Potter book (for just £7.97 - cheapest I found!). Anyway, she is in her room and is reading. So busy reading I had to remind her of dinner.
So, after a wait of years she will finish the book in mere days. And then...wait years again for the last book of the series.
And me? Well, there is a hardback copy on the shelf in the front room with all the other books, but it will sit there until at least next Friday and the start of the summer break before I get chance to read it. The magic seems to have drifted, and the need to read it first has gone.
Still, the main thing is that it is getting children to read, and that has to be a good thing no matter what teh subject of the book is.

British conversation

The weather - it's all we ever talk about apparently. Probably because we have so much of it.
At the moment it's hot - but the problem is we don't get chance to adjust to it. A few days of sun and the rains return. We get used to the rain, and the sun comes back again. Is it any wonder everyone always has a headache in this country? The weather needs to make a choice - be cold and wet OR be hot and dry - but please stop swapping between the two.

To ice or not to ice

There is an interesting idea that has been banded about the internet over the last few days. Following the appalling actions in London last week (look at this London defiance site to see how the public have reacted) I have received several e-mails (all from friends in different professions) all with the same idea. It goes along these lines;

"In view of events in London, East Anglian Ambulance Service have launched a national "In case of Emergency ( ICE ) " campaign with the support of Falklands war hero Simon Weston and in association with Vodafone's annual life savers award.

The idea is that you store the word " I C E " in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted "In Case of Emergency". In an emergency situation ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them. It's so simple that everyone can do it.

Please will you also forward this to everybody in your address book, it won't take too many 'forwards' before everybody will know about  this. It really could save your life.

For more than one contact name use ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc"

The following day I got an email saying don't do it because;

"Be very careful with this one - although the intention is great it is unfortunately phase one of a phone based virus that is laying a path for propagating very quickly. Passing it on is part of the virus interestingly, such is the deviousness of the people who write these things. We have already seen the "second phase" where a program is sent as part of a ring-tone download that goes into your address book and looks for something it recognises - you've guessed it, an address book entry marked "ICE or I.C.E." or whatever. It then sends itself to the "ICE list", charging you for the privilege."

Now the bbc website is following the story here, and the ambulance service in East Anglia has this article. I've also just put 'ICE' into google news and Sky News, Channel4, The Times, The Sun and local newspapers are also running the story.

So, is it real? is it a virus? There is one thing I do know. It is a damn fine and simple idea that should be taken up.

About time

Well it's been too long since the last crime spree in this area hit the news, but today we were there again. All it takes is a TV Shop, two thugs and a samuri sword and we're back on the headlines;

From the bbc website;

City shop in samurai sword raid

Staff were threatened with samurai swords during a raid at a Nottingham hi-fi store.

The robbers targeted the Bang and Olufsen shop in Thackeray's Lane in Arnold on Friday.
No-one was hurt during the raid but the robbers took a pair of speakers worth about £10,000.
The shop's owner said that three men wearing hooded tops had stolen other equipment just three days earlier. Police are studying CCTV footage.

On the bright side though, apparently the speaker weighs several stones, and can only be used once a PIN is entered; and the only people with the PIN are the company in Europe.
Nice try guys - you just got yourself a £10,000 pile of junk!

Double Standards

This is likely to get me into some trouble, but I have to say it. I'm still coming to terms with the attacks in London on Thursday. Unbelievable what I saw on the news that evening, and over the last few days. However, I then heard a press conference from our so called great leader, Bliar (oops - was that misspelt? seemed better that way). I am not saying that the people who did those awful acts were right and just to do this - far from it - , I think it was a cowardly act, but to hear Blair standing in front of the French leader and saying that there is no excuse for it just smacked to me of double standards.

You see, think back to 1939. Hitler goes on the rampage. Over the next few years he invades countries for no reason other than he wants to. The French are one such people invaded. What does Britain do - why we tell the French people that this is wrong, that it shouldn't be allowed. How dare one country invade another. FIGHT BACK we shout - resist them. Do what you have to. And they do. They blow up trains, they blow up tanks, they use any means possible to cause damage and destruction to the German army. And we in England applaude them, because it's what we want.

Now, jump forward to 2005. We invade Iraq along with our master. We go on the rampage. And then as soon as the people start to fight back - maybe even RESIST we cry unfair, stop it. You can't do that.

That is why I say double standards, that is why I don't like Blair. He is proud to celebrate our victory in the second world war, proud to talk about the French resistance, but when it happens right back at him - then it's a completely different story, and it's not allowed. If only we had actually stood up and showed we had a spine when the UN said wait, if only we had listened to Clair Short, Robin Cook and other ex members of cabinet, instead of following our master blindly we could have avoided this. It's a horrible place at the moment the world, and two people have helped to make it that way. Unfortunately they are so far up their own backsides that they will never see, or admit, their mistakes and as a result there will be casualties for many years to come.
It's never the politicians who suffer, and so they go on with their mindless self believe, safe in the fact that if all hell does break lose, while we are suffering, they'll be tucked up away from it all and still able to bark their illegal orders.
There, rant over. Feel free to comment. I'll have rattled someones cage with that.

Typepad answer

The typepad ticket help system is wonderful. I posted a 'ticket' about not being able to log in, and they repsonded quickly with suggestions (though none of them worked).
Finally on Friday evening, I was told to remove my Typepad cookies and try - hey presto it's all working again. I can blog with firefox once more. Life is good.

Technical (cock)up - grade

Typepad updated their systems at the weekend, adding new features for blogs to include. Unfortunately somehow (I don't know, and until I get an answer from Six Apart I assume they don't either) I am unable to log into the service using Firefox.

I refuse to put IE back onto my computer. Since switching when Firefox was launched, and removing IE from the hard disk I have had less trouble than ever before. I am not going to put a hefty download back onto the system just in case of emergencies.

So, at the moment I am using another machine, with IE on it, and I have to say hating every moment I use it. There is no tabbed browsing to allow me to jump from site to site that I have open, and the speed is just -- so -- sloooow.

Why have nearly 70 million people swapped over to Firefox?  - well tabs, speeds and safety to name but three reasons. I'm staying, and until Typepad solve their problem, it will be no more posts. I don't like using Windoze products at all anymore.