The Future of Further Education?

Well, this blog is supposed to about education (as was Sid Waddell, once upon a time) so...

I'd like to think that there's an element of irony here but can't really see it. And didn't The Mirror used to be a newspaper famous for it's campaigning & investigative journalism? Or are we all Sun readers now?

Anyway, this final post of 2009 was inspired by a story from The Guardian - Darts academy aims to shed beer and tattoos image by Peter Walker.

All the best for 2010. With Cameron and his rapid puppies on the horizon, we'll need all the luck(?) we can muster. Send in Charlie Brooker I say!

What Matters Now : Seth Godin

God knows that we need some fresh thinking in FE.
No. Perhaps not.
Maybe what we do need is listening to some fresh thinking. Not "we've never done it that way before" listening and "it'll screw the integrity of our security" listening and "it's not your responsibility but mine" listening.

Read this. Download it. Tweet it. But listen... Please.

What Matters Now, by Seth Godin

View more documents from Toscana Enterprises Corporation.

Seth Godin's blog & e-book download:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/what-matters-now-get-the-free-ebook.html

OpenLearn Climate Change (Blog Action Day)

Back. For a good cause. And since we're (still) in the education game (no matter what the accountants might say), here's my no-pence worth. After all we're talking open courseware from the venerable (younger than me) Open University.


Global Warming (E500_111)
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1526
An introduction to global warming. 5 hours.

Climate Change (S250_3)
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=2805
Climate change is a key issue on today’s social and political agenda. This unit explores the basic science that underpins climate change and global warming. 18 hours.

And on a less serious note(?), a video from Friends of the Earth:



See you soon...?

The Dark Is Rising...

So Long and thanks

Well, it had to happen sometime. Inverness Caley Thistle relegated ten minutes ago. (If you're an Old Firm supporter you can stop reading now. You really don't know how it feels. Missing out on a league title? What a shame!)
Anyway, thanks for the memories. The North will rise again. Sometime...
And this is how we got there.

And I won't even mention civilisation, city status, fastest growing city in Europe, etc. But I have. There you go. Good luck to St. Johnstone, bring on the County.

And Roscoe. Don't worry, you're still the main man.

May Day 2009

...or given our present plight, m'aidez!

Anyway, here's one of my favourite scenes from the Ken Loach film, Land And Freedom.



And just to add a wee bit of the old learning technologies, the following are links to the same video clip.
The first is on YouTube with all the associated clutter, inane comments, attempted spamming and other such distractions. (To be fair there's just a bit of the good old political factionalism here, but if you use YouTube a lot, you'll know what I mean).
The second link filters the same video through QuietTube, which as it says provides "video without the distractions". There's a bookmarklet available too as well as a shortened, persistent bitly URL. Thoroughly recommended.

Internationale @ YouTube

Internationale @ QuietTube

Venceremos!

For Boris Johnson and St. George

Not really for Boris. Or the right wingers that would hijack folk. For the Tolpuddle Martyrs and all the others. And Jack Jones (RIP). Read The Guardian story here. Yeah, I know, bloody left-wingers...
























2 Wordles in one day? Well if it's good enough for the aforementioned newspaper...

Graphic courtesy Wordle - www.wordle.com
Lyric - Leon Rosselson : The World Turned Upside Down