Google surveillance and tide clock (again)

Interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper about Google’s Flu Trends which, on the face of it, is an admirable exercise in public health research i.e. Google are monitoring the searches done by people relating to flu. However, as the article rightly points out, this is still extensive monitoring of what we are searching for and the implications for privacy could be serious. For example, if Google was to sell its information to drug companies, would we end up getting emails and/or phone calls asking us if we have flu or know someone who has, and if so, would we like to buy this wonder drug? It’s not clear how likely this is but it is possible. This would be a good article for senior school students to read if they are considering aspects of information in society or privacy. Today it’s flu trends but might it be tomorrow?

I referred to our new tide clock in a previous post and also to my new camera. The tide clock is very accurate although it may need to be calibrated each time there is a full moon so that it remains accurate. So what else do you do when there’s a full moon but calibrate your tide clock? My new toy -ahem, camera – is a real step up in quality and to show this, I’ve put another picture of the tide clock and time clock in our living room below. For information, if you zoom in on the tide clock, you’ll see that the tide is just on the turn or, to use the jargon, it’s now a falling tide.

Time and tide (reprise)

Web 2.0 in schools and Paxton House

A new report from Becta in the UK about Web 2.0 and schools. This report is the 3rd in a series and deals with Impacts, Barriers and Issuesin relation to Web  2.0 and schools. For teacher librarians and school librarians reading this, the findings will be anecdotally familiar but this report is based on research and should have a greater impact. The report highlights the range of possibilities, particularly the creative opportunities for students, of Web 2.0 in schools. It highlights how publication on the web can be a stimulation to student learning and that “publication enhanced a learner’s sense of ownership, engagement and awareness of audience“. The barriers? The usual suspects – a clash between school assessment and creative learning, filtering (see previous post), time and support. Well worth a read.

On Sunday, armed with my new Canon EOS100D SLR digital camera (there’s whole new language I need to learn to make the most of it and when you switch it on, the back of the camera looks like a pilot cockpit’s range of icons, text and lights) I ventured down to Paxton House  , a stately home about a 40 minute drive from Dunbar. Built in 1758 by John Adam and it has wonderful interiors by Robert Adam. There was snow on the ground at the house when we got there but none on the river Tweed walk which is next to the house. It’s a fascinating visit in terms of architecture and furnishings from the 18th century onwards and the Home (pr. Hume) family owned all the land that you can see from the house. This meant that for most people living in the area, there was a huge and unbridgeable gap between rich and poor. The last owner of the house, John Home Robertson,  a former Labour MP, donated the house and grounds to a charitable trust. The picture below shows the back of the house.

Paxton House

Lessons from Obama and Twisted Thistle

From eSchool News, a report on how school might learn lessons from Barack Obama’s extensive use of Web 2.0 tools to organise his campaign and get the vote out. The emphasis of the report  is on how schools might encourage the use of social networking between teachers and students and that this might be a platform for discussions about media literacy and responsible use of social networking. The report also states that schools may find this prospect “daunting”. One aspect of this that is currently likely to put on hold developments in social networking is the banning, in state schools in the UK and Australia in particular, of social networking sites for fear that students will access inappropriate material. So education authorities need to decide whether they really  want to encourage the use of Web 2.0 or are just paying lip-service.

Picture the scene. My cycling friend John’s retirement party and a wee celebration but John has retired from Belhaven Brewery  here in Dunbar and a group of us went to the party which was held inside the brewery. So, a free bar and about 7 different beers to choose from. I elected to go for Twisted Thistle which is not, as you might imagine, some form of medieval Scottish torture, but what the brewery calls “A stunning India Pale Ale (IPA)”. Think smooth, think thirst quenching, think heart warming and think a woozy next morning. The picture below shows 2 bottles beside the winter flowering cyclamen outside the window where I write this.

Twisted Thistle and cyclamen

Information practice and tide clock

My colleague Anne Lloyd and I have discussions about information literacy from time to time and one of the aspects of information literacy that often comes us is – what is information literacy? Is it a set of skills, a concept, an ideal towards which we all strive, a process or is it, as Anne now argues, a practice? The context of Anne Lloyd’s work is the workplace and not schools but we can learn from studies in the workplace about information literacy in schools amongst students but also amongst teachers and teacher librarians. One of the key arguments in Anne’s work is that we need to get away from only looking at a mainly textual context of information. This “textual context” can include websites with non-textual information but the argument here is that we should also be looking at what information students get from other sources, including teachers, teacher librarians and each other. So if we, as professionals, were asked to look at our information practice – how would we define it and to what extent would it relate to finding information – spoken and non-spoken – from other people and not the information sources we have digitally or in print? Worth thinking about.

For my recent important (more to others than to me) birthday, my sister in New Zealand sent me a beautiful tide clock, which tells you when the tide is coming in (rising) or going out (falling) or is at high or low tide or that there are X hours to high or low tide. Now, where I live, you can look out the window and mostly work this out – but not when it’s dark, as it is now from about 4.45pm. It works on the lunar diurnal cycle of 24 hours and 50 minutes and the tide clock hand goes round once in 12 hours 25 minutes. This could get very nerdy, so no more statistics. The tide clock has a lovely face and is made out of New Zealand rimu wood. In our home, we decided to put the tide clock above our ticking clock (see picture below) and thus have time and tide together. As yet “no man” has not appeared but we’re waiting.

Time and tide ...

Conferences and Seamus Heaney

This week I have been preparing an abstract for a paper to be submitted for the ASLA conference 2009 where Stephanie Bush from Queenwood Junior School and I are hoping – if the paper is accepted – to talk about the factors that might influence the development of a culture of transfer in a school. The conference takes place in Perth, Australia and teacher librarians – if they can attend – will learn much from the papers but also enjoy the company of their peers. The second conference of interest this week is the IASL 2009 conference which will take place in Padua, Italy. Obviously, if you are reading this in Australia, it’s a long way to go and potentially expensive but if you can get there, it’s a valuable experience.

If I was asked who was my favourite poet, I would, after some thought, plump for Seamus Heaney and there is a very interesting article in last weekend’s Guardian newspaper which I find in my letterbox each day and is one of the assurances that I live in civilised country. The article on Heaney is an account of an interview gave to a fellow Irish poet and goes through the various stages of his writing life. It also contains some wonderfully evocative lines – Heaney talks poetry as well as writes it. If you think you have no interest in poets or poetry – read this and it will change your mind.

Google books and Robert Johnson

From eSchool News, a report that Google and representatives of authors and publishers have come to an agreement about Google’s scanning of books and making parts of books available via its Books tool. This good news for publishers and authors (like me) as it has forced Google into making payment towards copyright claims from authors and publishers. It is also a very good result for libraries, according to one university librarian, as it will increase access to out of print books for many library users. There are still fears that Google is trying to make all books available online, even in small parts and of course, Google denies this but, given the effort put in by academic authors who produce books and given the slight rewards, we still need to keep an eagle eye on what Google is doing.

I have a pretty eclectic taste in music but when it comes to blues, Robert Johnson  is the man. HIs raw voice and guitar playing have influenced many people and one CD I have enjoyed is Eric Clapton’s Me and Mr Johnson. Some of my colleagues do not approve of this kind of cover of the great man’s singing but I say – listen to both – they are not the same artefact and one is a tribute to the other.

Enquiring minds and bonfire night

One of the best educational projects in recent years and one which I’ve referred to a few times is the Enquiring Minds project. The project has just released its year 3 report  and it is worth a look – even if you just read the summary and recommendations. The project worked with staff in 2 UK schools over 3 years with an emphasis on the “interests, experiences and concerns of students” i.e. they tried to get teachers to change their teaching to pay more attention of what might interest students more than the “normal” assignments that had been done in the past. The results show that students can become more motivated when more involved. My own recent research has shown that students in the Australian schools where my research was based, were of the opinion that if teachers could give students more choice with assignments and the option of doing assignments which interested them, this would result in students being more motivated but also more likely to use information literacy skills.

Tonight (UK time) is November 5th and not only meaningful to my sister (Happy Birthday Lizzie) but is bonfire night  when the British celebrate the prevention of Guy Fox’s attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Most of the bonfires and firework displays happened on Saturday and there were some fireworks going off over the town tonight but, compared with years ago, there are now very few individual houses where fireworks are let off in the back garden. This is no doubt a lot safer and fewer accidents are caused but it’s also less colourful.

Pathfinders and making soup

My students have just completed an assignment in which a good number of them have designed pathfindersand have used a range of wikis such as Wetpaint, pbwiki or wikispaces . If you do a search for pathfinders school libraries, you will find lots of examples butmost of them, while providing a range of resources suitable to their student audience, often have very content-driven annotations. What I teach my students is that pathfinders should contain information literacy skills advice at the start  of the pathfinder and in teh annotations. Some students search within websites effectively and are good at interpreting what they find in relation to their purpose – but as we know, many are not. So including reminders in the annotations of resources about searching and interpreting is likely to help many students in your classes.

One of the most therapeutic things that I do is to make home made soup. I think that the processes of chopping, slicing, peeling, grating, stirring, seasoning, tasting and simmering are all relaxing. I realise that this might sound awfully middle class, educated, comfortably off and western and I know that for some people in the world, making soup used to be and often is, a chore. Given that admission, however, making soup e.g. lentil soup which I made yesterday, is relaxing and satisfying. My recipe? I used stock from the gammon joint we had, washed the lentils and added them, bringing the stock and letnils quickly tothe boil. I then added chopped leeks, grated turnip (aka swede in England an other places) i.e. large, round and thick purple skin and grated carrot. For more stock I used a vegetable cube and yes, i know there can be a lot of salt int these cubes. Stir the whole thing together and simmer for maybe half an hour. Delicious.