Everything's gone green*

E·on Envi LCD monitor in action**

Well, more accurately, our household has gone green.

Our electricity company, E·on, sent us a free home energy monitor recently. The device is an E·on badged Current Cost meter – the Envi. I found the device easy to install. In the box there was an E·on Envi LCD monitor pictured and a wireless transmitter. Also included in the box was a LIME energy saving plug.

PLEASE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS THAT CAME WITH YOUR OWN DEVICE VERY CAREFULLY. The wireless transmitter is fitted to the electricity meter and communicates with the E·on Envi LCD monitor. Once connected and setup, the E·on LCD monitor, which can be sited anywhere in the home near a power socket, displays the actual cost of electricity at six second intervals. It is then simple to switch something on or off, such as a light or a cooker, and nearly instantly find out how much it costs. We have been going around the house unplugging phone chargers, laptop charger, desktop computer on standby and switching off lights. The additional free LIME energy saving plug allows the TV, set top box and other connected devices to all be switched off using a remote control. So far we believe we can save at least £10 per month, if not more. This additional saving is in a household that thought it was economical with electricity. For example, I had thought that a phone or laptop charger was not consuming electricity if it was plugged in and switched on but not connected to the phone or laptop. This is not the case! I can be so naïve.
 

The E·on Envi LCD monitor can be connected to the Internet, such as through Google Powermeter, updating every ten minutes. The advantage of this is that it allows secure live monitoring of usage from the Internet too; very useful for smart phone users or monitoring from the office. The disadvantage of this setup is that the E·on Envi LCD monitor, the laptop and the broadband router all need continuous power. In my case, this consumes around 30 Watts (W) which equates to around £3 per month. I intend to keep monitoring online in this way for two months so I have a good set of data to work with.

Google powermeter graph

The gap in the Google powermeter graph pictured for Monday was me accidentally switching off the laptop that was uploading the readings to Google. The dark green line on graph shows the power in watts used by equipment on standby – Google terms this always-on power. I am informed this value should be very low at night. What low means seems to depend on where you live, what you live in and how you live in it. Searching the Internet for example reveals at least one household running at 1.2 kilowatt (kW) always-on which is 30 kilowatt hour (kW·h) per day! Look at my night-time graph carefully and you will see our fridge/freezer switch on every two hours or so. After my first day of using the LCD monitor my always-on value was 300 W (7.2 kW·h/day) whilst yesterday my always-on value was 110 W (2.64 kW·h/day) – if I can keep this up it represents an incredible yearly saving of over £200! This exercise has made us look more carefully at our electricity usage. We had thought that we had fully converted to low-energy (CFL) lighting. A more thorough survey, backed up by our LCD monitor, revealed we still had a little way to go. We had some tungsten spotlights for example which have since been replaced by IKEA low-energy spotlights.

Go green guide

How is the cost of electricity calculated? First obtain the charge per kilowatt-hour (kW·h) from the electricity bill. In my case, I am charged one rate for the first 900 kW·h used per year then a smaller rate for all subsequent kW·h's used in that year. Some people have cheaper night-time electricity, called Economy‑7, which complicates the calculation a little. In any case, I arrived at an average of £0.13 for each kW·h by dividing last years total electricity bill by the number of kW·h used in that year. So my 110 W always-on figure costs 110 W / 1000 kW x 24 hours x 365 days x £0.13 = £125.27 per year. My annual electricity cost is of course more than this.

See also 2 February 2011 entry Going greener in this blog.

* 1981 pop song by New Order
** Photo © 2011 John McCullough

Little Thetford on the map!

*Little Thetford looking south-west

Along with Bob Young, I will be giving a talk at the Library, 6 The Cloisters, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4ZH on Friday 11 February between 10:30 and noon on the subject Little Thetford: Two square miles of history. Tickets are available at the door for 2.50 GBP. Geologist Bob will introduce the talk which I will present.

The Little Thetford Wikipedia article was published on the Wikipedia front page today. Some of you may know I edit Wikipedia articles under the pseudonym Senra. Little Thetford started out as a stub article on 30 May 2010; very little content as shown here. Using the village website as a starting off point, I began researching the two square mile Cambridgeshire village and was hooked. I learned rapidly that, although it is easy for anyone to edit Wikipedia pages, the content you produce must be substantiated from reliable sources, otherwise it gets quickly removed by another editor. Following a couple of months in a steep learning curve, I submitted the article through the Wikipedia peer-review process eventually gaining featured article status on 27 July 2010. The article was finally published on the front page today. The English Wikipedia has around 3 million articles of which 3,000 reach featured status. My other articles are listed here.

Every Wikipedia article has a status ranging from stub through Good Article to Featured Article. Wikipedia does not publish the status of every article. To see such status, create a free Wikipedia account. The Wikipedia community value anonymity highly so you do not need to use your real name or a regular email address; a free hotmail address for example is fine. Once registered, you can see an articles status just below the title line. As an example, Wikipedia's article on Blooms' taxonomy is a start-class article which simply means it has not been submitted through the Wikipedia peer-review process.

Yes I know this has nothing to do with the PTLLS course, but if I cannot be proud for one day, when can I be?

*Photo © 2010 John Parish

Which micro-teach topic should I plan for?

*Please vote in my poll

As part of the PTLLS course, we have to prepare a 30 minute lesson and deliver the lesson to a group of our class. I think most of us are worrying about this part of the course. I certainly am. Please help me decide what topic to teach by voting for your own favourite in the poll at the top of this blog. The topics I have considered so far are

• Introducing Wikipedia editing. A short introduction drawn from my own experience
• Little Thetford - local history. Two square miles of Cambridgeshire history from an Ice-Age through to the modern day
• A blog and how to create one. Feedback from the week 3 lesson after Lewis mentioned this blog in class suggests that other people may be interested in this
• Successful take-off and landing in a light aeroplane flying from Cambridge. Test your skills with a qualified pilot on this realistic simulation of the real thing
• Something else? Review my own background in this blog entry or just challenge me then make your suggestion by adding your comment below

This may sound arrogant, but I guarantee I will micro-teach the topic which receives the most votes.

* Photo © 2009 Theresa Thompson on Flickr

How to make a cup of tea ...

*Cup of tea anyone?

... erm! Seriously.

The class had been split into 5 groups last week. As I missed last weeks lesson, I made a fourth body on an already function group consisting of Jo, Linda, and Karen. As a group we were all asked to create a lesson plan for any activity we could think of. One group chose the topic writing a story, another making a cheesecake, a third chose baking a dozen buns, the fourth settled on email and we chose making a cuppa.

Our lesson outcomes were that the student would learn how to be able to list the equipment and incredients necessary to make a cuppa; be able to make a cuppa using a tea bag; and understand the risks involved. The differentiated outcomes we discussed included using leaf tea, the ability to make different strength teas and understand the health and safety legislation involved. Just to be clear, our target audience for this life-skills lesson was intended to be students with special needs. Have you stopped laughing at us yet?

We also (for me at least) revisited Bloom (1956) and Maslow (1943) and were told that we would get SMART next week; Simple, Manageable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely? Maslow in particular has cropped up throughout my life. I first came across the dude on a Grand Metropolitan managerial training course in the mid '70's; then University in at least one psychology module; then in business as part of staff motivation courses; in aviation as part of human factors and now in education whilst learning to teach. Still, I guess the dude meant well, even though he only studied the top 1% of a specific campus population.

Those of you who know me may not know I have difficulty with the names of new people I meet. This condition, which I have had all my life, came to a head during this evenings lesson when I kept calling Karen, Linda (or was it Linda, Karen?). I even thought Lewis was James! Thank you Jo for correcting me on at least three occasions! After the lesson, I looked the condition up and the nearest I can come to is a form of agnosia called prosopagnosia. They tell me that if you can name the disease, you can feel better about it. Hmmm. Perhaps I should try some self-help.

*Cup of Tea anyone © 2011 John McCulloug. For the observant amongst you, I take my tea black with one sugar! 
Edited once on 25-1-2011 at 15:120

More library books

Photo © 2005, CC BY-SA 3.0

See also Library books.

Visited the Ely library today. There was a distinct lack of course books. In fact, only two books with relevant class number, which is 300-Social sciences – 374-adult education, whilst the CRC library has at least two full shelves of 374 class books. Anyway, the two books I did get were:

• Dawson, C 2003. Returning to education—A practical handbook for adult learners. How to books limited
• Dawson, C 2006. The Mature Student's Study Guide—Essential skills for those returning to education or distance learning. How to books limited

Dawson (2006) does not mention Bloom but does mention something I am familiar with. Writers block. Two of her solutions to this condition are to "Write part of [the] assignment as a diary or a letter to a friend. It may help the words to flow and you can then rewrite when you feel up to it" and "Put together your bibliography or references – you are still working but you won't be affected by writer's block". Both very good reasons to continue this blog!

I also obtained Tiller, K 2002. English Local History. Sutton and also Burnby, J.G.L. 1983. A study of English apothecary from 1660–1760. Medical history supplement. Welcome Institute for the history of medicine but neither of these are for this course.

Bloom's taxonomy

Bloom's taxonomy

Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist most known for his classification of educational objectives in his 1956 handbook (Bloom 1956). Bloom's taxonomy organises learning objectives for educators into three domains,  Affective (emotional), Psychomotor (physical), and Cognitive (knowledge and thinking). These domains can be remembered using such mnemonics as KAS for Knowledge-Attitude-Skills or Do-Think-Feel (Chapman 2006–2009).

Objectives for learning within each domain are organised hierarchically such that a higher level objective is not fulfilled until all lower level objectives have been attained. This constrained hierarchy is similar in structure to  Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs (Maslow 1943), though of course for a different purpose.

One mnemonic that I recall, probably from University, is EDIT which I think stood for Explain, Demonstrate, Instruct, Test. It is also an acronym. On reflection, this is more of a skill mnemonic such as for driving instructing rather than an education one. Another mnemonic, probably from business presenting, is TTT—Tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them. I have used T=V to remind myself that variety is important in presenting, training and from what I have read recently, education too.

Because not all students learn in the same way and at the same pace, we should plan for individual learners. Francis and Gould (2009 p. 75) consider Bloom's taxonomy in helping to identify multiple lesson objectives in order to provide learning suitable for the different abilities each student.

This post is work-in-progress. Below is a list of sources that I have determined contain one or more references to Bloom. They have been marked with an "*" if I have not yet used them in the above notes

Bloom B S (ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the classification of educational goals – Handbook I: Cognitive Domain New York: McKay

*Calder, J. Ed., (1993) Disaffection and Diversity – overcoming barriers for adult learners. The Falmer Press

Chapman, Alan (2006-2009) Businessballs.com: Bloom's taxonomy – learning domains, accessed 18 January 2011

*Curzon, L.B. (2003) Teaching in Further Education - an outline of principles and practice. Continuum
Francis, M., Gould, J. (2009) Achieving your PTLLS Award – a practical guide to succesful teaching in the lifelong learning sector. SAGE

*Gravells, A. (2007) Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector – Level 3 coursebook. Learning Matters
Maslow, A.H. A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50(4) (1943):370–96.

*Petty, G. (2004) Teaching Today – a practical guide. Nelson Thornes
*Walkin, L. (2000) Teaching and Learning in Further and Adult Education. Nelson Thornes

Not just another brick in the wall?

Another Brick in the Wall!

The students that we teach are all different, unlike the school children referred to in Pink Floyd's rock opera, The Wall "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II". Examine this image carefully. There is one whole brick and parts of four other bricks shown. Even though we cannot see five full bricks, we can see that every brick is different. If we could look at this wall from a distance, we would think that every brick was the same.

We can view our students in the same way. Stand back from them and we can believe that they are all the same; after all, they have joined our course! Look more closely however and we spot many differences. Each student learns in a different way—see the VARK learning preferences questionnaire. Each student has different motives for completing the course—such as a requirement for their job or simply a wish to better themselves. Each student will have barriers to learning - such as financial, work pressures or home circumstances. Barriers may change over the course. A student may be ill or feel under pressure as the course progresses. Being sensitive to these differences, within organisational resource constraints, may help us provide a learning environment helpful for all of our students.

We should also consider diversity, but that is for another lesson.

Stand and deliver!

Cambridge: Short-final rwy 05*

From Gravells (2007) p. 8 I need to consider what topics I can teach. I also need to start thinking about the 30 minute micro-teach exercise I have to deliver as part of the course. Below I list my thoughts so far

• I lectured on a one year Pascal programming course for three years, two hours per week, from 1984. I was responsible for the course content, I set coursework and an end of course examination. In those days, you did not need a PTLLS!
• my career background is 23 years in IT, which is a very broad subject. I have been a senior manager from my first IT job in 1987. I am experienced in the software development life-cycle, most computer programming languages, broad operating system knowledge, systems design & deployment engineering, skilled network analyst, security specialist, competent operations analysis & support and excellent desktop systems knowledge in both office software & graphical design fields. I have also been a marine engineer and a steak-house (Schooner Inns) manager
• I am an amateur photographer with no particular specialist subject, though I am told I have an eye for a photograph. I am certainly skilled in digital image correction and manipulation. For example I hand-stitched 26 images for the panorama of Ely Cathedral (below); the images of the spiders web and British Library sculpture are mine as is the highly manipulated Hello World on this page

Anything to tap into here?

• I am a160 hour private pilot. Not only can I fly a light aeroplane (twin piston) but in gaining my licence I have studied Air law and operations procedures, human performance and limitations, meteorology, navigation, principles of flight, flight performance & planning and aircraft technical & general knowledge. I think flying also teaches you to have a continual eye for safety of your self and others
•  I have an interest in local history via editing Wikipedia, e.g. Little Thetford. This has given me an amateur introduction to palaeontology, archaeology, geology, human history, UK heritage, zoology, botany, cartography and a host of research oriented skills such as identifying and qualifying sources, copy-editing and accurate summarising
• I have an interest in cryptography, a branch of mathematics which also interests me deeply. As an example, my degree course was a business oriented computer studies degree though I was more interested in the computer science aspects. I managed to study a lot of computer science during the degree (hence my teaching post-grad) and built a 3D real-time wire-frame rotating true-perspective model of Wearmouth Bridge on a Harris H100 time-sharing computer in Fortan IV. I completed the required mathematics from first principles. I was very proud of this feat; especially as the computing engineers said it could not be done! I also built a BSL animated language demostrator using Pascal on an early IBM PC. My wife drew the pictures for it. I regret not writing this up as the compression techniques I used, to get real-time hand movements, anticipated mpeg compression by a few years; and my method was lossless!

Panorama, Ely Cathedral*

I suspect the above shows I have a number of life skills that I may be able to pass on to others. I know I show an enthusiasm for everything I do in life although the last five years without a full-time role have been somewhat dispiriting.

For my 30 minute micro-teach session, I am definitely leaning towards an introduction to Wikpedia editing, though I am not sure how interested my colleagues on the course will find this topic. Perhaps I should write a brief lesson plan and test it on my wife first!


* Ely Cathedral © 2005 John McCullough; Tap © 2006 John McCullough; Short-final © 1999 Marilyn McCullough (I was flying!)

Reflections

Photo: © 2003, John McCullough

Designing a blog look and feel is an iterative process. Choose your design; see how it looks; modify your design; rinse and repeat.

For this particular blog, I chose picture window as my initial design from a set of available blogger templates. After a few days use I feel the default orange link colour, combined with my style of posting using many hyperlinks, impedes the readers flow. I do feel that hypertext enhances the browsing experience, allowing the reader to explore the writers ideas deeper if they so wish; this was Tim Berners-Lee's vision after all.

I have therefore modified the default link colours. I chose to colour hyperlinks a slightly darker grey than the text. After visiting a hyperlink, the colour changes to be the same as the text. I feel that this allows the reader to read the text without too much distraction. After visiting a hyperlink, the reader would not be distracted at all.

Have I made the correct decision? Please let me know.

Library books

Bill Woodrow's Sitting on History*

Following a visit to the college library today, I borrowed the following books, most of which are on the recommended reading list:

• Calder, J. Ed., (1993) Disaffection and Diversity - overcoming barriers for adult learners. The Falmer Press
• Minton, D. (1997) Teaching Skills in Further & Adult Education. Thomson Learning
• Sutherland, P. Ed., (1997) Adult Learning: a reader. Kogan Page
• Walkin, L. (2000) Teaching and Learning in Further and Adult Education. Nelson Thornes
• Curzon, L.B. (2003) Teaching in Further Education - an outline of principles and practice. Continuum
• Petty, G. (2004) Teaching Today - a practical guide. Nelson Thornes
• Gravells, A. (2006) Delivering Adult Learning - level 3 coursebook. Learning Matters
• Gravells, A. (2007) Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector - Level 3 coursebook. Learning Matters
• Francis, M., Gould, J. (2009) Achieving your PTLLS Award - a practical guide to succesful teaching in the lifelong learning sector. SAGE

I am a little disappointed that I cannot find a way to access the college library catalogue from outside the college. This could be a small financial (travel costs) barrier to my learning.

*Image is a bronze sculpture. Photo © 2006 Grytr (John McCullough). Bill Woodrow's 'Sitting On History ' was purchased for the British Library by Carl Djerassi and Diane Middlebrook in 1997. Sitting on History, with its ball and chain, refers to the book as the captor of information which we cannot escape.

As an aside, I really need to check my Flickr account more often. This image was used to illustrate an article by Kathryn Perera, 12 July 2010 Michael Gove's history lesson, Progress Online. Coincidentally, the article discusses education!

VARK learning style questionnaire

I completed the VARK learning style questionnaire as recommened within part of week 1. My scores were:

• Visual: 5
• Aural: 4
• Read/write: 11
• Kinesthetic: 4
• Multimodal: 0

I therefore have a strong Read/Write learning preference. I find that surprising as I thought I had a strong preference for visual learning using graphs and charts. Still, I do like reading. I read a great deal; mainly non-fiction.

VARK © 1992: Fleming, N.D. and Mills, C. (1992), Not Another Inventory, Rather a Catalyst for Reflection, To Improve the Academy, Vol. 11, 1992., page 137

Janes blog

I have been assisting my Children's Book Illustrator friend Jane with her new blog. See how far we have got to here ...

• Janes blog: "I'm an artist and illustrator about to graduate from The Cambridge School of Art with a Master's degree in Children's Book Illustration. ..."

See their 2011 final exhibition at Folyes Bookshop, London. In fact I know a few people on this course, as my wife Marilyn completed the course in 2009.

Is there humour in education?

When we communicate, we should take care to ensure the words we use are well understood. If in doubt, we can use a dictionary, such as the Oxford Dictionary of English (OED). Most UK libraries provide free on line access to this excellent resource. However, a dictionary may still lead us astray ...

• Children's Logic: "Give me a sentence about a public servant," said a teacher. The small boy wrote: "The fireman came down the ladder pregnant." The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. "Don't you know what pregnant means?" she asked. "Sure," said the young boy confidently. 'It means carrying a child"

• Source: recent viral joke but this one seems to have travelled the web too!

See the OED entry for the adjective pregnant

Some initial reading

© Michael Jastremski

Initial reading with links to mainly web based sources at this point.
The teacher training cycle

• Web based wiki: (not wikipedia!) Preparing to Teach in the Life Long Learning Sector
• Don Burger Accessing for learning 2004. Contains the Teaching and learning Cycle.
• Wing-Ming Cheung, Yin Cheong Cheng, (1997) "Self-management: implications for teacher training", Training for Quality, Vol. 5 Iss: 4, pp. 160–168 suggests teacher self-management is an important pre-requisite for the quality of teaching performance.

Administration

• eHow: "The goal of recordkeeping within an adult literacy program is to assist in measuring the progress of students. The strength of literacy skills and overall capabilities of a student can be discovered through recordkeeping."

The teacher as a tutor

• Wikipedia/teacher: "A teacher who facilitates education for an individual student may also be described as a personal tutor"
• Contrast above with Wikipedia/Tutor: "A tutor is a person employed in the education of others, either individually or in groups." and OED: Tutor v. "To act the part of a tutor towards; to give special or individual instruction to; to teach, instruct (in a subject)."

The boundaries

• From UWLAX.EDU: "Healthy boundaries for teachers" (PDF)
  Professional behaviour is a priority
  Use caution with self-disclosure
  Beware of boundary violations: take time to respond
  Be observant
  Don't be afraid to correct inappropriate behaviour [firm but fair]
  Use extreme caution with physical contact or touching
  Be prepared

PTLLS course at Cambridge Regional College

Photo: © 2006, John McCullough

I started as a student in the Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS) course (CA5PTLLSJ) on Monday 10 January 2011 17:30–20:30 at Cambridge Regional College. The course can be followed by a Certificate in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (CTLLS one year) or a Diploma in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (DTLLS two years).

The sixteen other students and I met the lecturers, James Woodworth and Lewis Williams. Both very nice. The administration was a little trying. My course offer letter informed me that I would be able to pay the first evening, which turned out not to be possible due to the unavailability of the finance department, whose normal hours are 09:00–17:00. Still, I was able to pay over the telephone the following day. With my newly acquired student number, and after an exchange of emails with a very friendly ILCT Systems Administrator, I was able to log in to the course Virtual Learning Environment.

The course, the timetable and the assignments were explained. We were informed that the course could be studied at level 3 or 4. The basic difference is that level 4 students would be expected to complete an additional assignment and maintain Harvard citation standards throughout. We were told it was not compulsory to continue level 4 if we started that way and decided to continue at level 3. We were also told that completing the course at level 4 awards no special concessions for further study.

Then the first lecture started with the topic on the defining characteristics of an effective teacher. As a class we considered different words to describe an effective teacher such as inspiring, creative, encouraging.