After all the hassle with my host, dreamweaver and wordpress 2.3, I’ve upgraded today to wordpress 2.5 – wow – what a difference! Now, if I could only find the time to edit my theme, I’d be halfway to happy with this site again

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Old news if you’ve been following this story, but for those that may have missed it, Adobe have released Photoshop Express in a beta online. Obviously it’s not full blown photoshop, but it gives a lovely flash interface to make edits to photos, and share your pics in a gallery. Nice integration with Facebook, Photobucket and Picassa, for those that use these services. Hopefully, integration with Flickr won’t be too far away?

If you’re signing up on a Windows PC, remember that on an american keyboard, the ‘@’ symbol is above the number ‘2′!

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Every time you visit the online service at Learning and Teaching Scotland, you now have the easy opportunity to login to Glow. No more having to remember the portal address, or having to look up your bookmarks. Integrating Glow with the online service is a great way for us to make connections across all the work that we do, and makes it easier for users to access the opportunities that both Glow and the online service provide.

Happy days!

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‘An exciting heritage project that was established in October 2006 to investigate and document abandoned rural settlements throughout Scotland has launched a teachers’ resource pack for use by teachers and pupils throughout Scotland in Curriculum for Excellence.’

With so many methods of communication open to us today, it’s easy to miss something that could be of great value to you. When you log in to Glow however, you are automatically presented with targetted news from the groups you are involved in, and news provided by Learning & Teaching Scotland. Right at the top of the list this morning was a link to a resource pack for Scotland’s Rural Past – a development that had otherwise passed me by, but brought sharply to my attention through news sent directly to me in Glow.

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My wife pointed me in the direction of this great site full of Paul Hughes’ poetry. I love his tagline – ‘Paul Hughes’ poetry and verse for anyone with imagination’.

If you usually come here for my random thoughts related to the world of ICT and Scottish education, then follow the link and take a well-deserved excursion

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Sorry I’m now back to moderating comments folks – the SPAM situation continues to grow, and the Captcha I tried last week didn’t seem to solve the problem either! I’ll hopefully try and update the blog to the most recent version of wordpress and see if that solves the problem, but after the attempts I’ve made so far at a solution, I’m not holding out much hope

photocredit: pantagrapher

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Glow mentioned in dispatches in the TES again today. On pg 4, Larry Flanagan is quoted in the ‘holyrood’ column:

‘As for the promises that the schools digital network, Glow, would provide all resources teachers needed, he was unconvinced. “Maybe in the future it will be a marvellous resource, but it is a nonentity for most teachers,” he insisted.’

A couple of quick points if I may? I’m pleased to see the potential Glow offers being spoken of so favourably, as I don’t doubt that in the future it will be a ‘marvelous resource’. I must say though that many teachers and pupils are already seeing how marvelous a resource it can be at the moment, but I do acknowledge that it’s early days for some.

A ‘non-entity for most teachers’? At the moment, this is probably true – in so far as we have only started working with mentors and teachers in seven out of the thirty two local authorities in Scotland. By the summer, this will be more than half of the local authorites in Scotland. Feedback from the early adopters has given great examples of how Glow is being used in transformative ways, and having a significant impact on teaching and learning.

It strikes me that the value any online community has is in the capacity it offers for communication and collaboration, yet we still see people referring to ‘resources’ an online community can offer. If all we are going to do with technology is use it as a means to get things we can use in the classroom, then we are missing the capacity that Glow offers. What is this capacity? Unparalleled opportunity to share in our learning, and the learning of our students, with others around the country in a safe and secure environment.

photocredit: caro’s lines

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Today I drove home from the weekly pilgrimage to my local ’supermarket’ following a Volkswagen Phaeton. Only in Helensburgh (or Bearsden/Milngavie?) could you follow a car of such unfortunate pedigree, but it got me thinking about a couple of things.

Firstly, when the car was conceived, the Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piëch, issued a challenge to his designers. Reputedly, this challenge consisted of 10 parameters that the car needed to fulfill – each of which an engineering mountain in it’s own right. He set exceptionally high standards, and made them very clear to the designers. Off they went to fulfill the brief, and they came back with an astonishing car.

The car, despite being excellent on almost every level, failed.

Why? In our label obsessed culture, if you have £75,000 to spend on a car, you’re probably not going to buy a Volkswagen (brilliant though it may be). More likely you’re going to buy something with the badge to match the amount you’ve spent on it.

If you’re involved in any type of management, think about Ferdinand Piëch issuing his challenge to his designers. He had both vision and the clarity to articulate that vision to his designers. When you issue your directives, do you do this? Does everyone in your organisation know what you want them to achieve, and how to go about achieving it? I’m very fortunate to be working on a national project that has both vision and clarity. Think about what you’re working on – are you completely confident in its vision?

The car didn’t sell as well as Volkswagen had hoped. Despite achieving excellence on so many fronts, it is still out-sold in its price bracket by technically worse cars. So often in our culture, we pride the label something carries and the status that infers on others more than excellence itself.

It strikes me, that if we continue to aim for excellence in education, then perhaps there are other social and cultural issues that need addressed first?

photocredit: davidbasanta

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In case you haven’t heard, the latest edition of Connected magazine is out. It’s great catching up on all the stories and features in the magazine, but isn’t it great that the online version can take things a stage further?

In this issue, Laurie O’Donnell answers questions about Glow. Over on connectedLive however, you can read the full interview, including sections that didn’t make it to the magazine. You can also get involved in the discussion by leaving your own comment on the post. Isn’t that the power of the read/write web?

Find out more on the connectedLive site.

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All credit to Mark Pentleton.

If you haven’t been following the quite meteoric rise of ‘Coffee Break Spanish‘ in the US Podcast chart in iTunes, then let me fill you in – Mark from his humble studio in the West of Scotland is presently #2 in the US Podcast download chart – second only to the might of Oprah (a person so famous, she only needs a first name)

Oprah aside, isn’t it both brilliant and encourging that people wanting to learn (nearly) tops the charts? Come on the little guy! (even though he’s 6′2″!)

If any of Oprah’s researchers is reading this, surely this warrants being a future story? A teacher from the west coast of Scotland that creates a series of podcasts that prove so popular, people all over the world want to learn Spanish using them?

photocredit – lissalou66

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