Early September I got my hands on Daniel Pink’s most recent book ‘The Adventures of Johnny Bunko‘, and then promptly gave it away at TeachMeet. I then found myself wanting to talk about it to so many different people, and have mentioned it in about every presentation I’ve given since.

A twitter conversation a few weeks ago with Neil Winton and Mark Pentleton brought up the idea of running a ‘Bunko breakfast’ at some point near the end of term in Glasgow, but in the meantime I want to make sure that as many people as possible that I’m in contact with in education get to read this book.

So I hatched a cunning plan. What if I bought a couple of copies of the book and asked people to pass them on in a kind of chain read? What if I wrote the URL of this blog post in the inside of the book cover and asked that whoever read it merely came back here and left a comment, telling us what they thought of it, and who they passed it on to?

So lets kick things off – I’ve bought two copies – one I’ve promised to give to my colleague Bruce Murray at RM – the other one I’ll stick in the post to the first person that asks for it (email me your address, or dm me on twitter @whereisab). All that I ask is that you read it, make a comment here and then pass it on?

let the Bunko fun begin!

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Picked up an article via Mike Coulter on twitter yesterday pointing out that about a third of ‘millenials‘ are dissatisfied with the technology their employer provides, and about half of them that use social media do so without support or indeed bypassing company policies. A huge number have no problem with using unsupported services or devices at work.

This got me thinking. As soon as organisations look at providing support, the first port of call for many is to tie down a system – picking only a tiny number of ’supported’ devices or applications that they recommend. Indeed, most organisations will then actively prohibit you for purchasing any other, citing the fact that it’s ‘not supported’ as the reason.

Now although I fall outwith the ‘millenial’ age bracket, I know I’m in the group that quite happily would run a device without ’support’ from someone within the organisation. Why? It seems curious to me that in such an age of connectivity I would have to rely on only a handful of individuals for support when I could easily get advice or guidance from a whole host of people out there only too willing to help.

Recently I read the book ‘Groundswell‘ that cited many examples of where an organisation have included the masses of knowledgeable evangelists in either their marketing or support services.

Some in education are beginning to look at this. Having a central team whose primary goal is to support the network, rather than the devices that have access to it. How many would be prepared to take such a step? I know I would quite happily trade ’support’ for experimentation, in the full knowledge that if something goes wrong, then I have to find the solution myself. Would this create more room for innovation and creativity in the curriculum? I suspect it would.

photocredit: assbach.

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56.01.

This number may mean nothing to you, but this was the number I received when sucked into a scam like so many others on twitter yesterday. It’s only now the lone voice of reason @jonesieboy comes into sharp focus as he couldn’t believe how many people had voluntarily typed their username and password into a website merely to find out a number that few (if any) knew the meaning of.

Fortunately for the gullible, it wasn’t truly a scam, but an experiment to find out the extent of the network in twitter – it’s easy to see your own @ replies, but just how far do these connections go? Thanks to @katiebarrowman for pointing out the truth behind the story to me. I think we’re all suitably shamed. If we’re not, then we should be.

Why did I do it? Well, quite simply, because others had. It brings the value of this network into sharp focus again for me. Here is a group of loosely related individuals that I have learned to trust for their advice or opinions. Now I know how gullible we all are, should I value this network as much?

It’s been a bit of a day full of numbers for me today. I’ve watched over the last few days the number of people in Learning & Teaching Scotland joining up to ‘Yammer‘ (a closed equivalent of twitter for those that share the same email address domain) reach roughly a quarter of the organisation. Is this a valuable tool? One of my colleagues noted that if we all actually answer the question posed by Yammer ‘What are you working on?’, then it would be worthwhile, as we’d all be much better informed as the workings of our colleagues. Will people do this though? I suspect we all value the opportunity for conversation too much to be ‘merely’ productive.

Which brings me back to twitter – I have only two contacts in twitter that only ever answer the question posed ‘What are you doing?’ – would it be a better network if that’s all we said? The problem is our nature – we just can’t resist clicking on a link from someone we trust, can we?

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I don’t recall reading very much as a child. Whilst my sisters would troop to the library on a regular basis, I don’t really remember sharing their passion for reading at such an age. Even throughout secondary school, I don’t recall reading a great deal – more a ‘you have to’ kind of mentality, as I read my way through the texts needed for the various classes. One of my English teachers had such a great phrase which has stuck with me, as it is only since my late teens that I understand it’s importance. He simply would repeat at the beginning of each lesson “If you’re reading a good book, you’re not wasting time” – at the time I would merely yawn and pretend to read, in my adolescent ironic way of wasting time whilst reading…It was only when I got to Unversity that I ‘got it’ – and realised the joy of reading. Not just a joy, but a consuming passion, and anyone that enjoys little more than curling up with a good book will know exactly what I mean here. Perhaps I’d never really bothered to think about it much, or perhaps it was being confronted by the largest collection of books I had ever seen in Glasgow University library and the realisation that all the books in this section (covering half of one floor!) were all written about my area of interest was a revelation.

As a post-graduate, I was privileged enough to enjoy the experence of spending time researching in the Bodlean Library in Oxford. There was something wonderful about such an ancient institution whose catalogue was kept in huge paper based directories, and requesting a number of titles involved someone visiting the ’stacks’ held underground to bring it for me to read.

Why am I telling you about this now?

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded ‘Stanza’ for my iPhone and started reading 1984. Whilst I marvel at the technological wonder that allows me to change the font, size and colour of text on the page, there is something missing – not sure if it’s the actual pages, or knowing how far through a book you’ve got, but there’s something not quite right. I do love the fact that on the iPhone (or any other e-Reader for that matter) you don’t need an additional light source, as the page is lit up, but I’m still not entirely sold on the prospect of reading my next ‘book’ on the iPhone. Is this the same feeling I had when moving from LP to CD? Not really. I enjoyed the improved sound quality, but missed the gatefold album covers. Will I feel the same about reading on my iPhone? Time will tell.

photocredit: JL!

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Flying back from London last week, the worst thing happened to me – I finished my book, and had to resort to the in-flight magazine. Never one to really enjoy such a publication, I flicked through it out of sheer desperation for something to read. To my surprise, I was glad I’d opened it. The guest editor for the magazine was Heston Blumenthal – a chef more commonly known for his scientific approach to cuisine than journalism. In his editorial letter he said this:

Many people when asked about their most memorable meals will recall occasions when the food was good, but it will be the company and ultimately the location that made it special.

This struck a chord with me – so I noted it down. I was surprised by his remark that it was company and location that made more of a difference to recollection of a meal – especially from someone that takes such care in his creations. It shouldn’t really have surprised me though – ultimately in life it’s how we connect with others that makes the difference. Add to that a beautiful location and you truly have a recipe for success?

image credit: qwertyuiop.

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A couple of discussions today leapt out at me – one with I_like and the other with PC (why are you not linkable?!)

When I started writing here, I wrote for me – whether anyone else was reading or not was completely irrelevant. It was a few posts before anyone commented and whilst that fact held an amount of trepidation (yes, other people were reading this), I carried on regardless. Hopefully what made this slice of the world-wide-inter-webby-thingy remotely useful was that I was being honest in my own voice about the things I was involved with in Scottish education.

So what happened? Why did I feel able to comment when I was with my previous employer, but less able to comment with my present employer? What changed? At no point has anyone said to me over the last year ‘you can’t blog about this’ – indeed, if anything, the documentation at my present employer would positively encourage me to do otherwise. Did the stakes become higher? Did I panic at giving my opinion on something that I am involved in day to day that has cost a significant amount of money? Possibly.

I’m troubled by the fact that the last few posts I have given here have only been related to the positive side of my project work. I’m concerned that my own voice has been diminished on my own site, when frankly neither RM nor LTS need my assistance in marketing (I probably get in the way if I think about it!)

So this is just a quick post to say that I’m back. What I have to say may be challenging, but if I’m wrong them argue with me and tell me where I’m mistaken. As the past has shown here, I’m more than happy to learn in public. I would hope that throughout all discussions, I have the best of intentions at heart: improving the learning experience for those involved in Scottish Education.

photo credit: monsieurlam.

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