Post-Christmas Post

Today's BBC website carries the news that scientists have discovered that the original kilogram, the standard by which all weight is measured, has become slightly heavier since it was cast from platinum-iridium in France 137 years ago. This is apparently due to small amounts of pollution collecting on its surface, and as a result, everything else has become lighter, including us.

As Peter Cumpson, professor of MicroElectroMechanical systems at Newcastle University, puts it "It is a really tiny effect, but strictly speaking we are all slightly lighter than we were in the late 1800s."
This means that I'm now sat in a Belfast hotel room weighing less than I thought I did when I left home, even though my weight has stayed exactly the same.

Not only that, but as the distance in kilometres between here and home is based on the speed of light, which is derived from how fast light might travel between two fixed points even though Albert Einstein declared that there were no fixed points, I'm now convincing myself that post-Christmas gym exertions aren't worth the effort. After all, if each walk down the drive is actually a slightly further distance travelled, but in the same amount of time as before, surely I must have got faster as well as lighter?

Just need someone to sort Time out and I can convince myself that I'm getting younger as well...

Malpractice making perfect sense

On the way to deliver another Scholarly Activity workshop in Manchester, I've found in today's papers yet another victory for reason and common sense dressed up as some sort of attack on Christianity by sections of our more reactionary press.

Happily for those of us who believe that only evidence based treatments have any credibility, Lesley Pilkington has lost her appeal against getting struck off by the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy for professional malpractice, or in other words trying to "cure" homosexuality with a combination of counselling and prayer.

This so-called reparative therapy considers the sin of homosexuality to be an illness which can be put right by supernatural implorations, and even apparently asked a patient if any of his relatives were Freemasons, although how this could be connected wasn't explained in court or in Mrs Pilkington's post hearing interview.

She did however say that "counsellors with traditional views are being closed down": a statement I hope is a refection of our legislators' efforts nationwide . She's entitled to her views, no matter how irrational they are, but they have no place in a professional, scientific arena, and certainly should never be foisted on what might be very vulnerable individuals.

A shroud and its sillier aligning

I've just finished another Scholarly Activity workshop (the third in a series of seven) in Manchester and would like to thank Adele Turner for bringing me a copy of Saturday's Telegraph which contains a wonderful example of how not to conduct evidence based research.

In it, a Cambridge-based art historian called Thomas de Wesselow describes his feelings upon finally seeing the Turin Shroud "face to face", and puts forward a "theory" as what it is. His "theory" is that the Shroud is indeed two thousand years old and the image on it is that of Jesus, but not necessarily created in a burst of divine energy during the resurrection. Although De Wesselow's "research" "was largely done at his desk or in libraries, save for one episode ... when the connection between the Shroud and Resurrection came to him in a kind of eureka moment", he's concluded that the first disciples didn't see the Risen Christ; they saw a soiled cloth with a miraculously-produced image on it and knew at that moment Jesus must have risen from the dead.

Neat idea, but unfortunately for his credibility as a historian, there's absolutely no evidence to support it. Nothing. No historical, material, scientific, archaeological or palaeographical evidence, and not even anything in the Bible as far as I can tell; where if memory serves correctly, Thomas is described as putting his hand into Jesus' pierced but resurrected flesh.

So logically, not only did the gospel writers, Paul, the early church fathers and everybody else writing things down during the development of Christianity keep the "facts" of the Easter (up)rising secret; everybody who saw it for the next millennium-and-a-half or so also neglected to mention the existence of the Shroud until it was exhibited in northern France around 1355. It was soon withdrawn from view on the orders of the local Bishop (Henri de Poitiers) who doubted its authenticity at the time "after diligent inquiry and examination, ... the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed."

The real mystery of the Turin Shroud, is unfortunately not just limited to why this undoubted fake continues to exert any fascination over believers, researchers, writers and documentary-makers, but that it also gets used to disparage 1988's carbon dating which gave the Shroud's date of manufacture as sometime in the 13th or 14th century. It would after all, be truly miraculous if the normal rules of carbon 14 decomposition were actually unreliable just this once. So not only is there good 14th century evidence that the Turin Shroud was known (or at least very strongly suspected) at the time to be a forgery, there is excellent scientific evidence to confirm it.

To paraphrase an old saying about ducks: if looks logically a fake, looks historically like a fake, and tests scientifically like a fake, then it's a ....

Bonfire (night) on the Insanities...

For the elite upper quartile of the country's universities, those likely to set their tuition fees close to the Government's £9,000 cap, this week's announcement is close to what they've been long been arguing for, since if students are prepared to pay, then those institutions will be better off. However, the remainder face an uncertain future as cuts in block grants means that they will lose the equivalent of over £7,000 a year for each undergraduate, so even setting fees at £6,000 equates to a large loss of income.

Ministers have claimed that universities could compensate by reducing costs and deliver two-year degrees, but assuming that the credit value required for certification stays the same, then the number of course weeks will need to be increased from their present level by around 50% each year. This leads to the inevitable questions (well they are to me as I've spent many years writing, running and delivering HE programmes) :

• When are lecturers working within this educational model supposed to prepare for their teaching (and escalating student expenditure will surely be accompanied by an attendant growths in expectations of quality)?
• When are they supposed to engage with any form of scholarly activity?
• When are they supposed to set and mark assessments?

Unless I'm missing something, in this scenario, either staffing numbers and the attendant costs must go up, or quality inevitably goes down. Have they just not thought this through, or have the lunatics finally taken over the asylum?

The proof of the pudding is in the (ch)eating..

"This is only an allegation," says Ijaz Butt, chairman of what is surely an utterly discredited Pakistan Cricket Board, adding that, "At this stage there will be no action taken because there is still no charge or proof on that account." Possibly not proof as defined by a criminal law court, but the evidence of cheating described in the News of the World at the weekend is as damning as anything you could ever hope to see.

Unfortunately, according to some of the participants in today's plagiarism workshop, the PCB's lack of decisive action is not unique and draws parallels with the attitude of some senior educational managers who fear legal action if students are penalised by lecturers, moderators and exam boards for collusion, plagiarism and the passing off of other's work as their own prior to some form of "official investigation".

Noting that both the PCB and the International Cricket Council are currently striving to maintain any semblance of credibility with their very public failure to act, surely it's time for Education's default position to be one of trusting the lecturer who identifies malpractice and place the burden of proving innocence on the accused student?

Hoop, hoop and away (with the money)

I'm now in Blackpool at the end of my first ever staff development day just for school teachers where the principal topic of conversation has been the hoopla stall owner prosecuted last week for breaching gambling laws by making his game almost impossible to win.

Although none of us were in the least surprised that the blocks were tilted at such an angle the chances of success were calculated by academics at Lancaster University to be over 2,600 to 1, nobody could even begin to comprehend why one complainant to Trading Standards lost nearly £1,500.

According to court reports, secret filming showed punters losing around £1 a minute, which made us all wonder what kind of person would want a shoddily assembled cuddly toy enough to spend what must have been about 3 days vainly throwing money away?

So yes, the operation was crooked, but this particular idiot was always likely to get separated from his money pretty quickly one way or another. Now if only the bbc report had mentioned his name and address, I could forward an e-mail from a Nigerian chief anxious to deposit £5m in a British account, then all he'd have to do to recoup his losses would be to send his complete bank details without delay....

There's no substitute for experience

Less than 5 weeks left to Colin Beard's latest Experiential Learning Day (there's been 19 of these days over the last four years, and this one at Leicester college is almost full), so if you're reading this and want to know what a combination lock made from drinking cups is all about, download a programme from http://www.playingwithlearning.com/subpages/images/Leicester_Prog.gif

KC in the Sunshine: new brand

Just spent a very sunny (30 degrees+) afternoon at what is now Kirklees College, an institution formed from the merger of Huddersfield and Dewsbury & Batley colleges.
This was their inaugrual HE staff development day, and I was asked to deliver a workshop on how/what/why scholarly activity (HE in FE's big topic at the moment if you hadn't gathered from past posts...), but have only blogged it so I could use the title pun....
Sorry.

No Stone (Henge) Left Unturned...

Having spent a less than exciting evening in Chippenham (where an "About the Area" guide lists one of Swindon's roundabouts as a "place of interest"!), an early morning train ride took me to Corsham for a HE/Partner Staff Development day. Appoximately 50 college lecturers gathered to hear a welcome, a short talk by a HE Manager, then yours truly on why college lecturers should get involved with scholarly activity and how they can be supported before dispersing to attend sessions entitled “How does a FE lecturer become a HE lecturer?”, “Improving recruitment, retention and achievement ”, "Assessing group work with work based learners"and “Building confidence: the transition into HE”.

Although by the time these had started I was already making the 5 hour journey back wondering whether the locals thought the stone circle down the road was some precursor to modern roundabouts.....

Scholarly Activity Workshop

Spent today at Solihull College's Woodlands Campus running a workshop for FE lecturers who work at HE level and want to increase their engagement with research and scholarly activity.
In addition to my input, delegates benefitted from the expertise of:

• Liz Willis from the HEA Engineering Subject Centre
• Sue Moron-Garcia from Coventry University's Centre for the Study of Higher Education offering an introduction to what is meant by scholarly activity, guidance in getting started with carrying out research, gathering evidence on learning and teaching, and writing papers for academic journals.
• Becky Turner from the HELP CETL showcasing some examples of successful practices from colleges in the SW to give an idea of the kind of things college lecturers could realistically achieve with their limited resources (of time and money).

Without a doubt, one of the best scholarly activity workshops I've been involved in, and thanks very much to Liz, Sue & Becky for making it possible.

PWL 2 : Still glowing like a RediBrek kid outside Sellafield!

Scarman House, Warwick
After 11 months of anticipation and 9 months of planning, Playing with Learning 2 : Making Connections finally arrived to showcase what conferences should be about.
Starting with yours truly doing the welcomes and setting the tone for the day, we then had Gary King, Britain's No1 Graphic Facilitator, explaining how/why he was going to create this year's conference image (last year's is below).

My good friend Kev Brace from the local JISC RSC demoed some interactive voting buttons supplied by Promethian and showed how we were going to use them during the day, followed by Dr Colin Beard and Pr Alan Mortiboys staging a "Desert Island Discuss" - yes, with music - about teaching with emotional intelligence.
Prior to an interruption from a pair of puppets beamed in from California (really the room next door via Huddersfield and back - courtesy of Direct Visual), Kirsten Hardie described her NTFS-recognised "On trial" teaching technique that would follow what proved to be an excellent lunch. Using students - yes we actually get them to participate - and volunteer delegates as prosecuting/defence counsels etc, we put the nation's educators on trial as "not using technology effectively to the benefit of their students". Guilty, by the way. After attending a choice of one from four workshops (while I helped to disassemble our television studio), the delegates gathered again in the main auditorium for 45 minutes worth of final summations from Gary King, Kirsten Hardie & me, before exchanging their feedback sheets (see below) for a free copy of Alan Mortiboy's latest book.

Sample comments include:

• "The best event I've been to since 1994" (We can probably assume that he/she started teaching then, not that 1994 was a landmark year for education!).
• "Not just talking about innovative delivery, actually doing it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - why can't all staff development be like this?"
• "A truly wonderful day out, thank you, thank you, thank you"
• "Will be including some of this in my teaching from tomorrow - first time I've ever been able to say that"
• "Thanks for a great event. Truly inspirational"
• "I just wish that all my colleagues had been there too. The ripples of the impact of this event will spread ever outward. It was terrific to be involved in such a high quality event."

Not a holiday - honest!

7/8/9 July Isle of Man

What was by necessity (one mid-morning flight out, and one early afternoon flight back) a three-day trip for one day's work, did include three rounds of golf at some lovely courses and an evening at the Southern Cross motor cycle race meeting, so technically it was mainly leisure.....

As the college has only just moved towards delivering degrees (from September 2008, validated by Chester & Liverpool John Moores) they requested that I go over & share some thoughts with the college's HE staff (7 departments) on a few pertinent issues such as:

• How to create and sustain a HE culture in a FE environment in terms of resources, teaching and research.
• How HE and FE differ in terms of students’ needs and how they might need to change or develop their offering to improve the student experience.

A very challenging day, but hopefully has helped what is a remote (in terms of staff development opportunities anyway) part of the British Isles to see how what they compare with the mainland.

Denman College, Marcham

Delegates from around the Oxford/Herts/Berks/Surrey area gathered today at the Women's Institute's Residential Adult Education College near Oxford to hear a welcome from Di Batchelor, Abingdon and Witney College's Vice Principal, followed by John Raftery, Pro Vice Chancellor (External Affairs), Oxford Brookes University.
I followed with "Higher Education in Further Education: Challenges and Opportunities" and other speakers included Liz Starbuck Greer (Deputy Director, South Central Lifelong Learning Network) "Increasing Progression to Higher Education", Bill Hunt (HE Co-ordinator, Swindon College) "Preparing for IQER", Lorraine Goss (Educational Consultant) "Effective Teaching Strategies in Higher Education" and Sue McGregor (Curriculum Manager, Solihull College) "Feedback Strategies for Higher Education Students in FE".
A enjoyable good day out, & well worth last night's 4 hour train journey and what will be a nearly 6 hour trip back as my first train is already delayed so I'll miss the connection in Birmingham....