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Brain Pickings, Procrastination…

Sep 272012

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/21/the-science-of-procrastination/

I wouldn’t go as far as call it a plague, as others have, but I do think many of us suffer from procrastination issues and don’t have any solutions for it. This excellent little video from ‘Brain Pickings’ is probably just what you need to start to put some measures in place to make your work time more productive.

One hour of focused work is better than 2 hours of fannying about.

‘Brain Pickings‘ are one of the inspirations for A* to G, do check out their excellent site and donate if you can.

New (academic) year resolutions

Ideas, Personal Productivity No Responses »

Sep 022012

Here we go. If not tomorrow, certainly this week. If in Scotland, probably last week. More than likely though, it is time to get back to work and start the new term, and for some of you it is your first day at work, teaching a proper class of your own. Good luck.

It has not been a particularly quiet Summer. It’s not been a Summer which has recharged batteries and prepared us to deliver an inspiring and dynamic education experience. It’s been full of stuff. Stuff which we could have done without. It’s been a political Summer (and a wet one) where I’ve had to stop myself from posting angry articles almost everyday (new term resolution No. 1 – no angry posts). Not only have we had GCSE issues, we’ve had free school problems, governor problems, University problems, employment figures problems, NEET problems, A4E problems, G4S problems, funding problems and my guttering gave out in all the rain. Not a great Summer at all.

What we have to do in times like these is focus on the task in hand which is being great teachers and taking our enthusiasm into the classroom. In this spirit I want to talk about what you are going to change this year, your new term resolutions.

You probably realise that new year resolutions, traditionally made in the first week of January are doomed to fail. We stop going to the gym, we do have a glass of wine, we do loose our resolve and revert to the old comfy ways. It’s just human nature. We still make resolutions because we know that we are not perfect and can identify some steps to make things better. We just don’t keep them.

New term resolutions are the same. We probably wont keep them, but it is great to analyse the work flow, identify the areas where we could improve and have a go at coming up with some solutions. Do the paperwork on time, have some more time for year 9, give better feedback, be a better mentor, be a better coach – that sort of thing. But you can make these thoughts more effective, even if you do fully realise that you are not going to keep them after half term. Tell someone, and ask for their support and assistance, share.

Once you have someone with you on the journey you gain extra support and extra perspective and have a better chance of coming up with a work flow which is sustainable and might survive a term or two. It might be your colleague in the department, or just a friend in the staffroom. In an ideal world it would be your line manager, but we all know that is not going to happen. Discuss your thoughts with your team and get them to do the same.

If only AQA had talked to OCR and Edexcel it might have been a different Summer for everybody.

Briefing – Episode 58, The JamHub

Ideas, Personal Productivity, Technology No Responses »

Aug 142012

My experience of rehearsal rooms when I was young was that the equipment would be ropey, your ears bled afterwards and would ring for days, and that you shouted so much that your throat was ruined for at least a week. Oh, and there was always a disgusting old sofa in the room somewhere.

I think those days might thankfully be over. This means you can rehearse with headphones on and control the mix you get without ruining everyone else’s experience. And no shouting, talk through the microphones at all times. That way you need never take them off while you rehearse.

The secret is “headphone busses”, normal mixing desks will provide you with one, maybe two or three headphone outs, which have their own controllable mixing sections. This device designs that feature up front. Each headphone out, has it’s own mini-mixer section allowing individuals to set exactly what they want to hear. without changing anyone else’s mix. These individual busses, yes, that is the word, give the JamHub its USP. Each feature is colour coded as well, meaning that if you are plugged into green, your sound will be on green right the way through the unit. Once you see the colour coding, it speaks for itself, not that the manual isn’t pretty good as well.

I’m guessing that cheaper versions will crop up soon, but I would council against trying to save money on these devices and urge you to teach how to use them safely and carefully before you let anyone rip them to shreds. They are solidly built, but tape two of them together any you’ve got a frisbee. As I’ve said elsewhere before, run a little course that trains people how to use them and rewards the right to have access to the equipment in lessons, breaks and lunchtimes. Having clued up and trained learners in the classroom will repay itself in no time.

Have a look at the JamHub website here for ideas on how they can be used in the classroom and experiment yourself. I much preferred using the JamHub to my Behringer mixer for practicing and I would be very interested to hear how you do use these in the classroom.

No money has changed hands and no promises made to JamHub or its distributors, but I would like to thank Steve, Andrew and Tony for the loan of the equipment.

Briefing – Episode 52, The A* to G website

Ideas, Information, Inspiration 1 Response »

May 212012

Our final celebration for the year, back to normal service next week!

Is there anything we’re not covering that you would like us to? We’ve explored a few things and had to jettison them because they were just impractical but on the whole we’re up for just about anything. We’d like to do more interviews but trying to get people to talk on camera is a problem. We would also have liked to bring examiners to you, but again, there is a certain amount of sensitivity to examiners talking to media companies at the moment.

We’ve been asked for paper versions of the posts as not everyone is comfortable in viewing video and we’ll be bringing something to you in the next few months which will hopefully help there. In the mean time do please subscribe, tweet, Facebook and youTube us and we’ll see you soon.

Briefing – Episode 49, Using video cameras, part 2

Ideas, Inspiration, Technology No Responses »

Apr 282012

One rather annoying thing you will need to watch out for if you are planning to buy tripods, monopods and booms is that although the screw fitting itself is standardised, the size of the quick release platform is not. If you plan on quickly swapping a camera from tripod to monopod you should get them from the same manufacturer and indeed from the same range. Very annoying.

On the strength of our support for using videos in class we now have a brand new, boxed, very nice, desktop tripod which we will be giving away as a prize or something once we can figure out how to do it. Maybe that’s what the competition should be… make a video of how we should run and administer our competition, send us the YouTube link and the best answer wins… Or maybe not.

That’s enough camcorders for now anyway. Do let us know about your experiments and please subscribe here or over on YouTube.

Briefing – Episode 48, Using video cameras, part 1

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Apr 212012

Once you have your bottle top camera mount made you can start using gaffer tape, parcel tape or even Sellotape to attach your cameras to just about anything. Be careful! A* to G will not be responsible for repairs and replacements! Don’t drive your remote control car powered video camera into the pond…

You can get professional booms with superb professional mounts already built in, have a look at K-Tek these professional grade booms cost a fair amount, I think the 6 foot, CAM72 costs $456. They also make a boom for the iPhone, called a “tadpole”, the 6 foot version costs $189 and you’ll need a case for the camera with a mount built in.

Meanwhile, at B & Q you can get the Anza Aluminium extension pole for £10, tape on a £4 desktop tripod and your away.

Let us know how you get on and please subscribe here or over on YouTube.

Briefing – Episode 47, Animation

Ideas, Technology 1 Response »

Apr 132012

Animation is a pretty cool thing to get into in the classroom. Learners are into it, and will be motivated to try it out – probably because they haven’t realised how patient they will have to be… But once you sow the seed there is so much they can do with software applications, 2D and 3D animation, titles and credits, animation for games and so on. It can become a passion.

If you have the resources, set the class up with 5 or 6 groups each working on their own scene. Group 1 on the introduction, group 2 looking at part 1, group 3 part 2 and so on. Then use Windows Media Maker, or iMovie to stitch them together into a movie – or better still, get them to use Windows Media Maker to stitch it together into a movie.

Let us know how you get on and please subscribe here or over on YouTube.

Briefing – Episode 44, Headphones

Information, Technology No Responses »

Mar 232012

Just like most of us I use headphones every day when listening to music and podcasts on my iPod, so comfort is a very important feature for me. I find the ones that sit on my ears really uncomfy, and the expensive closed-back, over the ears ones are too heavy. So the small in-ear buds are my workhorse. In a recording studio you would never use ear-buds, the higher audio quality of the over-the ear, closed back BeyerDynamic ones are an industry standard.

A recent feature which you may have come across are “noise cancelling” headphones such as those made by Bose. These listen to the noise outside the headphones and reduce that by cancelling it out using reverse phasing. The headphones noty only sound lovely but they effectively get rid of the rest of the noise that might creep into your head from the outside world. Try them out at a Bose retailer.

There’s no need to pay huge amounts of money for headphones which are going to be used in a club, for example by a DJ. Go for a mid range price over the ear model such as these by Sennheiser.

Beware educational suppliers who are offering you everything you dream for and only charge you a few quid for them, they will need extreme care and loving tenderness to get them to last longer than a term.

Got any headphones advice or recomendations? Let us know in the comments section below and please subscribe here or over on YouTube.

Briefing – Episode 43, Dry wipe white board markers

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Mar 162012

There is nothing worse than a bag full of useless pens. Fact.

Just had a look on Amazon and you can get 4 white board pens from £1.98, but don’t. The Uni InkView pens are available at WH Smiths, a shop I love and loathe in equal measure. It seems that you get what you pay for so I would advise buying branded pens rather than the cheap white egregious rip-offs sold for pennies.

Would you like us to do more stationery reviews? Let us know what you think in the comments section below and please subscribe here or over on YouTube.

Briefing – Episode 33, Tickler file

Ideas, Personal Productivity No Responses »

Jan 132012

Perhaps a little too overexcited but hey.

The new year is not a bad place to start with a new system so consider the cabinet. If the tickler file is going to be the top drawer, what are we going to use the other drawers for? Let us know your ideas and we’ll let you know our suggestions in a few weeks time. Just as a hint though, throw those catalogues away, archive the ex-students work, repair or throw out the broken equipment. Use filing cabinets as an aid to your life not a store of stuff you haven’t acted on yet…

Comment or email as usual and don’t forget to subscribe.

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