Quiz Team Aguilera...

Congratulations to 'Team Cougar' who were victorious in the end of term quiz this morning. Ellie, Tanya, Lloyd and Andrew were never ahead until it mattered and just pipped 'Laura's Crew', 'Divas' and 'The Fantastic Four' to win the bounty.

I hope that you all enjoyed the yearbook and if you have any comments that you would like me to feedback to Nick who designed it, please leave them below. Nick and Chelsea do an amazing job in the college for my team and I really appreciate their enthusiasm and eye for a cracking design!

Have a lovely Christmas and Ne'er and if Guillermo, Rafikas and Steven are about before Thursday at 12, please pop by to my office in 121.1 and collect your copy.

All the best,

Mark

Final presentations for 2011

Well done to Imran, Paige and Gary who all delivered successful talks this morning.

As I said in the feedback, the standard of work has been of a high standard and I am certain that everybody has stepped up a gear or two to ensure success.

Attached below is a rather amusing and interesting photo that I came across quite by chance and it is rather fitting if you were at Amanda's talk. It seems like we all might be masters of knotting, but by accident rather than design!

All the best,

Mark

The first few sessions in the Ne'er

Hi everybody.

This is how I plan to spend the first few weeks back after the holidays:

9th January 2012 - practice analysis of an oral presentation (in groups) - taken from the TED website.
10th January 2012 - finish off above in class.

16th January 2012 - assessment on presentation analysis (Oral Presentation Skills) - this also will be a talk from the TED website.
17th January 2012 - finish off assessment / remediation as necessary.

Now, there may be changes to the days I teach you here  as we move into semester two, but:

Week beginning 23rd January 2012 - listen to radio programme on 'Language' and answer questions (in groups), finish off questions / discussion as necessary.

Week beginning 30th January 2012 - assessment on listening (Comm 4 Listening outcome). This will be a radio programme and will follow the same pattern as the unassessed work from the week before.

Mark

Presentation success, part IV!

Well done to Kenna, Guillermo, Laura, Karen and Rafikas who took us through a culinary winterland this morning, not forgetting a very interesting talk on researching family history.

Great session again and as always, please leave any comments underneath.

Three to go on Monday: Paige, Gary and Imran, so if you can make that, we'd love to see you.

Tuesday 20th December will be our last class of the year and it will be quiz time, so make sure you are there!

Cheers, Mark

Congratulations to our third round of presenters

I really enjoyed the talks this morning where we learnt about knots (Amanda), acting (Samuel) and gigging (Steven).

All three presentations were personalised, informative, structured and measured.

Thank you to those members of the class not presenting who attended this morning.

See you tomorrow for the penultimate round of presentations for this assessment.

All the best,

Mark

'Exam tips to teachers': Michael Gove orders inquiry

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16076471

Mr. Gove is not my favourite person, but this is a really interesting article following on from the plagiarism angle we discussed a month or so back. Any thoughts?

Harvard referencing

Below is a short PP presentation that I have put together for you on the subject of Harvard referencing. It is something that will be of particular help to you when you go to university. Hopefully it all makes sense!

In addition, the book noted below is now available in the library:

Pearson & Shields: Cite them right: the essential referencing guide

Class no: 808.027 PEA

Harvard referencing for A2L group

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Essay writing slides

Dear all,

I am aware that you are writing essays at the moment and thought these slides would be of help. These were put together by me and hopefully will help you. Don't forget that the Blackwell mini books (£1) are great too, especially 'How to write essays' by Sandra Ashman and Phyllis Creme. In the New Year I will ask you to submit an essay that you are doing for Evan and this will be credited for one of the writing outcomes for Communication 4.

http://access1112.blogspot.com/2011/09/some-books-that-i-recommend-you.html
 - a reminder of the link I posted in September. Stocking fillers and all that...

Essay writing

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Presentation success, part deux

Greetings,

We had five more excellent talks this morning so well done to Tanya, Andrew, Ellie, Lloyd and Dorota who all presented so wonderfully.

The variety of content was superb and the visual element was of an extremely high standard too, so well done all and thanks to those of you who came in to support your peers.

As always, please feel free to leave some feedback on the session from this morning.

All the best, Mark

Blackwell's Bookshop Christmas Stall - info re 7/12/11

Christmas is just around the corner - and we here at Blackwell's would like to make your Christmas shopping just that little bit less stressful.

We will be bringing a selection of books, CDs, DVDs, children's toys and other gift ideas to you on Wednesday 7th December from 9:30am to 3:30pm. So come and visit our stall in the Food Court and take advantage of our special Christmas offers.

All staff and student will receive 10 percent discount on the day (Terms and Conditions apply).

We look forward to seeing you there.

Congrats to our first four contenders!

Well done to Josh, Arleta, Hannah and Claire who presented so well this morning. I was particularly impressed by the level of content, engagement with the audience and the integration of visuals.

And for Guillermo, he has now placed his December order with Josh, so it was a win win situation all round!

Thank you to those who came along this morning who weren't presenting as I'm sure you got a great deal out of the session.

See some of you tomorrow and keep up the great work.

As always, if anybody wishes to comment on the presentations (either the presenters themselves or if you were in the audience), please do!

Mark

So who is doing what and when?

• Monday 5th December (MB 1.21) - Josh (beer making), Arleta (Moravian star making), Claire (how to make bread) , Hannah (home made face masks).
• Tuesday 6th December (155.1) - Andrew (digital cameras), LLoyd (Japanese name writing), Paige (procrastination), Ellie (playing Hearts) , Tanya (reforming house in southern Spain), Dorota (how to analyse paintings).
• Monday 12th December (MB 1.21) - Amanda (knots), Steven (planning a gig), Gary (how to cook his favourite meal (steak)), Samuel (what you need to know to be an actor).
• Tuesday 13th December (155.1) - Kenna (hearty Highland soup), Imran (chilli plants), Laura (forgive me Laura, I can't remember what you are doing yours on, sorry!), Karen (researching family history), Rafikas (cooking trout), Guillermo (canape making).

Above is the list of presentation topics for you to salivate over! They are varied and should yield some very effective talks over the four sessions.

Please ensure that you have your talks on a memory stick and/or send me your slides on PowerPoint.

Any questions, just e mail me, but remember that I won't be able to communicate with you on November 30th as all labour has been withdrawn for the day due to the national strike.

All the best,

Mark.

Could your inbox soon be permanently empty?

This is an interesting article from the BBC website that might be worth some comment. So what do you think?

Clash of the titans: Email v social media

By Fiona Graham Technology of business reporter, BBC News

Vital signs: Is your email inbox hanging on by a thread, or are reports of its imminent demise greatly exaggerated?

The headlines were unequivocal - Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had announced that email is dead.

 

The truth however was a little more prosaic. At the launch of the social network's new messaging platform, he had said "we don't think a modern messaging system is going to be email", and that the new system was "not email".

 

Mr Zuckerberg wasn't the first to suggest that email is obsolete, and neither has he been the last.
Email has come a long way from the first message sent by programmer Ray Tomlinson across a network back in 1971.

Senior citizen
The @ symbol separated the names of user and machine, and the message was sent from one machine to another over the precursor to the internet, the ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network).
Today email is ubiquitous. Technology market researchers Radicati see the number of email accounts worldwide growing from 3.1bn in 2011 to nearly 4.1bn by 2015.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg claims his network's messaging platform is not email

Email use is lower among teenagers - but whether this changes when they start work is unknown.
So just how likely is it that the creaking inboxes that haunt many of us will soon be replaced?

Writing history
One man with more reason than most to have an opinion on the matter is email specialist Mimecast's chief scientist Nathaniel Borenstein, co-creator of the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) protocol.
This is the internet standard that lays down how messages are formatted. It lets your email contain different characters, have attachments, and contain other types of files, among other things.
Mr Borenstein says it is used more than a trillion times a day.

"Email is still growing," he says. "There's no real sign that social is making a major dent in it.
"For the most part I think they fill different functions, but that they connect with each other. I think they're symbiotic. I'm reluctant to cast them into opposition."
They may have more in common than you think.

Nathaniel Borenstein: "People have asked me if I get money every time MIME is used." (He doesn't)

"Nowadays people will tell you that email is something sent to a name at a domain. And that was not the case certainly 20 years ago," says Mr Borenstein.

"Twenty years ago there were lots of independent email systems with different addressing schemes that either didn't interoperate at all or had complicated gateways.
"So over time people have come to think that email is this one thing with universal addressing, and universal addressing is good, but that's not the definition of email."
This would mean that messaging systems like Facebook's could equally be seen as email.
Unlimited storage
The overflowing inbox should also be a thing of the past, thanks to cloud computing.
"There are business, legal and technical reasons [for restricting inboxes]," says Mr Borenstein.
"The technical reasons no longer hold water. It's increasingly the case that you just can't begin to believe that there's not enough storage."

You've got mail

• 2011: 3.1 billion email accounts
• 2015: predicted 4.1 billion
• Typical business user sends and receives 105 messages daily
• 2011: 2.6 billion instant messaging accounts worldwide
• 49% of email users live in the Asia Pacific region

Source: The Radicati Group, Inc. May 2011

Social media's strength, according to Mr Borenstein, is allowing you to communicate with customised groups of people.

"They're both useful for business. I do believe that social media is going to be used more and more in business. I don't think that Facebook has gotten that right, I don't even think that Google+ has got that right and they do a better job.
"Surprisingly perhaps the ones I know who have done the best job are IBM with LotusLive, which hasn't got that much traction," says Mr Borenstein (who until recently worked for IBM on Lotus software).
Social future?
Not everyone is as sunny as Mr Borenstein when it comes to the future of email, however.
Lee Bryant is co-founder of Headshift, the world's biggest social business consultancy. He believes email's dominance over business communications is coming to an end.
"When email was first developed it was an excellent point-to-point communication tool when nothing else existed," says Mr Bryant.
"I think we've reached the stage where email as means of communicating is overloaded. I think we will see what happens on email today transitioning towards various kinds of both internal and consumer facing social tools."

Young people aged 12-17 are using email less, according to comScore

These are "flow-based" tools such as wikis, micro-blogging and internal social networks, according to Mr Bryant.
"I think fundamentally one of the biggest problems is that social tools communicate slightly more in the open, they create ambient knowledge and ambient awareness for others who are not even in the conversation," says Mr Bryant.
"Email doesn't do that, it's quite a lonely medium.
"You receive a series of messages, you hold them in the inbox and have to move, delete or act on every one. Whereas with flow tools the flow moves past you whether or not you actually open the messages."
But does this mean that important messages will flow past never to be seen again?
"Arguably," says Mr Bryant. "But there's quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that social networks are actually very effective at surfacing the right information or the right things that you need to deal with."
Nevertheless he says he doesn't see email going away anytime soon.
"You narrow down email primarily to what it was designed for, which is one-to-one communications."
Shiny pennies
Head of Microsoft's Envisoneers team and self-confessed "social media luvvie", Dave Coplin, is not impressed.
"I think that email is dead when it comes to social media in the same way that snail mail was dead when it came to email."

Dave Coplin: "I use email less because I have social media but I can't run... life without it"

"Time and again, it's always the same thing. Enter the bright shiny new technology stage right, therefore old boring technology must exit stage left."
"Of course it never happens that way."
He says the way we use technology evolves.
"When all we had was email we would use email for everything.
"Now we've got this wonderful selection of different kinds of communication. What's nice is that our email starts to be for those communications that do truly need the kind of functionality that email offers."
Mr Coplin says there are lessons to be learnt.
"The functionality offered by email is in many ways not well represented by social media.

Everything has its place and it's really understanding which is the right tool for the job” -  Dave Coplin Microsoft

"The asynchronous nature is really important, the ability to attach things, the ability to have a secure conversation, all of those things are crucial."

Mr Coplin sees the tools we use to communicate converging.
"We will have this universal communications platform that means if I'm talking to you via Facebook, Twitter, email or whatever their replacements are, it will all be presented as a common thread, so you couldn't kind of care less what channel they're on, what platform they're using, communication will flow."
But however shiny the future may be, email is in rude health in the present, according to Mr Coplin.
"The key thing for me is to dispel the myth that a lot of social media luvvies would have you believe, that email is dead. To me it's shiny penny syndrome.
"Everything has its place and it's really understanding which is the right tool for the job."

Some of the topics that will be covered for the 'how to' presentation assessment

We have a lovely array of subjects that will be presented from 5/12/11 in the four sessions.

I know that not all of you have picked a subject yet, so please do so asap. A topic can be covered by more than one person.

Subjects picked (but could be changed, you don't have to stick to your choice):

• Home brewing
• Making Xmas stars
• Natural face masks
• Effective use of digital SLR
• Spelling your name in Japanese
• How to play the game of Hearts
• Reforming a house in southern Spain
• Muslim marriages
• Sailing knots
• Booking a gig for a band
• Preparing a character for a play
• Hearty Highland soup making techniques
• Growing chilli plants
• The perfect cupcake
• Putting a family tree together
• Cooking trout

Other subjects considered but not confirmed include how to be the perfect gentleman, how to make chicken soup, how to solve the Rubik's cube and how to make origami stars amongst others.

I am really looking forward to the presentations and remember you have to supply at presentation plan and the slides of your talk on the day of (or before) your presentation.

See you tomorrow and well done,

Mark

Dates for second asssessment - 'how to'

Dear all,

Here are the dates for the assessed presentation as agreed in the class today:

• Monday 5th December (MB 1.21) - Josh, Arleta, Claire, Hannah
• Tuesday 6th December (155.1) - Andrew, LLoyd, Paige, Ellie, Tanya, Dorota
• Monday 12th December (MB 1.21) - Amanda, Steven, Gary, Samuel
• Tuesday 13th December (155.1) - Kenna, Imran, Laura, Karen, Rafikas, Guillermo

Many thanks,

Mark

How to do the 'how to do' presentation

Below are the slides that I took you through in this morning's session. I hope you have some fun with this assessment, but don't forget the importance of structuring: title slide, structure slide, slides for the 'content', conclusion, sources, q and a.

Mark

How to do the 'how to do'!

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Congratulations to today's contenders

Hello.

Well done to all seven presenters this morning who each gave very good talks on a wide range of topics.

Tomorrow will see the final two talks. Gary will be talking about Sir Alex Ferguson and Imran will be discussing Johnny Cash.

Then I will take you through our next assessment, which comes in two parts: the 'how to do' talk which is supplemented by a presentation plan.

We are right on track and I have really enjoyed the enthusiasm shown with your presentations so far.

See you tomorrow,

Mark

Roald Dahl Funny Prize won by Cats Ahoy!

Since we heard so much about Roald Dahl from Ellie in her wonderful talk on Tuesday, this article piqued my interest. Sounds like the purrfect recipient to me...

 

A rhyming picture book about pirate cats has won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, which honours humorous books for children.

Cats Ahoy!, written by Peter Bently and illustrated by Jim Field, was named funniest book for children aged six and under.
Liz Pichon's The Brilliant World of Tom Gates also won the prize in the seven to 14 age category.
Both winners were presented with a £2,500 cash prize at a London ceremony.
"These two books are master classes in how to write and how to draw funny," said chair of the judges, author Michael Rosen.
"Cats marauding as ghost pirates to steal fishy bounty from lily-livered humans: what more do you want from a funny book?" Rosen said of Cats Ahoy!
On Pichon's winning book, he added: "This book is a must for anyone who doodles, likes to wind up their sibling, has a serious caramel wafer habit and enjoys having their chuckle muscles exercised."
Bently's book beat competition from five other authors including Ed Vere and Alexis Deacon.
Ros Asquith and Monty Python's Terry Jones were also nominated in the seven to 14 age category.
Judging alongside Rosen were Horrid Henry author Francesca Simon and illustrator Tony Ross, Yes Man author and journalist Danny Wallace and author Grace Dent.
This year, children also had a role in the judging process with 400 school pupils picking their favourite book.
Their votes were then combined with the votes of the adult judging panel to find the two winners for 2011.

Unassessed presentation feedback

Well done to the eleven students who delivered their unassessed talks today. They were fantastic and I hope you all learned something about your own delivery and the techniques of others. The subject matter was varied, from Ayrton Senna to Santa Claus and from Roald Dahl to Bob Marley. And lets not forget the icons that are Iron Mike and erm, Greyfriars Bobby! The talks were all researched well and I feel we all got a lot out of each talk. So a quick overview of the good and things to improve on then...

Room for improvement - time, completing the talk (something like 'thank you very much for listening, are there any questions'), taking the audience through the structure slide, not standing in front of the screen and having PowerPoint handouts.


The great - natural ability, being yourselves, time and effort put into the preparation of the talks, the variety of content, the use of visuals, the depth of knowledge, working with each other, involving the audience, being in control of the talks, upbeat delivery and many more facets besides.

I am in no doubt that the first assessed presentation on 'how to do something' will be interesting and straightforward for you all.

I am very happy with the performances of the class, so a blooming big slap on the back all round guys!

I will do my best to get through as many of the talks as I can on Monday and will be stopping people who go over 4 minutes to keep things ticking over. We will start off with Steven and Kenna on Monday. If we don't get them all done on Monday, there will be a little time next Tuesday. I should have stopped more presenters today, but hey, we did well and I hope you found the feedback sheet that I gave you helpful as well as the self-evaluation form you filled in.

PS - I am still awaiting (quite) a few Yearbook entries, so please do your best to get this done by November 22nd if you can. Much appreciated.

All the best, Mark

Grammar and punctuation

Below is a handy set of slides that might be helpful to you on grammar and punctuation.

Mark

Grammar and punctuation

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A few words on using PowerPoint

This is the short presentation that I delivered this morning on the hazards of using PowerPoint.

Using PowerPoint

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Presentation prep

I was really impressed with the variety of the topics you have chosen for the unassessed presentation on 'celebrity' or 'well known person', covering people from Bob Marley to Hunter S Thompson, Ayrton Senna to J.K. Rowling and the Kardashian Sisters to Richard Pryor and many others besides.

Please remember the following points:

• We will be in the Learning Centre on Monday 7th November at 9am to finish off the talks using the computers
• You need to either e mail me your presentation when you have finished it or save onto a memory stick
• Everybody should be ready and able to present on Tuesday 8th November where names will be picked from the hat, randomly
• You will be able to use the remote control 'woofer doofer' to move your slides along
• This is a practice presentation where you will learn individually and as a group
• I will ask you to reflect on your talk and give you feedback
• If you are going over the 4 minute mark I will stop you as time is at a premium
• Think carefully about the structure - you should have a title slide with your name on it and the name of the person (or dog) you are going to talk about, the next slide will say something like 'structure of talk', or 'running order' or 'what I will be talking about' so that the audience know what is coming their way!

If you have any questions before Monday (or Tuesday) please e mail me or drop by my office, room 121.1

All the best,

Mark

Researching without relying solely on Google!

Below are the two presentations that Alma took you through (in Evan's History class and my class this morning.) If you haven't already filled in your ATHENS account details, please go to the Library on the second floor as soon as you can. Believe me, there is a surfeit of places to find information and Alma has made things nice and straightforward for you. I hope you enjoyed the session this morning and feel the sites will be of use to you in your studies at SCE and beyond.

History access to langs research

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Access to Languages Comm class

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Randy Pausch presentation

Here is the link to Professor Pausch's presentation (full version). Let me know what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo&feature=related

And this is a link to a website about him, complete with memorable quotes:

http://www.wisdomportal.com/RandyPausch.html

Effective and ineffective presentation techniques

Another great session this morning. Thank you to everybody who contributed and especially to Lloyd who was our typist extraordinaire! Below are the points that you came up with, followed by the slides from the class.

Effective presentation

·       Eye-Contact

·       Knowledge of subject

·       Research

·       Evaluating your own knowledge

·       Enthusiasm

·       Engaging the audience

·       Humour (?)

·       Asking questions

·       Appropriate use of visuals

·       Concise

·       Hand-outs

·       Appearance

·       Tone of voice

·       Articulate

·       Positive body language

·       Practice

·       Clear projection

·       Preparation

·       Structure

·       Question and answers

·       Signposting

·       Think of the audience

Effective and ineffective presentation techniques

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PowerPoint tutorial - simple but effective

How to structure your PP slides - in theory and in practice

Please use the following templates when you come to put your PowerPoint slides together. It is important that you consider the importance of structuring for all things communication. The presentation is no different.

How to structure your talk

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Example of a structured presentation

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Selling Yourself - a brief overview

Today we looked at some of the 'Selling Yourself' television programme which concerned five candidates vying for their dream job (in this case, advertising.)

We watched Mohammed, Claire, Alex, Mili and Sarah present information about themselves, reflect on their performances, work in small groups and pitch their ideas in the form of an individual presentation.

We looked at the positive and the negative aspects of each presenter and your input was very helpful.

This will set us up nicely for tomorrow's class on effective and ineffective presentation techniques.

See you then,

Mark

Information on my Roman (working) Holiday

http://candeatsce.blogspot.com/2011/10/collaborative-approaches-to-our.html

If you click on the link above you will see the kind of things that we discussed in Rome. The theme was Sustainable Solutions (SusSol) and I was so impressed with the amount of meaningful project work being done in other institutes. I found it a particularly illuminating meeting and despite coming home with a really sore throat, it was well worth attending.

Happy holidays

Just a quick post to wish everybody a restful and enjoyable break. It has been great working with you all since we first came together and I look forward to moving onto effective oral presentation techniques when we get back.

Mark

University degree and visa scam exposed by the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-15171830

This is an interesting follow-up story on the topic of 'validity' that we discussed for the formative reading article on 'Cheating rife in universities.'

The clip is worth watching and as always, please feel free to make any comment on the subject.

Fonts - the new handwriting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15253215

I thought the link above was a really interesting wee clip. Thoughts?

Yearbook questions

Yearbook questions – Access to Languages

Please e mail me your answers and supply at least one photo of you to mhetherington@stevenson.ac.uk

Please use the template below – if there are any questions you’d rather not answer, just leave them out. I will be doing one too!

I would like you to do this by 22^nd November please.

About me

Name:

Nickname(s):

Favourite singer(s):

Favourite band(s):

Favourite film(s):

Favourite television show(s):

Like(s):

Dislike(s):

Who I am

·                     This is a story about me, John Doe.

·                     Where you are from.

·                     Where you were born.

·                     Any interesting stories about your name, or what it means, i.e. Smith was a name given to blacksmiths in the Middle Ages, so therefore anyone with the name Smith would have likely had a blacksmith as an ancestor. The name John comes from the bible and some people say it means ‘gift from God’. There are quite a few places on the Net where you can find information about names!

·                     Describe your physical characteristics i.e. height, appearance, hair/eye colour.

·                     What do other people say about how you look?

·                     Describe your personality.

·                     What do other people say about your personality?

·                     Note down some information about your personal interests – do you play any sports? Do you have any hobbies?

·                     Favourite website(s)?

·                     Why did you come onto the course you are currently enrolled on?

What matters to me?

·              What are your earliest memories?

·              Who or what makes you laugh?

·              What object would you save in a fire?

·              Which song is the soundtrack to your life?

·              If you could meet any famous person who would it be, and why?

·              What is your perfect Sunday?

·              Who would attend your fantasy dinner party & what would you eat?

·              Who did you text last and what was the message?

·              If you could change something about yourself, what would it be?

If there is anything else you would like to add in about yourself, pop it in here. It could be some poetry that you have written, your philosophies on life, anything you like really!

I want you to have fun with this task. It will be a nice keepsake for you and to reflect upon in later life…maybe!

Plan for next few months

Hello all,

Below is what I intend to do for the next sessions into December.

10/10 and 11/10 - finish off the reading assessment (remember that we are in the Learning Centre, 208 on Monday)

24/10 - 'Selling yourself' analysis where we will evaluate presentation / communication skills using a recording from a TV show. The context is for candidates who wish to enter the world of advertising.

25/10 - what factors contribute to effective and ineffective oral presentation delivery? Unassessed presentation brief given out.

31/10 - Alma will deliver a session on research methodology (different from the previous one she gave you.)

1 and 7/11 - preparation for unassessed presentation on 'celebrity'.

8 and 14/11 - delivery of unassessed talks.

15/11 - reflection on talks and I will take you through the next assessment brief - how to do the 'how to do' and presentation plan.

21, 22 and 28/11 - work on assessed presentations

29/11, 5/12 and 6/12 - delivery of assessed presentations.

Beyond that I haven't thought, so I will bid you a good day and wish you a lovely weekend!

I'm half way there, whoah, livin' on a prayer...

I have marked just over half the scripts so far for the reading assessment and in the main, the answers are very good indeed, especially the summarising part (question one.) So far, there are no disasters and to date I have been able to read all the handwritten responses! It was interesting to note that some (quite a few) of you thought the assessment was really difficult when I asked at the end of the session yesterday, but as far as I have seen, you have all followed the formula, read the questions, understood the text and shouldn't have too much reworking to do come Monday (and if needed, Tuesday of next week.)

Hopefully this will continue as I work my way through the rest of the pile. And don't forget, whilst you guys have to do thirteen assessments throughout the year, I have to mark and annotate them, times 20!

Stay lucky,

Mark

Digital books are a threat to writers

Greetings!

By the time you read this you will all have read the Will Self article. It raises some interesting points, both negative and positive and is a good starter to open up some blog discussion.

As I have said before, I think I am somewhere in the middle of the argument (not a stance I take in many other aspects of my thinking) in that I like the idea of feeling the book, annotating if I feel the inclination and displaying texts in bookcases. That said, there is something to be said for storing info electronically in a portable way, ideal for travel which is something that I am very fond of.

So the question is, are you a fence sitter like me on this subject or are do you have a firm view on the subject of digital books?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and also what you thought of today's assessment, whether it be how you think you fared, the content itself, actually doing the first assessment for me or anything along those lines really. Go on, get typing why don't you!

Mark

First assessment (reading) - Tuesday 4th October

Dear all,

Remember that you will be doing your first assessment for me tomorrow in room 155.1. Next Monday (10th) I have booked us into the Learning Centre (208) and on Tuesday 11th we are back in 155.1. This will give you the opportunity to use the computers should you wish. Handwriting is absolutely fine as well though.

I will mark your work for next Monday with a feedback sheet so that you know how you are doing.

The answers around the class this morning were very good, detailed and promoted lots of discussion which was great to hear.

You all have a copy of the sample answers and these can be used a cross-referencing guide. Remember, there are lots of different answers you can have, as long as you produce sufficient evidence to back your thoughts up.

I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow to look at the subject of digital books.

All the best,

Mark

Cheating rife answers

Dear loyal readers,

I was having a squint at your answers this morning and they seemed pretty good. I will go over the sample answers in Monday's session and we can share and exchange ideas. If you didn't manage to finish today you may wish to do so by Monday, but it isn't compulsory (but could be helpful)!

What we are essentially doing is this:

• Summarising the main points using your own words
• Addressing the type of article (quality newspaper, magazine etc) and addressing how you know this
• Who the article is aimed at (again, justifying your answer)
• What the purpose of the article is (there are lots of possibilities and permutations, again, backed up with evidence from the text)
• Writer's opinion (there are often a myriad of possibilities again, and guess what, to be evidenced from the passage)
• Evaluating the article. This is strengths and weaknesses

The helpnotes are there to help you, you are permitted to use dictionaries of any sort, you can consult any other notes etc.

You can type or handwrite your responses too, so don't panic, we will look at the possible answers on Monday. I'm not worried at this stage, so you shouldn't be either!

You will have a go at the answers next Tuesday for our first proper assessment (on the widely discussed topic of digital books) and I will mark them for the following Monday with (helpful) feedback. We will be doing this over three sessions which will neatly take us up to the October break. Some of you may get the assessment completed in two sessions.

I'll see you all next Monday and keep up the good work everybody.

Cheers, Mark

Has the iPod made us anti-social?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15066957

Thoughts anybody?

Mobile phone exam cheats 'on the rise' - BBC News article

Figures released to the BBC by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) have indicated that cheating on exams has escalated among candidates.

The number of guilty cases climbed by 22%, to 314, from 2008 to 2009.

The number of cases of cheating using a mobile phone, some of which have internet access, has more than doubled.

The SQA said the penalties for cheating ranged from zero marks for individual exam papers to disqualification from all examinations.

Other forms of malpractice or cheating on exams included pupils caught colluding and taking in notes.

Last year about 160,000 candidates took 736,920 exams which resulted in 506 cases of cheating being investigated, with penalties being applied to 314 candidates.

"If you look at the percentage rises, yes it sounds a lot, but the numbers that are cheating are very low and I think we need to understand how we can prepare pupils better for examinations" - Dr Janet Brown
Scottish Qualifications Authority.

This equated to 0.04% of the total, slightly above the level of 0.03% in England.

In 2008, there were 750,559 exams taken with 673 cheating cases investigated.

A total of 257 pupils were found to have broken the rules.

Mobile phones

And the number of cases of cheating using a mobile phone rose from 49 in 2008 to 113 in 2009.

Chief Executive of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, Dr Janet Brown said: "We need to be aware and it is very important that we do address this issue but lets keep it in perspective."

She added: "If you look at the percentage rises, yes it sounds a lot, but the numbers that are cheating are very low and I think we need to understand how we can prepare pupils better for examinations.

"How they can feel confident that they are able to achieve, and I think that it is one of those things that Scottish education does very well."

The exam board said that all candidates are warned of the consequences of cheating in an information booklet they receive prior to taking their examinations.

Cheating is rife slides

Cheating rife discussion slides

View more presentations from Mark Hetherington

Say no to plagiarism and copy and pasting!

Below is a link to the newspaper article that Andrew referred to in this morning's class. It really is an eye opener.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12608083

I will also post the slides that I used this morning to stimulate our discussion and I should add that the links at the end of my PowerPoint DO work, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't fire up at the end of the class today!

I enjoyed the general discussion that we had on the issue of plagiarism this morning and if you wish to comment on that or the article itself, please do.

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/36434.html - this is a link to some details on plagiarism from the SQA that may be worth a look at sometime too should you have the inclination!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will look at answering the questions in class (I will provide some helpnotes) and next Monday (3rd) I will go over the sample answers for the 'cheating is rife' passage for you to cross reference your responses against.

See you all tomorrow at 9,

Mark

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy tops UK box office

 

Dear all, since we made passing reference to the TTSS film this morning, read on!

The new film adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has topped the UK and Ireland box office.

The movie, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, took a total of £2.8m in ticket sales during its opening weekend.
The Inbetweeners, which held the top spot for four weeks, fell one place.
The Change-Up debuted at five, I Don't How She Does It opened in seventh place and new release 30 Minutes Or Less was at number 10.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, based on the espionage novel by John le Carre, stars Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
It was originally adapted into a BBC drama in 1979 featuring Alec Guinness and Ian Richardson.

 

Top five films

1. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - £2.8m
2. The Inbetweeners - £1.2m
3. Friends With Benefits - £936,025
4. Jane Eyre - £734,071
5. The Change-Up - £727,497
Source: Screen International

The Inbetweeners, based on the popular E4 series, has taken a total of £41.8m since it was released five weeks ago.

At number three this week was romantic comedy Friends With Benefits, followed by Jane Eyre in fourth.
The Smurfs film was down two places, at number six, while Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was in eighth.
One Day, starring Anne Hathaway, fell three places to number nine.

Given the range of films in the list, there is always something for everyone when it comes to going to the flicks!

Off to a Flyer...

Greetings.

I really enjoyed the class this morning and all the groups (and those working individually) came up with some interesting comments about how the film could be analysed and interpreted. Like all things, we often have different opinions and that always makes learning, teaching and discussion all the richer! We looked at the text (the text being the film in this case) and had a good shot at breaking it down. For me, working in small groups and feeding back enhances our analytical and communication skills and I have been impressed with the level of industry shown in the classes we've had so far. Keep it up everybody and I'll see you on Monday for our session looking at the complex and mightily important subject of plagiarism.

As always, any comments from my classes are welcomed and thank you to those who have been logging in regularly!

All the best, Mark

Article on the issue of 'feedback' that I wrote last year

What is the shortest word in the English language that contains the letters abcdef? Answer: Feedback. But don't forget that feedback is arguably one of the most important elements of effective communication.  

Below is the article that I wrote for our internal academic paper 'Illuminating Practice' in November 2010. It will be interesting to see if your feedback mirrors the learners from last year in any way. The type and content of your feedback should be your own though of course.

Summary of good practice

Teaching Communication and English means that student groups are varied. Learners can be assessed on some of the following: reading, writing, talking, listening, group working, summarising, analysing, self and peer evaluation, creativity, critical thinking and critical evaluation of literary texts. Different constituencies demand different approaches to teaching and learning, but one thing remains constant and that is the need for clear and meaningful feedback. It is apparent that there is considerable variety in the ways in which outcomes (tasks) and implications of student performance in assessments are communicated to our students.

                                       

After formative or summative assessment students may receive a written report on their performance from their lecturer, either as a standard proforma or as free text. Students may also participate in an oral feedback session with their lecturer, or be invited to make an appointment to discuss their performance if they wish. There is no doubt that feedback is vital to the learning process and the Communication and English teaching team value the importance of the student taking an active part in their learning. In a team meeting last year, I asked each lecturer to highlight how they deliver feedback to learners and prepared a short report for the HMIe reviewers. It demonstrated quite clearly the variety of methods we use and the positive effect this has had on the students. In this article, I aim to give a breakdown of how I approach the issue of feedback, illustrating my thoughts with qualitative data from a variety of sources. 

Benefits of outcomes

Constructive feedback should not be taken as a criticism and it is important that learners understand the importance of feedback given to them by their lecturers. It is important that lecturers should be culturally sensitive to the feelings of their students and should give them honest, timely, objective and specific feedback in a skillful and tactful manner. Constructive feedback should aim at bringing self-improvement and development in our learners. It is equally important that students are given the opportunity to give lecturers feedback on their progress too!

I deliver feedback in a number of ways, depending on the type of assessment and the onus is on the student to be an autonomous learner. I use the ‘praise sandwich’ approach, which starts with a positive comment, the filling may encourage an agenda for future improvement and finally another positive comment or two to close.

This helps to reinforce what was good about their submission or delivery. When assessing oral presentations, I ask the student how they feel they have performed, using a checklist which acts as a prompt for them to self reflect. I ask for some supportive peer commentary before I deliver positive oral feedback, summarised from a written checklist used to mark the presentation. A reflective template is used for reading assessments, with responses in the main typed out with (hopefully) helpful bespoke comments to encourage the learning of the student .

Report writing, film reviews, essays and minutes may have extended feedback annotated on the student submission with commentary summarised on a checklist. Often the student is asked to sign a self-evaluation form saying that they accept the decision made and any comment they feel would help their learning in the future. It could be argued that Open Learning feedback (via a letter) is slightly more impersonal than other feedback mechanisms, as the lecturer may never meet the student. It is important to pitch this feedback at a level appropriate for the learner, using positive comments and encouraging them to keep working through the workbooks until they are ready for summative assessment.

In a classroom setting after an assessment has been successfully completed by all of the class, I often peer reflect on the good and not so good areas of learning from that outcome in the next lesson, to help refresh the parts that other students couldn’t reach…

This is an open session and I am always open to suggestions myself on how I could improve the assessment, organisation of materials, feedback mechanisms etc.

End of Unit questionnaires are used to ascertain what the student has learned and this reflective commentary is sometimes done verbally as well. I keep a log of comments from students (not just my own, but from all team members) after each semester and save them as a report on our shared drive. Feedback is wide and varied and gives the teaching team a sense of what we are doing well as a team and where improvements can be made, individually and collectively.

Noted below are the main issues gleaned from a large sample of students from the 2008-10 teaching sessions. I have omitted specific comments from students, carefully collated by me at the end of each semeser, but I am happy to share the information with any interested colleagues.

I break the document down into three areas – delivery and feedback, ICT use commentary and room for improvement. A summary of findings gathered from a variety of sources, such as end of Unit evaluation questionnaires, blogs, Wikis, letters, cards, commercial activity comments and e mails are noted as follows:

•           Developing understanding and confidence building.

•           Able to speak in front of peers without fear and nerves.

•           Development of ICT skills.

•           Positive and focused feedback by students and lecturers.

•           Well organised lessons.

•           Learners realise that they are more capable than they thought.

•           Lots of encouragement and reassurances given about their abilities.

•           Skills have been improved – listening, presentation, writing, listening, analysing, evaluating.

•           Students are enjoying presentations more and more and feel involved in the assessment process.

•           Confidence has been gained by learners undertaking the vast array of communication tasks we offer.

•           Skills learned and applied to other Units and/or work.

•           Students are engaging with our Wikis, Blogs and Google Groups more.

•           Students have made quite a lot of comments about not being in rooms with computers.

•           Students are commenting on relevant tasks and seem to like the fact they aren’t being over assessed in our classes.

•           The flexibility of the curriculum has been noted by students learning at different levels of the SCQF framework.

•           Lots of positive feedback about the lecturer’s role in the learning process.

•           Students like using the remote control presenter and are happy with the Flip camera as it is unobtrusive where presentations and meetings can be easily saved on a USB stick.

Working examples

I teach Communication and Oral Presentation Skills to a wonderful group of Access to Languages students. Although this is just one of my classes, the reflective template minus the student names and signatures is used in a number of ways.

1. I give the student bespoke written and verbal feedback on their work.

2. I note the result on their work - remediate or pass (at first sitting).

3. The student looks at my comments and if they understand what they have to do, they continue with the assessment.

4. When the student has passed (and I have annoted their answer paper appropriately) they are asked to make comment on their work in a box titled 'student self-evaluation'. This is an opportunity for the learner to make a comment on such things as how well they thought they performed, what they thought of the assessment, what will they do better in the future etc. What they comment on is up to the student as I don’t want this section to be too regimented but I prefer it not to be blank.

5. When the student agrees with the result they validate the feedback sheet by signing it.

A selection of comments from students this semester are as follows. The summative reading assessment was an article titled ‘Digital books are a threat to writers’.

"When I first read the assessment I found this to be very difficult as English is not my first language. When I read it again and started to look at the questions, I actually thought it was a great resource for me and it turned out to be really appealing. I am glad that I passed as I put a lot of work into the assessment."

"I enjoyed this task more than I expected. Picking apart an article and analysing it was good. The assessment was helpful in terms of writing critically although I think I could have been more succinct in parts."

"I thoroughly enjoyed slowing down enough to really read and absorb a piece of writing and then produce a set of answers which had to be well thought through and relevant."

"This assessment showed me that I need to work on my time management a bit more. During the assessment I ran into a bit of stress because of that but am very happy to have passed. Although we had plenty of time to do it, I know at University there will be stiffer time barriers so I have to improve on that, without losing out on the quality of my responses."

"I am pleased with my overall assessment and evaluation of the article as this is my first assessment in a long time."

"In future I will pay more attention to reading the questions and when it clearly says use your own words, that's what I will do!”

“I think doing the assessment in class over a few sessions was a great way of taking pressure off me. Mind you, I am a Will Self fan so I might be a bit biased!”

“I thought the assessment was testing. We had done some practise reading in previous classes so I knew what was expected. The article itself didn’t really appeal to me and if I was reading a magazine with an article like that, I would probably turn the page over if I’m honest. Despite not liking the content that much, I know I have passed the outcome and that is what I am here to do”.

“I really enjoyed this task. It is a good way to test our skills to analyze and you have to think about lots of things. I will read news articles differently from now on. Thanks”.

Finally, I created a blog for this cohort at the start of session and I regularly update it to go over what we have learned in classes and invite students to make comment. It is one of the ways that helps our learners in particular to become confident individuals, effective contributors and successful learners in line with the Curriculum for Excellence capacities. The students enjoy using it and see it as a supportive aid to their learning, they like the tone of the blog and often comment on this (positively I may add)!

Different contexts:

Feedback is very efficient cross college, of that I am certain and there is no magic answer to how we should deliver it. I will leave the last words to Michael J. Gelb who notes "champions know that success is inevitable; that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. They know that the best way to forecast the future is to create it.”