I’ve been taken aback by the irrational and heavy-handed response of people I (used to) respect in relation to the recent outbreak of rioting across English cities. Over at Doug’s FAQ I wrote a couple of posts to follow-up what I’d mentioned on Twitter and Google+. The first, What do you mean by structural inequality? is my attempt to quickly outline the fact things should not be taken at face value. In the second, So you don’t condemn the rioters? I try to show how people are a product of their environment and call for a more just society.

In a lengthy thread on Google+ I exchanged points of view with various people. Thankfully, Paul Lewis weighed-in with the above video which, I thought, contained such eloquence that I’ve uploaded it to the Internet Archive in case anything happens to the YouTube version (it was available under a Creative Commons license)

Further reading:

• Teaching after the riots (MB Drennan)
• An Open Letter to David Cameron’s Parents (Nathaniel Tapley)
• SCUM (‘Peter’)

There’s no way (currently) to integrate comments from Google+ with the comments below. Here’s the thread featuring some excellent insights stemming from my initial link to this post.

Soon after Grace, my daughter, was born earlier this year I was invited to Australia to keynote the Association of Independent Schools, New South Wales ICT Managers’ Conference. At the time, Grace was having some problems with lactose intolerance and so I couldn’t commit to being the other side of the world. The organisers still wanted me to present and so I produced the above ‘TELL Talk’ on The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies along with giving a 50-minute workshop on the same subject.

It felt a bit strange getting dressed to present at 2am in the morning to co-ordinate with their schedule but the technology worked well and the session seemed to be well-received.

If you’d like me to present either virtually or in person at your conference or event, do check out my presentations section and get in touch!

Update: watch the Zipcast of my presentation here

What’s the purpose of education? Are we heading in the right direction?

Step 1

Watch this:

Step 2

Download TweetDeck (also Google Chrome version), use TweetGrid or use Twitterfall (my favourite) to follow the hashtag #ukedchat. More on that here.

Step 3

Join in! Read, respond, debate. It’s fast-paced!

If you like this, then you’ll want to follow @purposeducation, the hashtag #purposed and sign up to the newsletter at http://purposed.org.uk

Update

Here’s my summary with the entire archive of tweets here:

An extremely difficult hour to summarise given the frantic pace of the tweets! There was certainly a feeling that the purpose of education is much more than simply gaining ‘good’ examination results; most weren’t happy with the way education is heading in the UK. Although there was a strong anti-Gove sentiment, the overall tone of the discussion and debate was positive, with a sense that there was enough grassroots feeling to make educators’ voices heard in Whitehall.

‘Confidence’, ‘passion’ and ‘skills’ were perhaps the most used words in 140-character contributions to the question of what constitutes the purpose of education. Tweets mentioning the importance of holistic education, of equipping young people with the ability to learn how to learn, and of raising aspirations were among the most retweeted.

Many contributors mentioned how refreshing it was to discuss the fundamentals rather than ‘the latest web 2.0 tool’. Although some expressed frustration at only have 140 characters to express themselves (along with the speed of the updates) there was an almost-tangible sense of people thinking deeply about their beliefs as educators about the purpose of their profession.

Working on my thesis

Although working from home this week didn’t produce quite the number of words towards my Ed.D. thesis as I’d hoped, it nevertheless did result in a bit of a breakthrough. I now know why we’re not all talking about ‘digital literacy’ in the UK.

Selling stuff via #twebay

I’ll explain how I went about doing this in a separate post but, having already sold one or two things to Twitter followers this year, I had a go at selling a bunch of stuff using nothing more than Google Docs and TweetDeck. Check out http://dajb.eu/twebay – there’s still some stuff available!

Buying a car

I think quite possibly I have got the bargain of the year: a 1.7-litre Ford Puma (with the ‘luxury pack’) for £350:

There’s a large chance I was swayed in my love of Puma’s by the advert for them featuring Steve McQueen (which was on TV in 1997/8 just before I learned to drive):

Awesome.

Top 10 links I shared this week

As I explained earlier this week, it makes sense to combine my new ‘Top 10 Links I Shared This Week’ series with these weeknotes. The following links were those most clicked on (according to bit.ly Pro‘s stats) when I shared them via  Twitter this week. I don’t include links back to this blog.

Links given with number of clicks given in brackets:

1. Futurelab – Digital Participation, Digital Literacy and School Subjects (61)
2. Gumtree listing of the Ford Puma I bought (51)
3. What Matters Most: Evidence-based findings of key factors affecting the educational experiences and outcomes for girls and boys throughout their primary and secondary schooling (39)
4. Alumni magazines: Bah! (38)
5. Barack Obama – LinkedIn (19)
6. Digital Britain: Final Report (2009) (17)
7. Firesheep (16)
8. BBC News: Large Hadron Collider creates a ‘mini black hole’ (14)
9. Feedly Mini: Redesigned (11)
10. Demonstrating JISC’s value and impact (9)

This week I’m talking about productivity at conferences, but it can be generalised to any occasion in which you’re away from home with a schedule dictated by someone other than yourself.

Those reading via RSS or email will need to click through for the video!

If you like this, you may want to check out #uppingyourgame: a practical guide to personal productivity.

This week I’m talking about downtime – what it is, why it’s important, and where to find it.

Those reading via RSS or email will need to click through for the video!

If you like this, you may want to check out #uppingyourgame: a practical guide to personal productivity.

RSS and email subscribers click on the post title to view on the blog, or here to view on YouTube.

Continuing the series I started last week, this episode looks at the importance of defining your own philosophy of productivity.

Like this? Want it to become a regular monthly thing? Let me know in the comments below!

I’ve been wanting to do more video stuff for a while. That’s why I’ve decided to begin two new projects, the first of which is a series called Doug on Productivity which I’ll try to get out every Monday morning (GMT).

In this first episode I answer three productivity-related questions about email, motivation and “writer’s block”.

Got some questions for Episode 2? Add them to the comments either here (below) or over at the YouTube page.