Designing Schools for the Future

My company does lots of work on school design and building schools for
the future. As part of my job I go into a lot of existing schools and
see some great design alongside terrible design mistakes and
interesting head scratching stuff.

Imagine being one of two learners sharing the desk in the photo.
Neither learner is able to sit comfortable as the seats don't fit
under the desk. The whole classroom has this issue with whoever
placed the order not taking into account the actual space needed for
learners to work in comfort.

Apparently these desks and chairs have been in use for five years and
one learner commented that his back hurts when using this classroom as
he is tall and has to bend to use the table when sitting next to
someone.

Molly & Millie

They are both big fans of our decorating steps and choose to spend as
much time as possible sleeping and sitting on them.

Before you ask, no we won't be painting the walls those tester colours.

Happy Birthday Nikki

Nikki, my brothers wife, celebrated her birthday on Sunday. Here she
is with a tasty cake baked by Justina. In the background the grass is
finally growing in our garden.

Red Plastic Train Set

When Andrew and I were very little we had a red train set (made of
plastic). We had hours of fun with it and I remember being very sad to
see it sold at a boot sale by our parents many year ago for just '1.

Wandering round a bootsale a few weeks back I came across a box full
of the track and trains for 50p, and quickly parted with the cash.

In the picture my brother Andrew had great fun nearly 20 years after
he last played with the set.

Pirate Ship to the Rescue! (nearly)

The petrol speed boat conked out so Jus went to the rescue with our
battery powered pirate ship to push it back in.... but it's battery
pack was low and it got stranded too!

The RC Powerboat at Maldon Model Boating Lake

Made from the remains of my brothers old remote control boat which he
fell on when falling through our parents garage roof after forgetting
his key,bits from my old remote control car and a sledge from when we
were kids.

Great fun.

Maldon Prom

My view today as I recover from food poisoning

Ultralab close to Demolition

Standing on Chelmsford railway platform today while waiting for a
train to London I have a clear view across the University campus where
Ultralab was based, in which I worked.

The sports hall and student bar is now demolished and I'm guess once
the rubble is cleared Ultralab's North Block will be next.

Sega Dreamcast

Today while in New Milton, Hampshire, visiting a school, I passed a
retro games store and on my way back to the station I purchased an
immaculate boxed Sega Dreamcast for £20, a memory card for £5 and £9
worth of games.

I never owned a Dreamcast, but have heard so many times over the years
that they were an under valued console that was excellent, just badly
marketed and overpriced.

Jus (surprise surprise) had a Dreamcast when she was younger and
requested (on the phone) at the time of purchase that some 'Tomb
Raider' titles were bought too, she has been playing them this
evening. I've been playing 'Crazy Taxi' on the good advice of Hais.

The Dreamcast sits alongside the Megadrive we bought two weeks ago,
and I'm impressed by the graphics, the sound quality and the condition
it is in. First time we turned it on it asked for todays date,
starting at 1998 as default, where have the last ten years gone? They
flew by.

South West Trains

Wow! A train company that knows what it is doing. This morning I
boarded an overcrowded and dirty National Express East Anglia train
from Witham, changed at Stratford onto the delayed, sticky, smelly and
noisy London underground and now I'm on a clean, pleasent and on time
South West Trains service from Waterloo.

The air condition works, the train is quiet and I've been welcomed
aboard. The trolley cart running through the train was a lot less
expensive in comparison to National Express who charge £1.30 for
breakfast bars that only cost 40p in the shops.

All I need now is free wifi and plugs at my seat and I'd be even more
impressed.

Big Sales and Shop Closures

Walking round Lakeside this evening almost every store has a sale on,
few customers and some of the small independent stores have gone into
receivership or are closed.

Cat Food

Less than half price in Morrisons, so Jus bought loads.

Shopping Prices

Jus and I are in Morrisons and I'm amazed by the number of offers.

Its clear to me that people are being careful about what they are
spending, but because the price of petrol, living cost bills going up
and spending therefore going down that shops like this are
suffering.... as us customers think twice about the impulse buys
supermarkets have traditionally thrown at us as we wander around
picking up.

Chocolate Peppermint Slice

Justina has taken to baking cakes, her latest was todays Chocolate
Peppermint Slice, which tastes great. Yesterday she made 'Rocky Road'
like you get in Starbucks, another hit. Roll on tomorrow!

Cleveratom at Barnfield College Eastern Regional Support Centre Conference

Today Hal, Hais and I are at Barnfield College for the regional RSC
conference.

Last year it was held in Norfolk at Easton College, which we enjoyed
exhibiting at. We are delighted to be invited to this years conference
to exhibit and run the podcasting sessions.

Our SMS wall is also on display and in use for delegates throughout
the day to text in thoughts, ideas and comments.

National Express East Anglia First Class, thetrainline.com and raileasy.com

For the past year I have been travelling standard class to Norwich on
National Express East Anglia to get to City College to work on RUGroom.

This morning I am catching the (surprise surprise, late running) 7.07
from Witham to Norwich and might miss my connection for the last part
of my journey to Great Yarmouth.

Anyway, booking the tickets for the trip yesterday from
thetrainline.com it was more cost effective for me to travel First
Class on the way up, and Standard on the way back.

The ticket I have for this trip (which National Express will nodoubt
check the usual four times they seem to inspect) cost £16 First Class
as opposed to over £20 Standard Class purchased at the station (no
standard tickets were available for this train on thetrainline.com, I
guess the few limited discount tickets had already sold.

The return journey standard ticket has cost me £6.00, bargain.

This is the first time I have used thetrainline.com for a long time
after it became virtually impossible to explain a ticketing error to
various representatives in a thetrainline.com oversees call centre by
phone. Thetrainline.com might be a cost effective way to buy train
tickets cheap, so long as you make no changes to plans and stick to
the strict schedule you agree to at time of purchase.

The First Class carriage is almost empty, a National Express employee
is busy on a laptop near by and a dew seats ahead a young lady has
just joined the train at Manningtree.

About a month or so ago, colleague Hal MacLean and I travelled
standard class from Kings Cross to Doncaster. The seats were
comfortable, carriage was clean, bright and modern and there was free
wireless Internet and power plugs at every seat. Yet here on the
train I'm on at the moment I'm in First Class with none of that, and
the train is opperated by the same company, National Express.

Although the seat I'm sitting in right now is roomy, its not very
comfortable, but atleast it is quiet (I somehow usually end up in the
carriage with the screaming toddler).

I also tried booking some tickets through raileasy.com and won't be
using them again.

Students with ASD engage well with technology

Since September last year I have spent every Tuesday working in
Norwich at City College in the excellent and evolving Rugroom, a
specialist learning and social centre for learners on the autistic
spectrum.

In May last year colleagues from Cleveratom and myself engaged with
the Rugroom project to help select and embed the right learning
technology into a new space being designed for students with ASD, by
students with ASD. To read about how the project was founded, and
launched officially earlier this year, click here.

I'm on the train back from Rugroom as I write this, it is nearly 7.30
in the evening and I thought I'd take some time to begin reflecting on
the last year, the learning, achievements, next steps and outcomes
from this whole process so far.

My battery is getting low, so I'll leave this blog entry for now by
reflecting on the photograph and return to writing it from my desk
tomorrow.

In the photo we can see Tim constructing an areoplane in some great
free Lego building software. To his right Alex is learning how to
navigate a flight simulator, working out the best angle for take off.
Over the desk Cara is building a comic and out of site Gemma is
putting together a website, Katy has just built an animated GIF using
Photoshop and Flash and Kirsty is uploading to Youtube a movie she has
been making.

Quite simply the technical ability, creative thinking and desire to
achieve by these particular students is nothing short of exceptional.

More tomorrow.