New BBC Blast Trucks, Award winning Asperger's, engaging and inclusive learning....

Dear BLOG,

It has been a while since I've done a catch up, and as ever: I know you are busy - I'll keep it brief.

The BBC Blast Trucks are redesigned, refitted and ready for another three years on the road. Blast is a brilliant project and we've enjoyed working with young people to get the design of the new trucks suitable for engaging and inclusive creative learning. Learning Space Design has become a big part of our work as more people realise the positive impact effective space design can have on learning.

Our work continues with City College Norwich to embed technology for learners with Asperger's Syndrome. With the learners we're embedding a new TV & Radio studio into the suite of facilities, which just won two big awards, we're really proud of the students and staff and celebrated with them on our joint stand at BETT back in January.

Working on the 'New Diplomas' is good fun, we're working with learners to implement an adaptation of our learning platform 'Thought Park' to enable collaborative cross-institution learning. Thought Park has been successfully implemented in a diversity of learning situations and as always learners were involved in its specification and design, which we believe is essential to any software development and a key factor in its success.

With the NHS we're building and implementing a Professional Networking solution for staff in the Eastern Region. Other NHS projects keep us busy putting together new online resources, filming, and travelling all over the country to conduct research with health teams.

With our friends at Essex County Council we're building a new partnership portal, last year we built 'Engage East' for them. PLiP, the Personalised Learning software we're rolling out with Edison Learning continues to grow, SPOKE, our engaging reflection and evaluation software is seeing take-up across the country as a way for schools to: track performance; set targets; engage better with parents; and simplify processes.

And we continue to present, advise and talk about how learning can be more engaging, inclusive and fun.

We're also delighted to welcome Sharon (our new administrator), and Colin Elsey (a former colleague from lab days) who has been tempted out of early retirement to head up some research work for us with the NHS.

There is loads more too.... follow us on Twitter (Cleveratom) where you'll find a link through to some pictures of the BBC Blast truck!

Matt
and all the team at Cleveratom
Please feel free to forward this update onto friends and colleagues.

Matthew Eaves
Director of Creativity
Cleveratom
+44 (0)845 868 9020

Cleveratom Limited,
Fenchurch House,
93 Springfield Road,
Chelmsford,
Essex, CM2 6JL.

_____________________________________
Cleveratom Limited is a company registered
in England and Wales with company
number 6008130. Registered address is
Shalford Court, 95 Springfield Road
Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 6JL.

National Express East Anglia Shambles

I arrived in Norwich 1 hour late this morning, once again NXEA were
shambolic with their lack of communication, false information, train
cancellations, and as ever sudden dissapearance of platform staff when
the brown stuff started to hit the fan.

Well done NXEA.

Why is Skip-bo not available in the UK?

This is a great card game first introduced to Justina and I by
Justina's American Sister-in-law. We bought a set of cards while in
the States, and another set from France. I tried to get hold of
another set this week and ended up having to order from America at a
cost of £15.00 (£10 or which was postage).

Skip-bo is a great game, someone in the UK should stock it.

Pointless Interactive Floor Advertising

Great that The Meadows shopping centre in Chelmsford has finally got
shot of that pointless interactive floor advertising thing that for
the last couple of years they have been trying to flog advertising
space to local businesses, including mine.

The floor was great fun for kids who ran about on it kicking away
objects to reveal company names and logos but I never saw anyone take
any notice of the businesses who paid for this advertising which was
only ever displayed when kids ran about on it.

Cash Points are annoying

9 out of 10 times when I use a cashpoint I request a £10 note with no
advice slip.

Why do I have to press through about four screens before I can press
the £10 button? Nationwide machines are the slowest to process
requests and ask the most questions. Why can't cashpoint learn what we
do and provide the familiar activities as options on the main screen?

All I want is a 'usual tenner with no receipt' button when my pin has
been accepted. Why do they all try and sell me mobile phone topups for
networks I am not a customer of, and I am on a contract? Just give me
my tenner and process me and the rest of the cash point queue faster.

Molly is Two

Happy Birthday Molly.

Apple MacBook Pro Kernal Panic and Logic Board Failure

I really like Apple, but every single laptop I've owned (Milhouse 2000-2003
, SuperTed 2003-2005, Elwood 2005-2007, Jake 2007-present) has gone
wrong and had to have a 'logic board' replacement.

'Jake' is in for repair at the moment along with Alex's machine which
also has logic board failure. Justina's iBook has had two logic board
replacements in three years.

AppleCare is such an expensive but needed protection plan.