Horse in a lonely field

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Originally uploaded by svanstraten

School was cancelled yesterday because of heavy snowfall overnight.

Before I settled down to study for my MA I went out to capture some snowy photos.

As I trudged through the fields I came across this horse, taking shelter from the biting wind.

It sums up the strange feeling of desolation that descended on the valley, as the ground turned white and the sky remained resolutely grey.

History of the Internet

I came across this rather lovely 8 minute film that explains how the Internet came into being. Its production values are reminiscent of a 1970s Open University TV show, which appealed to me as I'm about to begin an MA in Online and Distance Education with the OU; although the learning environment is rather more dynamic now than the shows I caught on TV as a youngster.

Anyway, this gives a great background to the system that allows us now to communicate visual, auditory and text based data with the minimum of fuss. It's worth watching to the end. Enjoy.

Back to Mac

Aah, the joys of viral marketing. Courtesy of the Viral Video Chart I've been reminded of the first time Steve Jobs showed off a Mac, back in 1984.

I was still in school, and within a year or so Berkhamsted had invested in what I believe was the first IT suite in a school.

What were we using? Why, the first Apple Macs, that's what. At home, my parents had invested in a Sinclair ZX80, a ZX81 (they were renting a property to a couple involved in selling them, so I got to see the first generation of home PCs up close long before they made it to market), and then later a Sinclair Spectrum. Finally, I ended up with a BBC B computer, which was a fantastic piece of kit.

Looking back, it's incredible how far we've come in 25 years. I remember having to load up games by playing a cassette tape into the computer. A series of painful squawks and screeches somehow got transformed into games and other applications. 

The total memory of these machines was no more than 16Mb (for the ZX81) and when the Spectrum was released with 256Mb of memory people wondered what anyone could possible want with that amount of memory.

Even back then the sight of a floppy disc pulled from Steve's pocket is enough to make people in the video ooh and aah. 

The pace of technological advancement is progressing at such a pace that it's hard for those of us in education to know where to deploy relevant systems that will deliver measurable benefits to students, parents and our colleagues.

With that in mind, I will be starting an MA in Online and Distance Education at the Open University next week. My first module is entitled Technology Enhanced Learning - Practices and Debates. It's going to look at precisely this sort of question. 

I'm looking forward to learning more, engaging with other practitioners, and sharing my thoughts. I'll keep you posted. 

P.S. After a quarter of a century I'm still a Mac Boy. Old habits die hard.

Rebellion takes hold of iTunes

Photo by Tessa Angus (​www.​tessaangus.​com)​

Here's an interesting story, that my student Tom brought to my attention. 

Over the last week or so an unsigned London-based band called the Boxer Rebellion have managed to come from nowhere and storm the online charts of iTunes, in both the UK and USA.

The band self-produced and published their album, and on its creative merits alone, had one of their songs designated as an iTunes' Free Single of the Week.

The response has been huge and it's a sign of how far the relationship that's existed traditionally between the institutions of the music industry, the performers looking for funding to create good songs, and the audiences who purchase them, has changed and evolved.

You can listen to the Boxer Rebellion's songs and watch videos here, and if you're interested in their background story, then read more here.

Eyeless in Gaza

I was reminded of the lines from Milton's poem, Samson Agonistes, when reading about the following news development today:

Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves ...

The surprising news that caught my eye in the media world was the announcement that the BBC would not be televising an advert by the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee) to raise funds for humanitarian aid in Gaza. The DEC is an umbrella organisation for 13 aid charities.

The BBC says that it was concerned about how aid would get through to Gaza, and given the fact that the story is still current and being reported on, felt it might damage its impartiality were it to air the ad.

It's a convention that either all or none of the broadcasters carry DEC appeals in the UK, so shortly after the BBC announced it wouldn't be lending a hand, all the other major players fell into line.

I'd like to say I feel disappointment, outrage, or some other meaningful emotion at this decision. But having lived in Israel and visited Palestine on a number of occasions while there, I know that the complexities of the situation are so challenging, that I must admit to a sense of bewilderment.

So what does this tell us about the media, in terms of representation and institutional issues? Probably that nothing is ever as simple as it seems on the surface, and what we see and consume on TV won't necessarily have a logical reason for being there. Just as importantly, it's crucial, as observers of the media, to keep tabs on what gets left out of the schedules. The gaps, the silences, and the omissions, can be as revealing, important and worthy of study and debate, as the programmes we deconstruct and textually analyse.