005 - Update (Wordpress Account)

As the only blog which I am affiliated with has jumped ship to Wordpress, this blog is also going to be published over there. I'm going to be keeping my Blogger account and posting any further entries on both sites. So, with that in mind here's the Wordpress account should you prefer to read my nonsensical ramblings on that website instead:

http://sandlefish.wordpress.com/

I'd recommend you check out the other blog I mentioned, run by one of my bandmates. It's called 'Computing according to TWO', and updates are fairly regular and always interesting to anyone with a mild to deep interest in computing. Yyou can find this beast of intellectual beauty at: http://computing42.wordpress.com/

004 - The Digital Economy Bill

For those of you living outside of the UK, or those in the UK and unawares, the government has rushed through a last minute piece of legislation which now attempts to block or effectively 'filter-out' sites here which may contain content which should not be shared under copyright laws.

Firstly, let me make a something clear. I do not for one moment completely condone the actions of pirates who distribute the works of others (be that music, film, photography or otherwise) whether they seek to gain profit or not, if they do not have the legal permission to do so. Having been an aspiring musician for the past 5 or 6 years, and having toiled endlessly and continuing to do so at several musical projects I can only imagine my fury were my material to leak onto the world wide web and deprive me of any reward for my work. (That isn't to say I am a complete angel in the online world either). Musicians and artists have bills to pay as well as the rest of us, and illegally distributing their music we can all agree harms their income significantly. However the music industry has been debating such an issue for years now. Firstly how do you control such a flux of illegal torrent hosting sites and how do you stop people from downloading your artists' content illegally, and convince them to act more legally and morally and pay instead? Secondly however, something that continues to perplex me as a musician is why the industry hasn't wised up and tried at least to stay in line with the enemy, by better promoting live performances, merchandise and other sources of income from the artists' works and taking an improved income there.. It baffles me to think that record labels and the music industry seem to spend such a portion of their time bemoaning their losses from CD sales and downloads instead of taking the intitative and using more effective marketing strategies to at least reduce the deficits caused by P2P software.

I was also shocked to see how few MPs were involved in the final part of the process of making this bill legislation. Just from the picture at the top of this blog it's clear to see that only a small minority of those with the power and status to influence the passing of this bill were not present, which I find disgraceful. I understand that this debate took place late into the evening, and that it wasn't set in stone how long it could last for, but if I refused to turn up to teach one of my lessons at college because I didn't feel like it, I can't see my situation being looked upon as lightly.

My main point of confusion with this bill is that the more I look at it's aims and objectives, the more I struggle to see how they can possibly police it effectively without a blanket surveillance on internet usage, and how this bill proposes to stay one step ahead of the pirates and illegal file distributors who will inevitably find an underground way of continuing to operate.. For sure the moral values and ideals behind the legislation are a step in the right direction from an artist's perspective as they protect their income, but I cannot help but think that the only possible way to ensure that your downloads contain purely legally share-able content would be to monitor the sites you visit and the material you download. Not only would this require a seriously complictaed piece of software and also a lot of manpower, but also a considerable sustained investment on behalf of the government to ensure they stay one step ahead of the pirates they seek to stop. I cannot help but be concerned that if the government are able to monitor downloads and hits to any sites with illegal content, that they therefore are able to record who is visiting them. I refuse to accept that this bill is nothing short of a step around the previously disallowed legislation requiring ISPs to cut off persistent file sharers. The government did not also rule out the possibility that sites sharing content containing 'acquired' data may be blocked, such as 'Wikileaks' which has been at the centre of many a revelation on government scandals of late. Given the fact that I mashed a few words into our beloved Google to find the pictures for this blog, I'm already half expecting the almighty Internet Police to come knocking on my door and smite me for my deviance.

To summarise, this bill worries me. It's potential (though debatable) moral incentive does not worry me, as I fully see the point of the artists and (albeit lazy) promotion agencies marketing them and taking a hefty slice of any profits. What does worry me, is the direction that this bill appears to take, and the potential impact on our future freedom online.

'Keeping Watch..'
Sandlefish

003 - PCET: What’s wrong with our sector?

This post forms part of something larger that I've been scribbling away at over the last few months..


To the powers that be,

Before you read and ultimately consign the following article to the cylindrical ‘filing cabinet’ under your desk, consider that this is (albeit granted an opinion), an opinion garnered from months of careful consideration and much conversation with various other teachers of both little and much experience alike from a variety of teaching institutions.

Allow me first to introduce myself. I am a trainee teacher of 22 years of age. My subject specialism is Psychology (which has been significantly valuable in assisting my teaching methods and approach to students, given that I look younger than some of them..) I am now fast approaching the end of my PGCE in Post-Compulsory Education and Training, and figured that at such a concluding point of the academic year now would be a valuable opportunity to commit to writing one of the long running debates I have grappled with over the duration of what has been one of the most eye-opening years of my somewhat short existence.

It would be hardly a sweeping or controversial statement to say that our sector is at least to some extent led and ruled by the influence, targets and fear-inducing power that is OfSTED. The inspection results from each of their reports can massively influence the next few years of an institution’s existence, from funding to reputation, to marketing and curriculum design, and ultimately staff and student numbers. Though it isn’t to say that OfSTED are single-handedly to blame, such an environment has almost inevitably born out a culture of Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement, which leads me to the main point of my argument. As a sector, we define our success or failure in these areas by the reams of forest-munching paperwork that aims to tick all the relevant boxes to provide adequate proof that we have done all in our almighty power available to ensure that our job has been completed to its best. The main focus of my main argument, is that do we now concentrate so heavily on the statistics and marketing and QA/QI due to the pressures of our organisations and ultimately wider pressures that the paperwork begins to detract from the teaching itself, putting our students ultimately at greater risk of becoming one of the aforementioned statistics?

Now I have no qualms about admitting that such bureaucracy has to some extent at least played a pivotal role in improving the quality of my teaching. For instance had I not planned all my lessons on lesson plans, written schemes of work and involved myself in the deeper runnings of the institution in which I am placed, I have little doubt that I would have shown little if any progress from the moment I began my PCET course in September last year. Completing the necessary evil that is the ever growing mountain of paperwork has undoubtedly provided me with both the time and space to consider all elements of my teaching practice such as variation of methods and teaching strategies, safeguarding procedures, differentiated and personalised learning and so forth. This coupled with the mandatory lesson observations I have undertaken have significantly aided my development. However I also have equal as little doubt as to the issue that such quality assurance and quality improvement paperwork (which requires alterations per different group of students taught), along with other ever-growing tick-box strategies now lie in such a great volume that they are beginning to cause harm to the teaching quality that they set out to protect. I find myself perched in the staffroom of my institution not only debating how to separate the fast dwindling amount of time I have to work on my teaching strategies and create a solid and interesting lesson whilst completing all the necessary admin, but hearing such an argument being played out by my colleagues around me as if it were a perfect echo. I can only repeatedly feel a sense of disappointment to see the majority (myself included) as a result of the previously mentioned pressures eventually consign themselves to the paperwork as opposed to the Teaching and Learning strategies that would ultimately improve the Quality such forms place great importance on. It isn't helping either that the University teacher training courses like the one I am currently undertaking are doing little more than 'adhering to the rules' and perpetuating this issue by reinforcing the importance of a heavily tick-box orientated approach (bar one or two honest moments from lecturers and members of staff when such a debate as this arises). Our observations for example can only score highly if we take the time to clearly highlight various issues which may have been recorded elsewhere, but not on University paperwork. This isn't to say that I view my university or college institutions personally in a negative light, more that I'm more and more beginning to recognise the pressure they feel in turn from powers of higher being to 'prove their worth'.

I don't know where I'm going with this.. Chances are this argument could diverge down several paths highlighting several areas I've ever become disillusioned, confused or surprised by whilst undertaking my PGCE, though I stand by my points. Our sector needs to take a good look at itself, before the measures and snowballing bureaucracy we employ to ensure quality actually end up causing us more harm than good.

'Despondent yet with a vision of clarity'
Sandlefish


EDIT: I'm also promising something non-teaching related for my next post..