Shillingworth Mills

This morning I began laying track for the Railway station and goods yard for my unwind project over the winter. I am hoping that Shillingworth Mills, based very loosely on a mainline station and branchline junction where I spent many hours as a youngster will provide a few hours escape from the hurley burley and bustle that is work.

The initial track layout uses a loop to allow through trains to simulate runs of north and southbound traffic on the mainline. Pointwork to the north and south of the station hopefully will create a mainline feel within the ficticious Shillingworth station itself. The station is intended to have 3 platforms, one of which as an Island will serve northbound traffic on the mainline, while the other will recieve passengers and some goods services from the local branchline while also servicing for the timebeing a small goods yard. To the north and south of the station are to be two stone bridges, and adjacent to the southern bridge a small steam shed, which may yet straddle a colliery spur.

The station on which Shillingworth is based, had a Turntable to the North between the Mainline and the Branchline spur, with its Steam shed on the branchline side of the Island platform. I want to add this to the model the branchline perhaps as a short end to end section with access to run some mainline services. Perhaps downsizing the shed to fit within the branchline spur. The goods yard that actually lies to the south of the station, now largely handles coal for a local merchant. As I play with my prototype over the coming months some rearrangement of the Layout is likely to take place, with perhaps a little more poetic licence being used to place the goods yard behind the station with coal sidings fed from the colliery spur sitting behind the bridge.

I want to be able to run a number of different locomotives from and through the station. As a mainline station if I give the layout and Shillingworth a fifties/sixties feel this should allow me to run some of my childhood favourites from the days of diesel alongside some of my fathers from the age of steam Running tankies along the branch and coal spur, alongside DMUs, with a 37, 31 or 40 running freight, while on the mainline it will be great to be able to run deltics, peaks or 40's alongside pacifics and BR standards. Oh and who's that on the end of the platform, shivering and damp, waiting for the mail as the ballast train thunders south.

Image: Island platform for Shillingworth takes shape. SDMills 08

Planning and Preparing for School

Believe it or not a teacher's summer break is not all wine and roses. It is a time to unwindish, and leave the classroom behind in part, but somehow, over the last couple of summers particularly, I haven't been able to leave it behind completely. Most of the holiday has been spent writing in one way or another, and catching up on things I need to do in my personal professional development catologue. Today with 4 days left until the beginning of term, I have been thinking about and planning/framing Literacy and language study units for the next few weeks and designing a unit of work around the use of Web 2.0 tools and esafety. After time to try it out with my students, I will publish this and some of the ideas on my teaching and learning blog.

Steaming Ahead

Been a busy old week, with moments of panic and worry about whether I was ever going to be able to see the end of my project. A really useful strategy for coping with this was simply standing up and walking away from it doing something else for a while, rather than ploughing on, when I could no longer see the wood among the trees. I have enjoyed also working on my writing early in the morning, I don't think I am any fresher, just less clouded by other things. Anyway long story short the end is in sight .... (or is it the beginning?) I have forwarded the project so far to my tutor for review, and am now contemplating the concluding chapter. It will be great to have this in a draft form by our meeting on Tuesday, and the promise that all that remains is the final edit, the aesthetics and delivery to the binder.

Today I'm off to somewhere I have been intending to visit for some time. I fancy a ride on the train, and the ride out of Bristol Eastbound, through Brunel's manufactured landscape is quite picturesque. It seems only fitting that this should form the start of my visit to Steam, the Great Western Railway Museum in Swindon.

Lots of folk have been talking about Photosynth over the last week or so too, so maybe I could use my visit not only to learn a little more about the great man and the people who built and worked on "God's Wonderful Railway," but also to frame a Photosynth project. There are a couple of things I want to write about on my Teaching and Learning Blog too, As well as completing the Podcast Series I have begun, I want to get some work done with the Disgo Camera I picked up at the beginning of the holiday, and file conversions for the Podcast Series. Steaming ahead to these I need some context and content, and today will be a chance to play as well.

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Glastonbury Radio | broadcasting LIVE from the mystical Isle of Avalon Index via kwout

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I'm just going out...

and I maybe sometime. I know I have to write today, and that I really need to imerse myself if I'm going to get this thing finally cracked. I think I have everything I need, but now need to reorganise it, and to trim off the fat. Where to go for inspiration?

Pondering a visit to Glastonbury or Wells with perhaps an amble over to Street, before returning home and plugging myself in for the remainder of the day. Glastonbury has a strangely magnetic appeal, and for some reason at times like this, when I am struggling to hold and put together ideas seems to exert an enormous attraction. Well looks like that resolved that one. A visit to Glastonbury it is, camera and phone in hand. Landscapes and Twitpics to share.

Podcast Challenge Project: Learning is playing too!

In between writing and reviewing my dissertation project I have been uploading and writing about the podcast station I started to set up last weekend, and the process I went through in making it. I am hoping it makes sense to the folk who are reading it, and that it is proving useful. It is really important to me to be able to show and demonstrate how I am always learning new things. I feel it is really important for the folk I work with to see that things don't always come easily, and for my students to see that the things I learn about often come from my willingness to play and perseverence.

Guided Interaction

Loving this idea as defined in the Plowman and Stephen paper I have been reading today. The notions of proximal and distal aspects to this concept fitting very closely with the ideas I have been struggling to express.

Pondering

Reading a paper By Lydia Plowman and Christine Stephen from the Interplay Project. Really interesting stuff!

This Morning I Have Been Mostly..

Setting up gear delivered by my new ISP. This was to be a yesterday job, as I sat in all day waiting for the bits and bobs to arrive. The equipment however was a no show. I did spend the waiting time fruitfully, honest, rearranging furniture in my study and having a general clear out. This has been a long time coming, my filing system generally appearing archaelogical with items organised by their position in a geological timeline, rather than alphabetised or even by size.. nothing quite so organised. Everything now looks much more organised. Anyway long story short, thinking the time had passed for the equipment to arrive I gave up the waiting game and decided to pop out for the evening. Surprise of my life then, when at 11.30pm a neighbour knocked and delivered what I had been waiting for all day, apparently arriving by "White Van" round 9. I thought she meant in the morning, "How could this be?" I had been in all day, but no 9.00pm.

Anyway this morning as I said has been spent setting up. I managed also to grab an hour to chat with a friend I hadn't spoken to in ages, and to download some reading I need to do to start the missing chapter in my research project. Now that everything is more or less set up what is proving really cool, is sitting in the garden, to write this post. Its time to go now though and get started with what I really should be doing.

Domestic Bliss

Spent this morning writing, and have the mainstay of 2 chapters in a really solid draft form, or at least so I think. Need to revisit and tie together chapters 2 and 3, before redrafting the introduction and drafting the concluding chapter.

By 2 this afternoon I had had enough, so have spent the best part of the afternoon in a state of absolute domestic bliss (NOT!!) Ironing, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen; throwing in a spot of online housekeeping too clearing out online mailboxes and downloading half completed blog posts. Now for some tea and a recline in front of the TV.

Setting Up A Podcast Station

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The Buzz

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The Buzz

Setting up a new podcast station for use with my students and as a model for colleagues using:

• Blogger Blog.
• A Flash based Audio Player from Alsacréations.
• Feed from Feedburner
• Files Hosted on School FTP Space

Playing With Another MP3 Player From John

Playing with an Embeddable Flash MP3 Player for my Blog

I found the source code for this Odeo based MP3 Player on the Unofficial blog called the Google Operating System Blog easy enough to install. Copy and paste the code to your blog post, delete the entire [MP3 file address] and adding the URL where the file is located, and publish your post. This player has also been reduced in height by reducing the height parameter in the code from 42 to 22.

I Pondered Lonely as a Cloud

Have spent a couple of hours in the outdoors rereading drafts of my dissertation. I am becoming concerned that what I am writing does not do justice to the semiotic significance and textual role that ICT tools seem to play in the learning spaces I have spent so much time observing. Have I missed the point, I don't think so, since this has been at the heart of my thinking throughout the writing process? So what is it that has me so concerned? Perhaps I am beginning to see a lack of clarity in my description of the links I think can be evidenced between the dynamic role of onscreen feedback and the role of talk and gesture in mediating and supporting student learning in the spaces that evolve around the ICTs. Enjoying a coffee and a spot of wireless access in a local hostelry, my Asus and Ping as company.

playing with comiqs

playing with Comiqs from twowhizzy on Comiqs

Flickr CC Search Toy

Playing with John Johnstone's Flickr CC search toy. This tool searches for images on Flickr, and cleverly generates embed code including attribution information for the image. This photograph of the Angel of the North, is attributed to Paul Cocker, and has been embedded here using example code generated using John's tool.

Photo by pauldcocker
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Just love the image Paul.

Today I Have Been Mostly Tidying Up and Watching TV!?*

Today I have been organising and synchronising some files on the computer. I have been transfering my albums from vinyl and tape to MP3 for the past few months. I converted most of my CDs ages ago, but in the process the files are saved and stored all over the place, some on the laptop, some on the PC and some on a pair of portable hard drives. Today I wanted to try to get them all in one place. In between the PC doing its thing, I have been a smidge domesticated, tidying my study, vacuuming the floor and watching the odd episode from season 1 of Star Trek Enterprise. I love blobby days, I just don't seem to have enough of them.


Image Source: episodeguides.com

NG Photograph of the Day 02/08/08

Image Credit: National Geographic

Planning a Train Ride Home

Spent a couple of hours, looking at and comparing train fares on the web, and chatting with mum about spending a few days in Northumberland. Am still gobsmacked that two single train tickets to make up a return journey, can cost half the price of a return ticket. How did that happen? Travelling home on the train means a more leisurely journey, being able to watch the world go by and should also be able to get some writing and editing done on the way. Would be good to have a couple of chapters ready to email to my tutor by the time I hit the Central Station.

Picture Credits
Virgin Trains (Top Left)
University of Newcastle (Bottom Right)

Saltford Lock

It was such a gorgeous evening I decided to pop out for a quiet drink with friends by the River Avon in Saltford. As we sat by the river chatting we watched a group of folk kayaking by the weir and a narrow boat come through the lock. It was a great opportunity to try out my new toy and shoot the clips I have used to compile this short video of the kayakers and lock gates.

Video: Simon Mills 2008

A Couple Hours In School

Planning a couple of hours at work today, unpacking, laying out furniture, popping up the beginning of our class learning wall and laying out tool pots. I met with a colleague yesterday, and am hoping also to take part in a slightly more leisurely site visit to the Primary phase building at the BLC with other colleagues from the ICT managed service group. Don't know if possible but would like to take in disgo camcorder and shoot some frames of the site as is.


Aerial Photo Bridge Learning Campus
June 2008 Image Credit: Skanska

Reading and Thinking

I am meeting my dissertation Tutor this afternoon and hoping the weather improves a little before I set off out. I have spent the last hour or so reading through what I have written so far, and can see a few things I need to refine and sort out over the next week or so. My starting point however must be to complete the data analysis section of the report, which I have used comic strips to help me with, and is nearly there actually I am beginning to see the wood in among the trees. I then need to revisit my Literature Review carefully chopping it and moving material around to support my Research Design and Methods chapter. Busy Busy...

Mountain Hockey.

Here we are looking out across the 13th hole at Stockwood Vale. From the tee behind me, the hole drops to a short run that is separated from the fairway by a stream. The fairway rises to the green in the top left of the photo. This is one of our favourite holes. Today was one of those rare occasions when we all not only managed to make clean contact with the ball, but also landed them cleanly on the fairway, without dropping a shot to the farmers on either side of the hole.




It was extremely hot today, and ending in the 19th hole for a little something to eat and drink was a treat worth waiting for, Lime and Soda is Sooooooo refreshing .

Ping, the golf ball that wouldn't come back, or at least didn't want to be found at the fifth hole, some how myseriously wormed his way in for a quiet one to finish.





Photos: Simon Mills 2008

Shock at the Loss of Grand Old Lady of Weston

As I picked up my friend this morning to play golf , he reported how a fire in the early hours of this morning had reduced a local landmark to ashes. The 104 year old Grand Pier at Weston Super Mare, also known as the "Grand Old lady of Weston," was destroyed as flames ripped through the structure, creating a plume of smoke, reported as visible up to 60 miles away.

I remember vividly my first visit to Weston as a 10 year old on holiday with my Grandparents. The fortnight's holiday I spent with them here in the west country, influenced my choice to study and finally to settle here. I have repeated many times our walks on the beach, and our fish and chips strolls along the pier at Sunset. The landmark has featured in retirement and staff summer events, framing memories of colleagues and friends, as well as the beauty of the landscape in which it was set. The pier has risen from the ashes before, after a fire in 1930, and hopefully will again.

Where is Weston Super Mare


View Larger Map

• A Brief History of The Grand Pier and Seaside Pursuits

News Footage and Coverage From The BBC

• Huge fire destroys historic pier
• 100 years of entertainment at Weston
• The Grand Pier Through the Ages

Image Credits: Top left BBC
and Middle right grandpierwsm.co.uk

Setting Up Joomla to Play

Joomla looks like being the tool we will be using to manage our Web Site Content for the campus. I downloaded a copy a few months ago to play with, having read an article in a magazine, but haven't done much with it other than exploring online live demos until this morning. Watching Video demos it seemed pretty straightforward, but as with many best laid plans this morning my inexperience would come back to haunt me.

Step 1, download xampp from Apache Friends
Step 2, download The Most Recent version of Joomla
Step 3, Set up a localhost Server on old laptop, by installing xampp
Step 4, unzip and copy Joomla Files to new folder called Joomla in xampp/htdocs
Step 5. open localhost/joomla and install
Step 6. delete temporary installation files
Step 7 run localhost/joomla and login

Sounds pretty straight forward huh! Well it was initially everything going swimmingly until Internet Explorer didn't recognise http:// localhost / I eventually resorted to the xampp read me file where I found an alternative way to get to the host using an ip address, that when pasted into IEs address bar accessed the splash page I was looking for. Using this I was able to install Joomla and Run it, log in and am now feeling really pleased with my self as I now have a space where I can practice the skills and processes I need to learn to begin thinking about transferring content from our existing website to form the Primary Pages in the Bridge Web Site.

The X Files: I Want To Believe.. Can't Wait!

It's been great to grab some me time today and think about some of the things I would like to do and this will be a must for me. I love the X Files, it was one of my favourite shows on TV. Billy Connolly is another fave, so maybe tomorrow I will pop out and book my ticket. The Truth IS out there!

What a way to spend the first day of your holiday?

The last three days at school have been spent cleaning out cupboards and moving things from one place to another, and how do Ping and I spend the first day of our break, yep you guessed it in domestic bliss, a spot of weeding, pottering in the garden, washing and washing up and a tidy kitchen once again. Hope my study looks that good soon. Next stop, an email to my ISP and spot of surfing out there.

Moblogging with Ping

Welcome to my Moblog experiment. We are starting a 1:1 anytime anywhere learning project at school and I thought that it would be interesting to explore just what it means to be a mobile learner and in this case a "moblogger," by trying to keep a tumble type blog, over the summer. This will give me a chance to see just how mobile a learner can be as I explore and share my local world explore web access in the city and my surroundings, as well as trying out a few new gismos and resources. Haven't decided who ping will be yet, did think of the "golf ball that won't come back," but perhaps he will be something else entirely.