A fun day at the Northamptonshire ICT Conference 2008
Thank you to Rachel Ager and colleagues for a great event.
“I do enjoy looking at old predictions of the future. Eventually, the future arrives and we can compare it with the predictions. Sometimes, the predictions are better than the reality. Sometimes, reality outpaces not only the predictions but even the dreams of the past. And sometimes, the predictions end up being pretty-much spot on.
That’s the case with a piece about the “answer machine” of the future, which appeared in the book Childcraft Volume 6: How Things Change, published by Field Enterprises Educational Corporation in 1964. (Thanks to Paleo-Future for bringing this to our attention.)
Here’s how it starts:
the Google version:
Here’s some more of what “The Answer Machine” do for us:
I often encourage children not to worry about their spellings. I explain that that doesn’t mean “Argh! Don’t worry about your spellings e.g. DOG with a spelling of G. Q. W. H. U.G. 32 Zs and a K.
Instead it means “Don’t WORRY about your spellings”, in other words don’t allow a fear of making mistakes stop you from getting a classic idea, or piece of literature, down on to paper.
On that note, I found this remarkable poem recently, by “Author Unknown” It really does illustrate how ridiculous English spellings are.
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
A fun and fascinating day at Lanhydrock golf course with Heads of English from secondary schools, Pupil Referral Units, and Special Schools across Cornwall.
We explored the world of visual literacy and how to motivate students in the areas of speaking, listening and writing.
As well as the amazing “ages” within Myst, there are many other ways to stimulate discussion and creativity.
Questionaut is a new game made for BBC Bitesize from the makers of Samorost and Samarost 2. (Here is a walkthrough to help you find your way through the Samarost 2 game. Don’t download it if you want to work it out for yourself! (Thanks to Chris Beedham for this )
Journey through strange worlds of Questionaut and test your knowledge of English, Maths and Science on this magical mission to recover your friend’s hat.
A group of us also discussed our worst and favourite words. My “least favourite” word is “PAMPHLET”
Thank you to John Morey, Kim Bishop, Wendy Delf, Sue Pike (and Claire Lamden) from the Cornwall Education Development Service, for a very enjoyable wander through the world of words.
Thank you to all colleagues today, who matched the glorious scenery around us, with their sunny dispositions and humour. Well done to Sam Coleborne, for conducting a glorious soundscape too. (Watch this space for the film!!)
A super day at East Barnet School north of London, working with staff and pupils from the ICT and English departments on developing visual literacy.
I taught a lesson with some Year 7 students who really rose to the challenges of creativity.
We looked at ways of recording and publishing the results of creativity.
Take a peek at these tutorials, on using Audacity, on the Radio Anywhere site. These are helpful hints to help get closer to a “pro” sound.
Even the pros find some difficulties, as this article from the Guardian shows, though, sometimes a few glitches can add to the charm of a recording.
Or, in the words of Albert (yes, Albert) Hitchcock:
I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the manmade sound never equalled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig.
One of my favourite music quotes, alongside:
There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.
-Sir Thomas Beecham
I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.
-Elvis Presley
I love Beethoven, especially the poems.
-Ringo Starr
The trouble with real life is that there’s no danger music.
-Jim Carrey
…and the understated,
There’s nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
-Johann Sebastian Bach
On the subject of quotes, being in a secondary school today, we touched on links with literature, including the works of Shakespeare. How about this gorgeous anagram:
To be or not to be: that is the question,
whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune. =
In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent
hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.
At today’s St Helens ICT Conference, Haydock Racecourse, I gave an opening presentation and, later, a seminar on the power of blogging. (I will include, in this post, a few of the links and resources I mentioned.)
I mentioned the Sandaig blog which is, for me, the best school blog, in that it is updated regularly with a huge range of original material, the majority of it being written by the pupils of the school. In fact, Sandaig have a few blogs on the go.
Visit Blogs4Schools.com, a small site myself, Andy Hutt and Clive McGonigal, set up to accompany an article we wrote for Junior Education Magazine, on blogging.
A really useful tool when recording podcasts or filming films with a large amount of script (e.g. reading out some Myst writings) is Cue Prompter, a free autocue.
Cut and Paste text into the window and it automatically scrools up the screen at the speed and size you find most useful.
Try this nifty little tool: an on screen/ whiteboard friendly way to make your own word magnets. This clever idea transforms your text into ‘magnets’ which can be dragged around the screen, colour coded and re-sized. You can also add new magnets at any time and remove any magnets that you no longer wish to use. Great for writing a shared text or looking at word order in sentences.
A HUGE thank you to Debs Ayerst, from Rainhill CLC, for LOADS of ideas and hints on the blogging process. Some key questions for potential ed-bloggers:
How does blogging help you as a writer? As a reader? As a publisher?
What are some tips on how to proofread on a blog?
When you post, how do you get the ideas to post about your topic?
What is your favourite blog, your favourite post, and your favourite comment and please give your reasons for your choices?
Has anyone given you tips about blogging? What would be the 3 most important tips you would give?
What is your favourite or the most interesting thing you like about blogging?
What makes you want to comment to a blog?
What is the worst problem you have in blogging?
How does blogging help you in school or anywhere?
How has your blogging got better since you started?
What does blogging mean to you?
How have other people’s comments helped you in blogging?
What are some verbs you would use to describe blogging? Some adjectives?
What inspired you to blog? Do you think you will blog later?
How do you feel when you get comments?
What have you learned in blogging?
How does blogging help you make friends?
How did you feel when you first started blogging? Were you nervous, scared, happy? How do you feel now?
Does blogging help you learn more in writing and language?
What do you think of your blog?
Is blogging a part of your life?
How do you respond to other blogs (what sequence)?
Thanks to Phil Hackett, for some of the pickies here today.
We were supported today by the Mouchel I.T. Team who provide services into the St. Helens Local Authority. Excellent!
I would like to thank Mouchel and in particular Maxine Morris and her team, Lee Pearson, Gail Booth and Mick Doyle!) (not to mention Steve Knowles!) for the fantastic support throughout the day.
Over breakfast, at the delightful Marriott South, a conversion of the old Liverpool Airport, I enjoyed a good chat with Michael Rosen, who, like me, presented a keynote at this year’s Liverpool Literacy Conference. Michael opened the conference with a fascinating talk, discussing different ways of stimulating the desire to read.
Michael talked about how reading enables us to think in complex ways and juggle with several ideas at the same time. In order to make sense of a story, you need to harvest important information to help you understand the significant areas of a plot. Extended prose requires you to hold on to salient points to understand, for example, the significance of Goldilocks arriving at Granny’s house only makes sense because you remember that Granny has been replaced by the wolf. (Spot the deliberutt mistake and see the COMMENTS!)
A key point that Michael made was that, to make a book loving school, you need to help create book loving homes. He encouraged folk to visit the Reading Connects site for a whole range of useful material.
Over breakfast, Michael and I talked about palindromes. (A word, phrase, verse, or sentence that reads the same backward or forward.)
We agreed that life can feel a bit like a palindrome when you are “on the road”:
Coming and going all the time. The secret, though, is enjoying the delight of the journey in whatever direction.
Palindromes have always fascinated me.
Some simple words are palindromic: rotavator, racecar, radar and repaper…
Michael said that, whenever any girl called Hannah asks for her book to be signed, he asks her how she says her name backwards!
There is a LONG list of palindromic words at Wiktionary HERE
There are also some really clever complete sentences, some of which appear to have a complete back story, like the classic “A man, a plan, a canal: Panama”
Two of my favourites are not really legitimate ones, but they are amusing:
Retteb, si flahd noces eht tub, but the second half is better.
Doctor Reubenstein was shocked and dismayed when he answered the ringing telephone, only to hear a strange, metallic, alien voice say, “Yasec iovn eilacilla temeg! Nartsa raehoty lnoenoh pelet gnig, nirehtde rewsnaehn ehw. Deya! Msid! Dnadek cohssaw nietsne buerro, tcod?”
If you want to encourage teenagers to read, try a visit to the Piczo Read Up site. (To my embarrassment Bill Bailey read a snippet of a book, very loudly, as I was preparing this blog post during Michael’s presentation!) Big Screen encourages students to change the endings of films. The Pitch encourages reading and discussing the best sport books and autobiography.
I love the site ReaditSwapit where you can do just that: read a book and then swap it for another one. I think it really encourages reading (and buying) MORE books as you get to find out lots of ideas for what to read “If you liked that one…”
The Bear Grylls Survival game involves some great text that students might read “without realising it”.
The start of 
I often encourage children not to worry about their spellings. I explain that that doesn’t mean “Argh! Don’t worry about your spellings e.g. DOG with a spelling of G. Q. W. H. U.G. 32 Zs and a K.
Dearest creature in creation,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Face, but preface, not efface.
Questionaut
)
We looked at ways of recording and publishing the results of creativity.
I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.
At today’s St Helens ICT Conference, Haydock Racecourse, I gave an opening presentation and, later, a seminar on the power of blogging. (I will include, in this post, a few of the links and resources I mentioned.)
A really useful tool when recording podcasts or filming films with a large amount of script (e.g. reading out some Myst writings) is 
Try this nifty little tool: an on screen/ whiteboard friendly way to make your own 
A superb day at the 
Michael talked about how reading enables us to think in complex ways and juggle with several ideas at the same time. In order to make sense of a story, you need to harvest important information to help you understand the significant areas of a plot. Extended prose requires you to hold on to salient points to understand, for example, the significance of Goldilocks arriving at Granny’s house only makes sense because you remember that Granny has been replaced by the wolf. (Spot the deliberutt mistake and see the COMMENTS!)
Over breakfast, Michael and I talked about 
Michael said that, whenever any girl called Hannah asks for her book to be signed, he asks her how she says her name backwards!
If you want to encourage teenagers to read, try a visit to the 
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