Just before midnight rolls around and brings an end to this red letter day, I would like to just mark the fact that 11 February 2010 is the twentieth anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison.A very important day in the history of South Africa and - arguably - the world.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, it can't have escaped your notice that I am not an adherent of the concept of learning styles. I have written several blog posts and articles on the subject (I won't bore you by linking to them).Like Donald Clark (to whom thanks for the pointer) I hope that this blog post from Will Thalheimer, and the research it cites will finally begin to draw a curtain on this silliness.There is... a great gap from... heterogeneous responses to instructional manipulations—whose reality we do not dispute—to the notion that presently available taxonomies of student types offer any valid help in deciding what kind of instruction to offer each individual.Enough now.

Meet my favourite 2010 Olympian, a Ghanaian, born in Scotland, an alumnus of my husband's alma mater in South Africa, and now living not far from us in England. I met Kwame at a church meeting in Milton Keynes a couple of years ago and was touched by his ambition. This is a man who seeks to break of the stereotypical mould. For example, he represented Ghana in a tennis tournament in years gone by.His journey to the slalom and giant slalom events in Whistler has been a tough one. There have been times that he has had to sleep in his freezing van in Canada, because of a lack of sponsorship. Good Samaritans have since stepped forward to help out, it seems, and he has been provided with lodgings.I love stories like this!Join Kwame's fan page on Facebook to get an idea of the inspiration he has given to so many ordinary people.

Recently I reflected on actions that people continue to do, long after they cease to add value. Today I came across a related situation.What about requirements that can no longer be met?I have to apply for a new passport, because my last one has expired. Among the requirements for the new passport are a copy of the data page of my passport and two copies of my original marriage certificate. Fine. I have these to hand.The problem is that they have to be certified copies of the original.I used to work for a local authority in the Town Clerk's department. The Town Clerk, his deputy, the Town Treasurer and his deputy were all authorised to certify documents. They carried the title Justice of the Peace (if you please). And it was something they were asked to do from time to time. Someone would pop in with a document. We would photocopy it and then certify it on the back. No problem. I even did it myself once when, for a whole day, due to poor scheduling all four of the abovementioned office-bearers were out of town and I was acting Town Clerk (at the grand old age of 23, if you don't mind!).So today, I took my documents, originals and copies to the police station, being fairly sure that there would be someone there with the authority to certify the copies for me.Nope."We are not allowed to do that any more."Instead, it seems, the copies must be certified by a professional person (whatever that means) who knows me personally."Such as?" I was fairly sure this didn't include my husband. The police officer adopted a pained expression."Like your lawyer. Or your bank manager."Right. Because I am constantly being sued left and right and have a lawyer on retainer. And because my bank manager knows me personally. Heck, who can even phone their bank manager in person these days? It's a good thing that I have an accountant on retainer for my business, because he has agreed to do it.If someone knows you personally, surely that brings their impartiality into question. I was under the impression that such people had to be impartial witness types. If the office of the justice of the peace has fallen away, then why is this requirement still in place? It's like being asked to turn the crank handle on a modern car before being issued with a driving licence. And what if you simply don't number such people in your circle of acquaintance. For example, what if I was Jo Bloggs the supermarket shelf-packer? I'm fairly sure Jo won't have an accountant. A pastor, then (just in case my accounting was unavailable, I had asked the officer if my pastor could do it, and she assured me that he could). But perhaps Jo Bloggs doesn't go to church. Then what?If you are simply unable to fulfill this requirement, do you go passportless into that good night?I can't see why they don't just have a photocopying machine at the passport office, and a person on hand to certify that piece of paper A is definitely a copy of piece of paper B, because he saw it being copied. So there.And why are are faffing with bits of paper anyway? Why can't we just scan the damned things into the system once and for all and be done with it? So that next time I go there, they still have a copy of my marriage certificate and the data page of my expired passport on record.Ugh. Now I have to go to London tomorrow and stand in an interminable queue. And the passport might still take so long to be issued that I am unable to make it to eLearning Africa in Zambia at the end of May.Faff. Faff. Faff.

As you may know, I am in the process of acquiring a new passport, my previous one having expired.I visited the space that glories in the misnomer 'website' to find out what I need to do. The website consists of one page, regardless of which of the links one selects. The only thing that changes is a line of introductory text across the top.I printed off a checklist of everything I needed to take with me, and made sure I had it all. Two forms, completed. Check. Previous passport. Check. Two certified copies of data page of passport. Check. Two certified copies of full marriage certificate. Check. Four passport photos of an old and haggard looking woman that people will insultingly believe is me. Check. Cash to pay for passport (no other tender accepted). Check.I joined the back of the queue outside the consulate. The man in front of me told me he had come to collect his passport. He applied for it in July and received an email yesterday to tell him it was ready for collection! Speedy service it isn't. I only hope mine is quicker than that, I have a fair amount of travelling planned.While I was waiting, I noticed several people being sent away to a nearby photocopy service to get this or that document copied. Two thoughts occurred to me about this. First, the website informs visitors that documents can be copied on the premises. I had chosen to get mine done in advance because the cynic in me wanted to avoid the possibility of "the machine, she is broken" - heard all too often in South Africa. Second, why hadn't these palookas printed off the list as I had done, to ensure that they had everything they needed. I began to feel a little smug. Obviously, the machine, she - blow me down - was broken, and I was going to be one of the few who had prepared for this possibility. Ha!When I finally got the front of the queue, I opened my neat envelope and handed all my tidily organised documents to the lady on the desk. She told me my application was incomplete because it did not include two certified copies of my UK permanent residence permit. I pointed to my neat list and explained that this was not a requirement for this application. Oh, but it is, apparently. The website is wrong. I would have to go around the corner to a photocopying place and have it done. I reminded her that the website clearly states that copies can be made on site. I asked if the machine, she was broken. Apparently not. Apparently the website is incorrect on this score, too.So, like all the other 'palookas' before me, I had to go off and have some additional items copied.Some time ago, I created an online resource for a client. Included in the deal was that I taught them how to update the site whenever any of the data it contained became obsolete. I encouraged them to use fresh, up-to-the-minute material, but to keep a weather eye out for the need to change it.In a situation where users are dependent on the accuracy of the content of a site, it is important not to let them down.Sadly, although I'm sure several people have tried to explain this to the South African Consulate (myself included), they seem to think that it is sufficient to simply say to a person who has gone to significant expense to be there in person (my train ticket was over £80!) that the website is wrong.The machine, she is not the only thing that is broken!

This morning, for some reason best known to itself (possibly due to the partnering with Ingboo) my Technorati search on my name returned 200 hits. I'm sure there are some people for whom this is a daily occurrence. I am not one of them. My name crops up only occasionally, so I had a moment of panic when I wondered what I might have done to cause such a flurry of interest.As it turns out, none of them are new. But I found myself reading back over old posts from a number of people with whom I have I have engaged in online discourse over the past few years or so.I also found myself rereading some of my own posts and was really glad of the title of this blog. Because, boy oh boy, I don't exactly plough a very straight furrow! But I'm not a farmer and straight furrows are not among my goals. This is a learning journey. And I have learned. A lot. I have also, and this never fails to fill my insecure little heart with joy, been a part of other people's learning journeys (for good or ill).As far as I can remember, today is not a red letter day. It is not my anniversary as a blogger, or my x thousandth post. It's just an ordinary day on which some small thing outside of my control made me pause and look back.If you're reading this post, you have been a part of that crooked furrow. So I'd like to thank you. Just off the top of my head, a few names that deserve special mention are (in no particular order):Harold JarcheJanet ClareyStephen DownesWendy WickhamChristy TuckerVirginia YonkersTony KarrerDon TaylorMark BerthelemyVirtual hugs to you all!

I have often bewailed the fact that I am neither fish nor fowl when it comes to the world of learning. I don't work in the field of formal education and my academic writing skills are the about on a par with my squash: I have a go at it, but I'm not terribly successful, and I haven't ever figured out what it is I need to do differently. Ergo, I am not an academic.I work mainly with corporates in the field of workplace learning. But here, I encounter learning and development professionals without the slightest interest in the stuff that ignites the spark in my eyes and gets my hands waving.Apparently, we workplace learning bods don't need to trouble ourselves with all that geeky theory stuff. Or so they keep telling me.And yet they talk about six sigma and red hats and black hats. They talk about Honey and Mumford and MBTI and VAK. They talk about Kirkpatrick. They talk about management styles. They talk about the trends in presentation techniques.What they don't seem to realise is that is the realm of theory. Theory they have often acquired umpteenth hand somewhere along the way, liked the sound of and adopted into their lexicon or practice without a second thought.I find this irresponsible. Surely, before you impart something, and/or allow something to influence the way you teach/train/facilitate, you should explore it to make sure that it is sound? Otherwise, how is it any better than perpetuating rumour?I was chatting to a young teacher friend last night and she was talking about the ways in which her school is attempting to engage parents in the education of their children. To get them to see that they are in fact their children's primary educators (music to my ears!) and their responsibility to their kids extends beyond dropping them off at the school gates washed and dressed each morning.Some years ago, I had to receive therapy after a cycling accident. As we discussed my symptoms and my proposed treatment, my therapist asked if I were medically trained. When he saw my puzzled face, he estimated that at least half his patients (in an affluent town with an educated populace) would have trouble distinguishing between their liver and their kidney and saying with certainty how many they had of each.I could cite a few more examples, but had best stop before I get into full spate. It seems to me that, in this age when almost any information you want or need is available to you at the click of a button, there are still far too many people seeing it as someone else's job to know stuff.Well, whose job is it then? Whose job is it to know whether the content of your learning materials is sound? Whose job is it to know whether the management style model you're applying is reliable? Whose job is it to know what your children are being taught at school... and how well they're coping with it? Whose job is it to monitor the health of the only body (and mind) you're ever going to be issued?I guess it's a symptom of my irredeemable geekhood that I simply can't understand how people can not want to know. How they can not be consumed with curiosity about the stuff that impacts their lives and the lives of people they care about.Of course, none of us can know everything. And we certainly can't understand everything. There are times when even rampant curiosity is not going to be enough. When we want to know something, but simply don't understand it. Then you have to decide whether it's worth it to you to invest the sort of time and resources necessary to acquire that understanding. Often it isn't, so you cut your losses and move on.But then don't present that material as fact to hordes of people and claim that it isn't your business to know the theory.

I find the divide between academic learning and corporate learning unhelpful, and I'm sure I'm not alone. In his comment on my recent post, Garry Platt touched on a point that has been niggling away at me for lo, these three and a half years past.He said:I think one possible reason why academic reviews of mainstream ‘management’ models are not more accessed and taken account of by trainers and developers is in part to do with the style of writing used. In many cases, the majority in my experience, reviews, positive or otherwise of models or concepts are in written in a style and English which is incredibly hard to understand. This in my view merely reflects a ridiculous style that academia deems as necessary. I can absolutely see the need for precision but the unnecessary use of big words when little ones will do and sentence structures of an arid and ridiculous length just make things worse.Now, I'm not sure I would always go along with the big words/little words argument. I recently read a headline that said 'lots of people hurt in smash' and ground my teeth. I don't see the problem with 'several people injured in collision', but perhaps that's just me... and as for the over-use of the word 'big'! Well, don't even get me started.But I digress.My greatest obstacle on my (now almost complete, and about time, too!) Masters' degree has been that of writing style. The following is part of a conversation that took place on my Facebook page on Sunday:I'm not sure what I can add to that, except to point out that the value and applicability of research appears to be severely hampered by the requirement for a certain type of language. Surely this defeats the purpose of research?I think I would rather enjoy an exchange of views among corporate learning professionals in which more than the usual token handful have read the research. As it is, as soon as the subject of research is raised, you can almost hear the shutters come down with a clang. I suspect some are hard pressed not to jam their fingers in their ears and yell "LALALALALAAAAAA!!!"

How's this for a magical use of technology for kids?The publishers say:"This is a sneak preview of the animation that is in our new book 'What Lola Wants...Lola Gets' that uses 'Augmented Reality' which will be published on the 1st of April 2010 by Scribblers, a division of Book House. "

This blog is undergoing some redesign, and may be a bit unpredictable over the next few days.

Jane Hart, who can be relied upon to have her finger on the pulse, is building up a series of case studies of the use of social media "INTERNALLY for social and collaborative learning and/or performance and productivity improvement".The examples (at the time of writing) include British Telecom; Pearson; BUPA; WWF; Nationwide and NASA. And the list os growing. If you'd like to add to it, please get in touch with Jane via the link on her site.

Peter Casebow has recorded a skype conversation between himself and Jay Cross about learning and performance.Don't expect slick production and such like - expect a conversation. That's what it is.Increasingly, I would say we need to learn to regard resources like this as valid constituents of our learning experience. There isn't always time or money to repurpose material and make it shiny.

I was certain I had posted about this before, but I can't seem to find the post. Apologies if I'm repeating myself!A lot of people in this space are frustrated by the fact that access to YouTube is blocked within their organisations. I think we've satisfactorily established that, while there is an inevitable amount of dross on YouTube, there is also a wealth of material that is useful. When reputable organisations like WWF, MIT, and the OU have their own channels on YouTube, surely it is time for a paradigm shift?But if you are still bumping your head against the firewall, there is a chink of light. If you have identified some YouTube videos relevant to the learning needs within your organisation, you can take them offline. Appropriately enough, there is a YouTube video to tell you how to do this:Of course, this is a long way from having all of YouTube at your disposal, but it's a start. If nothing else, it will demonstrate to your learners the value of YouTube as a learning tool.The message seems finally to have gotten through in my own home. My younger son has recently decided to take up rugby. In a rugby mad family, he was always the one person who has been uninterested in the sport. But recently, he has been playing at school and has discovered an innate talent a passion for the game. Of course, he now has a lot of catching up to do, since most of the other kids have been playing for years.To my delight, and entirely of his own volition, he went the YouTube route. Having discussed with us the role of each positional player within the team, he decided that he was most likely to play on the flank (numbers 6 and 7, sometimes known by the older name 'wing forward'). Over the past couple of weeks, he has completely immersed himself in videos about the rules of the game in general and the role of the flank in particular. He has also taken every opportunity to watch live rugby with us, questioning us endlessly about the reasons for stoppages. Then he has had a go at explaining to us what the deal is, to see whether he is getting the right end of the stick.The learning anorak has spawned a self-driven learner, ladies and gents. My cup runneth over.

Our younger son is closing in on his final GCSE (general certificate of secondary education) exams, and recently brought home his 'long report' which provides parents with the following information for each subject:How your child is performing in terms of his/her attitude/behaviour in class, effort and homework completion - these are subjective scores allocated by the teacher on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being poor and 5 being stellarYour child's target grade and how he/she is currently performing against thatA paragraph of reflection by the teacher: areas for improvement and so onThe last few weeks have been frantic, as the unfinished parts of the syllabus in several subjects are crammed in. The entire form recently had to stay on for an extra two hours every day for a week, in order to complete the work in subject X. Some of them are still doing this. My son has had no lunch breaks for weeks on end as he tries to complete the units of the syllabus in subject Y that the rest of the form did the year before he joined the school.I don't understand why this all has to be done now. Surely it was known from day one when he joined the school two years ago that he was going to need to make up the extra year in subject Y? Surely that work could have been spread across two years rather than being crammed into these last few weeks? Surely it was evident months ago that the entire form was falling behind on subject X? Why does it all have to be done now? Especially since they are also frantically trying to raise several thousand Pounds for a school trip to Ecuador (anyone got a small fortune going spare?) in the summer.My son's tutor remarked that he appeared to be showing signs of the strain of the additional workload and needed to find ways to break it down into manageable chunks. I commend her for her insight into his character, but I'm not sure what the poor kid can do.In the context of all of this, one particular piece of feedback had me reaching for my poison pen. In subject X, my son's predicted grade is a B. His scores for attitude, homework completion and effort are all 5s. His recently submitted coursework received an A grade. The short paragraph from the teacher started "Your coursework was disappointing..." Excuse me? This is a model student who is outperforming his predicted grade and you are disappointed?My son is talking about taking the work back and tweaking it so that he can get a better A or an A*. My advice to him is to let it be. He has enough else on his plate right now, and that A is in the bank. But the school is encouraging him to try to up that grade.I know of another school where several kids are being pressured to resit a maths exam in attempt to up their grades from A to A*.I'm casting about for a word to describe this and I'm tempted to go with iniquitous. What are we doing to these kids?

Harold has written a nice post about personal knowledge management today. Check it out.

If you live outside of the UK, you may not have heard of Eddie Izzard. Okay, you might have done - he appeared in My Super Ex-girlfriend as the misunderstood baddie who was in love with the super ex of the title.In the UK, he is better known as a comedian (severe language warning on linked video) and a transvestite who frequently appears at gigs in towering heels and a full face of make-up.He's intelligent and articulate, but he is not an athlete... or so you would think.But with relatively little fanfare, last year he ran 43 marathons in 51 days in aid of the charity, Sport Relief... and raised £1.6 million!He prepared for only 5 weeks and at the start, was carrying a fair old spare tyre. But he argued, this is what we were designed to do. And I guess he's right. Before the wheel came along, we had to walk or run everywhere, and the stone age didn't boast a Tesco or a Walmart, so it was run - a lot - or go hungry.He ran mostly alone and largely unremarked, as this article in The Guardian explains. Catching snippets of the BBC series about his efforts, I have to say that my heart swelled and I developed a new found respect for this rather unusual man.Well done, Eddie. I salute you. You put us all to shame.

Today is Ada Lovelace day when we celebrate women in technology. I'm not usually much of a one for girls-only recognition, but perhaps we are still a long way from the point where technological jobs are seen as being as open to women as they are to men.I have to say that I think the exception is the field of ICT and related matters. Because of the relative newness of the field and the speed at which it has developed, there was no time for sexism. So, instead of writing about a particular woman in information/comms technology, and instead of extolling the many virtues of the women in my network, I am going to take a slightly different approach.I would like to give a shout out to all the anonymous female motor mechanics, electricians, engineers of all kinds, fighter pilots, microsurgeons and so on. All the girls who hold their own in fields still largely seen as the male province.When I was coming to the end of high school, I really wanted to be a mechanical engineer. I wanted to design machines. I like the way machines work and they make sense to me. Since we had no money to speak of, I was going to need a bank loan, so we set about applying for one. Every bank manager we saw told me the same story: they were not going to lend money to a girl who wanted to study mechanical engineering, because the attrition rate was too high, the risks too great and the return on the investment doubtful. I was encouraged to consider chemical or light current electrical engineering instead. Since I was hopeless with both those areas of the science curriculum at school, I had no interest in going that route.I admire those women who haven't taken no for an answer. Who have activated their 'I'll show you' button and who earn their keep doing jobs that their grandmothers never heard of and that their mothers thought only suitable for boys.One such anonymous woman was my husband's late aunt Gunnel Bjureblad, who was an engineer. She died four years back, aged 70-something, and I imagine the opposition she faced in her day was even tougher than my own, especially since her Dad thought that education beyond the age of 14 was wasted on a girl.Call it a cop out if you like, but I salute the Gunnel Bjureblads of the world today. All of them.

... but I just heard that I passed my final paper. I have a Masters' degree. It has taken far longer than anticipated, because I had a bit of a breakdown in the middle, but I did. I actually did it!Next up, sign language course.What? Why are you looking at me like that? It's called lifelong learning, and I've wanted to learn sign since my niece's deafness was diagnosed in 1988!Can I say it again? Loud enough to be heard by the lost little girl who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. You did it, kiddo!

How did I ever miss this? Thanks to Harold Jarche for the pointer (on Facebook).

Last night my husband arrived home with a gift for me, to congratulate me on finally completing my Masters' degree.The gift was a beautiful Fossil watch in a case that was almost as gorgeous as the watch! Because I have ludicrously puny wrists, I took one look at the watch strap and said, "I'm going to have to take it in to have it made smaller."My husband grinned triumphantly. "No you don't. You can do it yourself. It's designed like that."And blow me down, it is. There are three fixed links on either side, then after that, each link connects with a clasp. I kid you not: a clasp! No fiddly pins for which you need magnifying glass and watchmakers screwdrivers. Such an elegantly simple solution.So not only could I remove enough links to make the watch fit me now, I can remove more if I lose more weight, or add them back in if I (heaven forefend) gain it, or have a bout of water retention.How cool is that? JIT watch adjustment. I feel so empowered!

I have often been asked how much of a difference I think I can make with regard to the whole 'green' thing, because, they tell me, I am only one person.This is true. I am only one person. I am very glad of that. It would be quite tricky to keep track of myself if I were several people! The thing is you're only one person, too. Everyone is only one person! But together we are two people, and three people, and 10 people and more than 6.6 billion people.And we are each accountable for our own actions.Tomorrow I will mark Earth Hour. I am only one person, and this is something I can do. I will probably light a lantern and read a book by its light.How about you?

There is currently a move in the UK to have it made illegal to smoke in cars and parks because of the risks posed to children by the secondhand smoke.I don't smoke (any more - I quit 22 years ago). I don't approve of smoking. I don't approve of people subjecting their children to their secondhand smoke. I didn't let anyone smoke near my children when they were little. But:There are many other things I don't approve of in respect of the way people choose to raise their children. Tough. Unless I think violence is being done, it's none of my business.Children are exposed to secondhand smoke in homes where parents and family members smoke - I can't see the government banning that!Who will police this thing? Will cops on the beat now have to add this offence to the many others they're supposed to prevent? The use of mobile phones while driving has been banned, but goes entirely unpoliced... and that, at least, is a traffic violation. Who will police a health and safety violation on the roads?I can think of many things which place children at greater risk than people smoking in cars, some of which it would be very politically incorrect to even mention. Are we going to start placing a ban on those next?I believe we can educate and warn people, but we cannot take away their right to make stupid decisions.My 2p worth.

I love this! I found it via a post by Ewan McIntosh about analogue creativity.Geeks like me have been saying this for years: make it fun and people will do it. Treat them like sheeple and they will behave like sheeple.

I am somewhat behind on my reading, which may explain why I have not previously seen this article from Megan McArdle in Time (thanks to my husband for the pointer).McArdle talks about the importance of safe failure to the economy. In fact she says, "failure is one of the most economically important tools we have". She bemoans the fact that, "instead of celebrating all our successes in building systems that fail well, we've become wedded to the fantasy of a system that doesn't fail at all."Isn't it interesting how the very things we have been saying in respect of learning and education are being said here about the American economy? And it's hardly surprising, really. If we create an education system that stigmatises failure, we can only expect that that stigma will carry over into all other arenas of life... including the economy. It's all linked. It's all part of the one thing, the big picture.I'm with McArdle when she says, "rather than launch a quixotic war on failure, we should be using what we've learned to build a system that fails better". We should be adopting this approach to education, too. The only people who never fail are the people who never do anything. We should be stigmatising never doing anything.This puts me in mind of the story of Peter walking on the water (Matthew 14). Preachers often use this story to illustrate weakness, lack of faith, etc. I tend to think, hang about a bit... what about the eleven losers in the boat who didn't even try? Peter tried. Sure, he failed after a few steps, but he had an experience none of the others could claim... because he gave it a shot. We need a few more Peters, I reckon!Let's be about encouraging people to step out of the boat, and about catching them when they start to sink.