Learning Score!

Learning Score is a new and imaginative take on lesson-planning. Using the metaphor of a music score, Learning Score shows the planned activities for a lesson, and any multimedia attachments, as a graphical time line. Whole lesson plans can be saved, along with all the embedded resources and annotations, to be used again at a later date, or to be shared with colleagues.

Learning Score was invented by John Davitt and grew out of a desire to provide teachers and learners with a modern, flexible, technology-friendly and pedagogically rigorous approach to lesson-planning that is suitable for the 21st-century classroom.

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Taxi tour of Derry

Gerry Hamill from NWTP kindly booked me a Taxi tour of Derry. I was picked up from the office by Desi O’Hagan and the Derry tour began.

The tour lasted 1hr 30mins and was very informative and eye opening about Derry. Parts of the tour included…

• River Foyle - largest salmon spanning river in the world
• Ferryquay Street - the closing of the gate by the Apprentice Boys, Oldest inhabited place in Ireland
• William Street. The Conflict / Trouble’s 1968, 1969 Apprentice Boys march, Battle of the Bogside, Bloody Sunday, The Murals by Bogside artists
• St Mary’s Church - Bloody Sunday funerals, City cemetery
• Ebrington Barracks - British Army main base.
• Iskaheen Veiw (top of the hill) view of the city.
• Craigavon Bridge

There’s lots to see within the City Walls, including the Tower Museum, The Guildhall, Memorial Hall, St Columbs Cathedral and the unique Craft Village.

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Conference & training

9.30am, the room was set up with tea, coffee & scones all we needed was the attendees. There were local Derry taxi drivers, reps from Belfast taxi companies, tutors from the local colleges, even educational inspectors.

The breakfast event was the launch of the new innovative project aimed at tackling the issue of Essential Skills. The project has been developed through a partnership approach with GoSkills and DEL (Department of Employment & Learning). This partnership has now widened to deliver this project & includes the Sector Skills Council Alliance and us (Tribal) whose product they’ll be using.

NWTP will put devices into 40 taxi’s to improve literacy & numeracy skills of the drivers.

Eamonn O’Donnell introduced NWTP & the project

Richard Wheater talked about GoSKills Essential Skills

I talked about us, the BLOOM (Bite-sized Learning Opportunities On Mobiles) project, devices and the content available to them.

 

The attendees seemed to be excited and engaged about the project; there were lots of positive comments. There were the usual questions/worries about security, cost of the device, etc but I feel once agreements are put in place by GoSkills & NWTP, people will feel better.

After the breakfast meeting several people remained to play with the devices and the content that will be used in NWTP’s Essential Skills project.

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In the evening I was taken to a local pub that had a band playing Irish music – fantastic atmosphere and felt extremely welcome by the people from Derry – Thank you!!

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Welcome to Derry!

I’ve arrived! 8.30am little bit cooler than Cambridge and erm raining but hey.

I’ve spent the day at the North West Taxi Proprietors meeting the NWPT team; Eamonn O’Donnell and Moira. Eamonn is the project manager at NWTP.

NWTP is a cross community umbrella group set up to tackle problems within the taxi industry and to co-ordinate the organisation of the industry in an effort ‘to create a fair and regulated taxi industry for everyone’.

My main aim of today was to set up the devices ready for the breakfast meeting & training tomorrow. Once I had give an intro to our tools and apps I was taken to the hotel and then kindly fed with an amazing dinner by Moira.

GoSkills, Ireland

We're now into July and it's time to fly off again, over the water to Derry.

Derry or Londonderry is the 2nd biggest city in Northern Ireland and the 4th biggest city on the island of Ireland.

I'm off to meet several people from GoSkills & introduce them to Mobile learning apps to help their employees aim towards getting Skills for life qualifications.

It's an early start, 7am flight and then straight to work...

Women and Mobile: A Global Opportunity

The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and the GSMA Development Fund announced the publication of Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity, following it’s launch on the 15th of February 2010, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The report trys to understand the nature of women mobile subscribers in countries such as Kenya and India. It also highlights the barriers facing women’s use of mobile technologies.

Really interesting read, check it out.

I'm fundraising for WOMEN V CANCER CYCLE KENYA - JustGiving

Well I'm getting on my bike and taking positive action in the fight against breast, ovarian and cervical cancers.

I'm part of an amazing group of women tackling the unique, new Women V Cancer challenge. Other cyclists include television presenters Dawn Porter and Aggie MacKenzie. Aggie is best known for How Clean is Your House? and Dawn for documentaries like Super Slim Me and My Breasts Could Kill Me.

My adventure starts now but from 29 October – 7 November 2011, I will be cycling around 400kms over five days – both on and off road – experiencing Africa away from the usual tourist trails through savannah plains, wildlife game parks, tropical rainforests and traditional villages.

If you would like to donate towards these amazing charities - THANK YOU in advance!! :)

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