Christmas Keep Fit

Over the Christmas period I have decided it is time to get up and start some exercise.  I loathe running, however, for me it is a cheap, flexible option.  I can easily work it around home life and work.
   On my first run I managed 2 miles walking and running.  In appearance, I looked like I had been thrown out of the house with a fridge on my back.  I hated every minute, never the less I was not going to be perturbed.  On my next adventure my husband offered me his Ipod Classic to use whilst running.  I must of been 16 the last time I exercised with head phones in, using the very state of the art - portable CD player.  It was useless and stopped continuously, due to being bumped.  I believe the only way a portable CD player  would work properly, would be if the person tiptoed around with the CD player balanced on a velvet cushion. So I wasn't convinced, my husband did warn me it would be like running with a brick in my pocket due to the weight of the classic, however I thought I would give it ago.
  He was certainly right about the weight of the Ipod classic, clanking about in my pocket, It did make me feel like I was 16 again, running in the 1990's but only due to my husbands music selection, not done to the fact the Ipod Classic itself kept faltering, quite to the contrary it worked like a dream, never missed a beat, I was incredibly impressed. I loved listening to the music while I was running, although I still hate running. Listening to the music was definitely a big help or distraction, from the wind and the rain and the pain.

  My husband had an Ipod shuffle for Christmas and at the time I thought it looked a little pointless, but when he ran in front of me, he skipped along like a gazelle not someone with a brick in their pocket.  I may invest, I am now investigating how to put music on to these magic little items.  I am determined to do so, due to the fact I cannot bare to listen to Meatloaf or Roxette one more time.

And who said size does not matter!

Frustrating me and breakable technology

My husband has often suggested that I should road test cars and toys for durability.  For we are yet to come across a car or object I cannot break., including two Landrover Discovery's.  I broke a mobile phone that firefighters use because of it's robustness! 

Two years ago he bought me a Kindle, they were new and exciting and slightly frowned upon by the traditional book worms, which up until I held one, I would of considered myself of that mindset. However I fell in love, I still love books but my Kindle was priceless.  We traditionally go on holiday for the duration of the summer holidays.  I have been known to get through 10 books in 6 weeks.  Packing this many books in a tent and six people was a challenge, and purchasing English language books in Europe was bordering on impossible, but not with my beloved Kindle.  Whenever I needed a new book, we would take a trip to Mc Donalds, access their free WiFi, download a new book and enjoy a satisfying or addictive meal at the same time, happy days!

Two days ago, I read my beloved Kindle in bed before going to sleep.  I was reading my favourite story, Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice.  I placed my Kindle in it's cosy cover, similar to that of a Tea Cosy, put it on the floor beside my bed and went to sleep.  Next morning I was rushing around and being completely disorganised, I had not made my bed and my pillow had fallen out of the bed and landed on top of my Kindle (unbeknown to me), my daughter asked to borrow my hair dryer. I strode over to my bed with my dainty size 6 feet, where my hair dryer lived and my Kindle under the pillow.  I stamped on the pillow, bent over and picked up the hair dryer and heard a heart lurching crunch under my pillow.  "What was that, I thought"? Only my Kindle.  The front screen now looks like an Etcha Sketch gone wrong.  I am so sad, Mr Darcy, I sincerely apologise for my clumsiness and boyish strides.  My dear Kindle if only I had invested in a Ruggedised case and not a fancy tea cosy.  The ironic thing about it is, as owners of the Kindle keyboard will be aware, each time the Kindle is left, it automatically draws a picture of a famous person, mine that I cannot remove from my Etcha Sketch Kindle is Alexandre Dumas, my husband says this is quite apt.

On the same day I have also discovered black lines across my mobile phone, apparently I have squished a row of LED's behind the screen, I am not quite sure what that means. 
   Irony of irony's my Father received a Kindle for his birthday today and I was the one who set it up for him, downloaded him a new book and adjusted the font.  Then cried for the loss of my beloved, endearing Kindle.  Imagine ,I am going to have to go back to reading books, one of those people who have to turn pages, positively medieval.  On the positive side if I step on one of them by the side of my bed, they will survive, Eureka, a robust item!

Christmas photo story

In university we were shown how you can use a photostory programme as a tool for older children to display their work.  Using the programme they can annotate over the pictures and text.  I presently use the same programme shown by the Lecturer at the end of the summer term.  My team and I take photographs throughout the year, then gather them together to create a time line of the children's year in school.  I set it to music, relevant to children growing and moving on.  We then present this to the parents in an end of term assembly.  We sell them a copy for £5.00 and put the funds towards an item we require for our school.  My latest  purchase being a lithium battery camera. 
       The school provided us with an AA battery camera and once the rechargeable batteries went missing, I became increasingly out of pocket replacing batteries.  The children are welcome to use the camera, however they are only nursery age, and often forgot to turn it off.  We often found that on the occasion that you particularly wanted to photograph of something the children were partaking in, the battery would die, incredibly frustrating.  Hence why the purchase of a lithium battery camera was imperative, and if the children leave it on, hey ho.

I digress, back to the actual photostory programme, I liked the idea of using it for something else or than the photostory project at the end of the year.  Although at this time of the year amongst the mayhem of Christmas preparations in school, I was perplexed as how to find a relevant use for the photostory in to the planning.  Then it came to me, on the Christmas trip we take lots of photographs and often display them to the parents on an interactive whiteboard in the foyer, nothing particularly exciting, some parents take notice of it, others not.

This year with the help of the children we decided which ones we would like to place on the photostory, the children using a microphone, described what was happening in the photographs, what was their favourite part of the trip and in the photograph that they had taken with Father Christmas, they added in what present they had asked him for. 
With the help of some clever children in year 6, who helped me convert  a couple of Christmas songs from a CD in to MP3 format, and when I say help, I watched they did.  This is technology I am still getting my little brain around.  We created a photostory that involved the children and made the trip not just a one off thing.  It got them thinking and listening to others ideas and having to talk out loud in front of others.  They reflected on the day and funny things that happened.  They laughed a lot when trying to talk in to the microphone, and even sang a song. I would definately do this again, I could link it with key skills, such as Oracy and listening.
This years cohort are appearing to have a poor grasp on number recognition, perhaps we could use the photostory for a math project.

We did show the photostory to the parents, a few even asked for a copy.  Do I smell more money!

The future in the 1980's!!!

My programming days started and ended on this machine.  A ZX Spectrum 64.

The Spectrum came with about 2 games, which took roughly 10 minutes to load on a tape deck.  Children had patience in the good old days.  However the Spectrum came with a rainforest of text books to get you started on programming, as well as glasses, v-neck sweater and cords!  You then could set to task to create your own game, we had visions of Tron (the film) and hacking in to the Pentagon in America, alas I had to settle for creating a slot machine, and an  incredibly basic space invaders.  This is not a feet to be dismissed, to create this programme it took hours and hours and hours, and if you let off one bracket, Caps Lock, Full Stop,  you were left sullen and frustrated.  You then had to proceed to go through the whole programme and find the petite mistake, only to be rewarded with a mediocre animated game.  Although the really frustrating thing was, you couldn't save it!  Once you pressed escape or end, that was it gone and if you wanted to gamble on the slot machine again, you then had to start programming from the very beginning, which was similar to the feeling you got watching Blockbusters when the team you loved finished the 5th gold run and you had to get to know a new bunch of spotty kids!

I am referring to the spectrum today, due to a lesson in University where we discussed the fact that England are scrapping ICT lessons and Wales apparently are not, although they are beginning to go back to basics and bring programming more in to the forefront.  They hope that, instead of us being lazy consumers, learners  would gain knowledge on programming and perhaps inspire them, not to hack the Pentagon but may NASA (joke), and how difficult it actually is to do, maybe then would gain an appreciation for what they play and how amazing these machines are.  When I was young, it was more respecable to have a spectrum because it was a computer, a machine that you could comput on, almost space age.  The Atara which was its rival was purely a games machine, tut tut.  I think this is an excellent idea, however I hope for the children's sanity that once they type in their programming code and create their masterpiece, they can then save it and show the world, just how amazing they can be! 

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