Russell Davies

learning by playing

As part of the quest to find games that will help with his Maths Arthur's been playing a lot on the BBC schools Bitesize website. It's really good, seems just the right balance of play and actual Maths. (Whereas he gave up quickly with Timez Attack, saying, 'this is just as bad as doing lessons'. It's also handy for parents because you can get a rough sense of what each Key Stage expects your child to know.

And Stefan sent us a link to Questionaut (by Amanita.) Which is especially lovely. Most of the questions are too old for Arthur to do on his own, but we're doing them together and it's great. (Anne's been doing it more than me to be honest.) It's a mixture of game-type point and discover activities and regular multiple choice questions.

Which reminds me; Steve and I were thinking for ages about doing some sort of version of Speechification, designed for people to share this kind of stuff and things like mole with each other. It's always handy to hear from other parents (and other non-parent types, I think of them as the non-tired) about this stuff. We thought about calling Kidification but that sounds slightly suspect somehow. Would something like that be of interest to anyone? Anyone like to contribute?

twittermind

I twittered this twitter earlier:

Since the TwitterMind is being pestered anyway - anyone got any thoughts on the best mobile broadband dongle doodah deal?

And, almost instantly, got these answers:

T-mobile good for unlimited and throws in free wifi access

the three one looks the cheapest setup and monthly, depends how much data you need http://snipurl.com/22uen

T-Mobile seem to be offering free use of wifi hotspots into the deal, but i don't know exactly what that means in practice

probably now Vodafone, now they've reduced to £15. I'm stuck with T-mobile. "3" cheaper, but coverage issues

I was wondering about dongley-doodah too, but was reluctant for the 18 mo x 15 squids, so went iPhone. In my book v.gd. move

Thanks everyone. Good old internet.

drawing on the desktop

Inspired by this lovely bit of desktop organisation, I've done my own.

It's made all the difference.

the performance is the product

I've just watched the film of The Bays improvisatory set with The Heritage Orchestra. Really wish I'd gone now. I love the way they're pushing the idea of spectacle forward, creating a feeling that you had to be there, continually raising the improvising bar. It reminded me of Bobbie's wise words here and here. It's not a solution for everyone, but by doggedly pursuing their notion that 'the performance is the product' The Bays manage to dodge both the old boss and the new boss. Their music is neither grist to the old record company mill nor content2.0 to be monetised2.0. It's music. I like that.

sums it all up really

"The secret to happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and personas that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile"

Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

urban foxy

Went out for a bit of a walk this evening and saw this chap padding around Fitzroy Square. Looks like he'd just come up from a spot of dinner on Charlotte Street. Probably works in the media. There've been foxes in London since the 30s, and I can imagine Fitzroy Square might suit them quite well. People rarely seem to go in there and there's access to quite a bit of open space and food around. Has there been a children's book based on urban foxes yet? seems the perfect topic.

Of course I'm such a poor naturalist that it's probably a large cat or feral dog or something and someone'll tell me I'm an idiot.

powerpoint / keynote feature request

I've always found that presentations are infinitely more useful when you know when they're going to end. You can parcel out your attention appropriately when you have a sense of how long there is to go. So why don't powerpoint or keynote let you stick a timer on the screen? (Or do they? Have I just missed it somewhere?) You can get a timer in the presenters tools but you can't seem to let the audience see.

It can't be that hard. Could we have that please?

connect and fizzog

I notice Ben's just posted some pictures of his Connect set. Which reminded me that although Mr Ken Garland has rightly been lauded for his First Things First Manifesto, his name, for me, will be forever associated with two genius games of childhood: Connect and Fizzog. Fizzog is very graphically of its time and is quite a good game.

Connect looks marvelous and is a brilliant game. Hunt yourself out a copy on ebay and turn your child into a designer, map-maker or electronic engineer. Ben's got great pictures, have a look.

UPDATE: It seems Mr Garland does not grow weary of this basic concept, Chris has also ffffound Rivers, Roads and Rails.

booming disappointment

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arthur's star

I remember getting Childhood's End out of the school library. I devoured it. It was the first time I realised there was more to life than Willard Price. So I made a little diversion to Strand Books this evening, to see what they had, and found this splendid anthology. I used to pore over these Chris Moore covers too.

This is from the foreword, it seems appropriate:

"Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth. Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this universe, there shines a star."