In our first ‘writing’ lesson, we toured the Paganel Primary school site and found a whole range of berries and interesting things without even leaving the school. But what could we eat and what could we not even touch? Can you spot what is supposedly the second most dangerous plant in Northern Europe?
I saw these in Quinton Road, Harborne. Does anyone know what they are? Crab apples maybe?
I’ve been writing many posts recently ‘off the grid’. Disconnected from both wifi and mobile signal at Lee Abbey in Devon. Apparently, if I walked to the top of the hill I could pick up a faint signal, but it would be a lot of effort for not much gain.* There seem to be both advantages and disadvantages to this.
Advantages
There is a certain clarity of thought gained through being here. And I think that is partly down to cutting down distractions – such as not being able to access e-mail, Twitter, text and the like. Since becoming a GCT, my e-mails have rocketed and even though many of them aren’t relevant to me, it still takes a certain amount of effort to process the information.
Another reason for the clarity of thought is the place itself. It is beautiful. The curves of the tree lines on the hills, the slope down to the bay and the arc of the bay itself. I’m sure there’s something on Maslow’s heirarchy about that.
Disadvantages
I am used to checking things that I’m not too sure of, and my favourite method is Google. For example, when I referred to Maslow’s Heirarchy in the previous paragraph, I would have liked to check that my guess was correct and maybe provide some helpful image to explain what I meant. But Maslow’s Heirarchy is one of those things that I’m not completely sure about.
Another downside is being disconnected from my PLN. My PLN, particularly on Twitter, has become increasingly inspiring over recent months – not because of any radical changes to personnel, but more because I’ve become a better listener. Posts and tweets from my PLN have inspired me to think new thoughts and write new stuff. Probably 75% of what I blog about is inspired directly by other people’s posts.
Impact
How will I post this post? It’s written now. Will I hit the e-mail button so if gets posted as soon as I get back in range? Or will I wait until I get home, check out the Maslow’s heirarchy thing, add a few appropriate images of the bay I talked about? What’s more important to me, the process or the product? How many times should I re-draft a blog post?
*that’s a joke for electrical engineers.
It was with some amazement that we noticed a strange leaf growing out of my son’s venus flytrap plant a few weeks ago.
And look! The leaf has become a flower – it wasn’t a leaf at all anyway!
As you can see from my amazement, I’m not much of a biologist, believing it to be a bit of pretend science (sorry biologists…). Now having offended biologists everywhere, I’m not going to get an answer to my question…
So if these plants eat flies, what insect worth their salt is going to pollinate one? Any answers gratefully received.
Next I’ll return the river to safer lands and investigate the effects of scalextric on education…
I don’t if there’s a word for an ineffective blogger.
I found it interesting to see a post published way back in 2007 on ReviewSaurus that said ineffective bloggers may post 4 times in a day and then not at all for 5 days: I haven’t written anything since September 2009. Whoops.
Anyway having heard Ewan McIntosh speak at the Creative Partnerships conference yesterday, I have resolved to get back on the blogging bus and keep this thing going. I think one of my problems so far is that I’ve tried to keep more than one blog going at the same time – one for my leadership pathways work, one for my creative partnerships work, another one for the way creative partnerships are working with us here at Paganel Primary School. It’s all too much. I need one place to log stuff, and this here is the place.
It’s a bit like a river. That’s my metaphor of choice. A river can wind in many directions, cut though valleys and meander across plains. But it’s still just one river. The river is my learning about education. At the moment it includes:
Having started in this place I still need to refer to the previous places.
These include my leadership pathways blog, where I tried to reflect some learning from the leadership pathways program, my creative partnerships blog, begun in 2008 when we (Paganel Primary School) begin our interaction with the Creative Partnerships organisations as a ‘Change School’ and my change Paganel blog which began as an exercise in sharing information between creative partners of Paganel Primary School and never really got off the ground.
Another principle of effective blogging (according to ReviewSaurus) is that you write in a niche. I suppose my niche is reasonably broad at the moment – creativity, maths, ICT and leadership in education, but at least it starts in one place. I’m looking forward to seeing the map of the river unfold.