Tag: Journal

Reflections on Month 4 of 2016

Another month gone, so we are now into May 2016.

Its been quite a frantic and busy month and even more so than March, April seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye.

April contained another excellent #appsharelive event which once again involved some excellent App ideas.     In addition I found another site for app ideas which has further allowed me to add to my toolbox of app ideas.    April also saw me take a trip down to London for the Westminster Education forum which I blogged about previously, and I got my #staffrm mug.

Throughout April I managed to blog a number of times, maintaining my target as part of #44weeks to blog at least once per week.   I keep trying to set aside a specific day to write and post my blogs however never seem to manage to keep to the schedule I try to set myself.   Going forward I think I will need to just accept that this irregularity is likely to continue and that I will just need to take care to ensure I manage the minimum of 1 blog entry per week.    One particular technique to help with this is that I am setting a weekly set of goals and am including the need to blog on this goal list.

My twitter activity in April increased on March largely due to my involvement in #sltchat on a couple of occasions plus my attendance at the Westminster Education Forum during which I tweeted a number of comments and images.    I also finally got round to starting to tidy up my twitter account in terms of creating lists, etc.   Clearly I would have benefited from doing this at the start of using twitter rather than leaving it until now which required significantly more work to sort.   I will need to try and ensure I periodically tidy things up as I go forward as opposed to putting it off.

My book reading in April was pretty steady although “Thinking, fast and slow” is quite a significant book to read and therefore took me some time to get through.    I am already making very quick progress through “Drive” which is already around 50% complete after only a couple of days.   It is interesting that I had selected both books independent of one another however having started “Drive” I was interested to find the author D. Pink referenced D. Kahneman the author of “Thinking, fast and slow”.

Fitness and exercise still sits as an area where I am making little progress although I need to admit that I did exceed my step target on a number of days in April which is an improvement and my overall weekly exercise level in terms of average steps per week has steadily increased in the last few weeks.   I need to try and continue to build on this.

I have also set myself a couple of new goal areas however I may write about those later.   Overall April has been another good month so onwards to May.

Favourite Books (Part 2)

I previously posted on my 5 favourite books (you can read this here) however someone pointed out the inclusion of a Goleman book in the photo of my bookcase and the fact that I hadn’t listed it as one of my top 5.    As such I realized that top 5 was too limiting and hence this pointing is my next 5 books, building my top 10.    Also being honest, the is an easy post to fill my current writers block for #29daysofwriting

Before I go any further just a recap of my top 5:

  • The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Ken Blanchard
  • The Silo Effect by Gillian Tett
  • Lateral Thinking by De Bono
  • The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
  • The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

So for my 6th book I would suggest a recent read in Resillience by Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy.   The books centres on resilience and how we can develop it in an ever changing world.   I particularly enjoying the opening phrase “robust but fragile” as used in the book which seems to align with the similary contradictory terms such as “tough but tender” as used in a college I worked in.

Another recent read is Thinking Fast and Slow from Daniel Kahneman.   I originally heard this as an audio book listening to it while travelling between Abu Dhabi and Dubai.   I enjoyed it that much I went out and purchased it.    The books use of Agent 1 and Agent 2 as the two ways that we think, fast and slow, is very useful in explaining how we can reach effective decisions quickly however the existence of weaknesses in this approach in certain situations.

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman is an excellent book focusing on the interpersonal aspect of all we do.    Whether we are building cars, teaching, a manager, or a million other job roles, we will almost always need to work with others.   As such Emotional Intelligence is critically important.   I suspect this is a book I will be re-reading shortly.

Edward De Bono’s, I am right, you are wrong is a brilliant book discussing De Bonos perception with regards how the mind works.    The books includes some excellent examples of how order of new ideas impacts learning plus some good discussion on “learning backwards”.

My final book for inclusion is Ken Robinsons, The Element.    Robinson draws on many examples of successful people who evidence where personal areas of strength meet their passions.  A particular favourite point is his suggestion that we ask “How are you intelligent” rather than the usual “How intelligent are you?”.  A subtle but critical difference.

Am looking forward to returning to more reading once I get to the conclusion of #29daysofwriting.

 

 

My Favourite Books.

Yesterday I wrote about my favourite apps so following some valuable suggestions from B Yusuf today I am going to maintain the same approach but with a different theme, this time looking at my favourite books.

Let’s start with one of my favourite leadership books which I have often recommended to others especially new middle leaders.    The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Ken Blanchard.   This is a nice short and very accessible book which focuses on how to manage people and the tasks they are assigned.    I think it is very useful for new middle leaders where the tendency might be to lead by example and in doing so offer to help and do things to help your team thereby accepting the duty of care for their monkeys.

Next is a book I have recently read, The Silo Effect by Gillian Tett.   This is an excellent book about how Silos form in organizations, how they can be dangerous and how to overcome them.   I think this is quite appropriate to education where we have such clear demarcations evident through our schools.   Staff are either support, teaching, MLT or SLT.    Teaching staff operate in departments.   The Silo Effect points out why we need to have this kind of structure and demarcation, the disadvantages and how we might seek to overcome these disadvantages.

I have always been very interested in the idea of divergent thinking.   As such my next book is Lateral Thinking by De Bono.   I particularly like the book as not only does it seek to provide explanations for why we might be less creative than we could be, but it also provide little activities which can be used with students to illustrate the point.   I have previously run a series of lessons on creativity in a school in the Middle East using so of the activities and the students loved it.

My next book is The Shallows from Nicholas Carr.    Giving my focus on educational technology my book list had to include at least one book which looks at technology.    This book brilliantly tracks how various now accepted technologies were at one time or other considered as disruptive including the watch and the printing press and resultant novels printed using them.    This puts the current concerns regarding student technology use and the impact into a different light.

My final book is my favourite leadership book which I keep coming back to.   It’s a bit of a classis.   Stephen Coveys The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.    Quite simply a classis book in identifying priorities and managing life in what is becoming an increasing complex world.

Once I get past Feb and #29daysofwriting I hope to get back to reading more.   I may in future share further opinions with regards the books I have read.   Please feel free to suggest any books you think are worth a read.

 

 

Moving on….

I am currently in the process of starting a new job which in itself is stressful however to compound matters I am also moving house and also country of residence.    The process has so far involved just over a month living in hotels, which to most may sound like fun however you can only eat the hotel food a limited number of times before boredom sets in plus the inability to put together a light snack at random hours of the day or night is also a limitation.   There is also the issue of the overall cost of living in hotels given both the cost per night and then the additional cost for food and drink.    A significant amount of time has also been spent trying to find a more permanent place to live therefore requiring visits to countless estate agents and rental agents plus visits to various properties.   Thankfully this phase has now passed and I have found a house and now moved in.

The current phase of the transition can be likened to living like a student.    Basically the various items of furniture, etc have been ordered however as yet have not arrived and as such I am currently sleeping on the floor until the bed arrives.   The only furniture currently within the house is a TV, a TV stand on which the TV sits and also a coffee table which currently doubles as the extent of our dining furniture.

So all in all things have been very busy and stressful as of late however I haven’t as yet mentioned the major cause of stress.     I am without internet!!!!      I am currently awaiting the installation of broadband which is due to occur in almost two weeks from now so until then I have no access to internet at home.    To make matters worse mobile signal strength around my new property is very poor so I don’t even have the use of mobile internet via my phone.    It is only sat here being without internet that I find myself realising how integral internet access has became to my life (Note: Writing this I am sat without internet however clearly I must have had internet to upload this blog…..the wonders of Costa Coffee!!).    It provides me flexibility in accessing work materials to allow me to work beyond the normal hours of work and on weekends.   I find myself writing this even although there are work related issues I want to be addressing however I am unable to without internet access.   Internet provides me with a communication channel both professionally and also personally, allowing me to speak to my parents ahead of finally visiting them in person after many years away.    It provides me access to services such as water and electricity services, online banking and many more services which are all important in everyday living but possibly even more important when setting up a new home.    Basically the internet is no longer a luxury for me but in fact is now a necessity.

All of this leaves me wondering about the argument often stated with regards limiting student use and reliance on technology.    Basically these calls all come too late as we are already reliant.   Just think what would happen in your local supermarket if the computer systems went down and stopped working.   I very much doubt it would be business as usual.

Now just to be clear I believe that the critical issue in current education is teaching students the skills which will set them up for life such as the 4 C’s of critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and collaboration.    It is also important to teach them about community, globalisation, character and resilience among other skills or characteristics.    The key issue for me is that we should be engaging and using technology to help develop these skills, plus we should be encouraging students to identify new ways that technology can help them in meeting their needs and wants plus in developing these skills.

 

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net