Mast hysteria?

Two interesting articles about wireless technologies grabbed my attention this week. The first warns about the dangers of children using wi-fi laptops. Professor Lawrie Challis (University of Nottingham) suggests that teachers should discourage children from sitting with wireless laptops on their laps in much the same way that they should be discouraged from holding mobile phones to their heads for prolonged periods.

Sounds like common sense to me, but what he doesn't say (at least in the BBC news report) is that non-ionising radiation from mobile phones and wi-fi laptops target two of the most sensitive, high fluid content organs in the body - the brain and the gonads. How serious is that, and what will be the long term effects? Well, not many people have paid serious attention to the issue, mainly because the mobile phone companies have a vested interest in making sure it is not an issue (But check out George Carlo's research, for an alternative perspective).

The second item of news, found in the Guardian Online, argues that mobile phone masts have been responsible for the disappearance (read 'deaths') of Britain's sparrow population. Got me thinking... what other things are fast disappearing as a result of more than 35,000 mobile phone masts in our society? How about a top 5?

• Accurate spelling for those under 25


• Unspoilt British countryside


• Local Government integrity (hmmm....)


• Peaceful rides on public transport


• Uninterrupted meetings, cinema shows, concerts, theatre .....

Want to add some more?

Larry Snotter and the Virtual World

Tragically, trainee chat room Wizard Larry Snotter has become addicted to Second Life. His avatar, a disturbingly thin blonde woman with a twisted smile, has begun to dominate his life. His irritating little friend Nobby (himself a reformed Internet addict), takes it upon himself to help Larry to quit…

LARRY: You don’t understand Nobby. I've got to keep going back. I don't belong here in RL. I belong in your world – in Second Life. It's the only place I've got... friends.
NOBBY: Friends who don't even text Larry Snotter?
LARRY: Well, I expect they've been.. hang on, how do you know my friends haven't been texting me?
Guiltily, Nobby produces Larry’s SIM Card.
NOBBY: Larry Snotter mustn't be angry with Nobby -- Nobby hoped if Larry Snotter thought his friends had forgotten him... Larry Snotter might not want to go back into Second Life, sir...
LARRY: Give me that. Now.
Nobby frowns sadly, then runs out the bedroom door. Larry desperately chases Nobby, dashing headlong down the stairs and into the kitchen. As Larry races in, he finds Nobby standing on the bench top, waving his arms. Larry’s personal computer floats into the living room, hovering 8 foot above the parquet flooring.
LARRY: (Horrified) Nobby... Please... No...
NOBBY: Larry Snotter must say he's never going back online.
LARRY: I can't. Second Life is my home.
NOBBY: (With a tragic expression) Then Nobby must do it, sir. For Larry Snotter's own good.

Nobby snaps his fingers. The computer plummets to the floor, and smashes, sending shards of glass and pieces of plastic flying.

In a fit of rage and grief, Larry turns Nobby into a toad.

Welcome to the collective

It's morning here in the Czech Republic, we are in Ceske Budejovice and the weather has broken. Yesterday we had blazing sunshine and today it has been raining and the temperature has dropped. With the students we walked around for hours in Prague and trammed, bussed and metro'd our way in and out of all the interesting sites. On our way down the funicular railway a few days ago (the slippery slope on the left) I had a conversation with our guides Brian and Dale (another slippery slope...) that meandered around many subjects but settled on the topic of collective nouns. Apparently, the collective noun for moles is an industry. The collective noun for ducks is a raft if they are on water and a team if they are in the air. There is a parliament of owls, and presumably a plague of politicians...

Got me thinking about collective nouns for new 'animals' that are appearing, so how about...

• a dispute of wiki writers


• a sphere of bloggers


• a masquerade of Second Lifers


• a syndication of podcasters


• an infection of malware (virus) writers


• a nuisance of spammers


• a click of elearners (online)


• a clique of elearners (offline)


• a banter of emoderators


• a tapping of web surfers (online)


• a panic of mobile phone users (no signal)

And finally, in the college...

• a giggle of secretaries


• a lack of principals

Anyone have any others?

Czech Mates

We're off in a few days to the Czech Republic for a study tour, myself and about 30 mature students. It's an annual event and we spend a week travelling about, visiting schools, colleges, universities, prisons, etc... areas related to the disciplines my students are teaching. They return to write an assignment comparing aspects of Czech education with that of the British system.

To support my group of travellers this year, I set up a small wiki space called Czech Mates so that the students can share any useful links and resources they found with the rest of the group. To date there hasn't been a lot of activity on the space, although around 20 have joined it. Perhaps people are reluctant to post to the pages until they are more familiar with it, or maybe they are shy about participation. It's the same with other online groups I have managed. My research so far indicates that many students find contributing to a wiki to be quite stressful, as people don't like 'tipping their hand' and exposing their ideas for criticism, or in the case of wikis, to risk others modifying, or worse, deleting their work...

I guess I'm now interested to see what photos, stories, memories, etc will be posted to the space when the group get back after the study tour. If you have any research findings on wiki participation, I'd be happy to see them posted in response to this.

Cyber Bullying

I remember that during my school years, bullies were less than subtle. They either 'rolled you' in the playground, or perpetrated terrible acts upon you in the toilets - I had my head held under in a full sink of water on one occasion, and some of my mates were less fortunate. It was a rite of passage, and prepared me for the much more subtle bullying I would experience later in work, particularly with insecure bosses or inadequate and threatened senior colleagues in some of my previous jobs. But it cannot be condoned of course. Bullying should be loathed in any sector of society, and when my own kids are bullied, I take it very personally.

It was with great interest then, that I came across an article in the Independent Newspaper today, with the title: 'Teachers fear growing cyberbullying by pupils'. There's a worrying trend for pupils to take digital pictures of their teachers and post them with derogatory comments and/or obscene images to sites such as RateMyTeachers and YouTube. A survey of teachers showed that one in six had been a victim of cyberbullying by one of their pupils. Of these, 45 per cent had received e-mails written to upset them, 12 per cent had received photographs which made them feel threatened, embarrassed or vulnerable, and 10 per cent had read a message about themselves on an internet chatroom. The report doesn't say what proportion of these were male or female, but we can guess can't we?

Teachers are now threatening to take legal action against websites that host this kind of material. Oh, the times, they are a-changing....

Second Life again

Found an interesting article about Second Life and other MMORPGs and their use for learning today. It was published in 2006 in the journal Educational Technology and Society by Aaron Delwiche and is entitled: 'Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the new media classroom'.

Here's the abstract: Recent research demonstrates that videogames enhance literacy, attention, reaction time, and higher-level thinking. Several scholars have suggested that massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) such as Everquest and Second Life have educational potential, but we have little data about what happens when such tools are introduced in the classroom. This paper reports findings from two MMO-based courses in the context of situated learning theory. The first course, focused on the ethnography of on-line games, used the game Everquest as a vehicle for teaching research methods to 36 students in an undergraduate communication course. The second course used the game Second Life to teach the fundamentals of video-game design and criticism. Synthesizing comments from student web logs with data collected from followup surveys, the paper highlights key findings and offers concrete suggestions for instructors contemplating the use of multiplayer games in their own courses.

The author concludes...

Recommending that potential virtual environments be selected on the basis of genre, accessibility, and extensibility, it is suggested that game-based assignments are most effective when they build bridges between the domain of the game world and an overlapping domain of professional practice.

Chinese water torture!

On the bus back from London Heathrow last night, I had the pleasure to sit next to a young Chinese woman, who seemed just a little reluctant to share her seat with anyone. As it was the last seat on a fully subscribed bus, I had no option and neither did she. She was all elbows and knees. I have some bruises to prove it.

During the 4 and a half hour ride back to Plymouth, she incessantly talked on her mobile phone, gabbling away loudly in something-ese to invisible friends and family. No sooner would she end a call with one, than the phone would ring, or she would call another friend, and the chatter would start again. Intermittently, on the rare occasions that the phone was being 'rested', she would plug her i-pod into her ears and sing in a high pitched and slightly off tune voice to herself. She picked her way painfully through several songs by Queen during the trip (I recognised the music as it emitted tinnily through her ear phones). As such classics as 'Re Rill Lock You', 'Bohemian Lapsody' (Be-elzubum has a devil in the sideboard), and 'Ladio Ga Ga' assailed my ears, I felt inclined to leap screaming from the speeding bus, or at the very least, to draw an angry face on the bald head of the man sat in front of me. But my amazing fit of petulance subsided and like a true Brit I resigned myself to the Chinese water torture....

In the end, I managed to get home with my sanity intact, secure in the knowledge that this poor Chinese woman will have to live in our wet, cold and tax-ridden country for a while - let's see if she is still sane at the end of her experience... Let's hope she maintains a strong signal - she's going to need it.