Another Gray Day

Just enthused by a “what-if” that has become a ‘wow!’. What if you could organise files, such as journal articles, using iTunes? Look it up on Google, there are quite a few independent discoveries of the way you can use iTunes to organise .pdf files, using a completely separate library. Why is this useful? Because you can plonk your files into playlists more than once without actually creating copies and filling up your hard disk. Therefore you can have a group of articles about one topic, and a different group about another topic, with as much cross-referencing as you like. Clicking on the files opens them using preview or adobe reader. (incidentally with preview you can copy and paste,unlike reader, great for references.)
There must be something in this since even Windows users of iTunes are using it.
Whatever next?

In educational circles people are always trying to avoid “top-down” approaches to things, preferring the obvious opposite, “bottom-up” (i.e. no funding, but everyone agrees with whatever it is). Same with sustainable development, right? No way. If ever there was a case for something top-down being required, it’s the recent USAF order for refuelling tankers. Won by Airbus (hooray) but about as sustainable as a relaunch of the Austin Allegro (well it might sell in Japan). Obviously there are military arguments, but the environmental cost of the whole inflight refuelling process is…it’s as if we all drove FI cars up the motorway with pit stops every 50 miles. The military side is the what if…? argument (enter the foreign government of your choice). Time for some risk assessment, boys. which is more likely - climate change or WW3?

There seems to be a lot of rhetoric around evidence based policy, but banks seem to be exempt. The evidence is that banks are greedy, stupid, inefficient and a drag on the economy, yet they continue to dictate to the rest of us as if they had the slightest clue as to what they are doing. In reality banks are still in the era of the horse and cart, at least when it comes to retail customers, yet the scum who make money by gambling with our savings (such as they are) can run up ridiculous debts (Societe Generale). Those same scumbags can trade billions instantaneously, yet it take weeks for the average retail customer to move money from one bank to another The established banks have a de facto monopoly on shifting money around, and consequently can survive being stupid and inefficient. If only Google did banking….

We forget how much space we take up in daily life. We need new spaces to move into. Jeff Beck pointed out that in the mid 1960s, there was a space for music to move into, an unexplored space of loudness, improvisation and imagination. Previously music had existed in a Butlinised holiday camp world of romance and convention. Between 1964 and 1967, that world suddenly seemed very small. The new world was bigger, more colourful, sexier and, most importantly, it could not have been predicted. On the other hand, it was built up from parts that already existed. The Fender Stratocaster had been around since 1954, but Hendrix picked it it and changed everything.

OK what has this got to do with research? Lots. Academia is now in the same position that pop music was in around 1962-63. Lots of singles, no albums. Or like mp3 players before the iPod. There’s a new space to open up, and the only place you’ll find it is here. Or at least i’d like to think so.

Well, not really the first, and probably not the last. This blog is intended to go with my new website which will be up and running shortly. It’s partly a substitute for having a real workplace with corridors and photocopier rooms where you can bump into people and have conversations. It will also explain some of the things happening on the website.
The main (professional) reason to have a site is to make available some of the papers I have written or co-authored over the last ten years, and to publicise current projects, solicit work etc. What kind of work? My field is educational research and I’m specifically interested in the following topics:
1) Teacher induction and mentoring
2) Learning at work
3) Home schooling and learning at home
4) Teachers’ collective work
5) Metacognition
6) Pupil voice
Too many really.
In addition, I have some wider philosophical interests:
a) Space, spatiality and place
b) Heidegger and his impact on philosophy
c) embodied philosophy, from the work of Lakoff & Johnson

and some more obscure things for which you probably can’t wait.
I currently live in France and am happy to discuss the pros and cons of moving t/here if anyone is interested.
Enough for now, more soon.
Peter