Yearly Archives: 2014

Year: 2014

The Gift of Knowledge?

How it used to be done!
How it used to be done!

At this time of year everyone reflects a little on their progress in the previous twelve months, and more often than not, looks forward to the next twelve, with joy or trepidation depending on personal circumstance.

One factor of life that will not change is the ubiquity of the web and the range of services available for the owners of the right ‘machinery’, or for those who have access to it.

This journal is the product of Fellowship imaginations, but others are looking at the world and re-imagining news, reflection and analysis too. Below are some great ways that you can commit to developing knowledge and understanding, all at no cost…beyond that all important access to machinery!

 

Wonker – a complex news analysis engine:

wonkerLogoThis is a brave attempt to develop and share knowledge and understanding about the critical social, economic and community development conflicts across the globe.

Just getting started, but with a vast task in front of them, Casey and Nick the creators of Wonker, risk burn-out or perhaps even take-over by mainstream news outlets if the concept becomes a raging success. The site currently offers analysis of the ISIS crisis and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict for example.

That said, even if you are a ‘policy wonk‘ already, the site offers a great way to get contextual analysis from outside your own professional field of endeavour. Alternatively, you can use your professional knowledge to contribute to the Q & A style presentation of Wonker.

As with all user contributed content, there are potential questions of political bias, Americo-centrism in this case or even propogandism as the site develops. It is however, we think, a brave attempt to make clear the complicated to either the disengaged or the distracted, one conflict at a time.

See more of Wonker here…

Highbrow – expand your knowledge universe, one email at a time…

Not a new concept on the literate web, but this service is nicely presented for those who have just five minutes a day over ten days to become acquainted with a new field of study, one email at a time.

highbrowLogoIt’s not particularly clear  on their web site, but you are constrained to one ten day course subscription at a time. Presumably to prevent burn-out or ‘knowledge fatigue’?

You can choose your starting date, in order to manage the light work-flow from the beginning. Courses you can choose from cover such topics as art, history, philosophy and psychology, amongst others.

It will be interesting to see the content as it develops over time, as the delivery is heavily dependent upon TED talks at the moment. Worth checking out, either as a refresher in a busy email day, or as context to develop a new interest.

See more of Highbrow here…

Don’t forget The RSA…

If video access to fresh thinking is your mode of learning, then the RSA has a long history of offfering its audience the most topical material from thought leaders of the day.

The RSA can offer you a whole range of video talks and presentations from some great thinkers. The example below is one such. The need for a revolution in education, breaking the political and social bounds of the mind to create new worlds. (Makes me breathless just reading this…Ed.)

Debra Kidd argues for the creation of ‘architects of hope’ for young people. A powerful ambition and an idea well worth spreading. One interesting observation Debra makes is that individuals need to know what they are voting for and how the solutions offered by the political machinery are tinkered with by the self interest of the elected representative.

See the movie on YouTube

See this original video on YouTube here.

Knowledge, context and critical thinking are key. With a tsunami of information crashing over us, the tools and resources above can help with process, we would argue.

See a catalogue of RSA videos here…

Happy New Year.

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Headline photo credit: Bill on Capitol Hill via photopin cc

Seasonal Greetings
to everyone…

Christmas card 2014 image

We hope that all our readers, subscribers and site visitors enjoy a warm and happy seasonal break, wherever you may be?

Thank you for your support and interest in the East of England regional activity in 2014. Below is our conversationsEast road-map for 2015. A short list, but with much energy and enthusiasm behind it.

  • Launch of our sister site artSUFFUSION.org in the first quarter 2015 (…putting the arts back into the RSA regional profile?)
  • Beginning our ‘guerilla gatherings’ programme, with some test ‘get togethers’, initially focussed on spreading news and information about the Fellowship Council. (A sort of Fellowship Councillor surgery programme in the East really).
  • Finally publishing our web and project support offer in a formalised and structured way to help regional projects build a web presence or develop a project plan.
  • Making our news feed a simple subscription based print edition, so that the lack of technology is not a bar to receiving our news.

As with all our conversationsEAST sponsored support – publications, events, coffee and buns are always free at the point of delivery.

Updated: 26th December 2014: Provided you don’t have Google code blocked in your browser, you can now translate all our content on individual article pages into many languages…including Latvian and Igbo, for example. Click the headline, and use the Google Translate drop-down box on the top right of every web page. Making the RSA more accessible…

Some of our most read articles in 2014, in case you missed them…

Licensed to create – a new model for teaching? Read more here.

Getting behind British Science – new funds for 2015. Read more here.

Chelmsford Remembers – Essex at War. Read more here.

Women in the Tech Industry. Read more here.

Happy New Year.

The conversationsEAST team.

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Everyday Employers
A new RSA Report

Just published, this report offers fresh insights into the conditionality of being an employer, factored through the lens of rising self-employment, business fears about employment and how central government could deploy a mind-shift in its approach to entrepreneurship and the creation of new jobs.

Authored by Benedict Dellot, the report looks across the business landscape and considers three key areas of analysis that cause the self-employed to falter at the recruitment doorway – pragmatic issues, the mindset and the cognitive biases.

A new RSA Report - see more here...
A new RSA Report

Everyday Employers looks at the practical steps that could be energised in order to overcome barriers to employment.

Pooling risk – where recognition exists that not all risk can be avoided, but could be mitigated by establishing collective approaches to insurance, HR or administrative functions.

From hiring to the concept of accessing a workforce – where employees can be shared across a number of organisations.

Boosting supply, rather than stimulating demand – using existing networks, institutions and and networks to create awareness of new jobs and to generate fresh points of contact with work seekers.

From support expansion to support consolidation – taking a fresh look at a large, hyper-active business support nexus. Assessing fitness for purpose and a leaner operational requirement.

… a divergence in opinion is mirrored in people’s attitudes towards crossing the VAT threshold – one potential consequence of employing staff . While 47 percent of business owners not registered for VAT say it would be difficult to operate their firm if they went past the threshold, this compares to just 13 percent of VAT registered business owners looking back in hindsight…

The question of the VAT threshold for small business is used to illustrate the mindset,   perceived assumptions , that can restrain business owners from taking on additional staff. The report underscores this philosophical error by highlighting research into how little the small business actually understands about government policy,  a gap in knowledge which is compounded by the complexity of the existing business support mechanisms previously mentioned.

In the final section of Everyday Employers, the issue of cognitive bias is analysed. This falls into four distinct categories, the whole of which is, it can be argued, a neat proxy for the ‘landscape of fear’ that can wrack the entrepreneur.

Inertia – simply put, the gain from expansion is outweighed by the potential loss that might be created by the process of growth itself.

Control – a business builder increasingly feels they need to control their creation, nearly always over-estimating their own ability to be productive, for example. This conditioning leads the potential employer to inherently distrust the potential capabilities of new recruits to their business.

Short- termism – a lack of planning and an over-focus on the near term. That and the inability of some business owners to step back from the intensity of the day to day running of their business to appropriately plan.

Social proof – we mimic the behaviours and model our organisations alongside those we interact with. If there is no context for the individual and his or her peers that looks at and responds to growth and recruitment, then they won’t do it either.

Benedict’s report, Everyday Employers, also contains interesting data on self-employment, growth and recruitment. Changing or tempering the landscape reviewed above could have a seismic effect the report argues…

  • “The number of self-employed people has increased by 30 percent
    since 2000.
  • Only three percent of sole traders hired someone (and kept them) over the
    5-year period from 2007–2012.
  • Doubling this recruitment rate to six percent would result in an extra 100,000
    more jobs being created (and sustained) over a 5-year period”.

This is a detailed and convincing report, which comes with practical recommendations for business sector change. It also revisits some previous research and uses the data and analysis to support the operational arguments presented in the report.

For the reflective small business person, the practical politician or the profoundly caring policy analyst, this should be the ‘go to’ manual for the next five years.

pdfIcon4Get your copy of Everyday Employers here.

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Water Buffalo
and Reed Beds

Kingfishers Bridge Wetlands Project
Looking across the project…

A small group of Fellows were this week able to take advantage of an invitation to visit and see the work of the team at Kingfishers Bridge Wetland Project .

Situated close to Wicken Fen, this sanctuary, developed from privately held land, is both a successful conservation area and a test-bed for experimental conservation methodologies.

James Page and Andy Dunn gave fellows a guided tour through the conservation landscape, which was both informative and telling about the efficacy of landscape management of this high order. Some of the insights we gained are offered below.

The Project team manage a wide variety of habitats in a relatively small area. The topography of the site falls away from a limestone ridge, which itself is an ancient coral reef, through chalk grassland areas and peat deposits. There is a plethora of lake-side, dyke margin and reed bed coverage across the site too.

Clay banks are used to prevent site inundation, the area being part of the River Cam flood plain. There is an interesting spoil mound, with a track rising to the summit, where viewing ‘hides’ are to be found and the view from the top offers great views of both the whole of the wetlands project area, but also across the surrounding fen and river network.

This surrounding area is typical grass wetland, with some of the tree cover being recently removed, and the new development includes ponds which are linked to the agricultural drainage ditches. The whole water course development is designed to remove straight lines from the landscape. These betray the sites farmland origins, but the additional work also denies predatory birds a clear flight path to their prey.

adultbuffalo
Inquisitive buffalo…

One really interesting aspect of the grazing management is the deployment of Konic horses, the Polish primitive horse, as well as a small herd of Water Buffalo. This latter creature is adept at exploring the reed beds across the conservation site, and its dietary habits keep the reed beds appropriately cropped and seasonally refreshed…with appropriate site management control, of course.

As a closed site, water management is a key aspect of managing the rise and fall of levels across the seasons. The setting clay banks and ‘elbow pipe’ systems simply divert water which is drawn from a nearby limestone quarry, a simple system which regulates levels and flow across the reserve.

This aquatic draw down from their neighbour allows Kingfishers Bridge to draw in alkali water, which is nutrient free, stimulating the growth of the site’s invertebrate population. The entire site is surrounded by an impressive electric fence, which serves to keep predators away from the reserve areas.

reedbed
Looking through the reed-beds…

It is clear that this thoughtful, well managed approach to conservation across the bio-chain is a significant constituent to the success of the reserve. This ‘sanctuarial’ approach, with a well managed predator control/exclusion programme, see herons nesting on the site and a wide variety of birds, bats and plant life proliferating to interest the invited visitor.

One wonderful example of how this management expertise can transform the landscape is the Water Germanda (Teucrium scordium L.) The Kingfishers Bridge site held the last twelve plants of the species in the East of England. Water management techniques on the site now see, it is currently estimated, over two million specimens growing in the wider landscape.

We understand the site is keen to develop their support of educational visits from schools. it was profoundly satisfying to hear that the conservation team at Kingfishers Bridge actively engage children and young people in site measurement and surveys. A process which enables children to actively contribute real data to the site management process.

To explore educational visit opportunities further you can find the Kingfishers Bridge Contact Us page here – http://www.kingfishersbridge.org/contact-us.html

The adult volunteer and supporter is not left out either. Supporters of the project can gain exclusive access to project services, as well as make their own contribution to site surveys and measurements.

The Project does seek donations to keep the good work going and you can find both work party information and how to donate as a Project Supporter here – http://www.kingfishersbridge.org/how-to-help.html

Specific development projects are dependent upon sponsorship and the ‘Kingfishers’ team would be happy to explore their current opportunities with interested supporters.

Whether as a Fellow with a bio-science specialism, or as a passionate general supporter of eco-conservation projects, there is much to delight and do in concert with the Kingfishers Bridge team. (We really enjoyed our morning in the Fen..Ed).

Kingfishers Bridge Wetland Creation Trust,
Kingfishers Bridge, Wicken, Ely, Cambs. CB7 5XL
Charity No 1078882
Discover the project on-line – http://www.kingfishersbridge.org/

 

 

Fellows in the East of England are able to take part in a range of events and occasions. Visit our pages regularly, subscribe to our newsfeed or bookmark our regional events programme web page here…

http://www.conversationseast.org/regional-events/

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Licensed to create?

This interesting new RSA Animate looks at a revolution that is needed in teacher development. Work consigns teachers, it argues, to becoming victims who are trapped by the systems they operate within.

The goal should be to make change-makers, who are authors of their own pedagogy.

The essay collection which supports the argument posits that schools are conditioned by a command and control culture, which ignores creativity in delivery. The teacher, it argues, strives to educate whilst coping with a top down culture of compliance.

Creative Education Reports, ov. 2014
Get the essays here…

To best serve learners, and the professional development needs of teachers, there should be a methodology available that echoes and supports the research which shows students, who have the best teachers, can learn at twice the rate of other students.

This accompanying essays, Licensed to Create: Ten essays on improving teacher quality is edited by Joe Hallgarten, Louise Bamfield and Kenny McCarthy.

The final essay from the collection is by Tristram Hunt, Shadow Secretary of State for Education. In the introduction to The Rationale for Revalidation: a movement to transform teaching, Hunt states…

The teaching profession is changing. One year into this job there are few things of which I am more certain. If this collection of essays achieves nothing else then it will be to highlight how the energy unleashed by this cultural shift has the potential to become a force for far-reaching education reform.

Whether you are just beginning your professional teaching career, ending it or are just passionate about education…there is much to think about in this RSA report.

 

To echo the perceptive analysis in this collection of essays, and to underscore how the change in pedagogy, the re-processing of education in general for the benefit of future generations is an ongoing project. We re-looked at Ken Robinson’s TED Talk How to Escape Education’s Death Valley.

Robinson, speaking and living in the USA, argues for change to support young people who drop out of school, and those who remain it, but who stay disengaged from the education process.

This is not a new message from Ken Robinson, but it is witty and discursive as well as telling, placing the young person at the centre of change in education.

A nice counterpoint to, and contextualision of, the thought processes and ideas revealed in our RSA essay collection above.

(Narrative updated 15:05 / 26.11.2014)

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Shakespeare TV?

The Globe Theatre in London has just launched a new electronic service. The Globe Player.

It is part subscription service, partly an encyclopedia of reflection about Shakespeare and his work, but mainly it is a delight to discover the Bard whilst seated at your own screen and keyboard.

The service enables you, after registration, to rent or buy over 50 films of Shakespeare productions at The Globe Theatre.

You can also explore the Muse of Fire resource. This is a film in itself, but is made up of extracts from a wide variety of interviews with major Shakesperean actors of our day.

The interviews are available on the globeplayer.tv web site and offer fascinating insights into both the deep knowledge of the actors, but also their subtle and insightful take on the works they interpret.

One interesting part of the site content is access to performances of The Sonnets, but set in contemporary New York settings…

The project piece above is an interpretation of Sonnet 3, set in Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn. A great way to listen to the language of Shakespeare, but framed by immediately recognisable modern contexts.

This service is truly ‘…a window of thine age…’.

Whether you are a long time resident in the world of Shakespeare, or just beginning to explore the universe of love, loss, drama and comedy that The Globe creates, then we think this is a wonderful resource.

William and the Web. Perfect partners in the 21st Century?

Human Centred Design
– a toolkit

A little while ago a group of Fellows in Suffolk undertook a Human Centred Design course using the resources of IDEO.org (…see our archive of entries on our regional events page for more details).

IDEO have long had success with their Human Centred Design toolkit, which is an enabling mechanism for those interested in community development. The on-line course, which Suffolk Fellows undertook, has seen over 40,000 individuals from 148 countries wrangle with a specific problem in the last two years. That is poverty.

There is now a new development. IDEO have recognised that where the problems are most significant, then take-up of web resources can be limited. This may be to the complete absence of any technological infrastructure to engage toolkit users, or that the technology that is available is far beyond the community’s ability to acquire it.

Their solution is to create a printed book, the ‘old fashioned’ way of disseminating knowledge.

Supporting Human Centred Design on KickStarterYou can get involved and support the HCD book project. They are raising funds on KickStarter, where for very modest sums you are able to support the creation of this new medium, to the benefit of communities around the globe.

A pledge of 25 dollars will see you receive a pocket guide to Human Centred Design, with a 50 dollar or more pledge getting you a full copy of the toolkit in bound form.

With only 27 days to go till the close of the IDEO campaign see what the team are trying to do and you can pledge your contribution here on the pages fo KickStarter.

Don’t forget that you can use KickStarter to support RSA driven projects too. Visit this RSA web page to see a wide variety of Fellow led projects – from hand printed sustainable textiles to creating community circus teachers. See more here.

If you do support this IDEO project, or any of the worthwhile RSA initiatives…thank you.

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Walking out of Autumn

With the unseasonably mild autumnal weather seeming to persist, now is a great time to get out and about into the East Anglian countryside. Our region is blessed with some wonderful ‘perambulatory’ landscapes.

Fellow event:

Our Fellows are looking forward to their re-scheduled visit to the Kingfishers Bridge Wetland Creation Project on 27th. November 3014. You can see more details here.

The National Trust:

Another great source of regional walks is the National Trust web page of walks for the Eastern Region.  There is much to delight the autumnal walker here.

The pages of the National Trust offer over 70 downloadable walks in the Eastern region, across the counties of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex.

Sheringham Park

(National Trust web page here)

We particularly like the Tremendous Trees walk at Sheringham Park in Norfolk, where the trees are at their finest in the autumn, but where the views across the landscape are great at any time of the year.

You can take a virtual tour of the Sheringham Park vista on this National Trust web page here. Can even smell the sea when the wind is in the right direction?

You can park dawn to dusk and if visiting at the weekends then the Courtyard Cafe and Visitor Centre will be open.

You can even download and install a Humphrey Repton at Sheringham Park smartphone app from from iTunes or the Android store  – adding to the pleasure of ‘finding out’ if you are a first time visitor to the estate. See more here.

Dunwich Heath

(National Trust web page here)

Another office favourite is the coastal walk at Dunwich Heath in Suffolk. Even at this late time of year there is much to see, including a  walk on the beach. Best be well wrapped up, just in case.

You can enjoy the Birch Walk, the Heather Walk or the Gorse Walk – each having their own attractions and visual delights throughout the year. See more here.

Dunstable Downs

(National Trust web page here)

Finally, the last item that caught our eye on the National Trust walks page was the potential of a visit to the Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire. Ideal if your really want to blow those cobwebs away.

You can visit the outstanding chalk and grassland Area  of Outstanding Natural Beauty throughout the year. Circular walks, medieval rabbit warrens and other ancient monuments are all on the ‘to visit list’ of any walk. The view from the ridge is tremendous, there may even be kite flyers up there too.

Don’t forget to check out our Regional Events page regularly here, there may be something of interest coming up soon from the RSA East team too.

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Getting behind British science?

The British Science Association have just announced details of grant funding schemes for British Science Week in 2015.

Event dates: 13th to 22nd March 2015

As well as the usual grants by region in the UK, offering their traditional support to schools, this year (2015) sees the introduction of community organisation grants, offering those in the community sector working with ‘hard to reach’ communities the opportunity to build new work using science and discovery as a lever to engagement.

  • Kick Start Grants – grants of £300 for school activities (and up to £700 for schools/communities) in the UK faced with challenging circumstances.
  • Scottish Grant scheme – grants of £200 for schools and £350 for organisations in Scotland.
  • Welsh Grant scheme – grants of £200 for schools and £350 for organsations in Wales.
  • Community Grant scheme (new for 2015) – grants of up to £500 for community-based groups and organisations working with hard to reach groups in the UK whose targeted audience/participants include those not traditionally engaged with science.  (These might be people who “..are from the Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic community (BAME); not in education employment or training (NEET); or who live in a remote and rural location”…Ed.)

Although the sums are modest, it is possible with imagination, to see how the seed funding could be used to engage those interested in science, or to give the undiscovered young scientist a chance to take their first step on the road to research, for example.

The Association web site offers the following as eligible activities under the grant scheme.

  • Presentations from invited speakers on science and/or engineering topics.
  • Field trips to local science centres, museums or university science departments.
  • Arranging a talk or workshop with a local STEM ambassador.
  • Recruiting a freelancer to deliver an arts and science activity.
  • Fete, family science days, mini festivals, science fairs.
  • Busking displays run in public venues, such as a supermarket, park or high street.
  • Hands-on workshops.
  • Debates and discussions with scientists.

At conversationsEAST we really warmed to the idea of a cross disciplinary event, say using musicians, artists and electronic engineers to devise an event using music, graphics and an introduction to audio-visual or web technology. The output of the engagement and learning to be put on the web, or streamed live, or turned into a music CD, for example.

As always, if there any Fellows in the region planning an event, we’d be happy to donate web resources from conversationsEAST to contribute to the work. Just let us know?

interneticon  You can read more on the British Science Association Science Week web pages here...

interneticon  See the Science Week funding guidelines here...

interneticon  When ready, you can download activity packs and sample flyers too…

We are looking forward to our Science Week in March 2015 already.

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A new Arts Centre emerges in Ipswich

stClementChurchIpswich

Ipswich Arts Centre in association with Ipswich Historic Churches Trust and Re-Create are to establish a new Ipswich Arts Centre at St Clement Church.

 

In early November there will be an evening of talks, discussion, music and refreshment to celebrate  the rebirth of St Clement as a new contemporary arts venue forming a bridge between the waterfront development and the town centre.

 

“The aim is to create a contemporary arts centre which will host national and international acclaimed acts in a diverse range of media including music, visual arts, performance, film and theatre. It will complement and support Ipswich’s existing cultural offer, placing Ipswich firmly on the regional and national cultural map.

 

The rebirth of St Clement as a contemporary arts centre aims to restore this beautiful 14th Century building, which provides a natural space for creative expression, where people can congregate and share in this experience”.

 

The opening of a new Arts centre in any community is a red letter day. The impending work at St. Clement is set in a long tradition of utilising redundant church property as theatres, community centres and libraries.

 

The creation of a new, full mix Arts Centre to add to the cultural context of Ipswich and East Anglia as a whole is very exciting indeed.

 

The project has already attracted media attention and has been featured on BBC news, The Stage and East Anglian Daily Times.
To discover more information about this new Centre and the role that UCS in Ipswich will play see…

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-27210591
http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2014/05/closed-ipswich-church-converted-arts-centre/

 

Image of St.Clements: Geoff Pick [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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Image credit:

News Desk image by Markus Winkler, Creative Commons, Unsplash...

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