In my post “You may have noticed” (written, I see, nearly four years ago 🙁 which comes something of a shock!) I recount the loss and costly retrieval of the domain name and rebirth of the site. While I intimated that I was rather bad at updating things I did assume having to pay my own way could be a personal call to action; sadly those four years (without going into unnecessary details) was my almost biblical ‘time in the wilderness’ with many great changes of circumstance. I won’t dwell…
Suffice it to say: I’ve moved house three times; had my main area of teaching, the computer games degree, culled (for the second time!); survived the experience of toxic union action, losing over £8000 in lost wages (thanks to my benmalevalent employer), but worse, seeing the corruption of democratic process within my own branch. I have now joined another trade union.
Ok, maybe I’ve dwelt a bit, but there are other things I can’t/won’t talk about. So, onto the positive 🙂
I started reading this article on The Conversation:
“But hoarding situations where people are unable to cook in their kitchen, wash in their bathroom, entertain friends or even live in their living room, do not happen overnight. Hoarding behaviour starts long before someone’s possessions take over their home. The longer it goes on for, the harder it is for the person to address it.”
(Link above)
I think being unhappy in my marriage (even though I may not have realised it) may have broken me a long time ago…
…but we’re being positive here! What is good about self-diagnosing my status as a hoarder? Well, they say admitting it to yourself is the first step. What could be more positive than the first step‽
Ok, how did to get to living in just the smallest bedroom of a 3 bedroom house – actually 2.5! It’s that small! – with occasional trips to the even smaller bathroom and, smallest of all, the kitchen, while the rest of the house is full (and I mean FULL) of boxes and piles of things? And that’s not counting the five storage units that are costing me £200/month; please don’t judge. Well, it’s because I get wild ideas. Super secret projects. Crazy schemes to do/make cool and creative things. So, I acquire all the components – electronics, cameras, exciting and interesting stuff – then it lies there unfinished. And because it was started each project is in limbo. And so am I!
Well, my second step is to start documenting the projects. Making them real by being out there. So, hopefully, I will see progress. It might not work, and I may not make the project pages visible/public, but it’s worth a try. Wish me luck!
I am doing a CPD course on the revised way of working post-Covid-19 for next academic year, called USW DEAL (Digitally Enabled Active Learning). Our first task was to reflect upon the following article: “Let’s lose the deficit language about online education” by Tansy Jessop from the University of Bristol
I’m a big fan of WonkHE, especially the podcast, which provides an interesting and diverse take on the issues facing HE every week; I definitely recommend it, as a good way to scope all the blogs, etc, that get produced on their site, which can be overwhelming to keep up with otherwise. Guest posts range from very practical to highly abstract, but all useful. However, apart from disliking the term “pivot to” as it implies a degree of choice and control that might be lacking – swerve madly to take the right fork in the road” might be more accurate – anything that gets us realistically talking about effective pedagogies is a good thing, in my book.
Reading the critique of the Media handling of this sudden change of delivery in (or rather outside) universities, but also schools and colleges, of course, begs the question why a revolution in Education is being debated in the Press. My own take was that it was more speculative, rather than prophetic in nature. Calling it naive is dismissive though. There is a lot of rhetorical language in the piece – a LOT! Such as “within an inch of” – that undermines the argument; it is almost an ad hominem attack on all journalists.
Furthermore, the apparently obvious decline in lecture attendance, presented as fact. While there is some evidence for lack of attendance and corresponding poor attainment, the literature also presents a weak positive correlation, to positive effects of access to archived lectures, which the author of this piece neatly forgets. Recordings are not a good substitute for lectures, online or otherwise, so long as they are interactive. However, while non-attendance at a lecture is a common reason given for accessing recordings, it is balanced by educationally beneficial reasons, such as note taking, reviewing learning, and assessment preparation. It must be remembered that there is a significant cost associated with coming on campus – for USW students it can be £6-£9 or even more, on public transport – and this highlights the need for effective timetabling. Ultimately, accessibility to learning materials is vastly improved for students with special educational needs, but the “kerb cut effect” will help those on the continuum between those with and without stated needs. One study in 2018 found “no evidence for a negative effect of recording use, or that attendance and recording use were related” (Nordmann et al 2018) and, more importantly, found that lecture capture was “most beneficial for first year undergraduates, particularly non native speakers. The four year study identified strong students as able to substitute attendance with recordings, while weaker students benefited from using it as a supplement to attending lectures. Of course, there are many papers citing small, local examples of attendance equating to better performance, but these don’t span the time that Nordmann’s study examined. However, when we are forced to deliver lectures online, and recording is effectively mandatory, as a result of it already being digital, and not wanting to negatively impact students, the most important question is to ask why a live lecture is more effective than a passive recording? And what, if anything, we need to do to reduce the potential negative effects of students only being able to access recordings.
Jessop seems to have a low impression of students as well, implying a conscious and informed choice in skimming lecture materials; there are many and varied reasons why students may find it difficult to attend at a particular time, and a particular place (or technology). Her assertion that only the OU were involved in effective online delivery is outdated. Several universities have been engaging in distance courses, at all levels, quite successfully, using a range of techniques and technologies, and not all adhering to the Open University model, even if it is an effective and adaptive approach, evolved over decades. She is right, though, that it is the ‘more traditional’ institutions that have adhered to the ‘chalk and talk’ habit. But the “new normal” (whatever that is!) is an opportunity Jessop identifies as (in my words) the ill wind; a disruptive act that allows us to consider change.
Jessop’s shopping list of opportunities is “a bit utopian” she recognises, but we finally get to her concerns over “deficit language”, by which I believe she means avoiding the “negative waves”; either the naysayers saying “Tried that… didn’t work…”
or the “We have no choice but to…” grudging adopters.
Thread: What’s wrong with "Deficit Language" anyway?
Thread 2 of 22 Posts in this Thread 0 Unread 0 Unread Replies to Me 1 hour agoMike Reddy What’s wrong with “Deficit Language” anyway? COLLAPSE
I’m a big fan of WonkHE, especially the podcast, which provides an interesting and diverse take on the issues facing HE every week; I definitely recommend it, as a good way to scope all the blogs, etc, that get produced on their site, which can be overwhelming to keep up with otherwise. Guest posts range from very practical to highly abstract, but all useful. However, apart from disliking the term “pivot to” as it implies a degree of choice and control that might be lacking – swerve madly to take the right fork in the road” might be more accurate – anything that gets us realistically talking about effective pedagogies is a good thing, in my book.
Reading the critique of the Media handling of this sudden change of delivery in (or rather outside) universities, but also schools and colleges, of course, begs the question why a revolution in Education is being debated in the Press. My own take was that it was more speculative, rather than prophetic in nature. Calling it naive is dismissive though. There is a lot of rhetorical language in the piece – a LOT! Such as “within an inch of” – that undermines the argument; it is almost an ad hominem attack on all journalists.
Furthermore, the apparently obvious decline in lecture attendance, presented as fact. While there is some evidence for lack of attendance and corresponding poor attainment, the literature also presents a weak positive correlation, to positive effects of access to archived lectures, which the author of this piece neatly forgets. Recordings are not a good substitute for lectures, online or otherwise, so long as they are interactive. However, while non-attendance at a lecture is a common reason given for accessing recordings, it is balanced by educationally beneficial reasons, such as note taking, reviewing learning, and assessment preparation. It must be remembered that there is a significant cost associated with coming on campus – for USW students it can be £6-£9 or even more, on public transport – and this highlights the need for effective timetabling. Ultimately, accessibility to learning materials is vastly improved for students with special educational needs, but the “kerb cut effect” will help those on the continuum between those with and without stated needs. One study in 2018 found “no evidence for a negative effect of recording use, or that attendance and recording use were related” (Nordmann et al 2018) and, more importantly, found that lecture capture was “most beneficial for first year undergraduates, particularly non native speakers. The four year study identified strong students as able to substitute attendance with recordings, while weaker students benefited from using it as a supplement to attending lectures. Of course, there are many papers citing small, local examples of attendance equating to better performance, but these don’t span the time that Nordmann’s study examined. However, when we are forced to deliver lectures online, and recording is effectively mandatory, as a result of it already being digital, and not wanting to negatively impact students, the most important question is to ask why a live lecture is more effective than a passive recording? And what, if anything, we need to do to reduce the potential negative effects of students only being able to access recordings.
Jessop seems to have a low impression of students as well, implying a conscious and informed choice in skimming lecture materials; there are many and varied reasons why students may find it difficult to attend at a particular time, and a particular place (or technology). Her assertion that only the OU were involved in effective online delivery is outdated. Several universities have been engaging in distance courses, at all levels, quite successfully, using a range of techniques and technologies, and not all adhering to the Open University model, even if it is an effective and adaptive approach, evolved over decades. She is right, though, that it is the ‘more traditional’ institutions that have adhered to the ‘chalk and talk’ habit. But the “new normal” (whatever that is!) is an opportunity Jessop identifies as (in my words) the ill wind; a disruptive act that allows us to consider change.
Jessop’s shopping list of opportunities is “a bit utopian” she recognises, but we finally get to her concerns over “deficit language”, by which I believe she means avoiding the “negative waves”; either the naysayers saying “Tried that… didn’t work…”
or the “We have no choice but to…” grudging adopters.
Thread: What’s wrong with "Deficit Language" anyway?
Thread 2 of 22 Posts in this Thread 0 Unread 0 Unread Replies to Me 1 hour agoMike Reddy What’s wrong with “Deficit Language” anyway? COLLAPSE
I’m a big fan of WonkHE, especially the podcast, which provides an interesting and diverse take on the issues facing HE every week; I definitely recommend it, as a good way to scope all the blogs, etc, that get produced on their site, which can be overwhelming to keep up with otherwise. Guest posts range from very practical to highly abstract, but all useful. However, apart from disliking the term “pivot to” as it implies a degree of choice and control that might be lacking – swerve madly to take the right fork in the road” might be more accurate – anything that gets us realistically talking about effective pedagogies is a good thing, in my book.
Reading the critique of the Media handling of this sudden change of delivery in (or rather outside) universities, but also schools and colleges, of course, begs the question why a revolution in Education is being debated in the Press. My own take was that it was more speculative, rather than prophetic in nature. Calling it naive is dismissive though. There is a lot of rhetorical language in the piece – a LOT! Such as “within an inch of” – that undermines the argument; it is almost an ad hominem attack on all journalists.
Furthermore, the apparently obvious decline in lecture attendance, presented as fact. While there is some evidence for lack of attendance and corresponding poor attainment, the literature also presents a weak positive correlation, to positive effects of access to archived lectures, which the author of this piece neatly forgets. Recordings are not a good substitute for lectures, online or otherwise, so long as they are interactive. However, while non-attendance at a lecture is a common reason given for accessing recordings, it is balanced by educationally beneficial reasons, such as note taking, reviewing learning, and assessment preparation. It must be remembered that there is a significant cost associated with coming on campus – for USW students it can be £6-£9 or even more, on public transport – and this highlights the need for effective timetabling. Ultimately, accessibility to learning materials is vastly improved for students with special educational needs, but the “kerb cut effect” will help those on the continuum between those with and without stated needs. One study in 2018 found “no evidence for a negative effect of recording use, or that attendance and recording use were related” (Nordmann et al 2018) and, more importantly, found that lecture capture was “most beneficial for first year undergraduates, particularly non native speakers. The four year study identified strong students as able to substitute attendance with recordings, while weaker students benefited from using it as a supplement to attending lectures. Of course, there are many papers citing small, local examples of attendance equating to better performance, but these don’t span the time that Nordmann’s study examined. However, when we are forced to deliver lectures online, and recording is effectively mandatory, as a result of it already being digital, and not wanting to negatively impact students, the most important question is to ask why a live lecture is more effective than a passive recording? And what, if anything, we need to do to reduce the potential negative effects of students only being able to access recordings.
Jessop seems to have a low impression of students as well, implying a conscious and informed choice in skimming lecture materials; there are many and varied reasons why students may find it difficult to attend at a particular time, and a particular place (or technology). Her assertion that only the OU were involved in effective online delivery is outdated. Several universities have been engaging in distance courses, at all levels, quite successfully, using a range of techniques and technologies, and not all adhering to the Open University model, even if it is an effective and adaptive approach, evolved over decades. She is right, though, that it is the ‘more traditional’ institutions that have adhered to the ‘chalk and talk’ habit. But the “new normal” (whatever that is!) is an opportunity Jessop identifies as (in my words) the ill wind; a disruptive act that allows us to consider change.
Jessop’s shopping list of opportunities is “a bit utopian” she recognises, but we finally get to her concerns over “deficit language”, by which I believe she means avoiding the “negative waves”; either the naysayers saying “Tried that… didn’t work…”
or the “We have no choice but to…” grudging adopters.
So, let us look at the list:
personalise learning – just in time learning is just training without the thoughtful review, and the time management requirement might be difficult in any event, let alone during lockdown
a shift from content-driven curricular – almost impossible for vocational courses, where a good deal of content, as well as technique is required. Furthermore, students have (in direct surveys, etc) expressed a desire not to have education delivered in small chunks; for that they can go to Coursera, edX and Youtube. They want/need a uniquely HE experience, which for them involves hour long lectures! Of course, we don’t talk at students for an hour solid – do we? I hope not!!! – but that hour is a planned series of experiences that are not neat little 5-7 minute video montages, surrounded with “interactive quizzes” that are as disruptive to learning as they can be helpful.
getting to grips with – no evidence that online material does this more effectively
drawing out different voices – I am a fan of Lave and Wenger’s “legitimate peripheral participation” so am never worried by the student who sits quietly at the back. An asynchronous, text based interaction does allow different voices, and levels access UNLESS SOMEONE USES ALL CAPS, OF COURSE. but it can be just as inhibiting as asking for contributions from the lecture hall, if not necessarily in the same way, or for the same people. A dyslexic student, who is quite eloquent, when speaking directly, might be discouraged from typing in a forum.
more inclusive – no evidence that online material does this more effectively (to plagiarise my earlier comment)
prompt all sorts of good things (hopefully) – see above
fixing “assignmentitis” – see above, but also why couldn’t these carefully designed tasks have happened before Covid-19?
promote all sorts of more good things – like many of the above, we need the “when done well” suffix, which applied (and still applies) to learning design generally, not just a “new normal” situation.
The major problem with all this is the one simple truth of educational reform: it will always mean more work, and more resources, to improve educational attainment; and here I mean for students AND staff. The second truth is that change always makes things worse (particularly technological change) before it (hopefully, but not always) makes things better. This also requires a level of good will on the part of everyone involved, and the best way to have this is to engage in participatory design, rather than a “if it does not kill them it cures them” experiment. All this is an unasked for, major change to their experience and expectations, and (as if we could ever forget) they are our employers as well as our customers. Mitigating the risks, and the negatives, is IMHO as important, right now, as trying to gain a few benefits.
We need to ask, and then to listen, and then to act, WITH students.
From a personal perspective, as Course Leader as well as just a lecturer, the three months of lockdown have fallen into three chunks: dealing with the immediate support of learning and assessment for students scattered to the four winds; supporting an overwhelmed admin team trying to create a no detriment system on the fly; and COBR style speculation as to the best course of action for a lockdowned Autumn Term; I’m of the opinion that it is better to expect the worst and assume fully online delivery next term (at least), and hope for the best, where we have some face2face activities.
I’m not holding my breath for f2f, and am trying to imagine what a computer lab session could be, without any computers; as we cannot assume that our students (particularly new students) will have a decent enough PC to do the work. Computer Games Development, my course, has a heavy tech requirement, in its traditional delivery. We have two of the best equiped labs in the whole university, but these won’t be much use if we cannot access them at all, or at reduced capacity, which would quadruple class contact times; neither does this account for the self-study time we schedule for students to guarantee access to this necessary kit, which usually means the labs are in continuous and heavy use during office hours, every week day.
Most of my teaching consists of professional skills and application of knowledge from other, more traditional content-oriented modules. Students engage in large group activities for six, twelve and twenty four week projects, and have been “forced” into using CSCW tools widely used in the Games Industry. so, fortunately, in my case, the shift to online was about as painless as it could have been. The only obstacle was the one of access to technology and the Internet, which some students struggled with. This, however, is an ongoing and perennial problem.
My course team has been excellent BTW and we are exploring the idea of sending the computer labs to the students, using raspberry PI 4s as development platforms, computer substitutes, and VPN terminals to access on campus resources, as a means of delivering our teaching for at least the first term, should we be as locked down as we were in the Spring. Colleagues have been willing to explore adapting, and even developing new materials, that could be delivered on a sub £100 device, which could be loaned (or even gifted!) to students. All they would need would be an HDMI capable TV (and no televisions in recent production do not have these) and a USB keyboard and mouse, which can be picked up for £5 in most supermarkets. For students without any computer access, these could act as standalone PCs – the latest model PIs are more than capable desktop substitutes – and would be more cost effective than trying to purchase or lease laptops for everyone. They would also be amazing freebies for students 🙂 which might allay any frustrations if f2f classes prove to be impossible. Although we are lucking in Computer Science to have such an option, I’d imagine that creative thinking by a course team, especially if they involve the students – the raspberry PI idea came from a recent graduate to give full credit! – could overcome many potential issues that a return to full lockdown might otherwise cause.
Whatever we do, we need to talk to the students, and involve them as much as we can!
* I much prefer to avoid the very loaded term “contract cheating”, so when compelled to use judgemental language I will use CC, if that is ok.
Firstly, you should probably watch this video (source):
I first saw this tweeted and retweeted by well known academic integrity/plagiarism experts; it’s always the usual suspects, as we’re a small group, and like to share 🙂
Before I go on, it’s important to state that we are all striving to find ways to communicate about, avoid if possible, and decide the fair penalty for various forms of academic misconduct. It’s safe to say we are mostly looking for prevention over penalty, so things like the video above are well intended. However…
The great video shared by @wsu_sap recently reminded me of another thing I had on my to-do list.
So, here it is. My “list” of things wrong with this video. But first, in the manner of those YouTube “influencers” who annoyingly tease some cool content, then spend 8 minutes of the 15 minute video saying other, irrelevant stuff like “Don’t forget to LIKE, Subscribe and click the Bell…” I want to couch my criticisms with the following statement.
Firstly, it is highly likely that this video was made by students themselves, or they were heavily involved in the creative task that led to its creation. This is, in principle, a good thing. “Not about us without us” is a well known phrase in Disability circles, meaning that we shouldn’t be preaching to, talking at or, far worse, speaking for others. They should be part of the debate. Part of the dialogue. So, if it is true that this comes uniquely from the student body at UNSW, that is no bad thing. Secondly, the criticisms I am going to raise may trigger people, and it is meant to begin a discussion about the mixed and loaded messages that can have unforeseen side-effects, and are not direct criticisms of those that were involved.
Ok, disclaimer over. Let us break down the video into its constituent parts, and assume that I haven’t had a sense of humour failure; you may not agree, or feel I am raising straw man arguments here, but my concern is tacit assumptions made, or inferred in the content of the video. Here goes, with a commented chronology of the piece. We open with two students, one male and one female, both Australian, judging by the accent; so possibly native students, rather than International. At least we have avoided one stereotype: that international students “cheat” more often than home students.
The assignment is set for a week’s time
The first concern: a very short deadline for summative work. In my institution, assignments for the year (for the Year!) are set in the Summer, internally and externallyt moderated, and made available to the students as soon as they start in September. While this does prevent some flexibility – I cannot set an assignment in light of topical events, unless the pre-written brief is suitably vague, or I go through a difficult late approval process – an assignment’s content and deadline should never be a surprise. This lets students gauge for themselves when the pinch points in their work time are going to be. Furthermore, we stagger assessment schedules to prevent clashes that could put students under additional pressure. Of course, that does not prevent a student from starting their coursework a week before the deadline, but that would then be their choice. Here, two students have summative assessment due in a week, presumably without having had prior knowledge of what it entailed. This is not good practice.
The young man gets to work
So, with strident Rocky style workout music behind him, the never named young man settles down to work hard on his assignment.
The young woman does not
With a lighthearted, whimsical soundtrack, the young woman, Vivian, is browsing social media in the Sun, without a care in the World. Clearly not taking this seriously. Lazy, perhaps? I might be being sensitive here, but the gender reversal is either deliberate, or accidental. Either way, there is a “one sex good, one sex bad” message.
Nice subliminal message about how great UNSW lecturers are… Note the LIKE
Nice subliminal advertising, UNSW! Even Vivian LIKEd the lecturer at the end of October.
Assignment Do-ers – I wonder if that URL is already taken?
Ah but scrolling down she sees… an Essay Mill ad! Now it is not uncommon for such ads to pop up. I regularly see them next to online newspaper articles about plagiarism, for example. I’d agree that trying to prevent students from seeing these, by holding the sites responsible or, in the Australian case, trying to make such adverts illegal, is a good thing to try. However, its of interest to note that the UNSW site this video is hosted on is often found by its students scanning a QR code on fake “essay help” flyers dotted around the campus; a sort of clever, beneficent honey trap. Suffice it to say, it is going to be impossible to stop students from seeing such advertising. Essay mills paper drop, and employ student advocates, so even an ISP or search engine ban is not going to prevent access to these services.
Do I have enough money?
Clearly, Vivian is quite impulsive, and has decided on the “easy life” of commissioning an essay from this mill.
Lie back and relax
Lazy times ahead. I think they say “No worries!” don’t they?
Hitting the books
Working hard, our intrepid, still unnamed male student hits what we old timers used to call “A… BOOK…”. Clearly, an autonomous learner.
Sepia tones! This can’t be good!!!
The World goes grey, and the music is tense and stabby! ~Bad things are going to happen to Vivian.
Oh noes! Blackmail!!!
There is something wrong here. Vivian has not yet submitted any work and, therefore, has not committed an offence. In fact, although most of us don’t really believe it, essay mill sites use the “This is just a study guide” defence, and post disclaimers that their work should not be submitted as is. It has worked as a potential legal defence, even if most of us believe it to be disingenuous. So, not yet an offence! Although this is meant to represent the very real threat of blackmail, there would be no reason for Vivian to pay up. BUT note the date, the 18th November. It could be we are seeing things out of order; this is a film, after all, and this sort of thing has been known to happen in movies. However, there are some major plot holes to deal with next though, if this IS the future.
Burning the candle
Unnamed man is still working hard on his expensive MacBook. He doesn’t have problems accessing hardware and software. He doesn’t appear to have financial concerns, food insecurity, homelessness, learning in a second language, or any of the many outside pressures that students are placed in daily. Mind you, neither does Vivian. And that’s rather telling.
Uh oh! Something seems off
Oh dear. BUT note the date, the 12th November, a week earlier… So, we have a paradox to fix. Either Vivian handed in her bought essay on or before the 12th November, and just happens to wear the same clothes and sit on the same piece of lawn regularly, or the lecturer saw a draft copy of the assignment, and as it hasn’t been submitted as summative assessment yet – this not yet being an offence – and has some concerns about the essay. At this stage, if students are given the chance to submit drafts for formative feedback, issues about poor academic skills can be identified. Of course, we have all heard tell of essay mills providing drafts, and revising an essay based on tutor feedback, but no system is perfect. BUT (as we are to see) Unnamed man hasn’t even submitted yet.
Time to submit, yey!Relief!
Our student with no name seems relieved and happy, but then bumps into Vivian, who has just received her “something odd” message from the lecturer (huh?). Or is it the blackmail message, sent a week later? Either way, how did HE get a week’s extension, no matter what the date? Or why would she put in a bought essay a week early? She would have had time to write one herself. Is she really that lazy? Or stupid? Or both?
Woman on the EDGE!!!
Vivian barges past Unnamed man, clearly in distress. Why does he not ask her how she is? They seemed friendly at the start.
Man steals her drink?
He seems unconcerned, even helping himself to her hastily discarded drink!
I hear “someone” got done for cheating. Who would do that? Pretty crazy…
“I heard someone got done for cheating.” Who WOULD do that? BUT more importantly, how would he know? Academic misconduct is and should be a confidential matter. If Unnamed man ‘knows’ about it – and he clearly knows WHO it is too, as we shall see – then a breach of privacy and trust has occurred. This is a major problem, as generally we as academics want students to learn from these poor choices, if choices there were. There has to be the redemptive path in the manner with which academic misconduct is dealt with. A way to learn from mistakes.
… Pretty crazy, considering all the free services that UNSW offers to its students
“Pretty crazy, given all the free services that UNSW offers to its studentd.” Services that our young man clearly didn’t use. Although it is fun to see the fourth wall broken 🙂 it IS important to remember, though, that there are support services there for struggling students. The problem is that, at no point, is Vivian represented as a struggling student. While there will always be a minority of offenders, who could be labelled as “lazy”, the majority were in positions where they felt they had no other choice. A desperate choice isn’t a choice at all!
But remember…
“If it’s not your words, it’s not your work!” It’s a catchy line, and quite true. But this doesn’t help the majority of students who are making poor choices in how to handle their stressful situations. Maybe they were let into the university without the right level of English proficiency? Who’s fault would it be then?
VIVIAN! CAN I SEE YOU NOW PLEASE!!!
Vivian is bellowed at, to go see her tutor. Clearly, this is time for her comeuppance. And the young man chuckles conspiratorially… He knows who cheated. He’s smug, listening to the harsh tones of the (offscreen) lecturer. As well as dealing with the consequences of the offence, she will now have to deal with the judgement of her cohort; I find it hard to believe that he will keep that juicy gossip to himself.
And that’s the end of the video. Notionally, a well intended offering, attempting to warn students of the consequences of CC (see earlier). However, it makes several unwise, or unfair assumptions in the manner in which it represents the offence, and the offender. Vivian is not representative of those who, sadly, fall prey to Essay Mills. They aren’t monied, lazy students, but are often having to deal with many factors in their lives. The majority are in the unenviable position of feeling they have limited choices, and too proud or stubborn or lost to reach out for the (often cut and reduced) services that are available.
tl;dr
Well intentioned, but misrepresentative; disrespectful of the people in difficult circumstances; unlikely to address those most at risk, because it trivialises their experience.
I am in the process of revamping – resuscitating? <charging whine> “Clear!” <kajunk!> – my dusty old blog and web site. Why now? Well, you only really value something when it is gone. And this web site did disappear for a short while 🙁
Several years ago, when I was a little more active in games journalism, I was sponsored by Paco Garcia from G*M*S Magazine, who supported several budding writers at the time, providing them with a web site at his own expense; sort of like the patrons of old, before Patreon existed. And doctormikereddy.com was one of these, registered with 1&1 (owners of Ionos, of which more later), and set up by Paco with a shiny new WordPress install. All was great, even though my time and energy to write waxed and waned over the years, until he forgot to renew the domain name registration. It was an oversight, of course, but an expensive one.
I only knew that the site was down when someone tried to access the downloads section of my Sifteo Resurrected page; one of the most popular items on the server, as it is the only repository of software and games for the now defunct Sifteo Cubes, along with hacks to get the software working for them, now that the remote servers are no more. (For more information on that, click the link.) The person contacted me on Reddit to say that the links didn’t work, and I went to my page to find out that the domain name was “up for auction”, which came as an unpleasant surprise. After an email or two to Paco, it turned out that he had ‘lost’ several domain names through a repeat subscription to 1&1 failing, and that the cooling off period for re-registrations had lapsed. I had no alternative but to bid on my own domain name.
I complained, of course, but Ionos – a domain name “parking” service – said this would take so long to process that the auction would be over 🙁 and so I reluctantly bid the “minimum” bid of $79, which added to the fees for transferring and re-registering with my domain name supplier ukreg,com (aka Fasthosts), came to just short of £100. I also needed a server for the site now, but Fasthosts, who are very good by the way, had a reasonable package. The total cost of Paco’s mistake is probably about £200, give or take a bit, for a little cyber piracy and reclaiming the site. Fortunately, Paco had access to backup the files and database for me; the server was still there, even if the domain name lapsed.
So, as I have paid for the damn thing, I thought I better learn how to set everything up, and actually use it! And here we are. Learning PHP, WordPress, SQL and even Drupal! And, hopefully, you as well as I will reap the benefits 😀
The archive of v2 (the second generation of) Sifteo Cube games at https://doctormikereddy.com/sifteo-resurrecting-a-legend/ has an Application folder, containing the .elf compressed game files, and a Brochure folder, containing images and HTML files, which server as the banners, as well as instruction pages inside the Sifteo Sync App. However, the games (and accompanying files) I managed to retrieve, and get permission to upload, was sadly incomplete. Notably, the game icon (thumbnail) for the Sandwich Kingdom sequel, Ice Palace; two detail/instruction images for Word Caravan; similar files and images for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle game, Ninja Slide; and other so called “landing pages” for a couple of other games. Although, I did, in the end, get access to a more complete archive of the Brochure files (via a fan on Reddit, called mechafroggie), I did manage to reconstruct the missing images from a set of nefarious places on the Internet. This blog post tells that story…
It’s iconic!
Firstly, let’s work out the missing icon for Sandwich Kingdom, Ice Palace. This was relatively easy, because some of the old Sifteo web site is preserved on the Wayback Machine at http://web.archive.org/web/20150329211129/https:/www.sifteo.com/games and while many of the games landing pages, etc, are missing, the navigation strip is complete. A quick Save as… and we had our first missing image:
This needs to go in the brochure in a specific location, in a specific format: icon.png in the folder com.sifteo.skicepalace inside the Sifteo Sync AppData folder at C:\Users\<insertID>\AppData\Local\Sifteo\Sync\Users\nobody@sifteo.com\Booklets\com.sifteo.skicepalace and needed to be 96×96 pixels like the one for its predecessor:
The original Sandwich Kingdom icon
Here is the resized version, ready to go in the right folder:
and in the context of the navigation strip, before:
and after:
Not too shabby 🙂 After this, until mechafroggie got me the complete files – even his archive didn’t have the Ice Palace icon – I had the following files missing from the Brochure folder:
word-caravan-0.png and word-caravan-1.png from C:\Users\<InsertID>\AppData\Local\Sifteo\Sync\Users\nobody@sifteo.com\Booklets\com.sifteo.wordcaravan\images
tmnt-1.png, tmnt-2.png and tmnt-4.png from C:\Users\<InsertID>\AppData\Local\Sifteo\Sync\Users\nobody@sifteo.com\Booklets\com.sifteo.ninja_slide\images
So, we had a complete Word Caravan and Ninja Slide brochure folders 🙂 Incidentally, the files that mechafroggie provided were – because I was judging by eye, sometimes with a fleeting glimpse of the target image in a YouTube video (!) – almost identical to the ones I recreated. However, in the accompanying archive update for the v2 games, I have (with the exception of the first icon.png file) used the reclaimed original images, rather than my Gimped versions; it’s nicer to have the authentic files 🙂
Janine wasn’t sure when she first started to go mad. It was either the cut carrots calling out, or the parsnips pleading as the oven heated up to roasting speed. She’d been a vegetarian for decades. A vegan ever since her wedding to Tom, the variety artist. But although he joked that while “meat is murder, but fish is justifiable homicide” he had honoured her wishes to not eat dead animal for the unhappiness of their short marriage.
Janine knew Tom had married for money, but he had always quietly respected her “life choices.” (She imagined him bunny earring the quotes.) and had foresworn the flesh.
So, when the carrots anguished their burns as they boiled, then bathed in butter, and the parsnips screamed to not be ovened, she snapped.
The potatoes remained half mashed, bewailing their half dead. She could not eat. Tom took over, and was sympathy itself. No, he had not heard voices. It must be all the stress of recent days getting to her, mustn’t it? Would she like soup, or a smoothie? Janine could only picture fruit screaming bloody in the blender.
When the police came at the insistence of the ambulance crew, who could not believe a grown woman would willingly starve herself in her own home, the Detective Sergeant was non-plussed, especially when his boss insisted they arrest the husband, even though there was no evidence of incarceration or abuse. The Inspector looked his underling in the eye. “He’s a ventriloquist, Danny. Now book him!”
While it would be better to use something like a Tesla Powerwall, to store excess electricity for the afternoon peak and nighttime usage, and only having enough panels to charge it and cover daytime requirements, the payback for extra generation is a factor. A solar household typically gets a lot less per Kilowatt Hour (KWh) than we pay for incoming energy – usually under <4p for outgoing but ~15p for incoming KWh – but the Feed in Tariff does factor into the economics of getting/maintaining micro generation of electricity. If you are regularly creating excess energy you’ve probably paid for too many panels, which would extend the time to the break even point, but not being paid anything for this extra electricity will force households to go ‘off grid’ which will affect the bottom line of the Energy Companies, and Government taxation, rather than discourage home owners from going Solar. With the advent of electric cars, we’ll all be looking to the Sun for our future.
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