Fitting in with the new Literacy Outcomes, I think I have been to the movies more recently than in my entire life! (And staying in is meant to be the new going out, never was one for keeping up with trends!). Having said that, I’ve also been reading a lot more also. Finally managed to get to see Watchmen.

The old viewing companion had bartered that I had to read the book first before watching. Is this ever a good idea? It can only ever result in the immortal lines, it’s not as good as the book… Especially a comic, sorry, graphic novel. I didn’t really ever get into reading graphic novels (or grovels as per the website!). Roy of the Rovers was about as far I made it, or those little Commando booklets, guess they were some sort of hybrid inbetweeners. It does change how you read though, as you can’t just scan through the text, there is a lot more going on, with the images contributing much more to the story than you might expect.

There seemed to be a quite a few end points in the film, but instead of drawing to a close, it kicked on again. I guess they managed to make a somewhat easier ending for the mass market. Some great performances, notably Rorschach. Some great costumes, enough to rival a gig by The Darkness, or even Alice Cooper in his prime. Having no BIG names, was also beneficial, as first, they could never be the bad guy, or they usually don’t die. So you try to pay more attention to the setting, to the scene, to the character. It’s also nice in a way not to have a lovely happy ending. Perhaps the heroes did save the world, but by deceit and death… nice.

The Damned United. 44 days at Leeds. Mr Clough, famous for so much success at Forest, but the focus was failure here. I didn’t say his failure, the story alludes to the fact that the club, or more notably, the players, failed their new manager. They failed to move on, when their previous mnager, father figure, Don Reevie did. He ended up where by the way? The explosion of Cloughism on the tv and the bookshelves owes itself to what? To this film? Very interesting that this film ventures back to simplicity, to engaging performance and dialogue. To the viewers being gripped by the performances and on-going feud/relationship/obsession between the main characters. Michael Sheen, as Clough, compels, almost commands the viewer to watch, such is the strenght of his performance/presence.

Sport is obviously big business. Even back then Clough correctly forecast the importance of the money, of the big personalities. Leading me nicely to the legend that is Sir Jeff of Stelling. Soccer Saturday has transformed the weekend. No longer do we have to wait for teletext to refresh it’s bold, green, pages, we now can watch people on the tele, watching their own tele, talking about a match that we cannot see. It does sound ludicrous, but it is just the business. Although our good friends at the Beeb have desperately tried to replicate it, that red button just does not cut the mustard…

The one liners make it. The banter. The in jokes. The knowledge. I am so looking forward to Jelleyman’s Thrown a Wobbly. Surely it should have been released pre-Christmas, this is the gift for the man that has everything, and needs no more power tools or socks!

Mark Steel had plenty to say for himself at The Old Fruit Market.  It’s ok, he was on stage, not just rambling.  Although some of his best stuff did announce itself during his rants.  Strangely we’d been having a discussion about Marxism and Communism earlier (thanks scott), as we ate in the Russian Bar Cafe place just round the corner.  I was desperately trying to remember some of the words I had learned and used on my travels in Kiev.  Somehow, “where is the railway station” didn’t really have a place when speaking to the waiter.  I was quite proud of my correct pronounciation of Borscht and the fact that I knew what it was.  By the main course I had even got up to the use of please and thank you.  (Simbo, you would be so proud!).  Steel had plenty of ammunition from his socialist locker, and many an astute observation on the current political climate (a vehicle for his soap box perhaps?).  The 2nd half, as halves usually come in pairs, was by most peoples comments a tad indepth and intense… more Billy Connolly someone did cry… Steel managed to direct the Glasgow Banter well, allowing for it, but not drowning in it.  Due to the slight concussion suffered in the morning amble round the pitch I withdrew from going to the late “The Late Show”, which is meant to be some sort of festival show case.  Next year, I must make more of March.  Well, I want to party like it’s my birthday!  Which it was, but it was tricky to go for it the weekend, after a week long residential away with the class…

The good people at amazon sent out a convoy with some new CDs for me.  Like London Buses, I hadn’t seen one for a while, then four came at once.

The Airborne Toxic Event – s/t. Liking the west Coast Easy Rock vibe of these, with a definite highlight being Some Time Around Midnight.

Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fund. Have heard numerous tracks from these guys over the last while, although I hadn’t realised just how many albums they have released! Not easy listening. Songs are deep, dark, intense, espresso coffee rather than Earl Grey.

Bell X1 – Blue Lights on the Runway – there are one or two tracks that you can instantly latch onto, but there is a lot here that is, so far, forgettable. Despite the ongoing negotiations with Brother Phil over the goodness of Flock, this is not a patch on Music in Mouth, which is excellent, loud and full of attitude. I do like the way they write songs with lyrics which seem light, fluffy and fun, but at the same time with deeper overtones. A grower?

Howling Bells – Radio Wars. Now I loved their first album, don’t we all! Can you ever release something as good as the album that brought you to the attention of everyone, everywhere! (The curse of the net?) What attracted me to the HBs (apart from Juanita!) was the raw, rough, edgy sounds, and although the vocals were restricted, they did exactly what they should. This new album though, I probably need to give it more time. It is a new direction. Perhaps that is progress? It is a lot more poppy, but a lot less memorable. Guess I should stick it on again!

Which leads me to the Howling Bells @ The Classic Grand. Not a classic venue. I think it would be great with round tables and an unplugged vibe or perhaps some jazz… nice. The bar is far nosier than even the ABC, and a lot more intrusive than Tuts or Barras… They opened with a number of tracks off the new album, which did nothing to hook the somewhat random mix of folks that made up the crowd. The band seemed to struggle with the new songs, especially vocally, not suiting the lovely singers range. Perhaps it was more a PA issue, since as the set moved onto a mix of tracks from their albums, things seemed to improve somewhat. The standouts were the “big” tracks off the first album, Setting Sun, Blessed Night, that sort of thing. Juanita made an appearance in the middle of the crowd for her creepy spider song, that freaks out the gig wife… this though seemed to help overcome her fear… the encore was a very strange choice of song, i’ve forgotten it, but there was a lot more stage presence during it than during the rest of the gig. So as most school reports have said at one time, shows potential, room for improvement, has a good understanding but could apply it better!  Read Scott also.

Having been on a 3 day Cooperative Learning course over our 2 inservice days (yea, don’t ask!) I thought I would try and make a big deal of incorporating this into some of our ongoing Moving Image work, maybe also trying to link to Active Learning… thus multi-dividending, ticking every box within range.

Had a conversation with a pal about watching trailers of movies that the class couldn’t get to see.  The trailer was deemed suitable for all ages by the film board, but the film, The Watchmen was an 18.  Any thoughts?  They will have probably seen a trailer in the cinema, or on the net, and may even get to see the film before me!  We were looking at character profiles, with this film being ideal, as the characters are, obviously, key to the film, stand out, unique, quite easy to begin to analyse at a simple level and develop further.

We worked with our cooperative learning groups at creating graffiti boards with character description, amazing adjectives, blah blah etc.  After having a look at 4 or 5 main characters, we then had the thoughts of the entire class in front of us.  From this we were to create a description, profile, newspaper article, start of a news report about the appearance of one of these characters.  We then recorded a few of these, using our flip camera, which I hope to get online soon.  Interesting that some of those who wrote powerful pieces didn’t want to be recorded, but those who struggled to write their pieces were happy to have their equally powerful descriptions recorded orally.  Is that as valid?  With regard to it being a piece of writing, does it not have to be written?  Or is it a stepping stone, boosting confidence, showing capability, creating supported opportunity?

We have repeated this activity using a short film called The Monk and the Fish, available on the BFI Story Shorts DVD.  These characters are a lot simpler and I guess more subtle.  Yet due to the experience of working with The Watchmen, the class produced equally good descriptions and profiles of, basically, bland characters.

Classic Clint? Back to those Spaghetti Western Dirty Harry glory days?  Some might say.  He seems to carve out a character, with little words and certainly no bling.  Yet, you grow to understand and even like these characters, due to their sheer simplicity(?).  Without giving too much away, which is kind of pointless these days with the amount of spoilers and ads any mild internet user can stumble upon, Clint plays a Korean war vet, much the same age as well, er, Clint.  He has his Few Dollars More voice, but with added husk and croak!

This film makes you laugh, a lot.  It also makes you angry, think, and at times, slightly upset.  Watching it with an analyser of culture, looking for talking points for his higher classes is also very interesting.  Themes of salvation and redemption are prevalent here, but maybe slightly spoilt by less than subtle displays of crucifixion. There is also retaliation and violence, with a nice learning point, that perhaps, boys and girls, this isn’t always the best way!  As I said, there are a lot of laughts, a lot of non-pc laughs that you wonder who else they would let away with.  But a disgruntled, grumpy old man, basically, is entitled to say it how it is, or at least how he sees it, I guess.

IMDB entry.  Official Website.

After seeing The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas with P7, I continued the World War 2 theme with Valkyrie.  Even with Tom Cruise in the lead role, it proves to be a gripping, interesting and enjoyable film.  The disclaimer of being “based” on a true story gives a bit of license to the creators but it does come across as fairly balanced.  The cast list reads as a whose who of mature British actors with a bit of experience in costume or historical drama.  Guess they make the best officers, stiff upper lip and all that.  This would be a fascinating area to discover more about, especially as part of a project.  It goes some way to explaining how difficult it is to stand up against an oppressive system.

As part of our Moving Image in Education project, we have been given a Flip Camera.  There is quite a bit of buzz about these just now, basically as they are so easy to use.  They have only a few buttons and don’t even need a cable.

Tom writes a lot about them and has even set up this ideas bank!  There does seem to be a little glitch in that Windows Media Player only plays back the audio of the .avi files.  To fix this you just need run the Windows 3ivx installer.  Full details here!

We unboxed ours after lunch at 1pm.  We had some science experiments recorded, uploaded and playing back on our SMARTBoard by 1:45pm.  Not bad going.  Where would be the best place to host videos?  TeacherTube?  Or just on own file space?

On Friday we had visitors!  It was great to finally meet KimP (aka Mrs P from the allstars!) and her headteacher Gail.  We’ve been exchanging blogging comments for a couple of years now and have developed ideas and use of ict in a similar way, often exchanging or inspiring ideas. The class were very excited to meet someone new, especially someone from Australia!  Thanks to Mrs V for bringing them along.

We could have been there all day, the list of questions was endless.  That was great to see, enquiring minds.  It was a Friday afternoon, so anything would have been a miracle, but to get such good listening and questioning was excellent.  We also showed our visitors some of our ICT resources, all be it in a Golden Time style!

Before we met the class we had a bit of a chat downstairs and Gail asked us what we used ICT for, especially in regard to gaming.  This gave us the opportunity to actually think of all that we have done, even in the last year.

• Piloted Buzz the Schools Quiz, and still use in Mental Maths, Language, Golden Time and to improve General Knowledge.
• We use some Web based services for brain training type things, notably Tutpup and Spelling City.
• We have invested in Education City as a school and use it in many curricular areas, especially in the Early Years and Enhanced Provision classes.
• We have been using Big Brain Academy on Wii in Language and Maths.
• We used Sonic and Mario at the Olympics as a simulus during the Olympics!
• We use Wii Sports for Maths.
• We are planning projects using Guitar Hero on PS2 and Endless Ocean on Wii.
• We have used a number of web based games (e.g. samorost) for creative writing.
• We have used and will continue to use Myst for creative writing.

I feel we are just scratching the surface with what we could do. But obviously we have Active Learning, Story Line and other approaches being promoted within the school, so there needs to be a balance I guess!

Hurrah!  I’ve had a photo published, well sort of, virtually, on a site I hadn’t heard of, Schmap.  I hadn’t even taken my proper camera with me to Germany, but am delighted that the randomness that makes me take this sort of photo has proved useful to somebody!

Here’s the direct link.  Schmap provides detailed mobile friendly maps, obviously designed with web access from your mobile in mind.  An interesting feature seems to be the option of creating a map of your local area, place of work etc, which you can have a direct link to.  Guess it is an alternative to just doing your general google map… as it is also a city guide and tourist information leaflet… worth a look…

Had one of those great after work put the world to rights and sort out next term type chats today.  One of my colleagues jumped on board with the idea of improving an Animal classification/conservation topic by using Endless Ocean as the stimulus.  All the usual learning that goes on with regard to land animals could easily be replaced/supplemented/extended by being marine based.

However, tonight I then realised that why not keep it on land with Wild Earth African Safari?  Both offer an obvious route in to the topic and endless options of avenues to explore…  I was thrilled that my colleague responded with such enthusiasm.

Another staff member has already lined up Guitar Hero for the summer term project.  Currently I’m searching for something to form the crux of a Comparative Study project, looking at Scotland and a Developing World country.  Any thoughts, any ideas?  Suggestions of games warmly received!

btw how slow is this new editor!?