White bread for the sandwich

Been hard at it today preparing a session on information literacy for the next crop of unsuspecting lecturers on the PGCHET course. Not sure quite how we got this gig, but management showing a lot of interest so clearly this is regarded as premium content! Have chucked a spoonful of Brabazon, a pinch of CIBER, a proclamation and a couple of definitions into the pot, along with a little exercise, a discussion and of course a video clip from YouTube. Should be fun. Bound to be a few stroppy individuals in the group (whadda we have to do this fooooor, doncha know I’ve got groundbreaking experiments to set up and module descriptors to obsess over). I know; I am technically still one of the stroppy individuals on the course, having survived 2 modules and trying to gear up to get some material together for module 3.

While juggling powerpoints and generally cogitating, am finally sampling the benefits of Last.fm. Very cool music selections, can go into my happy space while I work.

But back to work now… need to leave early today to go to my unhappy place: the dentist. Then might juggle a few more CDG draft strategy revisions around into what is fast becoming yet another document of doom, albatross-on-a-roll, ticket to Confusion Central.

The unbearable lightness of cookies

Today the librarians bring home made food for a library workers’ buffet. We tell the assistants just to turn up and get fed and they seem to appreciate this. One colleague’s daughter has baked a sackload of raisin cookies, so we award her an honorary Higher to go with the rest of today’s exam results. Feel a bit sluggish all afternoon and wonder just what was in those cookies…

Meet with IT Training colleague to discuss what we are going to say in an hour’s teaching slot we’ve bagged on the PGCHET. Feeling singularly uninspired but then remember best remedy is plagiarism and ask another librarian whether I can beg borrow or steal an activity she did at a staff development event way back when.

Start to prepare sessions for the summer school that isn’t proper summer school – still don’t know whether I will have 5 or 25 students or which disciplines they will be covering. Programme is quite tight so despair over lack of time to fit much in. Even though apparently I talk fast.

Member of staff rings up with questions about Google Scholar. She has mysteriously found a PDF of an article to which we don’t subscribe… luck of the draw… good chance to tell her though that various current mysteries will be resolved soon and behold I bring all new subject guides to the portal.

Thinking I should really start looking at my next Presidential report for CDG tonight. Dashed off a quick book review for Scottish Division newsletter, Focus, this morning. Also making headway organising another Revalidation event – some folk are still registered for the process even though ultimately it is going to disappear and be replaced with a light touch CPD scheme.

Ah, constant change, what can you do?

Aaaaaahhhhhh

<nonsense>

As a child, I used to frequent East Ham Swimming Baths, usually in the company of a particular friend. The cafe did a mean cup of Horlicks and would sometimes inexplicably give you more than one cup each and only charge you the usual price. We developed all manner of conspiracy theories about this and used to work out devious methods and superstitions to guarantee the extra portions. (Incidentally this young friend and I also developed conspiracy theories about something called ‘trick bombs’, otherwise known as any old piece of junk found on the street or on Wanstead Flats, the local dogwalking haunt.) This is what happens when children are over-exposed to Marxism at a young age

But I digress. My point is that the same experience applied to my day of struggling to migrate portal pages. The web editor has a mind of its own. I have to fiddle with the HTML, then with the Editor, then back to the HTML, in order to correct the size of the section headings. When I do things in a certain bizarre order, eating pistachio nuts, humming the 1812 overture and stirring my Diet Coke widdershins, it sort of works out.

Met with one of my preferred company reps today, talks plain English, has personality, responds to your emails and doesn’t inundate you with spam, you know the kind. Also met with the PGCHET programme tutor. It’s getting complicated as I am now both a student (reluctantly) and a tutor (less reluctantly) on the PGCHET course. Not quite sure how I’m going to fit it all in next year…

…but I will have to try and fit it in due to the grand Objection setting extravaganza whereby I commit myself to 6 impossible things over the course of the year, or else get thrown off Tay Bridge. Am thinking of blowing objections/-ives list up to A1, laminating, wheeling on every week so I can laugh at what I haven’t achieved. Much as used to take place on the Friday Night Armistice back in 1997 with Labour’s election promises (anyone remember – the lovely Armando Ianucci and friends?)

Ooh and we had our 3rd Book Group meeting. Charlotte Mendelson declared generally enjoyable, good writing although most of the characters drove us batty. Am glad to be an only child. Next month we are reading Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

Hey, can anyone out there recommend any good Big Finish Audio Doctor Who titles for my holiday? It’s a month away but I am desperate for the break already and half the fun is in the anticipation of specific pleasures…

</nonsense>

Squashed tomatoes and stew

37 today… getting dangerously close to the big four-oh. Am I still in my mid-thirties or have I crossed into the shark-infested waters of the late thirties? Never mind, I get to play my lovely new cherrywood recorder that smells all yummy. Mr Amazon may smile upon me also.

Book group today, fairly much did a hatchet job on Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale. Contrived? Possibly. So much tragedy in the family and yet so hard to really care about any of the people. Have agreed no more tortured artists and something fun for next time (jury still out…)

Reporting is taking over – information literacy seems to be one strategic document after another these days. Trying to write programme reports, made stupid decision to start with programme where I have the most extensive input (biomedical sciences). Need to map so many variables against each other that I will require at least seven dimensions. Analysing things brings me dangerously close to uncontrollable weeping fits. (So decided extra cake and clothes shopping trip were in order…)

Frined reports that her nearly 2 year old has a vocabulary of 10 words, one of which is TARDIS. Good lad: he’ll go far.

Hopefully succeeded in convincing PGCHET examiner that she wants us to include information literacy input intot he taught module. We have all-singing all-dancing plans plus theory and content to go. Fortunately she is a social software enthusiast so we may be able to satisfy that angle. Programme tutor keen on fireside chats over nice wine in the local Tasting Rooms, he wants to start including IL tutors as regular part of the team, can you see where I’m going with this?! (Excellent conflict of interests as I am also a reluctant student ont he course, and have just hopefully scraped a C in the second module, aka Curriculum Deisgn, aka Module of Doom). If I write module 3 based on reflections on teaching input to the PGCHET I may in fact disappear right up my own module descriptor.

Surely it must be time for a little scampi and chardonnay?

The 60 second blogger

<blogpost> I am giving myself exactly one minute to write today’s post (otherwise I’ll miss my train). Spent a lot of today working on a long-neglected assignment for the PGCHET course. Writing about information literacy and programme design – it’s dry but I amass 2500 words without trying very hard. Amazing what we know about our profession when we have to explain it to outsiders. </blogpost>