Faith groups

I read an article in the papers today illuminating the growth of faith communities. Politicians and pastors a like met to discuss the roles in which these groups can play in local communities. While I respect the right of individuals to undertake their private beliefs, I'm very sceptical when I see the words religion and politics in the same sentence. However well intentioned these people are, faith is not the answer to solving problems like housing, fuel prices and the like. Although what some of the faith groups said on increasing understanding and diversity is to be welcomed, faith is still very much a cleavage and is very divisive. The inclusion of groups in community initiatives and activities could create more problems than solve them.

Third camp physicians

I experienced not one, not two, but THREE consultants applauding vehemently when I mentioned the dreaded word "socialism" at a meeting with the Royal College of Physicians on the subject of co-payments last week. Does this suggest that instead of reading medical journals consultants are reading Capital and the New Left Review? Are we in a pre-revolutionary situation? Are we going to see the Countryside Alliance calling for workers control? Make haste comrades and don't stop until the pips squeak!

Food for thought?

The highlight of my trip back to Norwich is to partake in a Delia Smith charged meal on the restraunt car of the train. Sometimes you are joined by Mail on Sunday journalists who are always a danger, Daily Telegraph who are even more of a danger, fortunately though you do meet an odd nice constituent. The meals are excellent and usually finish by the time you get to Ipswich.

To take that service away will destroy I think the concept of British rail travel, which has been part of our lives for years, from getting a bacon roll in the morning to sitting down to dinner in the evening. So many people rely on this on the way back home from London. By the time I arrive back in Norwich it can be as late as 11 which is far too late to be getting pots and pans out to cook a meal. This service is well appreciated, well used and helps to make ammends for what is a pretty poor service with there often not being enough seats for passengers, services being severly delayed and cancelled. The decision to cut this service makes no sense at all.

Tony Benn spoke in the Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich yesterday afternoon and unsuprisingly captivated a large audience with his views, especially on democracy. Although an elder statesman (yes he's older than me!) he is still as quick as a whistle. He said it was clear that Bush needed Blair's political support on Iraq, the fact that it would be more pallitable internationally if it was not just America "going it alone" so to speak. The troops that went with the support that Blair gave, Benn went on to say weren't needed.

Please check the member list!

Here is the latest list of members of Etsy Twitter. Please check it over as it will be sent to make this an official team on Monday. If you are not on it, please convo me on Etsy: http://scraparcs.etsy.com . Thanks!
-scraparcs

3zart
acageybee
adnagam
AmbientLights
Ameesadornments
amorevivo
AngelKissesJewelry
ara133photography
arawlins
artmixter
babycakes1011
bamdesigns
BellflowerTextiles
blackbird72
crochetgal
cupcakechristmas
curiousmess
CutthroatBodyArt
EirewolfCreations
elysiumbeads
Emmakat
flutteringdesigns
flyingzoo
gemheaven
GemsByJerri
GulfCoastCottagePDF
handmadebydiana
HomemadeZen
humblethings
IguanaMakeIt
inmyheadstudios
invitesbyjen
jermantowicz
jewelcraftdesigns
joojy
journeyoflovedesigns
kimforbeads
koup
KreatedbyKelly
kyko
laurali
LazyTcrochet
LCFashion
lelephantrose
littlealouette
LMcreation
LMcreation
lpathia
MaineLeeCrochet
MeaCulpaBodyandBath
miapie
missficklemedia
mixdclay
mommylion
moonofglass
Morganmelim
mufi
MysticStarTreasures
MySweetThree
noadi
pancakesandnoodles
pandjcrafts
Parrish
PenguinwareBoutique
pinksugarninja
prettywhimsical
racheljasmine
rainbowrevolution
ReneeSuich
RockisSupplies
RoseBushDesigns
seedtobead
SimplyShell
soaprehab
somavenus
starrydeborah
stitchingcrafts2
StylinPupPillows
SugarAndSpice
sunrisecrafts
tangocatgems
TheCupcakery
thepinksamurai
thewildhare
Timeless
TweedleBee
umlauf
vickijoycedesigns
VKnO

How to act against detention

I went to see the play "Motherland" a couple of nights ago with performances from Juliet Stevenson and Harriet Walter. The play is based on experiences of refugees seeking asylum in the UK being detained in detention centres. It was a very moving performance, but more importantly it highlighted the disgraceful treatment that many receive when seeking asylum in this country, particularly children. Many families have come here seeking asylum from oppression and violence, and for them to be treated the way that they have been by immigration services is utterly disgusting.

The Government decided in September to remove its opt out to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, allowing child asylum seekers to be fully protected by this convention. I hope this will mark the end to indefinite detentions and abuse of people that have started new lives in this country.

Welcome to the Etsy Twitter team!

We've had fantastic turnout so far and I'm very excited to see the Etsy Twitter team get off the ground! Thank you all for joining and welcome!

-ScrapArcs

Give Bees a chance!

The sound of "give bees a chance" droned over 10 Downing Street by keepers from accross the country. Over 400 potestors came to blow smoke around Parliament Square. A delegation presented a petition with 140,000 signatories to 10 Downing Street.

They wriggled their way from Parliament Square past the lunch time joggers with evil thoughts of releasing bees on Whitehall bureaucrats. I got quite a buzz from the event.

Football and religion

There is much consternation in the city as far as the team is concerned, will they survive or will they be relegated? The club is looking for new investment so why shouldn't the evangelical church man who is building sites in Drayton and on the Heartease recognise that was put so well by Bill Shankly that "soccer is bigger than life and death"! is the evangelist listening?





In relation to politics, old Bill came up with another little cracker especially now considering the financial markets bottling it. "The socialism I believe in is everybody working for the same goal and everybody having a share in the rewards. That's how I see football, that's how I see life". Not Bevan, but not wrong either.

Top 5 Quiz Generators for Online Educators

Top 5 Quiz Generators for Online Educators

Building out quizzes for both traditional and online classes can be a time-consuming chore. Luckily, there are now many online "generators" being designed that take much of the work out of online test taking. If you need to create a simple online test, look to the five user-friendly tools below.

1. Exam Builder – With this exam generator, you can create an online test in a Web browser, and then publish it in one click. You can customize each test for online registration and individual retests, plus the site provides an analysis on how your students scored as a whole.

2. Quiz Center – Brought to you by the Discovery Channel, this easy tool will allow you to create, publish and grade quizzes online. This generator is very flexible and, perhaps even more importantly, is free of charge. Teachers should find this tool useful at both the K-12 and college level.

3. Easy Test Maker – Here, you can create a host of different tests at no charge. Your answer options will include multiple choice, fill in the blank, matching, short answer, true or false and more. This robust tool includes a spell check function, as well, which comes in very handy for those of us creating tests late at night.

4. Charles Kelly's Online Quiz Generator – This multiple choice test generator is very popular amongst tech-savvy college instructors. It allows you a lot of freedom in terms of formatting the data.

5. JavaScript QuizMaker – As the name suggests, this is a quiz generator that provides JavaScript that you can cut and paste into your own Web page. If you are operating your own classroom site, this can be an easy way to host a test on your page.

The above tools have proven to be very useful and popular amongst online instructors. Although more complex tools do exist, most teachers are looking for easy-to-use generators to maximize their productivity. These resources will certainly save you time and make online test taking easier on your students.

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This post is by guest blogger, Heather Johnson. Heather Johnson is a regular commentator on the subject of top online universities. She welcomes your feedback and potential job inquiries at heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

Does Your Department Blog? - Why Not?

@micamonkey recently posted a comment on Twitter.com in which she mentioned that at least three departments at the National University of Singapore (NUS) had department blogs. I asked her who these were and she sent me these three links:

• Sociology Dept. - http://socioblogsg.wordpress.com/
• Biodiversity research group in the Biological Sciences Dept. - http://nusbiodiversity.wordpress.com/
• Industrial Design Program - http://moduleblog.nus.edu.sg/blogs/id4104/default.aspx

The differences among these three blogs is interesting. Here a are screen grabs of their headers along with a few comments from me:


The Sociology blog page is used almost entirely to announce events. Tabs on the blog provide basic static information, like a traditional web 1.0 website.


The Biodiversity research and education group's blog is more diverse than that for Sociology. Blog postings include announcements of an NUS library blog and the promotion of a professor, a job announcement, and several posts linked to news stories about NUS's discovery of a lung-less frog. The "Blogs, et al." link is a substantial list of blogs and online journals associated with research and classes (called "modules" in Singapore) related to the Biological Sciences Dept. More static links go to a list of classes and the student club, which seems to be responsible for this blog.


The Industrial Design program's blog at NUS is called "ID @ NUS" and describes itself as:

This blog serves as a platform to provide design information to industrial design students in the National University of Singapore (NUS). It also serves as a flatform to demonstrate the teaching outcomes in NUS ID programme, in particular, the final year studio and thesis projects.

Most of the current blog posts are about forthcoming design competitions. Unlike the other blogs, there is no static information is provided on the blog site -- at least not yet.

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This relatively random selection of three department/program blogs shows the considerable diversity of ways that department can use blogs to keep their students and the general public up to date on their activities. They range from the more social networked engaged to the more straightforward announcements (almost like an email list), and from the more narrow sites to broader information dissemination.

Blogs offer a very easy way (in my opinion) to keep the different populations served by academic departments informed and up to date on department activities. It can supplements the traditional alumni newsletter that is common in the US (I am not sure how common they are elsewhere) with more timely information updates. They can help build alumni support, as well as engage current students and recruit future students. And they can give department accomplishments more exposure both within the university and to the larger public who pay a good part of the budgets of state/government universities.

Blogs also allow for RSS subscriptions, which are widely appreciated and used by those of us who are more into the social software realm. But more importantly, RSS allows these blogs to be re-purposed in other ways across the Internet, thereby giving each blog the potential to reach well beyond the immediate links above, and thereby exposing them to larger audiences. The blogs can be reposted on other websites and subscribed to in RSS readers, such as Google Reader (which is what I use).

So, when @micamonkey wondered in hwer tweet whether or not departments should blog, I think yes, absolutely -- every department should blog. It is possible to set up a group blog that includes most of the faculty and principal administrative staff in a department. It is possible to install "blog this" utilities on their computers so they can quickly and easily post to the blog without needing to go to Wordpress or Blogger.

Despite my own participatory preferences, we might not want all faculty members to have access -- given the politics that can exist in some departments. And, of course, not everyone would want to blog, either. I am a geek and am often considered a little too far into the future by others in my department. In fact, I could imagine general resistance to this whole idea from some people in my department. Despite that, I still think it is a good idea!

(BTW - you can follow me in Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/alew)

Vote / Debate Online Social Networking for Education

The venerable Economist magazine is holding an online debate and poll on the topic of Social Networking for Education.

• Click here to read and cast your vote.

I am obviously in the Pro- camp on this one. Like many Anti-Social Media in Education arguments, the Economist author finds selective shortcomings in different corners of Social Media and paints a broad condemnation of the entire field.

I am using Ning.com in a class this semester at the National University of Singapore and I think it is working great. The class is currently only viewable to the students, but I do plan to open it to world after the semester has ended. (The students will be allowed to edit or remove themselves and their postings before I do that.)

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P.S. - I have not posted anything to this blog in awhile. I guess I have been distracted. Now that I am getting settled in Singapore (just visiting for this semester), hopefully I will get back to some regular posts! -- Alan