The first 2lb’s has come off in my 2 stone weight loss challenge! I am trying the new ‘Diet’s Don’t Work’ programme, which simply means I’m changing the times I eat, how I get to places and what I eat. Diet’s simply don’t work, each time I’ve lost weight in the past, I’ve put it back on again. Diet’s don’t work. I’m not on a diet.

I plan on removing 28lb’s in total by July 1 2005.

Things I did last week to help the cause:

• Run up all staircases, never use a lift
• Fast walk into town every day
• Had Breakfast! Apparently if you don’t eat breakfast your body stores evening meal food fats as it is unsure when you are next going to eat, therefore by eating 3 times a day with 5 hour gaps ensures fat is not stored as much. I’ve lost 2lb even though I’ve had 7 extra meals in the past week.
• Breakfast cereal at lunchtime
• Waited 5 hours between meals
• Eat lots of fruit
• More time running in the gym

Things I did that I should not have done:

• Pizza (x1)
• Donna Kebab (x1)
• White Chocolate Buttons (x1)
• Handfull of square crisps

Target for next Monday is 2lb less than today.

For the past two weeks Hidayah Amin, a Media Producer from the Educational Technology Division at the Ministry of Education, Singapore has been placed with Ultralab to collaborate and continue the long standing relationship between the Ministry and Ultralab.

Malcolm Moss and Matthew Eaves of Ultralab hosted the visit. Malcolm is working with Hidayah on a collaborative international project bringing schools worldwide together to investigate issues, the output will be a DVD of creativity.The mission of the Educational Technology Division is to ‘Be the champion and catalyst in harnessing educational technologies to enhance educational processes in schools’.

Hidayah has been in contact with Matthew since the evolution of the Input CBBC project which was a BBC/Ultralab project between 2002-2003 to investigate the future of childrens television. The pilot took place across the North of England.

Hidayah spent her first week at The BETT Show in London. Hidayah’s second week was spent at Ultralab working on various projects, on Thursday the team headed to Colbayns high school in support of the schools transition into ‘Media Arts’ specialist status. Friday was spent at BBC Television Centre in London, meeting our friends in BBC Schools and touring Television Centre.

On flying in from Egypt Hidayah now heads off to France before returning to her post in Singapore.

I’ve been so busy since returning from the 2005 BETT Show that I’ve not had a chance to write a full review of Ultralab’s involvement in the show.

2005’s BETT show took place on Tuesday 11 January to Saturday 15 January 2004.

Each year learning, technology & research centre Ultralab work on the ‘creativity stand’ at the show, demonstrating new and emerging technologies and how young people are using them. Each year Ultralab bring a group of young people from Ultralab projects who demonstrate creative use of technology within their organisation, institution, school or learning centre.

The ‘Create at BETT’ stand is a collaborative project between Apple Computer, Ultralab, Media Education Wales, Solutions Inc, Film Education, Emap Education, South Street Studios, Canon and DV in Ed. The stand is the only stand at the show which is not selling any products, and becomes a form of light relief for visitors looking for creative ideas without being sales pitched products!
For the 2002’s BETT show the theme was ‘Internet Broadcast’ and pupils from schools taking part on Ultralab’s 2001 Summer School programme in conjunction with SEEVEAZ (South East of England Virtual Education Action Zone) came together with young people from sixth form centre within Colbayns High School of Clacton Essex. The objective of ‘BETT Goes to the Movies’ was to demonstrate the potential of iMovie, the free video editing software from Apple along with the broadcasting software from Channel Storm called Live Channel Pro. BETT 2002 was a tremendous success, read our review of BETT Goes to the Movies 2002 by Richard Millwood and Matthew Eaves.2003 was a year of change, building on the success of 2002. Attending for Ultralab were young people from Sir Charles Lucas Arts College, part of Ultralab’s Summer School project with SEEVEAZ. Also attending were young people from a digital creativity project with the Hedley Walter High School, who stayed for the duration of the event pioneering forward ‘broadcasting’ and its capabilities. Young people from Greensward College were included into the event via an internet broadcast link from Ultralab. Sadly I can’t find the link to the pictures for ‘Bett goes to the Movies II’, but I do have the pictures from Ultralab’s BETT Stand 2003.

In 2004 Ultralab brought young people from our groundbreaking International Certificate in Digital Creativity project from the Andrew Marvell School in Hull who have been pioneering the project with Ultralab. Attending also were the young people from Ultralab’s Summer School project, the group of children were famous for their creative piece ‘Out of Step’. Here are the pictures from BETT goes to the Movies 2004. Watch David Baugh’s BETT 2004 Showreel

2005 had to be even more special than ever before. The ‘BETT goes to the Movies’ brand had served its time and ‘Create at BETT’ was born. The project brought together young people at Ultralab for a pre-event briefing, delivered by Oscar Stringer of South Street Studios, and Robbie of Solutions-Inc.

The 8 young people working on the stand for 2005 (Friday & Saturday) were from King Harold School, Wednesday & Thurdsday’s young people were brough by The Rural Norfolk Federation. The 8 young people from Norfolk represented the following schools: Fakenham High School & College, Reepham High School, Aylsham High School and Alderman Peel High School. All the Norfolk schools are situated in rural areas, the collaboration with the schools and Ultralab has been a big project for 2004.

Create at BETT 2005 was a tremendous success. The young people demonstrated their ability with animation, visual and sound technologies to the visitors.

In the evenings, the young people went out with the staffing team on the stand for meals, before returning to hotel accomodation.

The Norfolk and Essex young people and staff did us, their schools and all the project partners proud. Thanks loads guys!

Have a look at the pictures I’ve collected so far: Create at BETT 2005 Pictures. David Baugh also took some pictures of Create at BETT 2005.

If anyone has anymore pictures from BETT 2005, please email them to me! Thanks to Gina Revill for your pictures!

It is that time of year again when the holiday season is six months away.

I got on the scales at the gym which promptly said “no coach parties”.

So, 2 stone is the target, by July.

I’ll update each Sunday evening…..after my weigh in at the gym….

But does anyone have any good dieting advice……?

When I was at University between 1997 and 2000 I was on the same degree course as Richard Pont. Richard Pont is an interesting character, driven by the desire to achieve, he works hard, he plays harder. Richard was determined to do his best at University, he raised his game considerably during the last year and we both achieved first class with (hons) degree’s.

Richard left APU and went to Essex University where he went on the achieve a Masters Degree in e-commerce.

Then he started working in business in Basildon, and then London, and then Harlow.

Then Richard Pont, a huge fan of music acts ‘Oasis’ and ‘Steps’ went traveling around the world for a year.

He has not emailed anyone for over four months and seemed to have gone missing.

Richard Pont is one of the funniest people I have ever met in my life, and his letters home to all his friends and family have me in stitches of laughter, so I include them here on this weblog for all those who went to Uni with him that did not get a copy of the mail.

And Richard, if you read this, just to wind you up, goto Google Images and search for richard pont

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

Choooka Choooka!!!

I keep a close eye on the search strings people use to find this website, out of personal interest I’ve been playing with various ways to increase the number of hits to this website/blog on Google.

Why would I want to? Simple: Marketing.

I’ve already done a Google experiment to find out how people get to this website/blog, See here.

I think that the title of the article you write is key to its discovery in Google.

Search for the following search strings on Google:

Long haul flight tips.

The above search is a regualar traffic bringer to here….

Just look at how many clicks through to content have happened here today as produced by the server stats feature in Drupal. Drupal is the software powering this site, and I believe its all down to how you write the title that brings in the traffic….

Marketing, marketing, marketing.

After writing a bad review of a new sandwich restaurant in Chelmsford on this site the manager of the branch found the article via Google, apologised and offered discount cards to all our staff.

So when writing that important article or paper, be very careful how you write the subject title!

Today I visited Colbayns High School in Clacton, a school with an impressive management team keen to drive the school forward to become the best Media Arts specialist School in the UK… read the press release I wrote with Lesley, Phil and Hidayah….

COLBAYNS SCHOOL DRIVES CREATIVITY FORWARD IN CLACTON

Colbayns High School in Clacton is applying nationally for ‘Media Arts’ status. This new specialist status will mean innovative and exciting changes to the school and the local community and will allow Colbaynes to provide an environment for young people which enables them to make creative use of new and emerging technologies, as these become more integrated into the curriculum. The school is already very well known for its strong ‘Media Arts’ department and has worked with the Ultralab Research Centre on projects with BAFTA, at the BETT Education Show and on various international projects.

Phil Langshaw, head of the Creative and Media Arts faculty commented that becoming a digital media arts college will make Colbayns school a centre for excellence in video, radio, television, animation, photography, and generic applications of ICT for learning in the school which will raise standards, and give students skills with a real value in the workplace. The task now is to raise the initial £50,000 through community and business support to make this vision a reality.

Ultralab, the world renowned Learning, Technology and Research centre based in Chelmsford is backing the bid and will be supporting the school during its management of this exciting transition period. As part of the change, Ultralab’s revolutionary work-based online degree course will be rolled out to Colbayns’ staff to enable and broaden staff opportunities. The three year online degree is completely unique as it is negotiated to accommodate and study the work environment of each ’student researcher’. No other institution in the UK offers a degree course tailored to work-based learning and completely online. The degree encourages participants to research, evaluate and reflect on their own working practice and the school will benefit enormously from the exciting new learning opportunities this degree provides.

Not only is Colbayns planning to develop staff careers through Ultraversity, the school also plans to become a centre for Ultraversity, enabling members of the local community to use the school facilitites out-of-hours to undertake their own Ultraversity degree. This means that teaching assistants, shop workers, community workers, administrators, people from local industries and communities will be able to join together at Colbaynes and use the schools resources to undertake this new degree based on their own unique job. Over 300 people nationwide have already started studying through Ultraversity, and this popular course is already having an impact on organisations nationwide as staff evaluate and refine their thinking and working practice. Ultraversity is a fully validated British degree of Anglia Polytechnic University of Cambridge and Chelmsford.

In support of the Media Arts status and the roll out of Ultraversity in Clacton, Hidayah Amin, a media producer from the Educational Technology Division at the Ministry of Education Singapore will be visiting Colbayns school on Thursday 19th January with Ultralab to discuss and share ideas which currently operate in Singapore schools. Ms Amin states “I’ve heard a lot of good things about Colbayns school from Ultralab, not only am I willing to share our ideas but I’ll be looking to learn from Colbayns, they have an already impressive portfolio of creative projects, I’m really excited by the creativity this school emits”.

Ultralab works on projects worldwide as a non-profit making research partner and the lab’s mission statement is “To research, apply and disseminate the benefits of new technologies, seeking to develop an empowering, creative and delightful learning environment that knows no boundaries. ” Ultralab’s past and present projects include collaboration with many organisations including the DfES, Orange Telecommunications, Oracle, Apple, Microsoft, Tesco and the Design Council, working on projects such as the improvement of classroom design, the development of mobile learning, reducing headteacher isolation and the exploration and promotion of online learning.

Ultralab is also busy exploring with the school the potential of setting up a local hub which would allow local businesses within the community to work with teams of students within the school on ideas and project proposals. Further plans would enable the young people to work on placements within Ultralab projects.

The school is therefore keen to hear from local businesses, and community groups who feel they could exploit a mutually beneficial working relationship in digital media.

Colbayns benefits from very creative students with imaginative ideas. It is fitting that the school cements the specialist ‘Media Arts’ status which fits perfectly with the evolution of digital creativity that is already happening behind the school doors. This big change will open up to encourage the Clacton community to be a part of the action too.

I could not believe it when I just read Digital Spy.

Disney are rumoured to begin production of a third feature length animation of Toy Story WITHOUT Pixar. Pixar have announced that after the release of this years animation in joint distribution with Disney ‘Cars‘, released in November 2005, this will be the end of the Pixar/Disney relationship.

In my opinion ‘Pixar’ is animation with the birth of the great animations: Toy Story, A Bugs Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and November 2005 coming release Cars.

On completion of the first animation ‘Toy Story’ in collaboration with Disney back in 1995 Pixar then negotiation a better exclusive deal with Disney wich would leave to an increased proportion of sales for the future productions which would be significantly higher than originally negotiated.

The problem seems to be that the charecters created during the 5 film contract remain the property of Disney.

Pixar have been, and still are brilliant at animation, the sophisticated software RenderMan which is developed by the company is fantastic at animation….just watch ‘Finding Nemo’ and then compare it to rival DreamWorks Animation’s attempt at a similar story in ‘SharkTale‘. Comparing the two rival animations Nemo is crisper, sharper and full of imagination….SharkTale is an obvious attempt by DreamWorks to ride off the success of Nemo, and in all honesty its a pretty poor attempt, I did not like it.

So, today Disney are rumored to continue the Toy Story, without the people that created the story and developed the first two films.

Personally I think this is going to be a disaster, and clearly shows how Disney really are lacking in imagination in their new animation studio venture. How unimaginative to launch a new venture using another studio’s developed charecters, personally I think Pixar should end the Toy Story in their imaginative way, I don’t think Disney will be able to raise their game enough to reach the quality of output that Pixar swim with, I think the Disney film, if it happens, will not be nowhere near as good.

I’m a huge fan of Pixar, not only do they make the animations, but they dream up the scripts, enable their staff to be creative and the result is tremendous success stories.

Come on Disney, leave Toy Story to the professional animators and dream up your own works…..I hope they don’t mess with Nemo or Mr. Incredible….Disney, go play with your own toys.

Disney are in danger of creating bad endings to great stories….just look at Lion King 2, I haven’t.

Read the full story here.

Read my Review of Pixar’s ‘The Incredibles’.

While having a nose around the BETT Show this year I met the developer of Fluxtime Studio.

Fluxtime Studio is a web based environment which allows users to edit their animation online and live. How cool is that?

Very cool as an animation portfolio and environment allowing you to create, exchange and publish animation clips. It is fun to use and as easy to use and it does enable the user to be creative.

FluxTime Studio is free, and you can send your animation clips as e-cards to friends. If you like it and want more, then you can sign up and enjoy the more advanced features.

I am very impressed with the functionality of the application, allowing me to create my own scenes, objects and animations on the fly. Basically I can set the animation applet to record what I do and then play it back…..it spits out a saved animation which I can then review and demonstrate to other people.

Platforms & Environments:

Web browsers:
Internet Explorer 5.0 or later
Netscape 4.0 or later
Safari 1.0 or later

Operating systems:
Windows XP, 2000, NT4, ME, 98, 95
Linux kernel v 2.2.12, glibc v2.1.2-11 or later
Mac OS/X 10.2 or later

Hardware:
Intel Pentium processor or better
64 MB system memory or more
SVGA (800 x 600) resolution or higher

I’ve really enjoyed exploring this animation software….

I’ve been showing the application to people I meet, there are a few usability issues with it which I would consider for addressing.

I would…

• Refer to all users as ‘Animators’
• Create a gallery which allowed visitors to comment and debate about each animation created
• Terminology needs to be changed to fit with the younger audience at which this product is aimed & the interface needs to have ‘rollovers’ to allow animators to know what each function can actually do
• ‘Help’ needs to be simplified for the target audience
• It would be good if the reference code for each completed animation could be displayed so animators could include their animations on their websites.
• It would be brilliant if webusers could use this application to generate graphics for their blogs, title banners etc etc etc… this is more than a piece of online coolware for just animation, the possibilities are endless.

Overall, an excellent well thought out product. Try it.

At BETT this year our new acting director of Ultralab, Richard Millwood, was demonstrated a piece of software called Dasher.

Wow! How cool is Dasher! This little application which has been developed for most operating systems and is a very very cool way to type….well, not to type….infact, you don’t need to type.

Basically you select the letter you want to start a word with, and then move the mouse to the next letter, it starts to guess what you are writing….you really need to download it and have a play with it… 11/10.

Read more about it here or go and select your download.

Richard was saying that there is development for the paralysed, enabling breathing to control the movement of the mouse pointer, controlled breathing would allow the controller to write in a new and revolutionary way. I’m very impressed.

Best bit about it, is that it is an open source project. What do you think of it?