As a team the Ultranauts at Ultralab have enjoyed Amy Barker from The Billericay School undertaking her work experience at the lab.

Amy first came to Ultralab for a day as part of ‘The Real Project’, a project arranged by “King’s Way” of Billericay. Amy enjoyed the animation and media related day at Ultralab and asked if she could come back for her work experience.

I’m not going to talk much more about what Amy has been doing, you can read her reflections on her brand new weblog: Amy’s blog.

Interesting enough, Amy told me yesterday how her brother wanted a blog too, and he’s four years old. So, is this the youngest blogger on the Internet? I’m really looking forward to reading what Amy’s younger brother ‘Archie’ has to say on his very own blog, with support from big sister:Archie (age four) Blog.

Well done so far Amy, you’re doing great!

I’ve spoken before about how great SubEthaEdit is.

Today we used SubEthaEdit for our Ultralab team meeting.

Last time I was in a team meeting, I joined remotely from Phuket in Thailand, watching the live video feed broadcasted by Ultralab. Ultralab benefits from a nationally distributed team and new and emerging technologies are always being incorporated in order to bring together the team no matter where in the world they are.

SubEthaEdit remains a key tool at Ultralab to allow many people to contribute to a working document at once.

The above image shows how a large portion of the Ultranaut team contributed to the discussion.

Friday evening was entertaining, my brother Andrew and myself headed out to the parish of Little Braxsted to help Our Graham with his fireworks display in aid of ‘The Friends of St Martin’s Church’.

The display was really really good, Andrew set off the fireworks, Graham and I ran backwards and forwards freeing the fuses.

A funny moment was when I encouraged the crowd of 100 odd people to count down from 10, and they didn’t…..and then when I got down to 1….the first fireworks fuse went out……oooops.

Here is Andrew eating a hotdog with Graham standing behind him talking to the crowd.

It all went off with a bang!

Over 100 people attended the display from the surrounding village. Sadly I filmed the final finale of the display on my camera phone, but the movie was too big to save

Nevermind!

Above is Graham prior to the big event!

Justina got home from the USA on Sunday morning, after visiting her Brother in Illinois.

I don’t remember her looking like the picture above before she went….

Welcome home Jus!

Last Thursday Ultralab Director, Richard Millwood and myself worked very late developing some more Plone for our new project with Apple Computer UK to develop a new and exciting online community for the most creative teachers using technology in their work across Europe.

On Thursday evening we were trying to implement some podcasting into the environment.

Richard treated us to some Fish & Chips from ‘Robinson’s’, Richard’s favorite fish and chip shop in Chelmsford.

I’m sitting on the platform at Chelmsford Railway Station with thirty minutes to spare due a power failure near Stratford, my train is delayed, by half an hour. Think about it, it is nearly the year 2006 and we still cant get power to our trains.

What is that all about?

Honestly. Each time the automated lady announces the delays everyone on the platform looks up at the overhead speaker, mutters, shake their heads, and get back to doing nothing. I could have left the station and walked back to work, and sat at my desk in Ultralab but why would I do that when I can sit here for thirty minutes? I’m not being distracted by work or email, I’m not looking at those pointless websites that we all look at when we’ve got nothing to do, or I’m not trying to fix bugs or errors associated to my work, right now I’m doing something I don’t get the chance to do often, I’m reflecting on a real life situation, when technology has let me down.

I’m cold, I’m sitting on a make do seat on Platform Two, no train is in sight on my side of the tracks, but train after train after train trundles through Platform One from the other direction heading towards London.

It’s really really cold, really really cold. I can see my breath as my back is really cold as I rest against a wall. There are only three benches on the platform, not very good is it really, having to sit on a cold wall. Ten people can sit comfy on the platform seating, the rest, tough.