Sometimes I get so impressed or wound up up a company, product or service that I have to vent here on the blog. This time ‘Tenpin’ gets a rant.

A few years ago I used to go to Megabowl Chelmsford a lot. The bowling alley opened in the building once home to the ‘Queensway Furniture Store’ after Queensway went bust. The site is huge, and was once a great place to go. My mate Chris and I would spend entire days in Megabowl paying a flat fee for an all day bowling ticket. £7 each including shoes was a great deal.

Friday nights were also a good time to go bowling, it would be very busy, and lanes were in popular demand, but bowling prices were still fair and still very good value for money.

Then ‘Tenpin’ took over the branch.

Last night Justina and I went out with Sean (aka Damian) and Nicky to Tenpin to find that two games would cost £9.75 each.

We arrived at 9.00pm and were suitably ripped off.

At £39.50 for four people to bowl for just two games each for an hour or so, thats an absolute rip off. After trying very hard to knock them down in price, even trying to play the “I’m a student card” we eventually had to pay the £39.50 between us all rather than go elsewhere, Tenpin have a monopoly in Chelmsford and none of us wanted to drive to another town after driving to Chelmsford. Even the staff member selling us the tickets said “It is a rip off, I wouldn’t pay it”.

The annoying thing is, if we had arrived at 10.30pm we could have bowled unlimited between 10.30pm and 1.00am for £9.75 each. Hardly anyone was bowling at 9pm, it would have made sense to start ‘Unlimited Bowling’ at 9 rather than 10.30.

Tenpin was very very very empty. There was hardly anyone bowling in comparison to when Megabowl ran the place. I’d guesstimate that at 9pm 10% of the 40ish lanes were being used, at 10.30pm, about 2%.

So….. Tenpin, your prices are way too high, sort them out, you do not offer good value for money. I think you need to rethink your offer times. Megabowl was once packed on Friday nights, people have left, I wonder why? We wont be coming back.

For the record, here is a couple of phone camera movies…. the first one shows just how dead the place was at 10.30pm.

Tenpin, drop your prices, they stink.

 Tenpin Chelmsford Friday Night at 10.30pm (watch out for the tumbleweed): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Sean on the Dance Machine (ish): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last month I wrote about Molly, our new kitten. Molly has been with us for nearly a month and has been getting on really well. She is nearly double the size when she first moved in, and is finding gaps she used to take shortcuts through when exploring are now too small for her….

Kittens apparently get on from a young age, so we decided to introduce a friend to Molly before she grew any older…. so we started the search for a second kitten….

On Monday evening Justina and I headed out to Southend to pick up a friend for Molly, and came home with Millie (name picked by my Mum!)…. Millie is a tabby, with one ginger toe.

Molly and Millie are learning to get on and are becoming good friends….and Millie uses all of Molly’s old short cuts as hiding places, much to Molly’s frustration….

 Millie Explores! [0:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Millie meets Molly for the first time (Millie is the size Molly was four weeks ago!): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

First things first…. The Department for Education and Skills have made it clear that every child in the UK must have access to a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) by the close of 2008.

With 24,000 schools in England and Wales (and one more brand new school opening every 4 days(ish))….this is a big challenge…….but as Professor Stephen Heppell says …. “It is a nice one”…..

What is a VLE? Why have one? How does it work? What does it cost? What are the alternatives? What is the impact on time and workload? How does it enhance or improve learning delivery? What do we have to do to make it work? What does it do? Why does it do it? How does it fit with curriculum delivery? Is it curriculum delivery? …. the questions go on, and on and on….

Up until now what has largely been missing was clear help in answering the questions and finding ways to make sense of the mass of information available from creators of commercial products, government agencies, ICT professionals and plenty of others. We have never been short of information, but we have never really started to filter it too much either.

The thing is…..general research currently establishes that decision makers need to talk, schools need a lot of guidance on what a VLE actually is and above all, VLE implementations need to be carefully thought out and involve the young people that use the system in the research, design and implementation process.

The underlying message which has been repeated time and time again with VLEs is that one size does not fit all -each school will need to evaluate what they actually want from a virtual learning environment. Every school is different and therefore implementing a practical, flexible and expandable system which allows growth (both push and catch up) with the school.

Our part in this project started in February 2007 with Sue Pickering from YHGfL commissioning Cleveratom to work with the YHGfL. Cleveratom brought in the research skills of Kris Popat of Kris Popat Projects who is based in the YHGfL region and was able to carry out the initial research phase of the project. Kris visited the seven schools selected across the Yorkshire and Humber region that have already implemented a VLE to document the learning journeys and learn from those schools the challenges they faced and the lessons learned. Kris fed back to YHGfL and Cleveratom.

Hal MacLean and myself from Cleveratom then visited the same seven schools researched by Kris to capture on film the key messages and voices of the staff involved. We then turned those messages into a DVD. I sat in a very dark room for a month making the ten DVD films while Hal worked on the sound. Once the text from the research was completed by Kris, Alex then spent time working on developing the online space and book design while Hal constructed the DVD from the video files.

Now we’re with Professor Stephen Heppell in Castleford at a conference attended by 200 school heads and key decision makers from across the region exploring VLEs for the first time. A further 2000 schools across the Yorkshire and Humber region will be sent a copy of the DVD and book. A virtual online community will soon be launched to encourage everyone involved to come together online and discuss what they need to do in order to establish their own learning platform. We are photographing the event and running a podcast stand where delegates can record their thoughts and questions to be presented as short videos in the online space.

Cleveratom’s core team experience of virtual learning environments, social software and how to get the most from working online over the past ten years have really helped us when working together with the YHGfL. I think it is important reviewing exactly where schools are now, and interesting for us we’re working with schools one to one directly to provide and support evaluations, vision sharing and innovation in learning through technology consultancy. This VLE work has helped us to increase our knowledge and experience in this field.

YHGfL’s ‘Virtually There : Learning Platforms’ project has been an enjoyable experience for all involved. Sue Pickering has been an excellent project partner to work with, the entire YHGfL team have made an excellent team effort in delivering a very well attended and thought out event.

See the pictures Hal took from the event.

Read what Hal MacLean had to say about the event.

 Watch a clip of Stephen Heppell as ketnote (Mobile Phone Camera): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

People who know me know that I hate paying full price for anything. Last weekend I managed my biggest bargain yet.

Justina and I have been watching a lot of “Most Haunted” and “Dragons’ Den” on SKY TV. Some nights channels dedicate entire evenings to the shows (can be six hours solid!), meaning we could watch some, record lots and ’save some to watch later’.

We did not own a DVD recorder or hard drive recorder. We do own a VHS recorder, which will record for about four hours. Piles of blank tapes and DVD’s are not really desirable for me so I wanted to find a Hard Drive recorder which can record and store a few hundred hours of TV.

First stop in the search was the obvious review places… Ciao and dooyoo …. but to be honest, with so many products available it was time to look at the models in the shops….

I set off to Chelmsford and explored Curry’s, PC World and Comet to see what bargains I could find. In all three stores (all within the same retail park) I managed to find all sorts of combination machines but more interestingly all three stores were selling ex-display models which had no remote controls.

One absolute bargain was a JVC DR-MX10SEK model, 160 gig hard drive (over 200 hours of recording) DVD player/recorder and VHS player/recorder all in one. Of course, the remote control had been lost some how, it was ex-display and an amazing £180 instead of £399. The sales assistant told me that remote controls can be purchased online on the internet for around £60 each. I knocked Comet down by a further £5 to £175 and bought it.

Once home I ordered the correct replacement remote control from AV UK Ltd for £26 (with free delivery). It arrived within three days. The instructions (also lost) were available online to download in PDF format on the JVC website.

All in all I spent £175 + £26 (and I guess £4 in petrol) = £205.

For a brand new machine off the shelf in Comet it would have cost £399. My Total Saving therefore being £194

From Amazon.co.uk £412.28 delivered. My Total Saving against Amazon being £207.28

So, check out the models in the stores where the remotes and instructions have been lost for a bargain. PC World, Comet and Currys Chelmsford all have models for sale seriously discounted because they have lost the remote controls…. I wonder how they lose them? …. surely something management need to address.?.?.?.?

Today we saw the first proof of the ‘Virtually There’ booklet full of case studies of schools involved in our project with the YHGfL to evaluate Virtual Learning Environments in schools.

2500 of these books are being printed as I write this…. the DVD’s I mentioned here yesterday are clipped in the back.

We’re really pleased on how the booklet and DVD are coming together and looking forward to the launch event next Wednesday in Castleford.

Our team have been doing an evaluation of virtual learning environments for the Yorkshire and Humber Grid for Learning Foundation (YHGfL).

As part of the process we’ve been filming in schools across the Yorkshire and Humber region to find out how the selected seven schools implemented various virtual learning environments into school life. 2500 further schools across the region, who are about to pick and implement a VLE will receive a copy of the DVD (and a booklet too!) to help them on their way….

Every school across the UK will need to have implemented a VLE by the end of 2008 and it appears that the YHGfL are leading the way by being the first to identify that advice from existing schools which are already going through the process have a wealth of knowledge and experience which could potentially help future implementations along the road….

We’ve really enjoyed putting the DVD together (titled ‘Virtually There’)…. which arrived yesterday…. Now we’re waiting on the printer for the booklet, written by Kris Popat …. Another 1000 DVD’s are due to arrive today.

The DVD and its booklet will be launched by Professor Stephen Heppell in Castleford next Wednesday at a conference attended by 250 heads from the Yorkshire and Humber region.

It was very nice to walk back into the Anglia Ruskin University buildings last Thursday and Friday to run the University Summer School. I left Anglia Ruskin University in December 2006 when its Ultralab was closed down.

Every year the University runs a Summer School programme to attract new students, the idea of the programme is to give young people a small taste of University life.

I’ve been a part of Anglia’s Summer School Programme since 2001 and it was really nice to to be invited back and be at the heart of it all.

Hal MacLean and myself worked with Ian Ericson from the University to deliver a programme in broadcast journalism. The work produced by the young people in such a short space of time was quite simply awesome.

23 young people from surrounding schools took in the two day event, hopefully some of them will now consider University as an option. The work they undertook will soon be on display over at digitalcreativity.org

 Hal presents some stuff to the students....: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download