Here at Clever Towers on Tuesday I had to pleasure to once again meet Robyn Steward, this time to film her for a website that Cleveratom are building for the pioneering regional centre for students with autistic learning disorders at City College Norwich.

The first time I met Robyn (at the BETT Show) I had the challenge of being one of the presenters straight after her, which is no easy task considering she is an excellent presenter and had the audience fully engaged.  Robyn presented to people associated to education about Asperger syndrome.  Robyn has it.

Robyn is a former student of the City College Norwich and was part of the pioneering RUGroom (Really Useful Group Room) Pilot Project which all started on the main campus three years ago.  RUGroom is about supporting students with AS through college life, and is the jewel in the City College crown.

Robyn had a tough time at secondary school and finally started to reach her potential once at college and placed under the wing of Dr Danusia Latosinski and her team.  Danusia has worked tirelessly to build funding, a space and a dedicated team who help provide the best learning and social opportunities for students with AS. I know nowhere in the UK college system where education provision for these students comes anywhere close as what City College is providing, and I’ve been to and worked in a lot of colleges.  RUGroom is everything research should be, exciting, experimental, risk taking, reflective and very good fun.

For the past year I’ve had the pleasure of working with Danusia and her team to help develop the learning technology side of her project and have had some very proud moments when watching some students find potential when engaging with the latest technology.  To find out more about the whole RUGroom project and Cleveratom’s involvement read this on our digitalcreativity.org website.

Robyn’s time with City College pre-dates my involvment in the project and she is evidence in her own right that by providing students with the right enabling support, opportunity and encouragement some pretty amazing things can happen.  Robyn was a student when the modern ‘RUGroom’ did not exist, but helped define and refine effective teaching and learning with the staff of the college how to best meet the needs of students with AS.

Through the RUGroom programme City College have helped Robyn to discover and reach her potential and Robyn is now settled in a role as a busy Asperger’s Trainer based in London. She has built herself in to a brand and markets herself as a way helping people understand what AS is and means to the world and is helping other people with Aspergers find a better life for themself.

Here she is on Channel 4 being interviewed by John Snow, interviewed for the Guardian, and here is the very informative article she has written for about.com.  Robyn has a blog too.

After filming Robyn (in one take!) I had the opportunity to demonstrate to her rugroom.net which is a social online environment built by Cleveratom developers alongside AS students of City College.  Rugroom.net exists as a safe online social network come learning space for students with aspergers, designed by students with aspergers.

If you ever get the opportunity to see Robyn present about AS, go and see her.  She is not traditional, she won’t put you through powerpoint hell and she’ll involve you in her presentation and most importantly, leave you walking away thinking.  I’ve seen a lot of presentations over the years (and slept through a lot too) and I rate Robyn world class, in demand internationally; next stop America.

Robyn’s website can be found at www.robynsteward.com

My company does lots of work on school design and building schools for
the future. As part of my job I go into a lot of existing schools and
see some great design alongside terrible design mistakes and
interesting head scratching stuff.

Imagine being one of two learners sharing the desk in the photo.
Neither learner is able to sit comfortable as the seats don't fit
under the desk. The whole classroom has this issue with whoever
placed the order not taking into account the actual space needed for
learners to work in comfort.

Apparently these desks and chairs have been in use for five years and
one learner commented that his back hurts when using this classroom as
he is tall and has to bend to use the table when sitting next to
someone.

They are both big fans of our decorating steps and choose to spend as
much time as possible sleeping and sitting on them.

Before you ask, no we won't be painting the walls those tester colours.

Nikki, my brothers wife, celebrated her birthday on Sunday. Here she
is with a tasty cake baked by Justina. In the background the grass is
finally growing in our garden.

When Andrew and I were very little we had a red train set (made of
plastic). We had hours of fun with it and I remember being very sad to
see it sold at a boot sale by our parents many year ago for just '1.

Wandering round a bootsale a few weeks back I came across a box full
of the track and trains for 50p, and quickly parted with the cash.

In the picture my brother Andrew had great fun nearly 20 years after
he last played with the set.

The petrol speed boat conked out so Jus went to the rescue with our
battery powered pirate ship to push it back in.... but it's battery
pack was low and it got stranded too!

Made from the remains of my brothers old remote control boat which he
fell on when falling through our parents garage roof after forgetting
his key,bits from my old remote control car and a sledge from when we
were kids.

Great fun.

In 11 years of owning a mobile phone I’ve never had big problems with scams.  Now that changes.

I’m sick of +8003890043 calling my mobile up to four times every day for the past month, including some calls in the middle of the night.

I’ve done some research on the internet and found this page about others who are also being called by an organisation posing as ‘MBNA’ but I get the idea that this company are making money from people returning missed calls.

After six calls today I’ve finally had enough and phoned my mobile operator (o2) who tell me there is nothing they can do to block the unwanted offending number, but I can register for the Telephone Preference Service to stop companies marketing to my mobile.  Now I’ve been registered to the Telephone Preference Service for years on landlines, but had no idea what so ever that I could avoid these calls on mobiles too.

So, to stop (hopefully!) marketing calls to your mobile register over at http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/ or call 0845 0700707.

Wonder if I’ll be woken again in the night by the idiots at +8003890043

I’ve tried calling it on Skype, but surprise surprise the number did not exist….