750,000 YouTube views - a nice ring to it!

My regular readers will know that I like to keep an eye on my YouTube Channel view data - this evening the channel passed the 750,000 mark! On September 27th last I (boasted) wrote about reaching the 500,000 mark.

Once again I am both humbled and astonished that so may people find my videos useful - never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would reach so many people. Thank you so much to all my viewers for viewing the videos and making so many kind comments.

As a YouTube Partner I get quite detailed analytics for my channel - below is a chart of the last 30 day's viewing data:

Viewing figures dropped dramatically over Christmas and the New Year, but it is now picking up again - on Wednesday last 2,809 views occurred.

1,000,000 must be next - a real landmark to celebrate no doubt!

Today at the Blood Platelet Clinic

In October 2010 last I signed up for the Irish Blood Transfusion Service's platelet donation programme (I blogged about that here). Today I hit the 50 donation mark for which the IBTS has an award of a gold drop (in the shape of a blood drop). I already have both the silver and gold pelican pins which I got many years ago for (I think) 15 and 25 donations respectively. 

Image link to GiveBlood.ie.

In addition to hitting the 50 donation mark, I also join a select club in my family. Both my Dad Joe, and brother Joe are the proud holders of gold drops for 50 donations. They did it the hard way - mostly donating at mobile clinics, while I have easier access to permanent clinics in Dublin. Also - as platelet donations take a long time (I was in the clinic for nearly two hours today), each donation counts as two due to the time and the amount they can take. So I was fast-tracked to 50 so-to-speak. Nevertheless I'm glad to do this - it is a very pleasant experience, the staff at the clinic are wonderful and I think I'll keep going back for more. 

Why not consider donating - check out the IBTS Give Platelets page for more information.

I made good use of my time in the clinic by watching two lectures on Justice by Professor Michael Sandel of Harvard University on my iPad. I watched Episode 2 of a free series of lectures - this one was about putting a price tag on life and how to measure pleasure. Well worth checking out - and FREE too!

Failed effort to find my Great-Grandfather's World War I service record

My Mum's paternal grandfather, James Burns, served in the British Army in the First Word War. We know he joined up at the outbreak of the war and that he survived all the horrors of battle - though he was wounded in the head with shrapnel. We do not know what regiment he served in, or what battles (if any) he fought in. Neither do we know his number or if he won any medals. In fact we know very little about his service record.

I used Ancestry.co.uk to try to find him myself, but with no luck. James Burns was a very common name - I did find one report showing the details of 35 (Yes - thirty-five) men whose names were James Burns that were killed in the war. Horrific.

At the end of last year I engaged the very helpful folks at http://www.fourteeneighteen.co.uk to do a professional search for me. But alas - they could not find him either despite their exhaustive searches. An extract from their report for me is as follows:

The Royal Irish Rifles at the Battle of the Somme
(1st July, 1916)  - Image link to Wikipedia.

The absence of a service record means one of the following:

1. His record was destroyed or lost (by far the greatest probability)
2. He carried on to serve in 1921 or later
3. He served in one of the Guards or Household Cavalry regiments (unlikely)
4. He did not serve in the army
5. He served under a different name.

Many records were indeed lost due to fires and the recycling of paper due to paper shortages. There is also the possibility that name he used when joining up was different from that which he used normally. His name used in the 1911 was "James Burns" - see census return here. The census form states that he "Cannot read". Somewhere along the line "Burns"changed to "Byrne" which is my Mum's maiden name.

It is believed that James Burns died in an asylum in 1925.

I'm not sure what I'll do next - but I will not give the search for his service record.

Losing a Pet

When I was a small boy, about 5 or 6 years old, I had my own dog. His name was Dino (after the family pet in The Flintstones), and he was a terrier. He was the only pet I ever could call my own, and I loved him dearly. Growing up on a farm was an ideal place to have a dog - I played with him all the time.

It happened so quickly. Dino and I were walking along the road near our farm - as we had done many times before. 

A lorry passed us by.

In a split second - Dino was dead and I saw it happen. This was the saddest day in my young life and I cried for days not understanding that we couldn't play together any more.

Yesterday, our cat Harley that we had for just four months, died on the road outside our house. 

Girls - I think I know how you feel.

How did you spend your time here on Earth?

I now have my Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail nine years - it was in mid-January 2003 that I bought the special Centenary Edition with some of the proceeds of my redundancy payment from SmartForce. Yesterday the clock passed the 40,000 mile mark. In recent time I have questioned whether it I should continue to keep it. While it costs very little to run and it's fully paid for - in times of recession it is a luxury to be going in and out of work on a Harley. Thankfully - such thoughts only last seconds and I remind myself about the great experiences I have had and what owning a Harley means. Check out the following ad for the Harley-Davidson V-ROD to see what I mean - "It's time to ride".

Copied from American Iron Magazine (May 2004)

Book Review - "Revolution: A Photographic History of Revolutionary Ireland 1913-1923" by Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc

Picture books are quick to read though I don't think I have ever read one cover to cover before. Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc has put together a fantastic collections of photographs in Revolution: A Photographic History of Revolutionary Ireland 1913-1923. Not quite coffee table stuff, but an excellent book to dip in and out of from time-to-time.

Image link to Amazon.

As several centenaries are coming up (1913 Lockout, 1916 Rising, 1919-1921 War of Independence, and the 1922-1923 Civil War) over the next few years, I'm sure there will be many more books on this dramatic period of Irish history. Many of the iconic photos from this period are present - Pearse surrendering, de Valera under arrest, and artillery at the Four Courts. However, it is the many photographs of people who died in the conflict that make this book. Photos of RIC men, IRA volunteers, British Army, and Black & Tans who were killed in the conflicts show that it was at sometimes a vicious time. Probably the most macabre ones are the series of photos (p151) of Thomas Whelan and Paddy Moran joking with their guards just before they were hanged in Mountjoy Jail on 14th March 1921 (Ó Ruairc annoyingly uses the word "hung" instead of the more correct "hanged" on several occasions).

Lots and lots of gems to see - I think my favourite is the one of Arthur Griffith, Éamon de Valera, and Michael Collins at the 1921 All-Ireland Final in Croke Park. Sad to think that both Collins and Griffith  would be dead within two years and that de Valera would go on to greater things in Irish politics. 

Business Systems Analysis

I have just finished a two day class with 16 students for the course HETAC Certificate in Business Analysis. There are three modules on the course and I deliver the Business Systems Analysis module. NCI delivers the course on behalf of the Business Analysts Association of Ireland - a new course starts next week.

This is one of my favourite modules to teach - I have lost count of how many times I have delivered it (I'm guessing about 15-16 times). The students are all working in many different types of organizations - in the past we have had students from the Gardaí, banks, civil service, consultancy firms, software companies, and leading edge organizations like PayPal. They are always a great mix - many are already practising Business Analysts, or working in a role that involves business analysis activities. They have always been a joy to work with and the over 300 students who have gone through the course make teaching a pleasure for me. 

It should also be said that the class is a good one for sales of my book. Almost all students who have taken the course since the book was published have bought it, and many past-students from previous classes have also bought it too. The book has sold about 400 copies, and I suspect that the 300 mentioned above account for the most part of this (A BIG THANK YOU TO YOU ALL!).  Nevertheless, it has sold outside this group and from time to time I see it "Out of Stock" or "Only 1 left in stock" on Amazon. This is nothing to get too excited about as I am told by my publisher that they only ever keep 2-3 books of this type in stock. As I write, my book is ranked 654,810 on the Amazon best sellers list. At its rate of sale it will be out of print in about three years! Proceeds of the book are donated to the NCI Foundation office - I don't have exact figures, but I estimate that it has raised over €1,500 for the Foundation. 

At last - I have an iPad

Short post (I'm bragging again!) - I bought a second hand nearly new 16GB WiFi only iPad today and have just started setting it up. I'm so excited to add the iPad to my digital life - lots of apps and "stuff" to load. I even had to add "iPad" to my dictionary so that it would not show as a spelling error.

Image link to the Mobile Beat site.

According to this report - the iPad has "88% of global tablet web traffic". Here's hoping that I can add to that!

One of the main things I want to do is use this device at work and for educational purposes. One of my first ports of call is "The Inside Lane" - a blog by Nigel Lane with several resources for iPads in education. I'll be looking for more, but today I am an iPad newbie. After set up and sync, my iPad (I love saying that already!) looks like my iPhone (I've loved saying that for a few years now) - same apps and layout. I'm looking forward to setting it up and connecting to WiFi. No doubt I'll write more about this!

Analytics and Education

I recently posted about Google Analytics and quite coincidentally I just read today an article by Marc Parry of The Chronicle of Higher Education about analytics being used in education: Colleges Mine Data to Tailor Students' Experience. As I am learning more and more about analytics I am fascinated at the areas to which it can be applied - from sport, to finance, to pharmaceuticals, and even to making cement. In the past educators have tried to link performance with data culled from Learning Management Systems (LMSs) - but now analytics is taking things to a new level.

Parry writes that "colleges are converting the student experience into numbers to crunch in the name of improving education". Analytics are being used to pair students up to help each other, form groups for study, help applicants choose the right college and the right course, show early warning signs of student disengagement, and even to predict grades. There are ethical and privacy considerations to consider too - in the future tools like Facebook may replace LMSs.

I like the idea of using educational data to predict student performance. Every college has masses of data stored in Student Management Systems for many years now. The Central Applications Office (CAO) also has masses of data on Leaving Certificate performance. Combined with demographic data a clear picture could be drawn on the profile of successful and unsuccessful students. Think of this in the hands of a career guidance teacher who could help a student with a certain set of grades in particular subjects by showing how previous students with similar records have performed in their college courses of choice. Not 100% accurate, but an indicator nonetheless.

Image link to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

As Parry states: "No one quite knows where education's analytics revolution will lead, but it's a safe bet that today's experiments will seem crude compared with what's coming".

Book Review: "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson

Steve Jobs was a hero to many people - he had legions of fans of Apple die-hards who hung on every word he said. His products are in many homes and business throughout the world (about 10 in my house). Walter Isaacson has written a super biography based on Jobs, though it could be argued that it is also a history of technology and Apple the company since the 1970s.

Image link to
Simon & Schuster.

If you lived through the decades from the 1970s to today, and have been involved in technology - a lot of this story is familiar. Apple vs Microsoft, the Macintosh, open vs closed systems, the iPod/iPhone/iPad, the hoopla - but Isaacson adds a narrative that is entwined with Jobs' life that is fascinating, brilliant, historical, and delivers a "warts and all" account of Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs never got to read this book and I'm certain that his first reaction to it would be "This is shit" as he said about many things. Isaacson recounts all the rudeness, anger, stubborness, ignorance of rules, pettiness, as well as the more well-known obvious brilliance, creativity, and success that he had. He sure did cram a lot into his life, and will be remembered for many years to come. While there is no doubt that he was the dominant figure in Apple, he was certainly not a nice person. Isaacson does judge Jobs, though on page 565 he does state that "The nasty edge to his personality was not necessary", and on page 564, he calls him an "asshole". There is a quote on page 517 from eSarcasm.com who called him a "techno-dictator" - this is the description I liked best.


I like to learn something new from a biography and there is certainly a lot here for anyone interested in how one of the most successful companies ever was built up by Jobs (and thousands of other Apple employees). I did not know he was a nasty piece of work, and I am certain that he could have achieved much the same without being such a bollix. 

Google Analytics

Google are making a pitch for a big presence in the Analytics space. They already offering free courses, certified partnerships, and free tools (see http://www.google.com/analytics). They also have a paid Google Analytics Premium service. 

Google are looking to use analytics to do things like improve customer retention and customer service. You can also use it to check what browsers visitors to your site are using. To get their point across, Google have made a very funny video that anyone who has shopped on-line will "feel the frustration" with. Check it out - it's just two minutes long:

I am reading and investigating more about analytics in preparation for developing new courses in NCI on Business Intelligence and Analytics. It's a fast growing area with a definite skills gap - a gap we hope to reduce in NCI.

How To... Calculate Mean and Standard Deviation in Excel 2010

My first YouTube video of 2012 is a simple one - it shows how to calculate a simple mean (average) and standard deviation. These are quite easy to do (if you know how) - so this video shows some basic use of the Excel AVERAGE and STDEV functions. I spotted another video doing the same in Excel 2003 in preparation for a Student's t test, and thought it might make a nice simple video for my channel. I'm not good at statistics, but am considering some basic stats videos for the channel.

Yet another newspaper article saying technology will change education

Last Friday's Irish Times featured an article by Ian Campbell - Moving to transform the educational environment with the latest technology. Campbell writes that "THE ROLE of technology in the classroom will be a hot topic for the Government in 2012", and he quotes liberally from Steven Duggan who is a former teacher and is now worldwide education strategy manager for Microsoft. Duggan declares that the classroom is “Like teaching a blacksmith skills in the age of the car...it’s 100 years out of date". 

Image link to Lee Hughes's blog.

Every now and again somebody pops up with the idea that technology can transform education. Duggan claims that "the quality of an education system will never exceed the quality of the teaching". Partly true I agree, but he neglects the student's own ability to learn with this statement. What about on-the-job learning, mentoring, coaching, and going to the library as well as using virtual learning environments. Duggan's statement is 100 years out of date - I exaggerate not!

Duggan does make an interesting comment about class size (presumably in second-level education): "In terms of educational performance, we see that most successful countries focus on professional development over classroom size. The classes may be bigger but, if pupils have the best teachers in front of them, it doesn’t matter". I like this focus on professional development - we could learn a lot from this in Ireland.

People need to get a grip - please, no more articles about how technology will change education. It already has changed education for over 40 years! My French teacher in Roscrea (John Shanahan) used a tape deck and photographic slides to teach us French - not a blackboard or computer in sight. This was in 1972. Computer-Based Training (CBT) has been around since the 1980s (I know - because I worked as a CBT developer in 1989). We are still struggling with the best way to use it.

Super resource for Educators - Irish Teacher Blogs

Irish Teacher Blogs is an aggregate blog that pulls together posts from a number of Irish educators - "Eugene's Blog" has recently been added! There are about 50 blogs listed - many I was already familiar with, but I was really surprised that there are so many people blogging about education in Ireland. I'm sure there are many more not yet listed - so keep an eye out as more are added to the ITB list.

There are quite a lot of educators from all levels in Irish education blogging - ranging from Damien Quinn's excellent Seomra Ranga (which provides resources for primary teachers), to Nigel Lane's The Inside Lane (which is an excellent resources for iPad/iPhone users), to Catherine Cronin's Blog (she writes about technology in third-level). 

The only problem is... keeping up with everybody's blog posts! So the ITB aggregate blog is a really cool way to at a glance see who is posting about what. Well worth checking out.

Some Old Family Photos

Last evening Roma and I attended a surprise 70th birthday party at The Dropping Well in Milltown for my Mum's cousin Brendan Byrne. Happy Birthday Brendan! It was great to see so many cousins from my Mum's side of the family - the Byrnes. I had a great time talking to her cousins Madeline and Eileen about my grandparents and family history. Madeline gave me some photos for my Mum - I made copies and want to share some here.

The first photo is reproduced from a much smaller brownish style photo that a graphics artist has touched up. It features my Mum Phil as a very young girl - that's her at the bottom right. I'm guessing she is about 2 years of age which would out this photo taken in about 1936. I'm told that the photo was taken in a field near Hazelhatch on the Kildare-Dublin county border where the family lived at the time. The man behind Mum is her Dad - Paddy Byrne, and the lady to his right is his sister Eileen. The other girl is Mum's cousin Madeline (mentioned above), and the boy is her brother Seán.

This next picture is one of my Mum Phil which I have never seen before - it looks like she is playing scales on the piano! Even though she encouraged all of us to play the piano (and forced us to take lessons - lots of them!), she never learned herself beyond the basics. 

I don't know where this photo was taken, though as it came from Madeline I'm guessing it is late 1960s. Doesn't she look well!

Finally - this last photo is one I have seen many times before as it was in our family album for many years. There's no doubt that this was taken about 1968/1969. From left: my brothers Joe and Brian, my Mum, my sister Kayo, and me.

With a cardigan and short trousers, I am clearly making an early fashion statement. Thank goodness I later got braces to fix those teeth!

Photos like these are rare and precious, and I learn a lot from them. In addition to bringing back fond memories, I am fascinated that photos such as the one above with my Mum as a young girl with her Dad are now posted in a blog over 75 years after it was taken. Nowadays digital photos are much more of an almost daily commodity, with millions being posted on the Internet every day.

Is 99.9% "Good Enough"?

While doing some research on the concept of "Good Enough Video" today, I came across a video which asks the question - "Is 99.9% Good Enough"? The video is not on YouTube and I can't embed it in this post - so click here to see a full preview of the video. In the first example it gives, if 99.9% is "good enough" - 470 entries in the New Webster Dictionary would be misspelled. Here are some other examples (USA figures from www.sixsigmaspc.com):

Image link to cheezburger.com.

• 3,000 newborns accidentally falling from the hands of nurses or doctors each year
• 4,000 incorrect drug prescriptions per year
• 400 letters per hour which never arrive at their destination

Yikes! Like many others I'm sure, 99.9% sounded OK to me. While 100% is theoretically possible to achieve, the Six Sigma quality standard measures the top quality as 99.9997%, which is the equivalent of 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). If this was applied to the above three instances, the figures would look like:

• 10 newborns accidentally falling from the hands of nurses or doctors each year
• 13  incorrect drug prescriptions per year
• 1 letter per hour which never arrives at its destination

That's better!

As the video states (quoting from Thomas Fuller) "Good is not good - where better is required". So the next time somebody says to you that something is "good enough" - think again.

45 Ways to Promote Your YouTube Videos!

Fabrizio Van Marciano writing in Magnet4Marketing summarizes nicely 45 Ways To Promote Your YouTube Videos.  Van Marciano shares with us "45 positive ways in which to promote your YouTube channel and in theory get more people viewing your videos". Some of these I am doing already for my own channel, but others are very interesting too.

Image link to the Home Jobs web site.

I'll not list the 45 ways here - but some are worth considering. The first few "ways" can be summarized by embedding and linking to your YouTube channel at every opportunity (web sites, presentations, emails, Twitter, Facebook, etc). Van Marciaino also suggest advertising your channel and even putting the URL on your business card. You can also buy targeted YouTube views and channel subscribers! He also suggests blogging about the channel and creating a Facebook fan page.

These 45 ways are listed on the Magnet4Marketing web site for on-line marketing and blogging tips. More and more companies are now using YouTube channels to promote their products and services. Even SkillSoft (who I worked for from 1989 to 2002) have got in on the act by creating a SkillSoft Channel. Guys - you really need to read Van Marciano's 45 ways to get the view numbers up :-)).

How To... Create a Stacked Chart in Excel 2010

Just before Christmas I created my final video of 2011 to add to my Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin YouTube channel. In one of my Project Management classes we learn about Resource Allocation as part of Human Resources Project Management. A simple way to display how resources such as people, are allocated over time is to use a stacked chart created using Excel. In this video I show how to create a stacked chart in Excel using a fictitious project team of four different types of people. Stacked charts are easy to draw, so I have embellished this video by showing how to change the chart type after the original is drawn.

Book Review - "Galileo's Daughter" by Dava Sobel

My first book to read on my new Amazon Kindle was about Galileo Galilei and his daughter Sr Marie Celeste. While the book is dominated by Galileo himself - his scientific discoveries, and troubles with the Church, a great part of the book features correspondence from Marie Celeste to her father (no letters survive from Galileo to his daughter).

Image link to OpenLibrary.org.

This is a very enjoyable book. For those very knowledgeable about Galileo himself there is probably very little more to learn about him. His discoveries and achievements in life are described, but from about the middle of the book on it comes alive with Marie Celeste's letters. Much of the letter's contents are about trivial matters - eg, cooking, fixing shirt collars, and about growing vegetables. She also prays a lot for her father and it is clear that she loved him a lot and followed his life closely from behind the confines of the walls of the enclosed order of Poor Clares nuns' convent. She also pleads for money and help a lot - the life of a nun in the first part of the 17th century was indeed a very tough one. Plague features a lot outside the convent walls. Dava Sobel weaves a web of life from the surviving letters - she has the skill of the historian and well as an eye for a good story. Marie Celeste is the true hero of this story and Sobel brings her to life. 

My experience of reading with the Kindle was good. I read a lot on the plane. The text is easy to read - very clear. However, the ebook does not have any graphics as the paper has - I don't see why this is the case as the Kindle can show graphics. I also found the format of the book was littered with errors - new lines starting in the middle of a sentence happened a lot. There are also asterisks displayed from time-to-time - possibly referring to a footnote (which is not visible) or to the extensive bibliography at the end of the book. The Kindle may be more suited in its current format to fiction rather than non-fiction. I'll judge this more when I get more books.

Overall - a recommended read. But due to the many errors on the Kindle version I think the paper copy might be a better option.

2011 in Review

It's January 1st and time to look back on 2011 - a strange year for everyone. Here's some thoughts:

YouTube

I like numbers and statistics - I have been absorbed with my YouTube Channel all year and watched it grow. According to Google Analytics it was viewed 490,001 times in 2011 (including 676 on Christmas Day!) and 543 new subscribers were added to the channel. At current rate of progress - I expect the total number of views (currently at 696,762) to pass 1,000,000 and the total number of subscribers (currently at 746)  to pass 1,000 by mid-2012. For me the YouTube channel is the most worthwhile thing I have done in 2011.

My Blog

In 2011 I wrote 262 blog posts - 46 more than in 2010. During the year I also moved the blog to www.eugeneoloughlin.com and I continue to enjoy writing on anything that takes my fancy. My main topics are about Education and YouTube - but I also wrote about politics, family, some reviews, sport, plagiarism, travelling, broadband woes, my Harley-Davidson, and Preston North End.

Lucky Moment

This has to be the day just before Christmas when I was not killed crossing the road by a car. In what would have been an accident that would have been entirely my own fault, I did not look right and almost paid the price. Thankfully the driver of the car was far more alert than I was and he evaded me quite smartly.

Biggest mistake

In what seemed like a good idea at the time, in 2007 we signed up and paid a deposit on an apartment in Spain. Almost four years had passed when out of the blue we got notification last February that the apartment was ready and that we had to pay the balance. I found out this week that 27 of the 32 apartments in our block are either owned by the banks or the developer (Polaris World). Only about 900 of the original 3,000 apartments planned for the resort have been built. The place is like a ghost estate - the "town centre" is also deserted. Though we could not get out of the contract to buy the apartment - I feel that finally signing and paying for this POS will be seen by me as a huge mistake for many years to come.

Funniest moment

I find jokes and funny stories hard to remember - but one moment stands out. Last September my daughters "acquired" a cat - they called him "Harley" in an effort to get me to like him. At every opportunity the girls try to show me how cute he is. One Sunday afternoon I was watching football on TV and the cat was curled up in front of the fire. My daughter Claire came in and immediately said to the cat "Look at you watching football with your Daddy!". I burst out laughing.

Travel

In the summer I rode my Harley to Murcia - 2,420 miles (3,895 kilometres). I loved this trip and want to do some more. Owning an apartment in Spain (see above) will most likely mean that we will use it a lot - I may not ride that far again in the summer as it is so hot. As in two previous trips to Europe on the bike, part of my trip was through Normandy - I would really like to spend more time there. Anyway - the trip last summer was memorable, and reminded me that I am still  young at heart and able for more.

Family

The saddest events of 2011 for me were the death of my aunt Breda Quinn (who is also my Godmother) and my cousin Janet Edwards - in both cases after long illnesses. May the Lord have mercy on their souls. During the year we celebrated my Dad Joe's 80th birthday, Roma's and my sister Kathleen's 50th birthdays, and our own 25th wedding anniversary. 

Technology

Finally - 2011 was a year in which technology became even more ingrained in our lives. I ended the year with the fantastic Amazon Kindle. Throughout the year I spent a lot of time on-line managing my Blog, YouTube channel, and my www.thereshouldbealaw.org site. It was also a year in which I went to battle with Eircom and overcame some broadband woes. Steve Jobs died. Twitter became a revolutionary tool possibly more powerful that bullets and bombs in the Arab Spring. Apart from the Kindle I acquired no new gadgets in 2011. My computer at work in now in its sixth year, I have my iPhone 3GS for almost two years, and my home computer is three years old. 

2011 is dead, long live 2012.

Book Review - Enigma: A New Life of Charles Stewart Parnell

Paul Bew has written a very enjoyable biography of C.S. Parnell. I had not read any books about Parnell before, but of course knew a lot about him from learning about Irish history. This is an easy to read book and provides a lot of insight into his short life (he died aged just 45 in 1891). His most effective period was from 1882-1890 - a testament to his lasting legacy and contribution to Irish history that he achieved so much in so short a time.

Image link to Amazon.co.uk.

Parnell was a man of mixed abilities and character - take this extract from page 115 "his personal traits and idiosyncrasies became more noticeable: the legendary frigidity of demeanour, the impenetrable reserve, the lofty detachment, the strange sphinx-like silences, the inexplicable absences, the hint of steel - all these being to some extent offset by an engaging charm enlivened with occasional flashes of warmth and even whimsy, and his behaviour as a whole being marked by a general air of eccentricity".

The affair with Kitty O'Shea is not sensationalized. Such an affair would not cause the split and his downfall these days, but it was unfortunate that he is remembered as much for this affair as he is for his politics. 

At the end of the book there is a reprint of the essay "A Counterfactual Chief? If Parnell had lived till 1918", written in 2010 by Patrick Maume. To me this adds nothing to reading about the life of Parnell. Speculating what would have happened if he had lived longer is just that - speculation. Even Bew himself states in a note at the end "Perhaps all this speculation is beside the point". He is right.

Apart from the reprinted essay at the end, this is a very good book on an icon of Irish history and is certainly recommended by me.

Christmas 2011

It's St Stephen's Day - and Christmas 2011 is over. I love Christmas Day! We had a very early start (0700) to open pressies. Santa brought me an Amazon Kindle! I also have Walter Isaacson's book on Steve Jobs in paperback - lots of interesting reading ahead.

With my new Kindle (and new jumper!)
showing page 244 of my own book.
An Introduction to Business Systems Analysis.

So far I love the Kindle - it's the 3G/WiFi/Keyboard version that I have. I find it very easy to use, and crucially - very easy to read from. I downloaded some free books at first - Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and the Bible. I also copied over some free eBooks that I have gathered over the years, eg "Knowing Knowledge" by George Siemens. Plus I have also copied over a few PDF files that I have had for some time (which I have not paid for). My intention is not to read these again, but I really like the idea that I have a searchable copy of these texts at all times.

My first purchase from Amazon was Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter - which I plan to read while travelling to Spain tomorrow for a few days. This will be the first time that I will not bring any paper books or newspapers with me when travelling - I want to see how I get on with the Kindle. 

As a piece of technology the Kindle is so far for me a wonderful gadget. Amazon pay for the 3G connection, so you don't need a sim card to use it. With WiFi - the connection is really quick, my purchase of the Dava Sobel book above was downloaded to the Kindle automatically in seconds! It holds up to 3,500 books - so I expect to keep adding to this over the next few years. Imagine having your own library in your pocket? I will no doubt blog about this in the near future - but I'm certain that the Kindle, and other such devices, have the potential to revolutionalize knowledge by having access to libraries of books and documents at our finger tips. This could also be the beginning of the end for book stores who are likely to go in the same direction towards extinction as is happening to travel agents and record shops.

Students are way ahead of us?

While at the ICEP Conference last week, Professor Sally Brown played us a YouTube video when she proposed that students are way ahead of us teachers/lecturers. It was in the context of a discussion on the use of technology in education. Though not exclusively about technology, she did point out that students can be way ahead of their teachers in many ways - the following ad for New Zealand's lotto nicely confirms this point. Enjoy!

YouTube for Teachers

YouTube for Teachers was officially launched last week. This is an effort by YouTube to "to help teachers use educational YouTube videos to educate, engage and inspire their students". Many schools block the main YouTube website, but youtube.com/teachers is a sub-domain that can be set by network administrators to be viewable by students. I had expected that ads and comments be removed, but that does not seem to be the case.

Image link to the
Khan Academy.

There are some excellent Maths videos from the Khan Academy - every Maths teacher in the world should use these both to learn how to use the material to teach the material themselves, and of course to recommend to students that they use them for learning and revision. As I write this post, a staggering 92,138,529 lessons have been delivered by the Khan Academy. Want to learn about simple equations in algebra? Check out this video which not only shows you how, but is explained and illustrated very well. This is a great resource for teachers because they can use the same examples and perhaps improve their own teaching. 

I sense that this could be a breakthrough in the teaching and learning of Maths. We constantly hear about poor maths standards in school leavers, while industry is crying out for graduates with better maths skills (see Skills shortages can be addressed in the Irish Times). We also hear that not all maths teachers have a qualification in maths - in fact according to this recent Press Release from Minister Seán Sherlock which quotes a survey that "shows that out of a total of 3,311 teachers teaching maths in 422 schools, 2,198 teachers (66.4%) are fully qualified to do so". My point is that some of the best teachers in the world are putting excellent maths video on YouTube - so why not use this fantastic resource in the classroom? Teachers should have nothing to fear - I don't see the day that a class will consist entirely of watching videos. Students will always need the guiding hand of a good teacher. By embracing YouTube for Teachers, I am convinced that maths standards will improve greatly.

How To... Draw a Basic Scatter Diagram in Excel 2010

One of the shortest videos I have created for the Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin channel is about creating a scatter diagram in Excel 2010 (see below). Creating a scatter diagram is really easy to do, and it is a useful diagram if you want a simple visual look at a comparison of two variables. In this video I use data comparing on-line course ratings against age. This is based in part on an example from the book Managing Information Technology Projects (Schwalbe, 2011), which I use in my Project Management classes.

For my PhD thesis (1988), I produced many scatter diagrams for data analysis such as multi-variate analysis. Unlike Excel 2010 where a diagram can be created with a few clicks from a mouse, back in 1988 I had to write a FORTRAN programme to read the data file. I then had to send the result for batch processing overnight, and pick up a printout of the diagram the next day. Practically stone age stuff!

ICEP 2011

The International Conference on Engaging Pedagogy (ICEP 2011) was held in NCI yesterday and I was able to attend most of the proceedings. The conference "is an annual event that brings together researchers and practitioners in the field of third-level teaching in order to discuss means and methods of improving student engagement (from ICEP About page)".

The opening address "Effecting Change to improve the Learning Experience", was delivered by Professor Sally Brown. She gave us both an entertaining and informative talk - she even started at the end! She displayed her Conclusion slide first and then went back to the beginning. While she was stating the obvious that if we keep on doing the same thing every day that nothing will get better, she still held the audience's attention with her wit and  informed experiences. She advised us to consider changing the way we assess students, use technology, engage with students, and to embrace change. 

I missed the first break-out session (which I was supposed to chair), due to attending some presentations by some 4th year students. But I was back for the afternoon breakout session - I attended the following three presentations:

• The Use of Mind Maps as an Assessment Tool by Robbie O’Connor (Tallaght IT)
• Motivating Student Learning by Mark Dowling (Griffith College)
• Embedding Universal Design in the Curriculum by Margaret Kinsella (Blanchardstown IT)

Robbie O'Connor was excellent and showed us how he uses mind maps in assessing student work on an environmental engineering course. Mark Dowling was candid about how some strategies for engaging students did not work very well. While Margaret Kinsella both entertained and informed when talking about designing educational material to suit everyone - including disabled people.

The final part of the conference was an "Armchair Session" (sadly, with no armchairs!), which was led by Professor Phil Race. The theme was "Capturing the Voice of Irish Educators" where he set us various tasks to ask questions about the things that challenged us as educators - his slides from his presentation (which includes our feedback) are available here. Our discussions varied from "what can we do when we get silence after asking a question?" to "how can we overcome a reliance on the likes of Wikipedia?".

Overall - a very interesting conference and it was also great to meet both old and new faces too.

End of Another Semester

Today marked the end of Semester I for me in NCI.  I had no classes today but spent the day attending mid-year project presentations from our final year students. This was a hectic, but enjoyable day. Students were required to present on the progress of their final year project. Lots of interesting material which I enjoyed listening too. Now the hard part - marking the presentatons!



Semester I is over! Image from the
In the Direction of our Dreams Blog.

At the start of each semester, I always look down the line to the next 14 weeks thinking that it is sooooooo long! However, time flies - essays and projects have to be marked, and classes have to be delivered. I have enjoyed this semester more than most. I had first year, third year, and fourth year modules - plus an executive education module to deliver. My subjects were:

• Introduction to Business
• Project Management
• Business Process Engineering
• Business Systems Analysis

Before the Christmas break (we get Christmas Eve to the 2nd January off) - I have a lot of continuous assessment to mark. Exams take place in January.

I know some students check out this blog occasionally - so I'd like to congratulate all students on their work in semester I.

Semester II awaits!

Christmas Carol Service in Blackrock

This evening I was part of the St John the Baptist Church choir that sang at the parish Christmas Carol Service. Also participating was a traditional Irish music group and a children's choir from the local school. The service was held in the parish church and a reasonable crowd showed up for the evenings prayers and entertainment. Does this count as a  gig?

We had three carols to sing on our own - "Coventry Carol", "O Little One Sweet", and "Still, Still, Still". We also joined in on other carols like "Joy to the World" and " O Come All Ye Fatihful". I have to say that I am enjoying the singing in the choir - there were three men (incuding myself) and ten women singing. We certainly belted out the carols!

I still find the parts (bass in my case) hard to get right. Even though I practice a bit on the piano at home, I do get many notes wrong. So I sing out loud the bits I know, and sing low for the bits I don't know so well. If all else fails I sing along with the melody!

We have Christmas masses coming up - so that will be a mix of traditional hymns and Christmas carols. I'm doing the vigil mass on Christmas Eve, and the main 12.00 mass on Christmas Day. I'll be so holy that God has to let me into Heaven!

I have been a member of the choir for just three months and they are a great bunch to sing with - we even went for a drink after the service to Tonic in Blackrock. I have a long way to go before I get all the hynns and carols right - I mustn't have been listening at mass over all the years, everthing seems that I have never heard them before. I'll keep this up for a while - something to do on a Monday evening (choir practice), and the auld religion bit won't do me any harm either.

The 10 Worst Songs of the 1970s Pictures - Rolling Stone

Following on from yesterdays's post about the top 10 photos of 2011, I naturally decided to beat that post with a look at a reader's poll in Rolling Stone magazine - The 10 Worst Songs of the 1970s. Since all my teenage years were spent in the 1970s, I actually remember most of these rubbish songs as I listened to David Hamilton on BBC Radio 1 almost every day. For children of that fabulous decade - the 1970s, here's the top 10 worst songs:

1. Rick Dees - 'Disco Duck'
2. Starland Vocal Band - 'Afternoon Delight'
3. Paul Anka - '(You're) Having My Baby'
4. Debby Boone - 'You Light Up My Life'
5. The Captain and Tennille - 'Muskrat Love'
6. Rupert Holmes - 'Escape (The Pina Colada Song)'
7. Terry Jacks - 'Seasons In The Sun'
8. Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods - 'Billy Don't Be A Hero'
9. Morris Albert - 'Feelings'
10. Minnie Riperton - 'Loving You'

I don't remember "Disco Duck" which was a one-hit-wonder for a Memphis DJ - perhaps it was only a minor hit on this side of the Atlantic. The Captain and Tennille's  "Muskrat Love" is the other one I don't recall. "Billy Don't Be A Hero" was a hit for Paper Lace over here. So - if I had to pick a favourite from this list, it would have to be The Pina Colada song by a mile. Here it is for for all you 1970s lovers (with Rupert Holmes looking very like Kenny Everett!):

The National Geographic Magazine's Top 10 Photos of 2011

I am a big fan of the National Geographic and have been reading and learning from it since the 1960's. As a boy I used to put their maps on my bedroom wall and pour over them, as well as reading articles on everything scientific and geographical over the years. I also love the photographs - you can pick up any National Geographic magazine and wonder at the quality and brilliance of some of the photos.

Photo by Joel Sartore - "Rift in Paradise".
Image link to Top 10 Photographs of 2011
on National Geographic.

The National Geographic magazine's top 10 photos are now available on-line. As usual there are some stunning photos shown - my favourite is the one with the lion in the tree. I wish I could take photos like this - I'm sure hours of practice and patience went into setting up this shot. Also certain in the digital age that perhaps several photos were taken of which this one was selected - perhaps it was even uploaded to the Internet on the spot. Imagine that in the recent past that the photographer would have had to go back to a studio to develop the film and wait to see the end result!

It's a great credit to the National Geographic that they are still in existence and continue to be popular despite the digital age when anybody can shoot almost professional photos with basic digital cameras. Many of their photos are available as free wallpapers for your desktop, and are certainly worth browsing. A fantastic learning resource.

Students use smartphones to study more, and more efficiently

StudyBlue is a website that is designed to help students study better, principally by allowing students to make on-line flashcards with photos and audio for mobile devices. According to StudyBlue author Scott D, "It turns out that students who make flashcards on smartphones or study their flashcards on mobile devices are getting a ton of benefits from their mobile study sessions by taking advantage of the opportunity to study everywhere they go". 

Image link to StudyBlue.com
(click link for better view).

According to StudyBlue, students with smartphones are:

• twice as likely to study between 6 and 8.00 am
• almost three times as likely to track their progress
• study 40 more minutes each week by studying everywhere they go

StudyBlue have prepared an Infographic to illustrate their findings which are based on a study of nearly one million users from the Autumn 2011 semester - so it is bang up-to-date. I also like the bit at the bottom of the infographic that shows the percentage of students who "often" use their smartphones before going to sleep (46%), waiting in a queue (55%), and commuting (74%).

StudyBlue also has a section for Teachers. I have registered as a user and will investigate using this for a class in the future. So far it seems easy to use and already has features that should be in VLEs like Moodle.

How To... Use the COUNTIF statement in Excel 2010

My YouTube Partner Channel is now renamed Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin. YouTube have changed the layouts, and I have edited my channel to suit. Gone is the (very basic) banner graphic which I drew myself from the top - I may replace this with something better in the future. For YouTube Partners there are some good Analytics (formerly called "Insight") - while they don't really tell me much more than what I was able to determine before - they are certainly more user-friendly to use. The number of views today stands at 660,015. Last week the channel had 17,971 views, and the number of subscribers continues to grow (now at 699). I'm hoping that YouTube's new structure for education channels will help drive more traffic to the channel. 

My lastest video added this week is about how to use a COUNTIF function in Excel. This is a function that I actually use myself quite a bit, it is easy to learn about, and is very useful. At 3 minutes 41 seconds it is also one of my shortest videos. This one was recorded using Camstudio's free screencasting tool. Have a look and see what you think:

"Software is like magic: all you need is ability"

Last week I commented about an anonymous Irish Times article "Kids use PCs at home yet write by hand at school. It's antediluvian" in which I agreed that there is not enough technology education in our schools. This debate gains further ground from John Naughton writing in today's Guardian newspaper "Programming should take pride of place in our schools". Naughton writes that if "we don't change the way ICT is thought about and taught, we're shutting the door on our children's futures". Here-here!

Image link to The Guardian.

For anyone passionate about technology and education - Naughton's article is a "must-read". While the article is about UK schools, it can easily be translated for schools all over the world. Naughton sees learning the likes of Microsoft Office as merely "office skills" - and that what's missing is "any appreciation of the real significance of introducing children to programming". In the UK and Ireland, our schools and colleges are constantly criticized for not producing graduates with the skills needed by industry. Despite this, talented young people like Shawn Fanning (Napster) and Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook) innovated with little more than a laptop and programming ability. We should teach at least some basic programming in our schools. Not just as an option in Transition Year - but as a full subject for Junior and Leaving Certificates. It would be better and more useful than some of our exiting subjects. I left secondary school in 1978, and since the mid 1980s I have used computers almost every day. Not once since 1978 have I had a conversation in Irish longer than a cúpla focal.

Naughton's final paragraph is telling:

That's why software is like magic: all you need is ability. And some children, for reasons that are totally and wonderfully mysterious, have an extraordinary aptitude for programming – just as some have a musical, mathematical or artistic gift. If the government excludes computer science from the national curriculum then it will be effectively slamming the door to the future.

Technology as a main subject for secondary school students WILL HAPPEN - it's just a matter of when.

New Restaurant - Le Plancha in Blackrock

We decided to try the recently opened new restaurant in Blackrock - Le Plancha. It is located beside the Wishing Well Pub and replaces Papa's Mediterranean Restaurant which finally closed after a few years of being open and shut intermittently. Le Plancha "is a modern Irish restaurant with a style of cuisine using influences from the Iberian Peninsula & France". Certainly different from a lot of the run-of-mill restaurants we now have in Ireland.

Photo from LePlancha.ie.

The menu is short, but excellent. Fish, beef, duck, and chicken - but with delicious sounding sauces and vegetable mixes. For a starter I had a smoked duck salad - very tasty. After this I went for baked halibut with a wonderful mix of mushrooms, peas, and pickled onions on an olive oil mash. I was not disappointed - this was really good. I even had a desert of chocolate brownie with smashing Bailey's ice-cream. All-in-all - an excellent meal which I felt was good value at €78 for the two of us (including drinks).

Despite the Recession - businesses are still opening up. Just take a look at bizstartup.ie to see that many entrepreneurs are still dipping their toes into new business ventures. It must take a lot of guts to start a new business these days - especially in the restaurant business. We met the owner, the lovely Eimear, who looked after us well. We had a chat about Facebook and Twitter and their roles in promoting businesses - hopefully I convinced her of the benefits that social networking tools can have for her in her new venture. Good luck to Eimear and all at Le Plancha, and many thanks for a lovely evening out.

Le Plancha is not on Twitter yet, but they can be found on Facebook.

Ballingate House Upper

Out of the blue I recently received an email from CM who was researching his family, and who had discovered one of my very early posts on this blog: Ballingate House Upper - Where I Grew Up. This house stood on the spot where my Mum and Dad's house now stands. CM Googled "Ballingate" and found my Blog post - it turns out that CM's Grandfather was born in this house.

Photo used with permission (courtesy of CM).

CM sent me an old photograph of the house - I had never seen any pictures of it before. My Grand Uncle Pat Hurley bought the house (and surrounding farm) for £1,200 in 1942. Ballingate House Upper was demolished in two parts. According to my Dad, during World War II (possibly 1944) the roof was removed to avoid paying rates, and an auction was held to sell all the slates and timber from the house. This auction realized more than the £1,200 it cost to buy the farm - a nice piece of business despite the fact that a fine house was ruined. Dad bought the farm from Uncle Pat in 1959 - by then the house was a ruin and it was demolished to make way for our family house in 1960. The rubble from the house was piled beside the avenue leading to our farm for many years.

Image link to BuildingsOfIreland.ie.

I visited Mum and Dad today and showed them the photo above - it did not take Dad long to figure out what building was in the photo. While he remembers the house well, not everything was as he thought. Ballingate House Upper is shown in the mid 19th century ordinance survey map to the left. The house is the square shape at the north east end of the buildings shown - we had some good fun today walking around the existing house and the remaining buildings trying to figure out the aspect of the house in the photo. We are certain that the photo was taken from a south-west angle.

Once again the power of the Internet is making the world smaller. A simple blog post has prompted CM (who lives in France) to check out his family history and an old photo can now be shared for all to see. I know CM now plans to visit Ballingate before Christmas.

The only Irish channel on YouTube's Directory for Lifelong Learning!

YouTube is getting its act together as far as Education Channels are concerned (must be the Google influence?). In the past few days I have been getting YouTube Partner updates telling me about new features and more Insight into who is viewing my Learn with YouTube channel.

Click image to enlarge.

YouTube have set up a Lifelong Learning section in the Education category. There are 103 channels listed today at EDU › Channels Directory for Lifelong Learning, and guess what? My channel is one of the 103! YouTube have changed the name from Learn with YouTube to Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin, so I have some work to do to in changing my Channel header and title. So far, this is the only channel listed from Ireland. I'm sure more will be added to this directory over time, but it's cool to be one of the first 100.

My channel is at #72 for "Most Viewed" - a long way behind #1 which is the National Geographic Channel which has over 10 million views. I am also near the bottom at #99 for number of subscribers, also a long way behind the National Geographic which has over half a million subscribers. Given that these are figures for the whole world (not just Ireland) I am giving myself a small pat on the back today!

"Kids use PCs at home yet write by hand at school. It's antediluvian"

Last Tuesday's Irish Times features an article on Kids use PCs at home yet write by hand at school. It's antediluvian. It is a column "designed to give a voice to those within the education system who wish to speak out anonymously". I don't know who wrote the article, but he/she certainly speaks for a lot of parents and for those in education.

Image link to Edutopia.org.

In the article a parent writes about their son who spends a lot of time on his computer at home, and very little time on a computer at school where most work is still done by hand. The argument is that this is no preparation for working life and that this is "so absurd when you consider what most people’s working lives are like nowadays: everything is based around a computer. Everything we write is typed into one program or another". 

Parents are hearing all the time that there are jobs in IT - indeed yesterday I was at a stand in NCI's Open Day at which this years school 6th years attended, and I told any prospective student who asked about computing that there are jobs in IT. Some were wondering how much knowledge of computers did they need to do a Computer Science course.

So are students prepared for College/work? Almost all students who come to the College now are digitally literate. This means that they can use a computer to do based things like send/receive email, look up stuff on the web, and create a Facebook page. They do not yet know about programming, computer architecture, electronics, operating systems, and software engineering. Many schools have ECDL programmes as part of Transition Year - but by the time students have finished the leaving certificate two years later they will have forgotten most of what they have learned (especially if they don't use any of what they have learned). ECDL and Facebook is not enough for the real world.

So I agree with the anonymous Irish Times writer that technology should be a more important part of education. The trouble is that it costs a lot of money - not everybody can afford a laptop, and the Department of Education certainly can't afford it. To spend more would mean sacrificing something else. Dare I say that the money spent on educating students to learn Irish (which many cannot speak after 14 years in our education system) would be better spent on technology?