Belvedere College 31 Cistercian College Roscrea 7 #294

Myself and 12 of the class of 1977 from Cistercian College Roscrea went along to the Leinster Schools Senior Cup final today to see CCR play Belvedere College. CCR were the reigning champions having won the competition for the first time ever last year. However, this year CCR were no match for a brilliant Belvedere side who ran out worthy winners by 24 points. 

There was great atmosphere in the ground and despite the Belvedere dominance the Roscrea fans kept up the singing and chanting throughout. Belvedere ran in five superb tries while CCR scored a consolation try near the end. "Belvo" are worthy champions and congratulations to them.

The best part of the day was meeting up with my classmates from 1977. There is a special bond between men and their classmates from no matter how long ago. It is 39 years since we left the school, but this group of 56 year olds enjoyed a special day out, and the couple of jars in Kiely's of Donnybrook afterwards. We are planning our 40th anniversary already for next year - look forward to it!

All over - Belvedere celebrate.

Great-Grandparents - James Byrne, and Margaret Coburn #295

While researching more into my family's history I found in the 1901 census of Britain and Ireland a copy of a census form that I am certain features two of my Great-Grandparents: James Byrne, and Margaret Coburn. I found them previously in the 1911 census when they had started a family and lived in Ballyquirk near Lorrha in Co Tipperary. Nearby is the town-land of Ballinacor where I found "Margaret Coburn" aged 20 who was a "servant" in the household of James and Maria Maher. Her name was easier to search as there is some confusion over the spelling of James' name. If he is my great-grandfather in the 1901 census he uses the "Byrne" spelling of his name, but in the 1911 census he uses "Burns". The name my Mum's family use is Byrne. Their ages in the form below on rows seven and nine (27 for James, 20 for Margaret) are right according to my records. The counties of their birth (Galway and Kildare respectively) are also correct. On the 1911 census James Burns is listed as an "Agricultural Labourer", below he is a "Farm Servant". Given the proximity of Ballincor to Ballyquirk, and the details above, there is little doubt in my mind that the James and Margaret listed below are indeed my great-grandparents. We know that James joined the British Army in the First World War, but have not found even a trace of him in Military records. He survived the war and died in 1925 - I think he would have been easier to find if he had been killed instead. Though Margaret died in 1965 I don't recall ever seeing her.

Source: 1901 Census.
Click to enlarge.

Learning Analytics - Big College is Watching You #296

Image Source: NMC.org.

The 2016 Horizon Report for Higher Education makes for interesting reading. It breaks down emerging technology and its time-to-adoption for "One year or less", "Two to three years", and "Four to five years". It doesn't always get its predictions right, but nevertheless it is a fruitful resource for third-level educators like me to review. One of the "One year or less" time-to-adoption technologies is "Learning Analytics".

The Horizon Report defines Learning Analytics as "an educational application of web analytics aimed at learner profiling, a process of gathering and analyzing details of individual student interactions in online learning activities". The goal is to "build better pedagogies, empower active learning, target at-risk student populations, and assess factors affecting completion and student success". There is now so much data in the form of learning analytics available to colleges that many are searching for ideas as to what to do with these data and how to add value to education. Could this be used to deliver truly personalised learning to students? Some colleges, such as the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga are already using analytics to determine potential problem areas related to students dropping out of college. The Open University in the UK is using learning analytics to monitor the amount of effort by students in their studies.

Image source:

Tracés

 - Revue de Sciences Humaines

Learning Analytics are still in the early stages of development - many colleges don't yet use them in any meaningful way. One interesting study mentioned in the Horizon Report found that of "2,600 college students surveyed, 87% report that having access to data analytics concerning their academic performance has a positive impact on their learning. Analytics are not just for College authorities and Faculty - students will obviously benefit too. 

There is the "Big Brother is Watching You" consideration - should we be collecting data on students? I am emphatically opposed to tagging College students for attendance at class - they are responsible for their own learning. I am fully aware that a student in one of my modules might learn more reading a book in one hour in the Library than in one of my two hour classes. But what about their engagement with systems like Moodle? For example, I can check when a student last accessed Moodle - is this an invasion of privacy? I can see who regularly accesses Moodle and who doesn't - should this influence my opinion of student effort and their assessment? 

From my point of view it would be great to have unlimited access to all data on my students and classes - perhaps I could "build better pedagogies" and "empower active learning" as suggested by the Horizon Report. But somehow - I would not feel comfortable doing this.

Augmented and Virtual Reality - Horizon Report 2016 #297

Yesterday I wondered if virtual reality would have a place in the classroom and speculated that there will be some uses and values for this technology - but maybe not just yet. Today I took a look at the 2016 Horizon Report for Higher Education to see what it is predicting for different technologies over the next few years - and VR features too (time to adoption: 2 to 3 years).

Google Cardboard.
Image source: Google Developers.

The report states that "VR constructs provide contextual learning experiences that foster exploration of real world data in virtual surroundings" and reports that Google Cardboard "presents students with the opportunity to construct their own VR content, and more educators are using it because of its accessibility and flexibility". According to the report, "VR has the potential to significantly impact the delivery and content of online education", and gives some examples to prove it. 

Stanford University and MIT are already using VR on executive education programmes so that group projects, discussions, and networking can be more easily facilitated. At Penn State, engineering students used VR to assemble an object more efficiently than using a mouse-and-keyboard setup. At North Carolina State University, educators, researchers, and design teams are using VR technologies such as Google Cardboard to better support lab-based and field-based instruction in online learning environments. Wow!

I must confess I had not yet heard of Google Cardboard until today. According to Google Developers it allows users to "build apps that display 3D scenes with binocular rendering, track and react to head movements. Certainly the Cardboard documentation makes for very interesting reading. As the name "Cardboard" suggests, it looks easy to make, and may just be the way VR takes off in education. 

Note to self: research Google Cardboard!

Patchwork Degrees #298

Supposing you could make up the credits for a degree from many different sources both on-line and in the classroom. To a certain extent you can do this already - exemptions gained elsewhere are possible in educational institutions, and of course students move around from College to College. 

Most IT degrees will have common components - here are some of the subjects that are on one of Ireland's most popular IT degrees in DCU:

Image source: USA Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• Artificial Intelligence
• Software Programming
• Web Design
• Data Warehouses and Data Mining
• Concurrent and Distributed Programming
• Cryptography
• Multimedia Technology

I'm sure that there are high-caliber Faculty delivering modules in DCU (and similar elsewhere) in these subject areas. But what if you could tap into a world-class series of lectures in each subject delivered on-line by the top experts in each field? How about taking a module on Machine Learning from Stanford University? Java Programming from the University of Hong Kong? HTML from W3C? Mathematics for Computer Science from MIT? Web Development from the Microsoft Virtual Academy? Introduction to Cryptography from Harvard? I'm certain that a patchwork degree could be made up exclusively by combining on-line modules - if a College or University could be found to accredit it. Here's where the major problem will lie.

Typically a four year science degree will have about 25-30 modules. If all of these were taken online from different institutions, where is assessment carried out? If each on-line institution had its own assessment, could these be combined to make up a degree? Would someone graduating with such a patchwork degree be able to participate in a Graduation Ceremony at a College of their choosing (where they may not have taken any modules)? I don't see this happening...... yet.

Some day - students will be able to build their own degrees from institutions all over the world. Maybe in the beginning students could be offered traditional campus based courses, but with a significant number of credits allowable on-line from other institutions. Of course these on-line modules would have to be formally accredited, but there is no reason why an international standard cannot be developed. After all, if  Introduction to Cryptography is good enough for Harvard University, it should be good enough for everyone else.

There's lots that an on-line only course cannot offer, such as face-to-face interaction with lecturers, college life, support, and drinking in the college bar. But I'm sure employers might be interested in the above model - variety and different experiences will add value to any degree. A degree parchment with the likes of Harvard, MIT, and Stanford on it might be more attractive than one that says just one College name???

A "terrifying dystopian future" via @telegraph #299

A few weeks a go a photo of Mark Zuckerburg walking past hundreds of people wearing virtual reality headsets at a Samsung event in Barcelona caused quite a stir. The Telegraph newspaper called it a "terrifying dystopian future". This week I am writing about technology in the classroom, and this photo got me thinking - could the classroom of the future look like this?

Image source: The Telegraph.

I'm certain that mainstream education uses for these virtual reality headsets are not far off. I've never tried one so don't know what power (if any) they have to help people learn. Could future classroom looks like the Zuckerburg photo? If so, is there a place for a lecturer in this classroom? Why would students come into a classroom to put on a VR headset anyway?

Of course, some subjects such as Science, Geography, and Paleontology, would lend themselves more readily to virtual reality. One of my main subjects is Statistics, and I don't quite see a use for VR just yet. Nevertheless - technology such as this has the potential to really make a difference to learning and teaching. Educators will increasingly become content developers, and very specialist skills would have to be grasped in order to develop content for VR. A lecture may well be a very different thing in the not-too-distant future compared to now.

Will the the traditional role of the Lecturer survive? 

I think not - Lecturing as it has been for hundreds of years is dead, or at least dying. In the past 10 years alone I have seen huge advances with the use of technology for learning and teaching. What will the education landscape look like in another 10 years? We don't know of course, but later this week I'll speculate on this.

On-line classes - The "New Normal" #300

According to Clay Shirky (@cshirky), "The digital revolution in higher education has already happened. No one noticed.". He writes that in 2012 one in four American undergraduates took "at least one course online" - a figure that is surely climbing. He speculates that "half the country’s undergraduates will have at least one online class on their transcripts". Are we ready for this in Ireland?

There's no reason why we can't be. I'd love to see the situation where graduates will achieve some of their credits on-line. There are still barriers such as low broadband and connectivity issues for many potential on-line students, but these are slowly but surely being removed. Perhaps the biggest barrier is in the third-level institutions themselves. In my first classes in NCI I had to print out notes for each student, and give them time in class to write down further notes. This was only 13 years ago - it's almost unthinkable to do this today. All my notes and resources such as case-studies, exercises, tutorials, and sample files for each module are made available to students via Moodle. It's the same for most of my colleagues. More of my material is available on YouTube and I frequently point students to other content on-line not of my making. 

Here's an interesting quote from Shirky's article:

We already know what the college of the future will look like, because the non-traditional students are creating it now. It’s a hybrid of online and in-person classes, centered on the student and not the institution, with credits accruing from multiple schools, and adding up to a degree in alternating periods of attendance and absence.

This poses great challenges to bricks and mortar educational institutions like NCI. In the future, will our graduates at our Graduation Ceremony each year be graduating with credits for other Colleges making up their degree at NCI? Can we see a future where a degree parchment will list credits from several education providers both on-line and off-line? What will it mean for traditional graduation ceremonies if over the three or four years of a degree programme that only a small proportion of the modules were taken in the same institution?

I would love to see the day when a degree (or similar as yet unnamed qualification) draws from several locations. More about this tomorrow.

Funerals - Reminders of Our Mortality #301

Joe Bourke speaking at The Gathering,
14th November 2015.

Today I attended a funeral in Ballina & Castlebar - Joe Bourke, a brother of my late father-in-law Billy, had died aged 90 years. Last November 14th Joe lead The Bourke Gathering in Castlebar at which there were the many ancestors of his Grandfather - this was also Joe's 90th birthday. There were many mentions of this day just over three months ago at the funeral. 

My Grandmother, Kathleen (Hurley) O'Loughlin, used to say at family funerals of a relative that had lived a long time that it was "a happy funeral". If there is such a thing as "a happy funeral", then today's was one too. His heart-broken family were grateful for his long and fulfilled life.

On Saturday I learned of two deaths that also reminded me of our mortality. Dan McClean was a former boss of mine at the Bunclody Farmer's Co-op in the late 1970s/early 1980s. At that time the Co-op employed lots of local young people and for many of us Dan was our first boss. He was tough, but very fair - he had a loud booming voice and probably never caught any of us dossing because we could hear him coming from miles away. He gave me my first part-time job making preservatives for strawberries at the Co-op. 

Another death was of somebody I never met - Mary O'Hara from Carnew. My Mum reminded me that her husband Jim befriended me while I was in hospital in Cappagh (for an operation on two broken fingers) in the late 1960s. Jim looked out for me and helped me to adjust to the hospital routine (I was there for 10 days), in what was my first lonely time away from home. To my knowledge I have not met Jim since. Mary was just 62 - taken far too early. 

Rest in peace - Joe, Dan, and Mary.

Free Family Searches with Ancestry #302

Ancestry.co.uk is offering free access to all their Irish records for the month of March. However, since I had registered for a free trial several years ago I could not take up this offer - but I decided to sign up anyway and pay the annual fee. Like a lot of people, I am interested in finding out more about my family, and Ancestry seems to have great access to a lot of records. There are no non-Irish ancestors in my family (that I know of) going back several generations, so Irish stuff is of the most interest to me. 

The first thing I did was to transfer my family tree from Myheritage.com to Ancestry.co.uk. This is easily done by saving your tree as a GEDCOM file in one site and importing it to the other. While this worked very well, it did not bring over any photographs. The Search tool is great - within minutes I was able to find both my mother and father's birth registration in the "Ireland, Civil Registration Births Index, 1864-1958" - though the original documents were not available. As this ends in 1958, I can't find my own birth registration in 1959.

My Mum's Birth Registration (screen grab from Ancestry.co.uk).

Image source: The 18th Century Headstones of Denis Cullen.
(Link only - no permission to reproduce).

I had a great chat with my Mum today talking about her family - particularly on her Mum's side. My grandmother, Kathleen Cullen, was related to Admiral William Browne, Bishop Browne of Killala, and the actor Dónal McCann. We don't know what these connections are, so it might be a nice project for me to work these out. Mum also told me about one of her ancestors, Denis Cullen, who was a well-known stonemason in Wicklow and Wexford. His name is on several headstones in the region as the stonemason who created these grave markers. We may not be able to link this Denis Cullen, whose work work spans the 1750s to about 1790,  to my family tree. The nearest connection I have is to my great-great-grandfather Richard Cullen who died in 1903. He was from Glendalough and was a master plasterer. He was married to Julia Browne (his 2nd wife) - this is the possible connection to Admiral Browne, the founder of the Argentine navy.

Keep on Blogging #303

Keeping up a daily post on a blog is really hard. First - you have to remember to do it (I wrote yesterday's post today). Then of course you have to think of something to write - something interesting that's not shite.

Image source:
Garden, Home & Party.

Jon Westenberg provides advice on "How To Publish 6 Blog Posts Every Week". Perhaps his best ideas are to:

• Plan out your writing in advance
• Sketch out your posts one week ahead

While this advice is mostly for writers, I don't do either of these. Occasionally I will see something interesting and save it as a draft for later publication, but mostly I have put myself under pressure this year to come up with something new every day. Right now I've no idea what I'll write about tomorrow. Westenberg plans out a whole month of posts ahead, and then sketches them out to prepare for his daily posts. This avoids "scrambling for ideas or direction" - no "excuses". Maybe I should take his advice? 

Only 302 more posts to go!

Student Expectations of Faculty #304 #sorry

There's a not very funny joke in Colleges that they would be great places to work if there were no students. I don't subscribe to this - students are the life-blood of Colleges, not Faculty (or non-Faculty staff). The place would be nothing without them. Nevertheless, many students have expectations of what third-level education is and of the people who deliver that education. 

Donna Lanclos, writing about “Stop being ruled by ‘student expectations’!” in Medium, posts that "students’ ideas of what higher education should be now weigh much more heavily in the institutions’ educational planning". As Lanclos says - there are "low bars" being set if "students coming into higher education don’t know much about what higher education can be". The "low bar" is set if this is the standard that's set. I know when I went to College in 1978 I had no idea what to expect - I'm not sure that I even had any expectations. I didn't know what I didn't know. I certainly would never approach Faculty to ask a question, never mind criticise or challenge. This is getting more common in Colleges today - we get feedback from students that can sometimes be difficult, as well as gratifying to read. Students knock on my door at all times and I never turn them away. I do recall seeing a sign on the door of a Lecturer's office saying "No Student Visits to this Office". I couldn't believe it when I first saw it, nor the fact that the Lecturer was not forced to take it down.

I have had six extremely hectic weeks this semester so far - 60 hours per week has been the norm (thankfully things are settling back down again). One day last week a student approached me during a break in class and asked if she could see me the next day to talk about her project (that is not due for another six months). I was exhausted and knew that I had no time the following day to spare. I told her that I "hadn't time" and to come the following (this) week. Reflecting on this the next day I knew that it was the first time in 13.5 years working for the College that I had done this - and it left a bad taste. (I have since met the student and discussed her project with her). Though the student in question will almost certainly never read this - I apologise for my actions.

Despite what some folks think - we work in College to serve students. As Lanclos concludes: "part of our job is to provide a space for our students to stretch and explore things and if all we do is meet their expectations they’re not going to do that".

Book Review: "Has Anyone Seen Alice?" by P.T. Chambers #305

Image source: Amazon.

Just before Christmas I was given a signed copy of P.T. Chambers' first novel "Has Anyone Seen Alice?". Not one for reading many novels, I left it until after I had finished several non-fiction books that I had received as gifts or that I bought over Christmas. So last weekend I sat down and started this new book about "corruption, betrayal, deception, revenge and murder".

The book is a fast paced thriller very much along the lines of an American detective/crime drama series. Much of the text is dialogue based and you can almost see and feel the main characters on TV acting out their roles. There are no long detailed descriptions of smoke-filled rooms or car chases - this is very much a get-the-story told type of book. No spoilers here, but the author keeps the reader guessing as the plot keeps developing. As you get closer to the end of the book and see the number of pages running out, there is a definite sense of it could all end too quickly. But no - there is a sequel in the pipeline which I will definitely get to find out what happens next.

For a first time novel this is a very good read, and also proves that if you have a story to tell, that there are ways and means of doing so. Good luck to P.T with this book.

Note: P.T. Chambers is known to me and I am proud to count him as both a friend and colleague.

My First Million Views Video #306

Last Saturday my "How To...Create a Basic Gantt Chart in Excel 2010" finally passed the million views mark! The view number reached 1,000,011 since this video was first published on the 4th January 2011. It accounts for 1/9 views on my channel and has been my "best seller" for a long time. I feel a bit like an aging rocker who hasn't had a hit for a few years, as I have not had a successful video like this with any other video - the next nearest has 416,606 views. The Gantt chart video gets lots of comments - mostly positive, and has 4,199 "Likes" (and 108 "Dislikes"). It has been good to me, but I am so grateful and humbled that so many people find this video useful. This video is also popular in Excel version 2003 (101,507 views), and version 2013 (154,507 views). Here are some of the figures from YouTube Analytics for this video:

Click to enlarge.

Here is the video:

At the Theatre of Dreams: Manchester United 3 - Arsenal 2 #307

The first game of football I ever watched on TV was the 1968 European Cup Final between Manchester United and Benfica. I must have seen United hundreds of times on TV since then - Arsenal too. I had never been to Old Trafford in Manchester and I got a treat today when my brother Brian took me to see the Premiership game against Arsenal. A full house of over 75,000 fans saw an excellent games with five goals and lots of good fast exciting play. We had great seats behind the goal (just where I am standing in the photo below), and a great view of three of the goals (including two by Man Utd new boy - 18-year old Marcus Rashford). Many of the stars of Premiership football were on view: Mesut Ozil, Theo Walcott, David de Gea, Petr Cech, Danny Blind, Danny Welbeck, and Alexi Sanchez. I had never seen so many millionaires in one location in my life! 

Old Trafford certainly puts on a show - everything is done with a sense of occasion. You get an impression of how important all this is when you are patted down by security guards before going in, there are many different languages being spoken all around the ground, and the noise and atmosphere inside is fantastic. We had a lot of "experts" around us who were mostly entertaining, though some behind us provided a running commentary throughout. All around us were passionate Man Utd fans and it felt to me as if they were kicking and heading every ball with their idols. We had to stand throughout the match even though we were in an all seater stadium. This wasn't too much of a problem as the space between the seats is tiny and uncomfortable.

On the flight home I sat beside a man who had brought his very excited young son (I'm guessing he was about 9 or 10) to the same game. He had a Man Utd jersey on and, like me, it was his first time to go to Old Trafford. I was 9 years watching George Best and Bobby Charlton in the European Cup on the TV in 1968. Addicted to football!

Being Wrong! #GE16 #308

Last Saturday I predicted that the Dún Laoghaire Constituency in the General Election would return Mary Mitchell-O'Connor, Richard Boyd-Barrett, and Mary Hanafin. The betting was as follows:

• Mary Mitchell-O'Conner 1/14
• Richard Boyd-Barrett 1/7
• Mary Hanafin 8/15
• Maria Bailey 13/8
• Cormac Devlin 5/2
• Carrie Smith 6/1

It seemed that Maria Bailey was an outsider, but today she is elected at the expense of Mary Hanafin (whose political career is now surely over?). How things can change in a week! Last week I was writing that Maria Bailey was probably looking towards the next election, but somehow she has surprised the pundits. Fine Gael are being praised for their "vote management" in the Dún Laoghaire constituency.

Only one canvasser knocked on my door while I was at home during this campaign - she was a canvassing for Mary Mitchell-O'Connor. She told me that "their were letters being sent around" asking some supporters to vote #1 for Bailey and #2 for Mitchell-O'Connor, but that we should ignore them and vote #1 for Mitchell-O'Connor. There were no such letters in our area. I didn't vote for Mitchell-O'Connor. During the last election campaign in 2011, she told me on my doorstep that she was only running once. Clearly she likes the trappings of Leinster House.

Fun and games over the next few weeks as the politicians argue further amongst themselves. We have voted for a mix of many parties and independents, and against the established groups. I hope we are happy with the Government we get!

Image Source: Irish Independent.

Killiney Lions Quiz #309

Last evening I had the pleasure once again of being Quiz master for the Killiney Lions Club fund-raising quiz in the Rochestown Lodge Hotel. A smaller than usual crowd were treated to lots of questions on the General Election, and on the 1916 Rising. Mixed into this were the usual general knowledge and picture rounds. One of the hardest rounds was the first - average score was about 5/10. Here are the questions, see how you do:

1	What character in the Harry Potter series of films was played by the late Alan Rickman?
2	Who are the current Guinness Pro12 Champions?
3	Name the three countries that the Republic of Ireland will play in the 2016 Euro Finals in France this summer.
4	Name the three countries that Northern Ireland will play in the 2016 Euro Finals in France this summer.
5	In 1929, the midlands town of Maryborough was renamed - what is the town’s current name?
6	What is Van Morrison’s real first name?
7	In the animal kingdom, what is a “polliwog”?
8	He died on 22nd September last year and amongst many of his famous quotes was "It's like déjà vu all over again" – who was he?
9	In 1978, Terry Wogan reached #21 in the UK charts with what song?
10	Kim Kardashian and Kanye West became the proud parents of a little boy last December – what name did they give their son?

Data Science Skills in Demand for 2016 #310

Colleges will often question themselves to see if they are teaching the right skills required from our graduates when they finish College It is difficult when planning new degrees, knowing that there will be no graduates for the first three or four years as new students work their way through each year - what skills will be required in four years time. All we can do is follow trends and consult with industry about what's needed.

Daniel Gutierrez, writing for insideBIGDATA, tells us about the Data Science Skills in Demand for 2016. The main skills are:

• SQL
• Hadoop
• Python
• Java
• R

Image source: Ngare's Dbit Blog.

Gutierrez further writes that the above skills "will really make a difference and help specialists write their own ticket when it comes to salaries". He quotes a report based on Linkedin research that the "SQL specialists are the ones sitting pretty right now".

At the National College of Ireland, Java is the programming language of choice for our BSc in Computing programmes. I am also glad to report that in our Data Analytics programmes we cover SQL, Hadoop, Python, and R in our curriculums. Nice to know we are making a difference to people's lives with the right skills for today. I know I am certainly using more R programming in class than ever before. The skill set demands of the IT sector will of course change in the future, it is our job to respond to this and keep up to date. 

Not Using the Delete or Backspace Key #311

I postef a few days ago about blogger JeffGoins 500 Word a Day challenge - while I am not taking his channllenge I do get an email from him every day with adive for those that do. Today he asdvises writers to forget about correcting grammar and punctions saand spelling and just write 500 word. Worry about corrections later. Sondes like a good idea, so Ive decide to try this for today's post.

I'm sure like a lot of people, I make a lot of typos as I write with a keyboard. My fingers sometime seem too big for the small keys and I oftern hit the key beeside the intedned one. I also mix up words like from and form - my fingers fdon;t seem to be connected to my brain when I write certain words. So far it is proving difficult for me to write this withour hitting the backspace of delete key!

Kevoin Ashton, in hios book "How to Fly a Horse" recounts the sotrey of Stephen Wolfram who used a keylooger to log all keystrokes over since 2003. Guess what - the key he hit most often was teh "Delete" key - he hasd used it more than 7 million times and estinated that he deleted 7% of all charcters he typed. Ashton aslo examines what Stephen King (the author) does and estimates that must erase almost two words for everyone he keeps.

All of this means that we are erasing a lot of what we do whne we use a computer. IN addition to making corrections, we sometimes sp[end a long time writing stuff only to delete it later. Maybe it's not good enough, or is out of date, or we just don;t want it anymore.

My keyboard at work is heavily stained with dust - but interestingly I can see some keys are clean from being used a lot, while otehrs are covered in dusty grime 'cos I hardly ebery use tehm (note to self - clean your keyborad!).

I've just checked the abouve text in Microsoft Word and it is 335 char words. IN addition too loads of typs I can also see a lot of red squiggly lines indicating erros.

Try this yourslef - it is quite liberating, but also an intersting thought about how we write and and how much we waste.

Admission: I pressed Backspce twice during this ecxperiment as I automatically corrected pressing an incorrect key - it is hard not to use it?!

New Additions to Open Plaques #312

I continue to add photos and details of plaques in Dublin to the Open Plaques website - yesterday while out for a walk in Blackrock I noticed a plaque I had not seen before near the DART station dedicated to a guy called Eddie Heron. I checked the Open Plaques website, and it was not there - so I added it. Here is the plaque - it is the fifth one I've added this year (the other four are from my trip to West Palm Beach in Florida last month):

Other recent additions by me are as follows:

This one is in West Pal;m Beach - Open Plaques link.

Palm Beach - Open Plaques link.

Palm Beach - Open Plaques link.

Last one from Palm Beach - Open Plaques link.

What Price Privacy? #313

I have been reading with some interest about Apple's refusal to cooperate with the FBI - Adrian Weckler has a great article in today's Irish Independent "Get your paws off our iPhones, Cook tells world's cops" where he sums up the situation nicely. The FBI is obviously concerned with national security in America - they had "captured the iPhone of one of the terrorists responsible for a lethal gun attack in California's San Bernardino last December" and wanted Apple to change the security software to make it easier for the FBI to hack phones. Tim Cook of Apple responded that the "implications of the government's demands are chilling". Whose side am I on?

Image source: OnlineShopForMe.com.

Naturally, I want to live in an environment safe from terrorists (and other criminals too). If I thought that intelligence from a terrorist gobshite's phone could have prevented 9/11 or the recent Paris attacks I would be all for it and land on the side of the "greater good". If it saved only one life - I would still support the FBI. That life could be mine or one of my family's. 

But what about privacy? Do I want unknown FBI agents hacking into my iPhone - well I don't. But I can't have it both ways. I would be in favour of the authorities obtaining a court order to hack into certain individual's phones if there is evidence of suspicious activity - just like a search warrant. But crooks and terrorists aren't dumb people and I'm sure they'll figure a way to get around any new security checks. Terrorist like IS can rot in jail and I don't care what it takes to get them there. But for people in civilized societies, privacy is important and should not be up for grabs for unlimited monitoring in the interest of national security. We have laws with ways and means of bringing criminals to justice - we must use and stand by these. Otherwise the terrorists win.

Shell Shape Variation PhD Data Resurrected #314

Between the summers of 1984 and 1987 as a postgraduate student in the Department of Zoology in Trinity College, I made thousands of measurements in a study of shell shape variation in the Painted Topshell Calliostoma zizyphinum (L.). Initially my research began as a project to investigate differences between the variegated and white types of this mollusc, but it expanded to a study of the shell shapes of 24 populations around the Irish and French coasts - and how the shape is influenced by environment. 29 years later I still have my data!

Calliostoma zizyphinum (L.).
Image source: Shell Collection by José Santos.

Last week in my Statistics class I used some of my own data from some of my sample sites: Castleaffy Strand in Clew Bay, Corranrroo Bay and Scanlan's Island in Co Clare, and Ballyhenry in Strangford Lough. For the Ballyhenry sample I measured two variations of the shell (white and variegated - see diagram above) - this means I had five samples from four sites. The topic being discussed was Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) - so I used my five samples to determine if there was a significance difference between shells from the five samples based on just one of my measurements - the apical angle (in degrees) at the top of the shell. 

Of course in 1987, when I was writing all my work up, I did not have the benefit of statistics packages like IBM's SPSS or the statistical programming language R. At that time I used the single mainframe computer in the College, which was located in one laboratory in Pearse Street.

Running a One-way ANOVA in SPSS found that there was a significant difference between at least two of my five samples (F=236.053, P=.000) - but which two (or more)? We run what's called a TukeyHSD (Honest Significant Difference) Test to compare each sample with the other four in turn to see if there is a significant difference between each sample. In this way we can determine which samples are different from each other - below is the output from SPSS for this test: 

The results shown were very interesting. The most important column above is the "Sig." column (third from right). Prior to this test I would have set a significance level of 95%, which means I would have just a 5% chance of making an incorrect decision - this is represented as an alpha value of 0.05. If my "Sig" level is less than 0.05, I have found a significant difference. As you can see above, the "Sig" is less than 0.05 in almost all lines which compare each sample with all others in turn - these indicates that each sample is significantly different from each other. Highlighted in yellow is a comparison of the two Ballyhenry samples (variegated and white) - here the "Sig" is higher than 0.05 which indicates that there is no difference between these two samples. While I have found a difference in shell shape between the samples, only the two Ballyhenry samples are not different. This is not a surprising finding given that the two Ballyhenry samples were taken from the same location. Shell shape is influenced by the environment (such as wave power, sea current, exposure, seaweed cover). Given that the white and variegated topshells live in the same location, I have found that their shell shape does not differ and can make a preliminary finding that the shell colour is not affected by the physical environment.

For further details of my research into shell shape variation see:

O'Loughlin, E.F.M. (1989). 
Notes on the distribution of Calliostoma zizyphinum (L.) (Mollusca) on the shores and shallow waters of the Irish coast. Bulletin of the Irish Biogeographical Society No 12.

O'Loughlin, E.F.M. & Aldrich, J.C (1987). 
Morphological variation in the painted topshell Calliostoma zizyphinum (L.) (Prosobranchia:Trochidae), from inter-tidal rapids on the Irish coast. Abstract. Journal of Molluscan Studies, volume 53, pp267-272.

O'Loughlin, E.F.M. & Aldrich, J.C (1987). 
An analysis of shell shape variation in the painted topshell Calliostoma zizyphinum (L.) (Prosobranchia:Trochidae). Abstract. Journal of Molluscan Studies, volume 53, pp62-68.

Writer's Block? #315

My more astute readers with notice that since January 1st I have been adding a hashtag with a number to each blog post - a few have even asked WTF is that for? The number for this post is #315 - it is a step in a countdown from 366 days from January 1st to December 31st 2016. One of my ideas for blog posts this year is to spend at least 15-20 minutes everyday and write a blog post on any topic. Most of my posts are about education, but I also throw in some personal stuff like family and reviews about places I've been or books I read. So far this year I have managed a post every day, though I am the first to admit that many of them are very, very trivial. This post will be the 52nd one this year, which is equivalent to the combined total for January, February, March, April, and May last year. There's no doubt that keeping this up will be difficult, especially if I want to avoid trivial posts!

What do I do when I run out of ideas to blog about? Jeff Goins, writing in his own blog, suggests "5 Ideas for Writing Blog Posts When You Feel Stuck". So my comment on this is the subject of today's post - only 314 more posts to go! Here are Goins' suggestions:

1. Confess a dark secret
2. Call someone out
3. Ask a question
4. Teach something
5. Pick a fight. 

My favourite one is (not surprisingly) #4 where Goins suggests sharing "something that you’re a natural at and generously share your knowledge with the world". I like to think that I do this with my YouTube channel, and of course it gives me plenty of topics to write about (my next post on this subject will be about a new landmark in my channel occurring in the next few weeks). For #3 above, Goins tells us that the "world doesn’t need you to have all the answers; it just needs you to speak up, to lead the conversation". I know I have more questions than answers. Very few of my posts fall into the "Call someone out" or "Pick a fight" category above - one such was during the 2011 General Election when I openly stated my intention to vote for Mary Hanafin of Fianna Fáil. I got quite a response to this (see here) - "Larry" and "Richard" took me to task, and I nervously responded.

Goins has a blog challenge where he has 2,578 people signed up to write at least 500 words a day. I have signed up just to see what his daily emails to me for 31 days will state - I'm not committing to taking up his challenge, though it is a very interesting one. Goins finishes his article with some sound advice: "What you must remember about blogging, about all writing actually, is that people don’t remember vanilla content. They don’t tweet links to mediocre articles and don’t tell their friends about someone who is average".

PS

This post is 522 words long.

Who will win in the Dún Laoghaire Constituency? #GE16 #316

With less than a week to go to the General Election, thoughts of most voters inevitably turn to their local constituency and who will get their precious "Number 1". My own constituency of Dún Laoghaire is, as always, lining up to be an interesting competition. Two elections ago this was a five seater, in the last election it became a four-seater, and this time it is effectively a three seater with the automatic return of Seán Barrett having served as Ceann Comhairle. This will mean that our quota will be a lot higher than normal, thus making it more difficult to get elected. 

Newstalk's Ivan Yates predicts that Mary Hanafin will win her old seat back, and that Mary Mitchell-O'Conner and Richard Boyd-Barrett will also win seats.

Fionán Sheehan in today's Irish Independent calls it as follows:

FG's Mary Mitchell-O'Connor will top the poll, followed by PBP's Richard Boyd-Barrett. The last seat is there for FF's Mary Hanafin to win, but not before seeing off FF's Cormac Devlin and FG's Maria Bailey.

Sheehan is not as sure as Yates about the last seat.

Most people agree that Labour will lose Éamon Gilmore's seat here. Gilmoire got a massive 11,468 votes in the last election, and was elected on the first count. Much of this was a personal vote - his retirement, combined with poor performance in the opinion polls points to a seat loss.

Sinn Féin may do well, but not enough to come near winning a seat. Fine Gael's Maria Bailey is also tipped to do well, she will surely be a more serious candidate in the next election following the probable retirement of Seán Barrett. 

Probably the best indicator is the betting - Paddy Power calls it:

        Mary Mitchell-O'Conner 1/14

        Richard Boyd-Barrett 1/7

        Mary Hanafin 8/15

        Maria Bailey 13/8

        Cormac Devlin 5/2

        Carrie Smith 6/1

Me - I go along with Paddy Power and predict Boyd-Barrett, Mitchell-O'Conner, and Hanafin will take the seats

Book Review: "Easter Dawn - The 1916 Rising" by @TurtleBunbury #317

Last Christmas I got a very pleasant gift of a copy of Turtle Bunbury's new book: Easter Dawn: The 1916 Rising. I had stopped to read it about two thirds of the way through to read Charles Spencer's book about the Regicides of Charles II (reviewed yesterday). But I got back to it again and finished it last night.

Image source: Amazon.

I have read a lot about the 1916 Rising, and of course know a lot about it from learning Irish history in school. There's so much about it on TV and I have already this read through "Courage Boys, We are Winning: An Illustrated History of the 1916 Rising" by Michael Barry (reviewed here) this year. So it was always a possibility that I would learn very little that is new in Bunbury's book. At €29.99 (Easons today) it is a very pricy book - I'm glad I got it as a present and I would definitely feel cheated if I had spent this much.

The book will be an excellent source of information for those who are not familiar with the events and people of the 1916 Rising. There's not much new for most Irish people - perhaps the book is aimed at a non-Irish market. The only surprise for me was to learn that the wife of James Connolly was Lillie Reynolds - a Protestant born in my hometown of Carnew in Co Wicklow. In all my years I had never heard of this, and my Dad who has lived all his nearly 85  years in the parish of Carnew - never heard it either. Wikipedia states that Lillie was born in Carnew, but elsewhere I have seen this disputed and that she was from Rathdrum or Rathnew. The best part of the book for me was the short summaries of the leading participants. Not much new, but good reading nonetheless. The book is written in small sections, and never feels like a narrative of the Rising. Most of the photos I had seen before in other books - again not much new.

Overall - a good, if pricey, read for those looking to find out about the 1916 Rising for the first time. For all others, there's little new for your money.

Book Review: "Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I" by Charles Spencer #318

Amazon is getting really good at recommending books that I might like - and with a Kindle price at €4.70 (and no postage), I couldn't resist a one-click "Buy Now" purchase of "Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles", The mid-seventeenth century was always a fascinating period of Irish history for me - probably inspired by G.A. Henty's "Orange and Green: A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick" (1888) which I read as a young teenager. This period of Irish history, and especially the War of the Two Kings and the English Civil War, is also deeply immersed in British history.

Image source: Amazon.

Charles Spencer (brother of Lady Diana Spencer), has written a fine account of the men who were involved in the trial of King Charles I. 59 men signed the King's death warrant before he was led off to the block. When Charles' son, Charles II became king in 1660 - vengeance was uppermost on his mind. In 1660, 10 regicides (king killers) were executed (9 by being hanged, drawn, and quartered). More executions and assassinations followed, and even up to the death in exile of the final regicide - Edmund Ludlow in 1692 (43 years after the King's execution) warrants still existed for the arrest of the regicides. Incidentally, I mentioned Edmund Ludlow in my own book, Exploring Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way, when writing about the Burren in Co Clare. Ludlow is quoted as saying about the Burren: "Not a tree whereon to hang a man; no water in which to drown him; no soil in which to bury him".

While there were so many regicides for Spencer to write about, he concentrates on a small number (like Ludlow). Many went into exile and lived in hiding and fear for the rest of their lives. One of the things that stands out throughout the book is the faith and piety of many of the regicides as they faced their gruesome deaths. They looked to The Bible for inspiration and courage - remaining true to what they saw as God's will to be done. Many never wavered from their belief that executing the King was the right thing to do.

Many innocent people, including thousands in Ireland, were killed during the mid-seventeenth century as the English fight amongst themselves. In the middle of all this were 59 men of conviction, who did the unprecedented in signing a death warrant for a king, brought to life again by Charles Spencer in a thoroughly enjoyable book.

Recommended.

How Teacher Salaries Are Different Around The World #319

A couple of days ago I posted about how Irish 18-29 year olds struggle with Maths. Ireland has a 29% rate of people not reaching an adequate level of numerical proficiency in this age group. Compared to South Korea (7.1%) - I wondered why such a big difference? Is it our teachers?

According to The Guardian, in an article entitled "How the job of a teacher compares around the world" teachers are treated differently all over the world - and when it comes to pay, there can be a marked difference. Below is a snip from the article web page comparing teachers salaries in OECD countries:

Image source: The Guardian.

Switzerland's teachers have the highest average salary of $68,000, while Indonesia's teachers get just $2,830. It is interesting to compare Ireland and Korea again. From above, the salaries are practically identical, but still the vast difference in numeracy between the two countries. We can't blame low salaries for Ireland's poor performance in the numeracy survey (though cost of living is not included in above survey). Are we attracting the best teachers into our education system where the average salary is $47,300 (€42,500 approx)? 

Fine Gael's Election Manifesto on Third-Level Education is Excellent - But Can They Deliver? #GE16 #320

At a whopping 140 pages, Fine Gael's Election 2016 Manifesto (published today) seems to have a lot. Everything from Disability, to Housing, and to Banking. In fact there are 29 separate sections - somebody has been working very hard to put this together. With so many sections, there can be no more than a few pages for each section - so I headed for the four and a half pages devoted to Education.

Image source: Fine Gael.

Fine Gael have a four point plan to "to invest in a reformed and well-managed education system that makes sure that the economic recovery leaves no child behind". Sounds good. Point 4 is about Higher Education.

My first reaction is that I am impressed - there are several items that catch my eye, here's just a few:

• “Earned Autonomy” for Universities - giving more independence to set there own resource requirements (good), but within "strict" guidelines (bad)
• Online Higher Education - they are only promising (bad) to conduct an "extensive consultation exercise". But this is a step in the right direction (good)
• Technological Universities - Fine Gael plan to "prioritise those institutions with clear ambitions and plans for the furthering of industry-relevant technological research and education". This sounds like a challenge to IoTs more than an election promise.
• Springboard - this is currently a very successful programme and good value for tax payer's money. Fine Gael promise to review the programme with a view to introducing "new 2-year courses" for specific skills shortages (again - good)

I would not normally read election manifestos, nor recommend others to do so. I also have never voted for Fine Gael in my life (blue shirts and all of that!). The manifesto on third-level education reads like a document created with a real desire to make Ireland a top education environment for third-level. If only I believed that Fine Gael could deliver on this? Will there be any money left over after they "look after" the likes of Michael Lowry and other Independents and small parties that they will have to rely on to secure a majority? What proposed policies will have to be sacrificed to negotiated settlements with others? 

Fine Gael - I like what you are saying, but I don't believe you can do this. 

22% of Irish 18 to 29 year olds struggle with Maths via @StatistaCharts #321

One of the most interesting newsletters that I have signed up to, and actually read and enjoy, is the Statista "Chart of the Day" - this is an interesting view of statistics from research and surveys conducted all over the world. One of Statista's recent reports tells us about "The Countries that Struggle The Most With Math" (see embedded chart below).

The data are based on OECD studies into numeracy skills in the 18-29 year old age group. Top of the list is the United States with "29 percent of 18 to 29 year olds not reaching an adequate level of numerical proficiency" - from this is is deduced that they struggle with maths. Interestingly Ireland comes fifth in this study with 22.3% failing to reach an adequate level of numerical proficiency.

You will find more statistics at Statista

One of my first reactions on seeing these data was that this means that 77.7% of Irish people in the 18-29 age bracket DON'T struggle with maths! I'd like to know who they are! Methinks that Statista are also guilty of a slightly misleading headline to their post - I'm certain that many people who do reach an adequate level of numeracy also struggle with maths from time to time.

Singer Lily Allen was recently in the news because she tweeted that she has "not used Pythagoras's theorem once" since she left school 15 years ago. I must confess that in the near 39 years since I left school I have not found it necessary to use it either. 

Image source: The Telegraph.

Maths of course is more than learning about a theorem by Pythagoras, who has bored maths students for over 2,500 years. But how do we improve our numeracy rates? In the same study, South Korea recorded a very impressive 7.1% - how do they do it? The above statistics makes for difficult reading for anyone involved in our education system - there's nothing to be proud of in these figures.