blog – Page 8

Real Role Models

I’ve got a slot again for the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Monday 21st August 2017 (loads of tickets still available). I am on a panel with Author Gill Arbuthnott and Illustrator Neill Cameron. As part of our research preparation Gill and I met up in Blackwell’s Bookshop in Edinburgh. After a couple of coffees in Café Nero and a catch up we set off around the books to do some research. Nearly thirty years ago I did my teacher training course at Goldsmiths’ College London, we had several lectures on looking through the printed word and look for stereotypes, images and think of the subliminal messages these may deliver. So as part of our research we wandered the shop to find images in Science books.

Firstly what riled us, and continues to annoy, is that Science books are found in the most inspiring of categories (said with true irony)- REFERENCE! It doesn’t matter if the book is knowledge or a story, that is where it is dumped! Then we looked for images of people.

What became obvious was in the thirty years since my teacher training things haven’t moved on. There were virtually NO images of African Caribbean people in Science books. There were a few Asian images, and plenty of girls and women.

We found one image on the front of a nursing book.

Imagine if you were a black child in a class in school. How would you feel that this thing called Science applies to you if you never see any role models? How can we engage and make you people contribute and realise they have an important role to play? Steps are being made to address the gender gap in Science by creating opportunities for women. I say there is also a requirement for us to engage the 3.5% of the UK population that have African-Caribbean roots.

I hope that I’ve not said anything un-PC. I find it hard to keep up, but I would like to get any opinions from this under-representative population of the UK. Hopefully we can get a few authors to write some popular books, particularly Science books where the hero is connected to this group of the population. Would anyone like to be the star?

So if that is you- stand up and tell us how we can inspire you!

Going grey; making grey!

This has been on my mind for a week or so, changing the colour of the About Me page to match with the book on the home page. I’ve been trying to work it out on my mobile- which is not the easiest way. Finally after 3 hours I’ve changed the colour strip around the page on the Usefullinks part of the site.

I know, for you this is lower than basic, but I’ve been struggling with this. I hope one day to get the page to be grey for About Me. When you click on About Me on the main page it is a custom link to Usefullinks, but it seems odd it comes up in the Usefullinks colours. I want to change this one page to grey. I’ve read about 20 blog posts and added double that number of codes into the Custom CSS part of the Appearances, but only the final part seemed to work.(I added the little code “body.page-id-31 {
background-color: #99A3A4;} “)

In the time it has taken me to put a little grey box around the page my hair has gone decidedly grey. I wish it was as easy to change both my hair colour and the page colour. I am hoping to change the whole page, but I think that will mean an additional plugin, which I am loathed to do as it will slow down the site. Wouldn’t it be funny if we could just dial in a hex code to get our hair colour! Must work on both of these tasks!

PS. Looks like it wasn’t my fault anyway….

4 Reasons You Should Never Use WordPress.com (And 4 Reasons You Should)

The Physics Jewel

Mrs Physics has an ally! Over several years she’s got quite used to doing her own thing, but the new generation are yapping at her heels. With one eye to going boating and ignoring the state of the world, she has passed the rights to the National 4 part of mrsphysics.co.uk to the new kid on the block, as Mrs Physics has a new colleague.

It is exciting to work with a new young, enthusiastic Physics teacher, (although I really wish she didn’t share my initials!) and I am sure that very soon she’ll be teaching me everything I need to know.

It is an odd feeling, handing over your baby, but it’s important to share things if you want them to improve.

Welcome on board Physics Joule!

TablePress- for mental exercise!

Whippee, after a few false starts with Tablepress and a lovely email from Tobias Bäthge, the creator of TablePress, I finally managed to get the width of the tables right so that you can read the headings and values. The Gas Laws results in the N5 section Properties of Matter is now accessible and I’ve deleted the preformatted tables. I still don’t know if it works as well as it could, but at least it is an improvement on what was there before, which was totally illegible.

Maybe I need to start being content with functional, rather than trying to get things just perfect. Then I might be able to spend more time doing the gardening and looking after the house.

I wonder what your distractions are, and whether you justify your distractions as hard work, thus putting off other important tasks.

I think I really ought to be happy with what I’ve done and go and get a cover for the air gap in the eaves before the bats move in again! That would be a whole new level of distraction.

Well that just about wraps it up!

13th July 2017!

Don’t you just love Christmas shopping when you’ve got the time? I am surrounded by wrapping paper and a pile of gifts, I think nearly all of my Christmas shopping is done, just a few last bits to do. It is so much less stressful buying gifts at this time of year than when people aren’t pushing around in the streets, there isn’t horrible Christmas music-makeyousic, and the panic hasn’t set in! It also saves a fortune on postage, which I don’t like paying after my Christmas gifts to Malawi went missing and my insurance cover only included someone sign for the parcel! Never mind if it was the signature was from the person to whom the parcel was addressed! They didn’t even know who signed for it SO WATCH what you pay for!

All I need now is to know I’ve chosen things people will like! Happy Christmas family, and expect to collected those gifts from the Midlands in the next six weeks!

Urgh! Another Mystery- pages

Just got back from Science on Stage in Debrecan, Hungary. I’ll need to write a couple of blogs this week on that, but currently I am still taking it all in!

One of the tasks this summer is to update this site and make it more streamlined. So the obvious place to start is the “About Me” Page.

I know I have a page and a post containing the same details and I altered the link to match the page, but it didn’t work. However, as the link is now to the post after reading the About Me section it continues on to all the other posts I’ve written, which doesn’t look very neat. When I write a new post it then demotes the About Me page and people will have to go searching for it. I think I might have sorted that by making it sticky, but I am not convinced! All of this is not ideal, which is why I want a page. However, I don’t seem to have got the page anywhere I can see it.

So here is the problem. I decided to alter the page, so I could tell the difference between the page and post. I then went to the menu and added the page in the top menu with the post underneath it. However, whatever I did I could not find the page alterations coming up wherever I clicked. Suggesting the page is hidden in the ether. I can’t even get it to show up when I click view page after saving the changes. I’ve saved it loads of times, so it can’t be that.

I’ve read the help files and I am right in that the About Me ought to be a page not a post, but no luck! I haven’t found the video useful as it doesn’t match what I am seeing….

Not sure whether to give up or keep going? As I am rather sleep deprived, sense would say leave it until tomorrow. Instead I’ll work on my Forces song for the European Science Song Competition for Portugal 2019, Science on Stage…. all I need is a good tune…..

….. well if in doubt start again…..

I’ve made a new page and copied the old page into this. It appears to be working. All I need to do now is see if I can change all the links in each section and then I can delete the post and all should be well. I really do need to get someone to talk me through this! It would have helped if I had watched as the website had been set up.

We live and learn, and never stop learning, it just gets harder as we get older!

Space

Hi Folks, if you’re looking for Space, check the Surprise Physics. There is a section in there!

Link to Mrs Physics’ Space Experiences

The featured image of is Astronaut Nick Patrick (before he’d completed any missions in space) in the ISS Control Center with some students from the 2005 Scottish Space School. Recognise anyone?

Tablepress

Tablepress, better than a bench press and more tasteful to the eye

As if 4 days at Standardisation isn’t enough, I sadly decided to spend the evening finally learning how to put neat tables into a website. The ultimate guru for this is Mr Mackenzie who holds the “National Collection for SQA Papers“. I’d got as far as downloading Tablepress but hadn’t done anything more than that.

Several posts currently have tables and they look shocking. I am quite embarrassed by them, so sort to do something about them. I’ve got something in my continual professional development about making things look better but as I am unlikely to get out for a course I thought I’d self taught. Over the last three months I thought I’d be able to bend the ear of Mr Mackenzie, but although we are at Standardisation together, with the rest of the team, there isn’t much time for a tutorial. So off I went to the next best place, the internet. Now I looked at several ideas but the following link gave me a start Web Monkey gave me a start, but I must admit I got bored of waiting after the super heroes got to the fourth line.

So I decided to have a play with the SQA SG Past Papers and Marking Instructions. J Boyle, had kindly offered these files to me, and I hope that she doesn’t mind me uploading them. Although these are excellent as a resource for National 4 and 5, if a student manages to complete them all they deserve to do well in their National 5 exam.

It was over 2 hours of work. I uploaded an excel table to get the basics in and then had a play about. I am not sure if I’ve learnt the correct way to add a link but adding insert image appears to open the media library and I can upload the files. I’ve found it is easier to add all the files into one box rather than cut and paste them individually from the library. I even got to move the boxes, although again I think I might have taken a circuitous route to do this: I added a column, duplicated a column and then deleted the column that was empty and the original one, then I found the drag and drop function. I hope I can learn how to custom the column widths.

Hopefully over the next few months I can change all the tables and make them look quite presentable. I hope they look good on a mobile phone too. Now I am going back to my hotel room and am going to sleep- can you believe the 8 a.m. early start and late nights we will be doing.

Thanks to everyone who helped!

Science on Stage- Debrecan, Hungary, Here I come!

Addendum

28th June 2017

Now sitting at Schiphol Airport gate D71. It’s been a long slog. At 8pm last night, or thereabouts, I left the Celebration of Achievement after watching the 2016 Space Cadets give their presentation (well done to them). I’d not been home. Waiting at the bus stop was Mr Physics for a belt up the road to “the daughter’s”. She was ready with drink, a Barbie, and a nice comfy bed. It was a rough night as I didn’t want to miss getting up. It took 4 goes on Listen again to hear “Radio 4s World Tonight”. I just got passed the news, nodded off and woke up at the end to try again. So up I got, showered said my goodbyes and made for the bus. The 77 was very quiet, but then it was 5:30 am. Tried to finally learn the difference between passed and past, and thought I’d got it with a score of 19/20, but alas! I also can’t find the website with the check list on either.

Luckily Glasgow Airport staff were delightful and helped me out despite me nearly falling asleep. A lovely young gentleman checked me through the self service check in, as it would appear I couldn’t stick my passport in the right way. Then through security one kind lady helped sort my liquids. I hadn’t clocked that one wee bag was maximum, I thought they had to go in small bag or bags. She rammed everything in and removed stuff that didn’t need to be bagged. I’d just grabbed it Tuesday morning. Then the third member of staff located my tablets (ICT not medicines). I’d totally forgotten them and misplaced my tray when trying to repack my bag. Needless to say, the tiny Boeing 737 could have fitted into my pocket, but was so comfortable I fell asleep just about. I must finally be getting the hang of this flying lark! Now hiding in the corner trying to avoid anymore events. At least I’ve not accidentally caught the flight to Malaga which has been moved to our gate.

Original Post

I’ve known about this for what seems like ages, but I am not sure how long, things have all blended into one these days as there is so much to do at school.

Today I spent some time looking over the programme and I am now getting quite excited. My poster has been finished and is off for preparation, but I must contact D&S Packaging about a car box for my luggage.

I am taking our Road Safety Campaign to Europe, before they refuse to let us in! I am not sure if I ought to have reflected all the photos so they work for those who drive on the right!

I met some of the people going at the ASE Conference in Reading and I think we’ll get on well together. Unfortunately the family don’t feel there is enough to do in Debrecan to join me- a shame as the whole family could have made those dates.

I’ll keep you posted as the time creeps up and then lands in an overwhelming dollop on top of me and I panic that I haven’t got everything done!