Roll up roll up, more pay, better jobs

I suddenly felt compelled to write after reading such annoyance within today's media, the story read about Vice Chancellors in Universities and their pay increase.  For some time I have read articles about pay increases and their flabbergasting rates they try and sell to us, stating why they are needed.

The Vice Chancellor (V.C.) is the top person in a university, a management role, who must spend an incredible amount of their time in meetings and keeping up to date with legislation and educational matters relevant to their field.  Of course it's a important job, like any management role but do you consider these jobs more important than a lecturer/teacher/tutor?  One tutor can have a profound affect on a high number of students who they teach in their life time, but could a V.C. be said in the same light?  So surely to be fair these high earners should just take the same level of increase as their own staff, is it fair they want higher rewards?  Surely you want the position for the rate given when you first applied and accept pay increases or bonus structures.  Do you suddenly have the power to put forward your own thoughts to your pay, where did the democracy in your institutions go?

Remembering back a short time ago I read about MP's pay too, they wanted to increase these to try and bring in better people.  There was a belief many people would not take a government position over a private opportunity, as they offer a better financially rewards.  Well I'm afraid the cogito of this argument is invalid to me, people will always strive to earn more, that's who we are.  But you cannot just pay people better money or equivalent, we are still in a financial predicament with our budgets, so the answer is about recruitment not pay.  People should be hired who want the job, anyone joining the list of civil servants understands the merits and problems associated with employment.  Positions like MP's should be given to people of honour and courage, yes I appreciate they need a level of education to understand what is required of representing the public, but history shows education does not mean success or the public vote.  Another thing to note is there is no formal training, no certification, so they deal with important matters they are very unskilled people compared to lots of other jobs, so it would not be fair to pay them a high wage.  Should they earn more than our fire brigade or soldiers on the front line, or a nurse???

We need people who want the work and will work hard for their money, honest, so they will not make fictitious financial claims, will not sit on the boards of dozens of other companies.  MP's should work one job, they should have no other involvements in other businesses, not sit on a board of shareholders or committee's, defending the public is their sole business.  All I see is people using the status to get themselves started on the ladder to affluence, luckily I have no greed or envy, I am proud of my humble life, I am a professional in my role, I put in extra to help future generations, I work as hard as the next person, but I only have one job, maybe I should try out for applying to be an M.P.?

2013 - a reflection

It's been sometime since my last post, once again the duties of fatherhood have prevailed over my ramblings.

I just wanted to look back over the year from a personal view and that of the world around me too.  It's been a very quick year, pain; hard work; suffering; holidays; happiness and friendship.  Probably no different from anyone really?

I am so thankful I fully engrossed myself in to my job, helps me stay current with the web and the world, keeping up to date is so relevant in our industry.  Knowing what hardware is around and what software works well is useful when looking at purchasing for the school's needs.

Furthermore, being interested and committed has given me the confidence to set up and run a computer club, we may have not done much as yet, but I started off with a few simple lectures and demonstrations.  This is starting to evolve in to curriculum changes for the school (hopefully), so computer science and computational thinking will be more prevalent in student learning, yay.

In the world around us we lost a hell of a man, iconic figure who will be mused over for many decades to come (Mandela).  Like any year we lost lots of other figureheads too, people like Thatcher will not be forgotten either, whether admired, unloved or hated.

As far as I.T. i really stepped up my interest in all things raspberry pi/arduino related and try to incorporate some ideas for my computer club, but also practical uses within the school.  Late last year, I had my first taste of media queries with responsive design and re-kindled my (summer) training with the Python language.

I watch in awe of change technology brings, I sit patiently waiting for the chance to try and learn, but I also bide my time for others to work through errors associated with early generations.  The more I learn, the more I realise the less I know, this statement is so true.  Being a beginner is crap, there is so much out there to take in, only through trying do you truly learn.  Whether technology like the "Internet of things" really takes over, or Artificial Intelligence suddenly advances is another thing, but the change is coming.  One day you will be hard pushed not to come across technology in your everyday life.  See you later.....

Mis-adventures in education

It has taken so long, but I return with words...

I started my adventure recently in to a new world, a chance to help educate others, to embrace a new world, not the final frontier but computing (or computer science if you prefer).  After many months of promising I would set up a computer club, I got off my so called arse and got it up and running.

Not many people came, but the ones that have are a delight, they have the enthusiasm and passion for the subject.  The feedback is positive from the students, they want to get the chance to learn, its just a shame they are in their last year at school.  There levels have been so good we are even contemplating getting them through a GCSE!

I try injecting for the subject, I am trying to help them become more rounded students that leave with a multitude of knowledge and skills that may help them develop.  Having control over the funding for the kit we want to use is helping me source equipment and look at equipment in an educational manner, rather than being a consumer like everyone else.  Its been a great trip so far, though I appreciate it's not teaching as such, and I agree, it's more tutoring.  I know what I am and what I am not, i only have a small group and don't have the demands or problems facing today's teachers (thank god).

My methods have gone down well so far, I'm trying to use a variety of mediums, from videos, to creating my website, to jokes, lying, role playing and amazingly enough NO PowerPoint's so far too.  I'm a firm believer in the touch and the audio visual learning, because I'm like this myself.  So I've took a computer apart and gone through the internals, quizzed students on what things are by providing clues even though they had no prior knowledge.  Even those that already are quite gifted are learning, like all teenagers they know so much, but in reality have no experience so don't really know, they just read it somewhere.

I have lied and set their homework to discover what this was, I've explained specifics like cache memory using the allied forces during world war 2 as an analogy.  After showing them a geek joke one day, there next session we acted out how both T.C.P. and U.D.P. work by using nothing more than a few sheets of paper as a letter and envelope. After 4 weeks I can already see the levels of the students, their interests and more importantly their characters, learning to adapt around these will keep me tested, that's for sure, the hardest thing will be keeping ahead of them.  Listening to feedback from the students and through word of mouth I'm so delighted in the impact, just one mention of a great web resource to learn coding (codeacademy.com) and suddenly all of them are competing with each other.  Some are especially gifted and already used Raspberry Pi's and even adapted them to create something useful and made real money!  Because of my ethical code, I have explained that they should consider contributing to the authors of programs and the creators of the hardware they are selling, because they are either charities or volunteers working for free.  Although I try to have a positive approach, I am also a realist, I remind them of what skills they will need and why (current state of the job market etc).

With computing hitting primary school level curriculum, there are lots of scared teachers, suddenly finding this new topic thrust upon them.  It is a big step to expect these educators to learn something before they can help teach our children.  It's a very exciting prospect for the children, they will get the chance to learn to code and hopefully change the current social epidemic, to something more aspiring, to become creators.  Do I take this change as a positive step that may change the economics of the future?  It's a bold statement, but if we can get kids learning like this it could help them develop their learning capacity, the web and computing allows unimaginable prospects for business, wealth, welfare, ideas and careers.  Never before has it been easier to set up a business, schools are full of helpful people, kids have meaningful ideas that are usually for the greater good.

I for one write this in the hope I can look back in 10 years (this leaves ample time for anyone currently at primary to go through the school cycle) and see I helped predict a good future for all of us.  God knows we all need it more than ever, the financial inequities of the past haunt my generation, we are forced with compromises in our future pensions; in our current pay; in our employment terms.  Computing could be what engineering was in the past, Great Britain, proud of what our country once was, a land of hope, a land of respect, a prosperous nation.  Viva la revolution.

Google - lessons in ethics

This post relates to the theory that business can and do make ethical decisions or morals in today's world of business, although the focus is just one company, you could easily remove and replace the name with so many others, especially the other "giant" tech's you all love and hate, maybe I will discuss them in the future.

Google has famously been labelled with "don't do evil" known as their mantra, the company so common to the average person they are now an official verb in the English language.  They are a company trying to hold an ideology whilst conducting business.  Google like all companies are in business to make money, end of argument, stakeholders (shareholders) invest money in the aim to achieve more wealth, so can any company become truly ethical?  Each and every size of businesses have their own dilemmas and although Google are now one of the largest companies in the world they started with just 2 students (Page & Brin) and a mission, they had no financial plan, they were led by something higher, science.  So how did they get so big and what's happened to them that's worth writing about.

Google wanted to make search easier, be the best, but that was achieved that many years ago, check out search engine ranking stats - so mission over? No they have expanded into so many areas, exciting, useful and addictive they may seem, but they faced challenges (China; patent claims,court cases).  Maybe business and life is a balance, they do so much good with providing free services and helping science with research and development, but many people would argue there is a price to pay for all this good. Whether they direct advertising at you or store vital data on you, you are ultimately sacrificing your privacy to attain something, ask yourself if you would do the same if you were in an average shop.   Everyone single person who has using Google search has helped Google get richer from advertising, which is their core revenue (was over 90% of their revenue).  So are Google still ethical to make billions which could be said is merely a bye product of their main service (search). Oh, but wait non profit companies like Mozilla rely on Google for revenue, since they pay them to be their default search engine on their Firefox browser, and Mozilla could suffer financial hardship without this relationship. A moral dilemma is proposed here, do you forsake advertisers the right to push their products in your face, for Google to earn money, for Google to collect and quantify data on your habits and other third parties like the Mozilla foundation.  Are you maybe confusing ethics with morals?

It would be hard to see the current industry and technological world without Google, there work with autonomous cars is enlightening and fresh, a great concept that finally proved its worth in society.  A leader in the  search sector and collaboration tolls second to none, considering the cost (free).  So that's a lot of good and therefore ethical behaviour so all the more reason to support them, but what about their purchase of Motorola?  This former mobile phone giant had so many useful patents, Google snapped it up to take advantage of them.  You see their reasoning after losing court battles that mean they have to pay Microsoft each time an android device is sold, ouch!  Google like so many other technology companies using the digital act's to protect their products fall under a very different system to the old fashioned analogue world of patents.  Understanding the basics of digital patents can seem confusing and obviously why so many cases are drawn out so long through international courts.  Google is suffering for not putting in place legal contracts for its use of the java language when it first introduced the android operating system, and boy, are they now suffering for the indecision of the past (billion pound lawsuits from Oracle).  Were they negligent, stupid, unethical for using other peoples ideas/code and not putting pen to paper, is this not just theft, in business there is no gentleman's handshake, there is only evidence and contracts.

Google have not always been honest either, when assimilating content for their "maps" application they inadvertently collected data from unsecured wifi networks, which resulted in a fine.  A reason why the us congress have wrote to Google expressing concerns over privacy settings for their next endeavour, the Google glasses. Looking back over history Google could end up being the enemy, the beast they tried to avoid and piping out competition unfairly.  Recently they are trying to bundle third party apps direct in the Android phones, so they are native to the smart phone rather than an option able download.  It is decisions like these that could lead to anti-competitive behaviour and possible legal issues, remember Microsoft (Internet explorer) anyone?  Google have not always behaved in an ethical manner according to British society and the legal system here.  Many headlines have discussed how such businesses are managing to pay so little tax in the UK despite prolific profits, all down to different and lower taxation rules in nations close by.  Clever minds saving money or tax avoidance, either way, not popular in today's society, does the average employed worker have options in which country to pay their taxes?

Maybe karma will settle this dilemma in the end or help you in your pursuit ethical decision making?  All I know is ethics and business are separate sides of the coin, you flip and interchange between the two (mainly on the ethical side but with occasional slips to the other side).  Utilitarians may say Google help the greater good and therefore have made sound ethical progress, but who and what should be sacrificed for this and why?  Ethics are subjective and therefore open to opinion, you may think you have the right intentions but who is to say?  There is no finite rule, no set of laws, you may even argue ethics do not exist? 
Remove yourself from the world of bias, from business, do not consider comparisons with similar businesses, instead look impartially, that's the best you can do, you are only human, and oh, don't do evil!!!

My Message

One of the reasons I suffer from melancholy is that jealousy interferes with my thoughts, my life and progress.  I read and watch about great minds, great people and the way they touched our history, how they interacted and told their story.

I did not wish to compile a list, I merely wanted to suggest a small example of what I mean, can you imagine life without your favourite musician, how there words, chords or notes have affected your thought patterns, maybe even decisions?  Could you look back at the time you read that book, the one you can read over and over, one you can relate to or just aspire too, or maybe just enjoy and let your imagination run free.  Think of that show you went to, whether it was comedy, dance, silent, music, film, why did you go, did they draw you in with their sublime reasoning, was it their message?  I have been touched many times by artists, the dulcet tones of Adele are so rewarding but so different to the beats of David Guetta, who can boost my energy and positivity.  A recent dance group conveyed a simple message of two people's life using only mirrors and people, silent, but still understandable, a lesson through ages, from love to death, it was truly magically and touched me.  This took me back to the simpler days of film, Mr Chaplin's silent comedy, so many films, so many laughs, but with a story, this is why they are still viewed and enjoyed, lessons can be learnt.  There are people to consider too, maybe a family or friend you've related to, whose seen different to everyone else you know and understands.  Sometimes these people in your life have been work colleagues or people you met somewhere, maybe like myself, you got pulled in, enticed in to learning because of university.  Some peers have an ability, to teach, they empower you with ability to learn, you draw of parts of their knowledge, it's like a drug for some of us, I know I am in the minority!

We are all creatures of habit and social interaction, we learn of each other (for good and bad), we pass on our "recommendations", a good book, a new artist, a funny comedian or a new film.  The how's and whys we do this is beyond me, I'm just jealous of these people I suppose.  Life is short, these people have their affect in such a short space of time, so I ask, what is my message, who will listen to it and who will remember it?  Will it be after I have left this plain?  Some people are unfortunate and time has been required for their messages to be truly understood, think of science, look at Da Vinci, now seen as much more than an inventor or artist.  That is just one example of many, Feynman was a fantastic scientist, but more importantly a great teacher, who enjoyed life, from his books he looked at life very differently to most.  I do not profess to be anything like him, other than I have his enthusiasm for understanding and hope I can explain complex things using simple metaphors or constructs (remember this guy solved the reason for the failure of the Challenger shuttle using a glass of water and an "o-ring").  He wanted to know how "things" worked, why they behaved in a fashion and he wasn't scared to question or be WRONG.

There are so many examples of people, from former presidents (Lincoln) and people of the cloth (Dalai Lama), charitable individuals (Marie Curie) around the globe to even the musical artists like Elvis or the Beatles, they affected so many generations and will carry on with future ones too, of that I'm sure.  There message must have been so strong to stand the test of time, to pass through these generations and survive, to still be listened to by us who are too young to have even been alive when they were.  Then you have to consider what was their power, was it their words, was it their beat, was it their presence, their charm or was it their time in history?

Many people could take lessons from people like Feynman, it's just a shame his life was shorter than most.  If I had one ounce of his intelligence I would be happy, even though I want to understand, there is so much in life to get in your way, so I suppose it's about choosing your subject of study. Since their are so many different mediums to choose from to deliver your message, choosing the one should be easy, since I cannot play a musical instrument, I cannot dance, I am no one of power or political persuasion, I perform no magic.  After all, I am a mere mortal, a man, a thinker, an eternal learner with a slight dose of melancholy! 

I've been trying to think what my message would be so here goes:

keep thinking,
keep reading, 
keep learning
don't believe - research and learn yourself, 
you will have to lie, 
you will fail at times, 
downturns in your life can be re-directed in to positives, 
you will lose people you love, dearly, but you will carry on, it is part of the cycle we all follow, 
you should travel, 
you should learn a new skill, 
take chances, 
you will look back with retrospect, 
you will smile, 
you will be sad, 
hopefully you will feel the beauty of parenthood,
most of all I hope you live a great life and I have had some affect on you.

Oh finally, please read Adams, 42 is the answer and Orwellian views of life are relevant, check out Feynman (probably the coolest scientist, bar none).

Remember your towel, look for the dolphins and say hello to the mice, so long.............

Guarding your borders - an ethical perspective?

During my time at university we discussed ethics and their role in professional behaviour, one the stories related to an autonomous system protecting a country's border (see full story - US border problems).

One of issues with our debate was not just what exactly did they mean by autonomous and also by guard, in other words what was it capable of doing, who would be responsible blah blah.  On the face of it, it may seem an intelligence answer to covering large areas of land which could be largely impossible to man, argument done?  No, of course, being an ethics discussion there had to be more and yes it was about the semantics, namely the detail.  The story focuses on tower sentries, used for observation, but our discussion carry on to "robots" that could be deployed to replace men and jeeps, surely a machine fitted with the relevant technology could out do man?

Let's consider this:

• robots do not get lazy
• robots do not sleep
• robots do not suffer from indecision
• robots do as they are told
• robots do not have morals
• robots do not have feelings
• robots can enter places humans cannot
• robots can survive longer than man
• robots can offer a lower error margin than man

Let's consider the upside of humans:

• human can make judgement calls (intuition)
• humans can have prior experience
• human are tried and tested (we've been around thousands of years)
• er, struggling now ??

Okay that was a quick overview and you could argue all day about man vs machine, but surely they are two different approaches to an unachievable goal or unrealistic solution. Every country suffers border issues, from   illegal entry to illegal exit (some countries forbid movement from their country's - shocking maybe).  Anything that aides the work is surely a good solution, but now consider what happens in this scenario. You have a autonomous sentry tower, with communications facilities and a rifle, a person is shot at for breaking the rules and crossing the border - who is to blame?

Did you blame the person?  Did you think to ask if the person was hit? Did you ask if they were leaving or entering the country?  Did you ask why this happened?  Okay I could have been more clear, so let's simply say the person was shot and killed, for entering the country - that simplifies your reasoning and questions surely?  So now we are assuming they had no right to enter and were subsequently warned and the country's armed forces observed the incident.  Clear cut then, the person is to blame for breaking a rule?

Morally speaking what was wrong with the above, anything?  Well let's consider the actors in this situation, there was the country involved, a person crossing and probably a company who built the autonomous machine.  Now tell me is this killing morally justified by the company who created it, how would you feel?  What if it was an accident, let's say the person was disguising themselves and was a local, entitled to cross the border, who is to blame?  Would you sue the government for deploying the machine, does the manufacturer have to justify itself for selling something that can kill, how about the engineers who designed and built it, are they ultimately responsible?  This is where ethics can get complicated, no matter if you believe if it's clear cut, not everyone has the same ethics, or reasoning.  You may have also neglected the MAIN actor in this - the robot, surely it is to blame, it pulled the trigger?  Of course we can go deeper again and suggest the person who coded the software instructions should ultimately be blamed, since this person basically provided the robot with a form of reasoning, rules to follow.

Are you still of the opinion the robot acted correctly and is free from blame?  Perhaps you should consider the ethics of the actor who actually was affected - the border crossing human.  We never asked what there intent was, what they did, what they intended to do when they crossed, did they have prior intelligence on the person?  Maybe this robot saved the nation from a terrorist, maybe the robot is a terrorist, you cannot muse the future affects if the person had crossed, because that is a non-event, it is in the realm of the unknown.

Hopefully you have thought, ethics is not a black and white subject, because if the border guard was a human the event could have been somewhat difficult.  Soldiers killing people tried in court for manslaughter or murder, think this has not happened.  Think again, by replacing us robots, surely the ethical situation is made worse, sure they can be made more efficient.  But at a time when we are replacing humans with machines to increase production, save money and improve efficiency, you have to wonder did we consider the ethics of replacing man with machine????

Teaching GCSE ICT - retrain or unemployment

We are fast approaching the era of computer science in schools, time is running out for schools, planning is required.  The dilemma caused by government partly, by Mr Gove and some may blame Google for their input on the great British education syllabus!  The theory suggest that comments from Google suggested Britain's  technology sector is so far behind other countries, many people do not consider British workers for jobs and there is a lack of people to hire from here.  This all related back to the apparent source of our troubles, just like so many other world problems, it is down to education.  Our children have learnt the most trivial of skills, using the same packages that maybe used in the real world, but this does not cement them with employment opportunities.

My thoughts on the underlying tone from reading on the subject is that ICT is a easy choice for students, simple and boring option, just follow the steps and you will get your grade.  My other suggestion is that because its staged in this way we may have prevented scores of children and generations from receiving a heard start in life and working there way in to the I.T. world.  Are this age of the "net children" any more advanced than mine of the 80's, where we were taught word processing using non GUI packages during the very few opportunities we got on a computer (we had one IT suite). Maybe not comparable to modern day packages but with the intuitive displays and dashboard on software now, but now you are not required to think, you point and click.  At least during my time you had to know commands, remember keyboard shortcuts (mice were not used back then) and yes this was before the web was everywhere.  I should make it clear, these students are still only children, you cannot blame them for poor education, poor teaching or boring syllabuses, they only do as they are told (sometimes).

So what is the solution, that's what you want, a magic wand to sort the technology gap, to give Britain a fighting chance and help our GDP?  The web and internet is providing ever more job prospects each year, with the mobile phone being a large catalyst, but so many are on foreign soil (just look at the stats above -  courtesy of code.org).  The plan is therefore to change the syllabus and bring in computer science as an option, finally a positive step, sure it will take some years to see the fruition of change, but worth it?  After recently involving myself with a community of people looking at how this may happen I can now comment on the subject.  From my research it is apparent the changes are scaring teachers somewhat, a radical change to this new science causes issues not just logistically but how can you teach something without any trained people.  The issue is there is not enough people with the tech subject knowledge in the first place, so where are suddenly going to appear from to teach this to the next generation?  Interestingly enough I see options and I understand the teachers perspective but let's get this straight you need subject specialists, there is no point teaching something you don't know about or don't care for.  You are entering a specialist area, land of the geek but also the world of science, where logic is your friend, so of course Maths and reasoning come in to play.

I believe a shake up WILL happen (and mostly likely already happening) in the teaching world and those not willing to learn or re-train (bad expression) will be left in the ever increasing unemployed list.  The group I spoke to all seem keen to find a way to learn the skills necessary to teach, but we come to the problem, how do you train them and when, what is the cost, because they have to carry on with the current year assessments and be ready to teach a new syllabus from the next semester (possibly?)  Would it be reasonable to train someone to cover Computer Science during the summer periods away from school, as that would be a large uptake for any person.  This may also cause problems logistically because you would need trainers along and across the breadth of the country, covering each and every county or school - is this even feasible?  This is why i understand so many are looking now for options or interim measures (like short courses on python), thank god for people like Computing at Schools (CAS) and the British Computer Society for their involvement.  Though hand on heart there are plenty of sources from across the pond (Khan Academy and CodeAcademy have to be up there).  There are many ways to learn, but practise does help, I know a way, the CAS group do and are working on solutions.

One flip side of the pending changes could be a massive influx of new graduate teachers, people like myself who have gone through a recent computer science degree (note i am actually a school ICT technician), have energy, passion for the subject and love to pass on our knowledge, but also love learning.  Maybe a re-assessment of computing teachers is required and new faces/new blood but you cannot beat experience.  Experienced teachers now what is required of them, now how to delivery, how to cope with problems and the inequities of life and children, the graduate is only potential at this stage. My other avenue of thought lies with people in the ICT support roles within schools, these people are dedicated professionals, they learn to cope with the needs of their environment and usually have the passion.   Why not harness their subject knowledge, let their passion flow to the students, involve them in lessons, integrate real life computing and the associated problems to the delivery of teaching.  The web has shown how people can collaborate from any walk of life, let's take that metaphor in to schools and let staff actually collaborate more on teaching, stop being departments, help each other.

Today I expressed my ramblings to an aspiring handful of (coding) students, these were the words used - "we are all tools in life".  We (in ICT support) aid the teachers ability to teach, teachers are tools students use to learn, the computers are tools we help to simplify and ease our work.  They did understand this, though funnily suggested that they did not think there teacher would liked being called a tool!!  Of course i laughed, but my point was communicated, they understood because I explained myself in a simple and clear manner.  We discussed operating systems other than Windows, coding in general and Raspberry Pi's (please get one).  hat was impressive about this small set of students was that they actually learned something from me, I asked a simple question, they responded with a good answer.  The answer was valid but was factually flawed, so I explained why, they understood and contemplated the facts I had presented.  They then had the ability to judge what i said, for their selves and had chance to disprove me or request more information, subsequently they then asked if I was going to teach.  I think, therefore, I may have proved my point, maybe its the trade qualifications I have studied or the real world computing experience, the minutes spent reading bloggs, the many hours at university (coding in HTML/CSS/PHP & SQL), maybe this all combined together has highlighted my passion - learning!

Enjoy your learning and good luck with the new syllabus.............