Hi everyone!

[Fox Phlox]

It struck me that, as several people currently have access to university libraries, you might be interested to read about yourselves in some of the academic papers abut Schome http://www.schome.ac.uk/wiki/Schome_publications

[KitKatKid Schomer]

Hi KitKatKid. I too am finding it fascinating to hear what folk have got up to over the last - blimey is it really 8 years?!

We keep saying that we should do a little follow up study to find out what folk remember about the SPP and what influence it had on them ... you have been warned! ;O)

Do you have plans to travel - or how are you going to take maximum advantage of your 'deciding year'?

Like Dan - if anyone feels that having a chat with me about my 'professional journey' would be helpful then I'd be happy to do that. I was a primary school teacher back in the 1980s (teaching has changed a lot since then) and have been involved in teacher education and then at the OU as an academic. Over the last few years I have been doing research in schools in the UK and Australia, with a particular focus on the ways in which ICT is used and influences practice.

PeterT

Well... as it turns out now I'm not having a deciding year - I start teacher training at a secondary school in September!

[Topper Schomer]

Hi everybody,

It's very interesting to hear what people have been up over the past few years. Seems to be a lot of variety in what people are doing!
 
I've also now graduated and am supposed to be a geologist. As previously mentioned I was applying for PhD's earlier this year, and will be starting on one at the OU in October (had been meaning to email some of you, but only manged to send my contract in yesterday as the wheels of administration turn slowly and I didn't want to jinx until I had sent in the contract!).

[Fox Phlox]

Yay! Congratulations Topper. That's fabulous news that you will be joining us in October. See you then 

[Baso Schomer]

Ok, it took a year for me to notice that people were giving updates, but actually I've been quite engaged with video game designers who are looking into VR, and the prospects of virtual environments for games, educational and otherwise, and Schome actually came up in conversation.

Yeah, I'm now doing a PhD (although they call it a D.Sc.(tech)) in Engineering Physics at Aalto University in Helsinki, specifically looking at the interface between thermodynamics and quantum physics, making and measuring chips with superconducting quantum bits (the same used in quantum computers) and other elements.   

Actually I did my undergraduate masters in physics at Lancaster University, if I had known Rowan was there, could have arranged something. I frequently visit anyway to check up on collaborators and friends in the physics department (it's a minor detour when I'm home for christmas).

I also spent a while in the physics department in Bristol, spending a summer there funded by the Ogden Trust working on an experiment that ultimately ended up in Nature Physics (biggest journal in the field).

Very interesting to hear what people have been up to, and congratulations to all those who've recieved promotions and new jobs.

[PeterT]

Hi Baso. Great to hear from you - it sounds like you are doing scarily well in your academic life - though I'm not sure I understood much of what you said you were doing - is there a link between the VR for games and the PhD stuff?

Schome keeps cropping up in conversations I am having with folk too. There is something very powerful in what we did that is totally missing from mainstream education in most places that I know about. I do keep wondering about how we might build upon that to make education better.

However, I keep being distracted by other (externally funded projects) - most recently NP3 which was/is looking at young people's use of ICT outside school and the extent to which that influences pedagogy inside primary schools ( see http://www.np3.org.uk).

[Baso Schomer]

There is no link, but it's an area of interest, partially inspired by Schome, that I try to keep on the back burner.
I also have a number of friends and aquaintances in the video game industry, at various studios in the Nordic countries (notably Rovio, Supercell, Image and Form) who work mostly in the mobile game industry, but are getting excited about the prospects VR offer, and are ready to capitalise on that.

I'm somewhat detatched from the young education field, but in tertiary education there is quite a lot of interest, especially with the rising prominence of online courses and MOOCs, to work out how to improve them and, in technical courses, how to still transfer the practical knowledge. How do you build a chemistry lab, or a physics lab in a way that somebody can do it from home or a library? Platforms like Second Life and other VR environments seem to be a favoured solution...but I'm not actively involved in this research. Teaching at the moment is not a huge role in what I do.

In quite a biased opinion, I would agree that there is something in Schome, or something like it, to provide an environment for students to engage with each other and solve community focused problems that todays society is not actively engaging with. But you're the expert

Finland is doing a lot of work focusing on bringing ICT into the schools, but I dont think much is being done outside.  But then, the schooling system is very different to the UK.


 

[Rowan]

many thanks to Fox for alerting me to this thread!  Baso I would very much like to meet when you come near Lancaster.  I am here most of the time.  Even thought I left the OU 10 years ago to come to Lancaster I still have some contact with the OU including some work with the Benevolent Dictator on NP3.  I'm also working on a European project concerned with digital literacy practices of young children in homes and communities, another projectwith deaf young adults and children learning English literacy in India, Ghana and Uganda and doing lots of PhD supervision and UG and MA teaching.

As always, asking for help on technical matters.  Why can't I add a URL that acts like a seamless hyperlink? Tempting to go away and try again later but it's such a busy day I might not get back today so I will post and wait for advice, trusting the Schome Community.  Maybe it's because I am using Chrome.

[PeterT]

As always, asking for help on technical matters.  Why can't I add a URL that acts like a seamless hyperlink? Tempting to go away and try again later but it's such a busy day I might not get back today so I will post and wait for advice, trusting the Schome Community.  Maybe it's because I am using Chrome.

If you type the URL then it should turn into a hyperlink - so http://www.np3.org.uk (I just typed it out, no codes or anything) should I hope be an active link when I save this message.