A bit of a catch-up 2: Wolf in a sheepskin

Those of you that know me will know that I am a big fan of the Berlin-based band Feline and Strange. Such a big fan I'm willing to put my hand in my pocket and support them through Patreon.

One of their songs, “How much” from the album OUT begins,

“A wolf in a sheepskin has to eat grass,

To avoid his detection he walks on broken glass.”

It's a song about being an outsider, trying to fit into a world where they are feared and reviled. And how Death sometimes seems close at hand, weighing our good deeds against the bad....

Anyway, I made this print, primarily for the band, to welcome them back from the States,where they were recording their next album. It's a fairly literal take on the opening lines, but I think conveys that even in the skin of a sheep, there are unwritten rules of being a sheep he just doesn't get...

A bit of a catch-up 1: Titi von Tranz

The last few years in August I've been going to the Phoenix Alternative Festival at Llanfyllin Workhouse in Wales. One of the regular artists was Danielle Miller, performing as Titi von Tranz, singing 1930s Cabaret songs mostly. A kind and generous artist, loved by audience and fellow performers alike.

She died suddenly in July, which was a great shock to everyone.

On the day of her funeral I sat at home and began to draw. The end result was this linocut print.

The design incorporates 2 of Titi's songs. On the left is Tiddles, "My Girl's Pussy" and on the right is "My little green cactus" on the balcony.

I gave copies to friends of mine and Dani's at the festival and their reactions encouraged me to continue.

Change of Direction

Rather than leave this to gather dust, from here begins my log of art stuff. Previous to this post you will find stuff linked to my previous work life in educational technology and research. Nerdy. I wouldn't bother going there.

Edfutures Wiki

Over the last month (mid-Aug to mid-Sept 2012) I've been working on the Edfutures wiki, finding stuff, writing summaries, and doing some "meta-analyses" in the areas of:

• Mobile loan schemes
• 1:1 computing
• Bring your own device (BYOD)
• Bring your owntechnology (BYOT)
• Cloud computing
• Responsible use policies
• Digital leaders programmes

It's been quite an enjoyable project, producing some "base-line" content for the wiki. Be interesting to see how it develops in the coming weeks and months.

A crossover thing

I did this for the Oriole project back in June. It's an aid to discussion around why people might not like to share learning resources they have created...

Analysis of Chemists and Economists survey on Open Access

This was a small piece of work I did for a JISC project run by Nottingham University. It shows the challenge of communicating the benefits of what may seem to be a self-evidently Good Thing. Read the report here.Taken along with the other reports (here), it makes a few steps towards understanding what motivates academics to engage with publishing in Open Access research repositories an journals.

As with most people employed within the public sector, academics have a strong altruistic self-image, however they also work within a cometitive environment where success is often defined as publication in a high-impact journal. This was especially true of the Chemists. External pressure in terms of reward, sanction or direction seem least effective in motivating academics.

Schoolzone briefing for BETT 2011

This document was a bit of moonlighting I did late in 2010 while still officially on Becta's books. I was an update to a previous briefing, taking account of the considerable changes that had taken place since the election. More changes have taken place since, so it's in need of updating again, but I think it gives a good picture of where things were at the start of this government, and gives some clues as to direction.

BETT Briefing Update 2011 221210