Jane Hart, who can be relied upon to have her finger on the pulse, is building up a series of case studies of the use of social media "INTERNALLY for social and collaborative learning and/or performance and productivity improvement".The examples (at the time of writing) include British Telecom; Pearson; BUPA; WWF; Nationwide and NASA. And the list os growing. If you'd like to add to it, please get in touch with Jane via the link on her site.

Peter Casebow has recorded a skype conversation between himself and Jay Cross about learning and performance.Don't expect slick production and such like - expect a conversation. That's what it is.Increasingly, I would say we need to learn to regard resources like this as valid constituents of our learning experience. There isn't always time or money to repurpose material and make it shiny.

I was certain I had posted about this before, but I can't seem to find the post. Apologies if I'm repeating myself!A lot of people in this space are frustrated by the fact that access to YouTube is blocked within their organisations. I think we've satisfactorily established that, while there is an inevitable amount of dross on YouTube, there is also a wealth of material that is useful. When reputable organisations like WWF, MIT, and the OU have their own channels on YouTube, surely it is time for a paradigm shift?But if you are still bumping your head against the firewall, there is a chink of light. If you have identified some YouTube videos relevant to the learning needs within your organisation, you can take them offline. Appropriately enough, there is a YouTube video to tell you how to do this:Of course, this is a long way from having all of YouTube at your disposal, but it's a start. If nothing else, it will demonstrate to your learners the value of YouTube as a learning tool.The message seems finally to have gotten through in my own home. My younger son has recently decided to take up rugby. In a rugby mad family, he was always the one person who has been uninterested in the sport. But recently, he has been playing at school and has discovered an innate talent a passion for the game. Of course, he now has a lot of catching up to do, since most of the other kids have been playing for years.To my delight, and entirely of his own volition, he went the YouTube route. Having discussed with us the role of each positional player within the team, he decided that he was most likely to play on the flank (numbers 6 and 7, sometimes known by the older name 'wing forward'). Over the past couple of weeks, he has completely immersed himself in videos about the rules of the game in general and the role of the flank in particular. He has also taken every opportunity to watch live rugby with us, questioning us endlessly about the reasons for stoppages. Then he has had a go at explaining to us what the deal is, to see whether he is getting the right end of the stick.The learning anorak has spawned a self-driven learner, ladies and gents. My cup runneth over.

Our younger son is closing in on his final GCSE (general certificate of secondary education) exams, and recently brought home his 'long report' which provides parents with the following information for each subject:How your child is performing in terms of his/her attitude/behaviour in class, effort and homework completion - these are subjective scores allocated by the teacher on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being poor and 5 being stellarYour child's target grade and how he/she is currently performing against thatA paragraph of reflection by the teacher: areas for improvement and so onThe last few weeks have been frantic, as the unfinished parts of the syllabus in several subjects are crammed in. The entire form recently had to stay on for an extra two hours every day for a week, in order to complete the work in subject X. Some of them are still doing this. My son has had no lunch breaks for weeks on end as he tries to complete the units of the syllabus in subject Y that the rest of the form did the year before he joined the school.I don't understand why this all has to be done now. Surely it was known from day one when he joined the school two years ago that he was going to need to make up the extra year in subject Y? Surely that work could have been spread across two years rather than being crammed into these last few weeks? Surely it was evident months ago that the entire form was falling behind on subject X? Why does it all have to be done now? Especially since they are also frantically trying to raise several thousand Pounds for a school trip to Ecuador (anyone got a small fortune going spare?) in the summer.My son's tutor remarked that he appeared to be showing signs of the strain of the additional workload and needed to find ways to break it down into manageable chunks. I commend her for her insight into his character, but I'm not sure what the poor kid can do.In the context of all of this, one particular piece of feedback had me reaching for my poison pen. In subject X, my son's predicted grade is a B. His scores for attitude, homework completion and effort are all 5s. His recently submitted coursework received an A grade. The short paragraph from the teacher started "Your coursework was disappointing..." Excuse me? This is a model student who is outperforming his predicted grade and you are disappointed?My son is talking about taking the work back and tweaking it so that he can get a better A or an A*. My advice to him is to let it be. He has enough else on his plate right now, and that A is in the bank. But the school is encouraging him to try to up that grade.I know of another school where several kids are being pressured to resit a maths exam in attempt to up their grades from A to A*.I'm casting about for a word to describe this and I'm tempted to go with iniquitous. What are we doing to these kids?

Harold has written a nice post about personal knowledge management today. Check it out.

If you live outside of the UK, you may not have heard of Eddie Izzard. Okay, you might have done - he appeared in My Super Ex-girlfriend as the misunderstood baddie who was in love with the super ex of the title.In the UK, he is better known as a comedian (severe language warning on linked video) and a transvestite who frequently appears at gigs in towering heels and a full face of make-up.He's intelligent and articulate, but he is not an athlete... or so you would think.But with relatively little fanfare, last year he ran 43 marathons in 51 days in aid of the charity, Sport Relief... and raised £1.6 million!He prepared for only 5 weeks and at the start, was carrying a fair old spare tyre. But he argued, this is what we were designed to do. And I guess he's right. Before the wheel came along, we had to walk or run everywhere, and the stone age didn't boast a Tesco or a Walmart, so it was run - a lot - or go hungry.He ran mostly alone and largely unremarked, as this article in The Guardian explains. Catching snippets of the BBC series about his efforts, I have to say that my heart swelled and I developed a new found respect for this rather unusual man.Well done, Eddie. I salute you. You put us all to shame.

Today is Ada Lovelace day when we celebrate women in technology. I'm not usually much of a one for girls-only recognition, but perhaps we are still a long way from the point where technological jobs are seen as being as open to women as they are to men.I have to say that I think the exception is the field of ICT and related matters. Because of the relative newness of the field and the speed at which it has developed, there was no time for sexism. So, instead of writing about a particular woman in information/comms technology, and instead of extolling the many virtues of the women in my network, I am going to take a slightly different approach.I would like to give a shout out to all the anonymous female motor mechanics, electricians, engineers of all kinds, fighter pilots, microsurgeons and so on. All the girls who hold their own in fields still largely seen as the male province.When I was coming to the end of high school, I really wanted to be a mechanical engineer. I wanted to design machines. I like the way machines work and they make sense to me. Since we had no money to speak of, I was going to need a bank loan, so we set about applying for one. Every bank manager we saw told me the same story: they were not going to lend money to a girl who wanted to study mechanical engineering, because the attrition rate was too high, the risks too great and the return on the investment doubtful. I was encouraged to consider chemical or light current electrical engineering instead. Since I was hopeless with both those areas of the science curriculum at school, I had no interest in going that route.I admire those women who haven't taken no for an answer. Who have activated their 'I'll show you' button and who earn their keep doing jobs that their grandmothers never heard of and that their mothers thought only suitable for boys.One such anonymous woman was my husband's late aunt Gunnel Bjureblad, who was an engineer. She died four years back, aged 70-something, and I imagine the opposition she faced in her day was even tougher than my own, especially since her Dad thought that education beyond the age of 14 was wasted on a girl.Call it a cop out if you like, but I salute the Gunnel Bjureblads of the world today. All of them.

... but I just heard that I passed my final paper. I have a Masters' degree. It has taken far longer than anticipated, because I had a bit of a breakdown in the middle, but I did. I actually did it!Next up, sign language course.What? Why are you looking at me like that? It's called lifelong learning, and I've wanted to learn sign since my niece's deafness was diagnosed in 1988!Can I say it again? Loud enough to be heard by the lost little girl who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. You did it, kiddo!

How did I ever miss this? Thanks to Harold Jarche for the pointer (on Facebook).

Last night my husband arrived home with a gift for me, to congratulate me on finally completing my Masters' degree.The gift was a beautiful Fossil watch in a case that was almost as gorgeous as the watch! Because I have ludicrously puny wrists, I took one look at the watch strap and said, "I'm going to have to take it in to have it made smaller."My husband grinned triumphantly. "No you don't. You can do it yourself. It's designed like that."And blow me down, it is. There are three fixed links on either side, then after that, each link connects with a clasp. I kid you not: a clasp! No fiddly pins for which you need magnifying glass and watchmakers screwdrivers. Such an elegantly simple solution.So not only could I remove enough links to make the watch fit me now, I can remove more if I lose more weight, or add them back in if I (heaven forefend) gain it, or have a bout of water retention.How cool is that? JIT watch adjustment. I feel so empowered!