What is the best cloud application production infrastructure for me?

This is another exploratory post considering the way forward this year. Blogging is now core but still just one strand of a wider goal I've been pursuing for years.

I see blogging as conversation but also specification and wider thought. In the process of delivering a product or service I've found early discussion and collaboration to be essential. Blogging is the simplest way to do that.

I can easily try ideas out. Present them, get feedback and see what people actually use or engage in. It also allows me to pursue many different paths of though. See where they lead and develop the core concepts of an idea better.

The long term vision though is to produce media and programs ultimately leading to games and experiences. So the question today is what is the best infrastructure to support this. Now the web has become a utility and most products and services support it you can basically take your development and production process where ever you go and get the job done. At least you can if you pick the right tools and learn how to make them work in your workflow.

First I'll brainstorm my current thoughts to see what I already have in place or could put in place. See if this covers enough bases and look for holes in the idea. This should also give you more of an idea of what I am rambling on about.

Essentially I'm asking what is a good enough, or brilliant, development and production setup that works at work, home and out and about. Is there one or must I compromise and where?

What I want to do and how I currently do it

• Blogging: Blogger and Wordpress. Will move to self hosted wordpress early this year
• Unity 3d: code stored in github, Store output files in dropbox public folder
• HTML 5: code stored in github, developed and published through cloud9ide
• Content store: Dropbox public folder. Works on all devices, reliable and built for scale
• Distributed Versioned file store: for managing codebases. Use github free version.
• Learning tools: planning a self hosted moodle install
• Web server: PHP is the language I use the most and supports the most popular web software I'm likely to use
• Drupal, 
• Wordpress
• Moodle

The questions I have are many and varied and I'll answer them over time. Here are a few to give you can idea of where I am going:

1. Is there one host that would do all this? I don't think so and I don't think I would want it. Too much lock in. The hassle of so many different solution is balanced by the freedom to connect and switch them as needed. AWS or bitnami for example
2. Do web hosts support github these days or is ftp still the norm? github is so much more straightforward. Cloud9ide does it so well.
3. Is it possible to provide data and server side programming on a web host and use this as required in html 5 and unity applications? Seems a relative no brainer. Just haven't got round to it.
4. Is dropbox a good enough content delivery network (CDN)? Isn't designed for professional use but for now is it good enough. What metrics should I gather?

Creating this article has been useful already. It's helping me formulate what it is I'm actually trying to do and see that I do have most of it already in place or I know it can be done and how to do it. 

Essentially I feel we're entering a world where many parts of the infrastructure that support an application or experience are distributed. The networks and data rates are so good and reliable and the tools understand how to make it work easily enough. 

For example I think the way Tennis results are expressed isn't very good. I find it really hard to follow the tours as a result. All I need is a reliable source of results in a format I can reinterpret as requoired. Then I need tools to visualise this data in ways that help me follow the tour and understand the results better. 

That's just one example out of hundreds. The infrastructure you would need is 

Data provider

The web server provides and stores most of the data. Handling the following jobs:

• something to pull in the data, 
• turn it into a standard format 
• and store it. 
• Then supply it when needed. 

Visualise the data

 The tools to visualise the data include:

• HTML 5 developed and published within the cloud9ide editor or dropbox public folder
• Unity developed within the unity editor published in dropbox public folder

Both have excellent cross platform ways of sharing and visualising data. 

Content delivery network (CDN)

Dropbox hosts the media files for me including the unity files. It hosts images too. Not a good place for videos.

Youtube hosts many of the videos I share and some I have uploaded. 

Should this be my web server instead or is it best to keep these things separate?

Distributed Code Management

Git manages the code throughout the infrastructure and gets it where it needs to be. Currently using the free public version.

I'm asking questions like:
Which hosts support a git workflow?
Should my wordpress sites be under a git workflow?
My gut tells me not yet. Just get good WP hosting first so I learn what that's like. Get a separate git hosting elsewhere and when I'm ready combine the two some how.

For now I'm just surveying the scene.

My search returned plenty of results with people doing just this so it's possible.

• Workflow for working with git and WordPress
• you need .ssh access so VPS or a dedicated server is required.
• need a private git hub repository if you have premium wordpress plugins or themes.
• Keeping WordPress Under [Version] Control with Git
• example.gitignore file
• wp-content/uploads should you track it?

Graphics and image Editor

I'm using the pixlr editor app in chrome. So it is the same across all my desktops and does the basics I need for now. Mainly editing photos. Resizing them for web. Accepts photo urls as well as local files. Means I don't need to install a separate image editor on each desktop and maintain it. 

Is there a good Blogging platform using Node.js?

So I'm considering a new blogging platform.

However I like to consider my options and see what else is out there. Node.js interests me because I am a programmer and Javascript was the first code I learnt professionally. I actually used JS with ASP, yep that's a pretty rare combination, to do a lot of server side programming. So Node.js is just the same concept to a much higher level and it's very popular. I understand it power twitter no less.

If you have any ideas or recommendations please comment or get in touch. I am always open to ideas.

So. My quick search for node js blogging platform returned

• ghost.org interesting. Sponsored by microsoft, is that a good or bad thing? seems slick, young and focused on simplicity. Is it too new, will it last. 
• poet hmm a blog generator. What is that. Open source, maybe it sets up the infrastructure for a blog.
• blogging module at nodejsmodules a list of popular blogging modules for node js for reference. Haven't reviewed it yet.  

What is the best blogging platform for me?

I'm looking for a new blogging platform. Blogger is great but it's the freebie and newbie platform. Not designed for serious needs but for beginners needs and getting people into the world of the web through writing.

I'm now really serious about my blog so I need serious tools and kit and thus the search begins. The obvious choice is Word press because it's pretty mature and used by everyone, particularly professional bloggers. if it's good enough for them then it's good enough for me.

I'm planning to buy some hosting and put a bunch of software on it. One will be my blogging software along with Moodle as a learning support tool (I use it at work at the Open University so it's a natural fit). So my questions are around what kind of hosting I will need. I also use and love cloud9ide for developing web apps in the cloud and the browser. It's the best I've found. I don't necessarily need something that hosts cloud9 software but hosting that allows publishing from github.

You can see it's a wish list to support a better workflow than I have now. If you have any ideas or recommendations please comment or get in touch. I am always open to ideas.

A look at wordpress
search for Wordpress Hosting
must have plugins for wordpress users

Related Articles

• Penelopes guide to blogging
• Is running a blog like running a shop?
• how to setup a self hosted blog
• Blogging and comments: Livefyre Wordpress only?
• What is the best cloud application production infrastructure for me?
• Is there a blogging platform using Node.js?
• Drupal vs Joomla vs WordPress!
• Drupal is perfect for: large projects which need stability and power.
• Joomla is perfect for: medium sized ecommerce stores or a forum.
• WordPress is perfect for: Affiliate marketers, bloggers, small to medium sized websites.
• Automatic sharing does not work with scheduled posts on blogger

Fit the learning style to the individual. How to use a semicolon - The Oatmeal

I am a big believer in fitting the message to the person you are trying to connect with. This very much informs my philosophy on teaching. So I like to use play as much as I can. Put a student in a place where they are playing with a subject or skill and they will push their boundaries without realising.

The learning is less conscious and more automatic. Done well, both student and teacher enjoy the experience with the teacher being a guide and facilitator. The experience isn't overtly about learning and feels quite natural.

So I came across this guide to the English language from one of my favourite comics The Oatmeal. It specifically focuses on punctuation and How to use a semicolon. It reminds me what good teaching. You can be pedantic, have real attention to detail and still make people laugh and learn.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

This makes me want to learn about the semi colon and inspires me as a teacher. Reminds me just how much fun it can be to learn.

Thought you might like it. It's also a reason to ask the question. What have you learnt through play and entertainment? I can think of so much. How about you.

Future vision for my blogs: New year, renewed focus

The point of this blog is partly to help me raise my son. My vision has always been that by improving my knowledge and experience of human performance and using this to achieve my own dreams I would then be able to help my son achieve his dreams too.

That's the overall vision I have and so far it's been a good choice. Recently I have started to understand what part my blogs can play in achieving this vision.

I thought I would share my vision because I will be posting more things that may not initially seem relevant. It should all make sense in the longer term but I thought I would give you a heads up first. Feel free to skip it if you don't think it's relevant. I just have so many roles these days that I can't be relevant to all people all the time.

Colchambers: Human Performance

This blog colchambers is quite general in its focus. I have many lifelong dreams and many much shorter pursuits which all feed in. The idea is that is my life journey. As well as learning about the body myself I'm looking at ways of expressing what I know as best I can. This means looking into newer technologies like 3d  and virtual worlds, html development tools and wearable technology to name just a few.

Some of what I share will just be tips. I learn so much from little things other people share so I like to give back too. So while some of it may not seem obviously helpful it will still reflect part of my journey. Over time I hope to pull more and more of the content together into an organised whole.

Being a Dad is a huge and fun part of my life but something I haven't shared much of yet. I see that starting to change. I see the role of being a dad as very much like being a coach. A supporting role helping my son get to grips with the world and find his part in it. Much of the role though covers very mundane things. So some posts may cover these things. Apologies but it's a great way to get help and a great way to share useful tips.

The Competitive Urge

the competitive urge explores the impact of competition in our lives. It began as a Tennis blog where I can use my sports science training but I now see it having a much wider focus including education, work, even politics. The urge to compete is everywhere because evolution is everywhere.

I keep noticing that to compete better in tennis it helps to have a wider knowledge of life. Learn from the competition that is going on elsewhere, in other sports and industries. Instead of reinventing the wheel reinterpret the solution from another industry into tennis. For example I think the womens tennis tour could learn a lot from womens gymnastics. That is a sport where the women are the main draw, the men come second.

Cell Your Sole

cell your sole is a science blog looking at how understanding your body can improve your health with a particular focus on the benefits of activity. It covers biology, psychology, chemistry, sociology and more specific topics like genomics. I'm currently working through a series of posts covering the common illnesses that physical activity can help with including obesity, insulin resistance, migraine, diabetes and heart disease and alzhiemers and dementia. I am also currently running a series of posts exploring how to lose weight.

What made the Wright brothers successful

I needed a little inspiration in the challenges of being an entrepreneur and inventor. I just checked out the Wright Brothers because at the time they pioneered human flight there were hundreds of others trying to do just the same. I wanted to understand how long it took them. What kinds of things they did. How much detail they went into and what they focused on.

What I already knew is that many incredibly wealthy and well connected entrepreneurs were also trying but didn't get the results. I wanted to understand why. Was it a fluke or was it down to process. Were the Wright Brothers better inventors, or was their relative lack of resource beneficial to them in some way. It would be a nice story it if it were.

What I learned so far was that they did the basic thing good engineers do. Tested, prototyped, gather thorough data. They also didn't do everything themselves and it was their choices and way of thinking that led to success.

Many others were building stronger engines and propellers. The Wright Brothers focussed on controls. What I feel that means is that others focused on quantity e.g. power and lift while the Wright brothers focused on quality or controlling the power. This explains why their first official flying craft didn't actually do much. It only went a meter or so in the air and sustained that for a short distance.

They didn't care about height or speed at first. Just in level controlled flight. They conducted many glider tests before hand and developed their mechanical skills so they could develop what they needed. Along the way they built a business making bicycles because it helped them pursue their love of flying.

Essentially I feel it is their holistic approach to invention. Seeing that others could deliver the required power but they couldn't control it. The limitation was therefore control not power and that's what they perfected.

They also investigated how birds fly. Learning how they adjusted their wings to tilt their bodies and turn. Many engineers believed a plane should stay level and used the principles of a train on a track. In the end we have learnt that the best solution is a mix between a bird and a large fish like a dolphin. The wings may be inherently unstable but less susceptible to upset by gusty cross winds. Tilting the plane to aid vertical and horizontal movement uses the plane itself to aid the process. Providing a much greater force with relatively little effort. Leaving the control planes in the tail for finer control they don't have to focus on providing lift itself. Instead, they just control where the nose of the plane points.

This is very similar to a formula one car. just the reverse idea. In a Formula One car the wheels control power and direction. The rear wheels are only concerned with power. The front are only concerned with control. All wheel drive is best for rallies and dirt tracks not racing on tarmac where the separation of control and power is key.

So it is essentially a similar principle. The Wright brothers used gliding to teach them about control and leaving motor driven flight until later. They followed others attempts that used more power and different styles of craft but stuck to their original idea that the pilot must be in full control before power be added.. Everything must be designed around this concept.

They also believed that the basic wings and engines required already existed. They learnt to fly unpowered craft first. Others just put engines and untried controls together and tried them out without learning to fly unpowered first. They often crashed.

The brothers experience with bicycles also benefited them because they knew from experience that leaning to help steer and control a bike is the most natural thing. With open minds like this they could see how common this approach was in the natural world.

Overall this process reminds me of Darwin. He felt that much of the knowledge was already there. He did many tests himself and compiled many statistics but clearly built his ideas on the foundation of others work. He felt there needed to be a complete story but the essential ingredients were already in place.

Throughout the analysis of the Wright Brothers work it is clear how much they learned from others. Putting it together and seeing the whole was most important. They don't claim to have many original ideas except how they put the overall control surfaces together.

Essentially they built a powered glider. Thus building on decades of proven knowledge ensuring that if the engine failed the pilot could still land safely assuming he knew how to glide. It also ensured that any one who knew how to glide could learn how to control a powered glider. The simplicity is a big part of their success.

It was fascinating to learn so much. The workflow sounds so similar to other entrepreneurs that have had success. I'm thinking of Apple among many others. Good to know.

Immersive “Holodeck” Classroom with Leap Motion Control

I don't know about you but the Star Trek 'Holodeck' is such a fun dream that I get very excited when I see it start to become reality. That is what has happened at OHIO university where they have created an immersive "holodeck" classroom a leap motion controller. Using consumer grade tech like the leap motion controller brings this vision into our living rooms as well as classrooms. Essentially opening up the possibility that any room can become a holodeck or an immersive classroom.

What I like most is how the associated video presents the concept. It just makes sense. See what you think.

I'm slowly working towards an infrastructure and process that enables this. It is work and sharing like this that spurs me on because it shows that it is hear and now if you know where to look and who to talk to. Bringing this to education. That is my longer goal. It is nice to know I'm part of a much wider movement.

Learning: Is it Online or Offline. Are we letting fear get in the way?

Just a short post inspired by reading notes from an upcoming e-assessment faculty meeting. A question came up about offline learning and ereaders in particular. How far can we go with them. A very informed answer was given by Niall Sclater taking reference from his existing article making ebooks more interactive: logistics and ethics. Niall is a key influence in many of the Open University e-learning initiatives and his insights are characteristically insightful.

The article highlights the fragmented e-reader ecosystem. Something we have seen with mobile devices like mobile phones and tablets. Particularly the issues of whether anything more than a static learning interface can reliably be supported across all devices in a sustainable manner. That certainly seems a challenge and highlights how far e-readers need to get. We finally have mobile phones and tablets that can do this reliably but we waited a long time for it. e-readers will probably be no different.

The other side of the coin is where I feel more work can be done. A big step would simply be to look at things in a positive instead of negative light. The idea that users will have concerns over being tracked and put pressure on them is certainly a fair argument. It can and will, but so does taking an exam and people still do it. In fact every time we evolve a new simple approach to doing things this same argument is presented and it blocks just about everything. Ultimately it is about the fear of change. I just talked about conquering fear in another blog and I feel similar challenges are relevant in this issue. The argument is valid but there is always a way to address it and keep people safe.

We need to be skilled at understanding our fears and know what is necessary to deal with and overcome them. People are scared of being tracked because personal data is out there being used incorrectly. It is a real concern. But most of life is a risk and you learn ways to minimise those risks to yourself. In this case the question for me is about how much data to track, how to put users in control of their data (Can they delete it and know it's deleted, or just not share it).

To simplify the issue even further the first thing I would do is allow the choice of whether data is shared or not. Explain briefly that data once it is shared becomes part of the learning experience and thus we haven't yet figured out how to remove it once it is shared but if a user trusts the OU and is willing to share then they can do so. Explain why it can benefit them, that they can stop at any time and what they can do if they want to stop sharing but make it clear that it is like doing most things publicly, you participate at your own risk. Just like sharing your views in public like at a school, work or the supermarket. Other people will hear those views and make their own opinion. They may also share your views with others in misleading ways that affect you negatively. We all accept that sharing information is part of living and it is our responsibility to learn how to do it. Even things we don't always think about like body language are increasingly becoming things we must pay attention to. I feel the same goes for all our new tools. Make it easier for people to understand what information is being shared and how it can be view by others. I feel we need to build this into the process of delivering any experience.

This approach will put many off and they will not share. Fair enough. The point is that they were able to make an informed decision. Others will. I do all the time. Mainly because I trust the person or institution I am dealing with and because I understand the issue quite deeply both as a developer, teacher and as an informed citizen.

My point here is about preventing fear from stifling incremental changes. Learning is going online sure but offline will always exist. Handling fear properly can allow the both to coexist well and shift the focus on the learning and teaching instead of being stifled by fear.

Education: New Rules

Lifelong learning is a topic close to my heart. I'm very frustrated that mainstream education is only provided for the young rather than for every age. That was appropriate in the last century. Not this. It supports a culture where if you don't take your opportunities when you're young then you miss out.

So I'm interested in the discussion I found in the New York Times Sunday Review titled New Rules. This article makes a strong argument for the growing need for lifelong learning that I haven't heard put so well before.

The basic idea is that technological advances are, year on year, making less skilled jobs obsolete. So we must compete for the higher skilled jobs. So those who have invested the most in education generally out compete those with the least.

The problem is that our educational systems aren't built to train people for such regular change. They ignore lifelong learning and instead focus on providing a good start. That's great but since skills go out of demand so quickly and that's only going to accelerate we need to focus on educational systems that help people adapt throughout their life.

To end I'd like to look at it another way. What I see is the evolution of our world right before our eyes. Those who are fittest thrive. Those who aren't fall by the wayside. The capitalist system, in my view, matches the principles behind our own evolution and so it follows that the survival follows the same principles too.

That means quoting the famous Darwin line "It's not the fittest, but the most able to adapt that survive". So I simply note that our current system tries to produce the fittest employees for the current or near future market. Given how quickly things change it's pot luck whether the skills you gained will support you as the needs of the workplace do.

More appropriate now is easy access to the tools to adapt your skills to be relevant for each challenge you face. Reducing the pressure on getting it right before you've even done a days work. Spreading the pressure out across your life. That means an infrastructure that helps you fix any shortcomings you need to fix and take new directions, instead of trying to be perfect on the first attempt with little or no opportunity to fix problems or change direction later on.

Do GCSEs favour women?

You know. I never really thought about it that much. I first came across this notion during my A levels studying education as part of sociology. Since, at the time, women and girls had had such a long time being the second class citizens of education and work it didn't really bother me. I did notice that in all the top classes guys were generally absent. That left me pretty lonely. I hadn't really thought that the structure of the GCSE with its emphasis on coursework might actually favour women over men.

Not until I read a daily mail article I found on an education discussion group. I'm only half way through the article but with the extra years I now have I can see exactly what it means. I like most of the men I know prefer short bursts or sprints of intense activity instead of long term patient effort. I never enjoyed school because it was so focused on painstaking work that girls preferred. Like any guy my age I just wanted to be active. That's why I pursued it all the way to a sports science degree.

So I was wondering why Michael Gove felt the need to replace GCSE's. Now I feel I understand. I don't expect the implementation of the new system to be amazing. It's likely to simply tip the balance the other way and promote boys over girls. It may also devalue the aspect of coursework that I really appreciated. It proved the value of having completed work in the bank.

Overall though I can see why a change may be needed to balance out the equation for boys. Thought will  it take a generation for us to see if this really has the benefits we hope?

To be fair though I'd rather have much more regular testing amd much smaller forms of tests. If it's supposed to prepare you for work then it should reflect work and help you understand that in real work you're often learning on the go.

I deliver websites and software applications. Each week there'll be a set of bugs to address and every few months new features or sites to work on or create. Many times there'll be something I haven't covered before. Maybe an entire product I've never used and I have to build a piece of software out of it in a stupidly short amount of time. That's life. It's the same in all spheres of work and the ability to deliver is what gets you work. Each time I deliver it's the same as passing an exam or delivering coursework.

What is key is that it's an accumulation of knowledge and skills which of course is experience. The constant learning and applying or knowledge. At school what was missing for me was any one explaining the relevance of school and testing to work. That's because I don't think they know how to explain it or they might not like how it sounds if they do. My view is that work is like school because the school stuff you don't like is preparing for the work you don't like. Everyone, even those living their dreams have aspects they don't like. In fact those most successful are those who have learnt how to succeed and even appreciate the stuff they don't like. Rihanna, Tom Daley are a couple of examples.

I encourage regular testing only if it's accompanied with good support. I like sports because it's about putting yourself on the line. You can be great in practice but poor during a match. It's just like an interview or making a web site under really short deadlines with no resource. The pressure is the test and how you handle it is what you're practising. So failing at tests if they're regular isn't important. There will always be another. But learning the skills of passing tests is crucial to getting ahead. Looking back I've notice a consistent trend that the exams and pressure situations I did best in were those where I'd had lots of practice in those pressure situations before. Subjects that emphasised several mock tests prepared me better than those with none.

I'm not saying regular testing is easy and I don't like the stress it can create. I'm saying we should get better at helping teachers and students handle the pressure. Life is full of pressure much harder than exams. So it's better to learn how to deal with these lesser pressures so that we're better prepared to deal with work, marriage, parenting and all the other really difficult things we'll be doing later on.

A message for life

My philosophy is that 'The way you think defines what you achieve'. By that I mean that your philosophy determines the decisions you make to any given situation and thus the outcomes you can expect. It is through these decisions that you define the life and accomplishments that you end up with.

Of course there are other factors but I prefer to focus on my mind because it's the one thing any human has control over. Many of us don't control our physical characteristics or the world around us. Yet we can all control our inner world.

This is excellently expressed in an inspiring poem I came across while watching Bruce Lees Enter the Dragon. It's a poem that was pinned to the wall in Bruce Lees office in Golden Harvest studios.

A message for life

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, then you don't.
If you like to win, but think you can't,
It is almost certain that you won't.

If you think you will lose, you are lost.
For out of this world we find,
Success begins with a fellows will,
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are.
You've got to think high, and to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go to
The stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later the man,
I'm hoping wins is the man,
Who thinks he can...

Brain Facts 09: Aging

Just listening to episode 9 of the Brain facts podcast. It is like going back to my psychology A level. Something I really enjoyed. The beauty is simply in understanding the body as a whole. So many know a lot about the body but little about the mind. This is the same as knowing all about a computer but not the operating system it runs or a car but not the fuel and engine it uses. The knowledge is incomplete.

This particular topic on aging reminds us that the brain is there to be used as we age just as when we are young. There is no evidence that any decline is inevitable it is just that that is what normally happens. So all you really have to do is choose to use your brain as much when you age as when you are young. In fact, as far as I can learn from my seniors it is the experience you possess when you are older that enables you to out compete the younger fitter individuals. My plan is to keep my fitness while gaining the experience so I can have the best of both worlds when I am older.

Listening to this review reminds me of what I learnt so long ago. That is a completely achievable dream.

Book review: The Talent Code

I've just finished reading 'The Talent Code ' by Daniel Coyle and already i feel it's one of those books I'll refer to again and again. It's a well researched book describing daniels theory of how talent is best progressed.

He uses research from state of the art thinkers and introduces new perspectives such as the impact of our new understanding of myelin. The bodies electrical insulator on how skills are developed.

I first read daniels work in a new york times article about 'how to grow a super athlete'. It was such a ground breaking article in my eyes for several reasons.

Firstly it resoundly came from the nurture end of the talent debate. Daniel is very clear that there is always a clear story behind an athletes success. As long as you're prepared to look hard enough.

Secondly he applies the latest biological research to find a plausible, physical answer to this challenging problem. Myelin. My dad is an electrical engineer. He deals with wire, electricity and circuits. So I was brought up with the notion that proper insulation, also known as shielding, in electrical circuits is as important as the wires themselves.

Think about the effect of the radio signals from your phone on the electric signals flowing inside medical and flying equipment. Newer phones provides better shielding for the radio signals they emit so they don't effect other equipment as much as they used to.

Thirdly his work has stayed in my mind since I first read his article on growing super athletes a few years ago. When I recently came across another article talking about his Talent Code principle, I clicked through to his talent code website and saw that very article linked from the side menu. I thought 'this guy likes that same article about myelin and developing tennis stars'. Then I noticed the author and realised he had written it and that I like a lot of his work. His delivery, approach and message resonate with me.

My lifelong pursuit is an understanding of human performance. How far can one person push themselves through their life without breaking. It is taking me on a fascinating journey into the most advanced technology we know of, the human body.

The talent code is a really important work putting some of this elaborate jigsaw together.

Learning on demand (LOD)

Following on from a previous article on 21st century learning I feel we're moving to an area where learning on demand will be as normal as Video on demand (VOD).

I see the emergence of 24-7 tutorials and motuto as early attempts at this. I can't vouch for the quality and economic viability yet but I do see that the learning market is biased towards young people. All infrastructure and policy focuses on this demographic.

New technologies make it  targetting the wider market financially viable. There is also a serious lack of supply compared to demand. Yet education budgets around the world are dwindling putting pressure on jobs.

This recipe implies to me that cloud based LOD services could meet this extra demand while at the same time saving the teachers under threat of redundancy. These teachers could either join the LOD services directly, or their schools and institutions could partner with the service to bring in additional paid work to meet the staff resources they have.

This scenario means teachers keep their jobs. Schools get to expand without increasing fixed running costs like building new classrooms and education grows as a sector to meet the growing demand.

It's a nice dream anyway. It's probably a few years early now but, from what I'm hearing across the web, there's a lot of work going into initiatives like this and there's a huge demand. Particularly internationally. So long term I think it will be a success. Just how it will evolve is yet to be determined.

A vision for 21st century learning

So I had a vision over Christmas of the kind of learning and teaching I've always wanted. As I wrote it down I became more and more convinced that this is possible right now. It also pulls together my passion for understanding human excellence with my experience in taking ideas to deliverables. It's still very much a work in progress but I'm really excited by it and everyone I've shared it with feels the same. 


It's not about revolution but evolution. My main view is that very little these days is new. The internet isn't enabling much that's new just a new scale, speed and quality of what existed before. Good learning and teaching is the same now as it was 1,000 years ago. What made Plato and Aristotle great will be similar to what made Einstein great. 


What's changed is what one human can achieve in one day with a small budget. The same goes for one team or one organisation. We can just do a lot more with a lot less. So we now get to revisit what good learning and teaching is and figure out what we would do if we could build on the great work that's already being done but with all these great new opportunities and tools that didn't exist before. 


My vision for learning in the 21st century is built by merging best learning practices with the methods of achieving scale in this era and partnerships with leading providers of the components that will be needed.

I learned to thrive due to a world class educational system. I want to bring this to the world and evolve it to fit todays capabilities and expectations.

Part of this involves each student understanding their potential through experience of a virtual body. The human being, particularly their mind, far exceeds the capabilities of any technology yet invented. I want a system designed around it. To make winners of anyone in the world who takes the time to develop their abilities. The knowledge and skills to do this already exist and we're perfectly placed to make use of it.

I've broken this down further into components. Each component is already in existence and will mainly require reuse of current skillsets, personnel and assets.

So now I'm spending time developing these ideas further. What I've found so far is that much of what I'm looking for already exists but the components have never been put together in this way before. I've also found  I'm not alone.  There are many efforts to improve education from a peer to peer university where you can suggest the currciulum or even opt to teach a class to an open high school finding ways to deliver “one-on-one tutoring for every student in every subject".

So there you go. I'm clarifying my vision for 21st century learning. Through this I'm finding that I'm not alone. In fact I keep finding more people with a similar vision that are already implementing it. I don't care who delivers it. I just want it for my children and for everyone who thrives on learning.

Can amazing abilities be taught?

I've been talking for a while how everything we see other people achieving we could actually achieve ourselves. We just need to learn to bring it out of us.

A couple of weeks ago I ate at a restaurant and the waitress showed exactly what I'm talking about. There were four of us and we had a lot to order. She didn't write anything on a notepad though. She just remembered it. We all thought she was just showing off and it would all go horribly wrong.

Sure enough by the end of the meal she'd remembered all drinks, all 3 courses for each person, all the minor adjustments to the meals and the side orders. The only thing a machine did for her is add up the bill.

We were really impressed and debated whether she just has this really cool memory or if she learnt how to do it.
So I had to ask. As I thought, the answer was that she'd trained herself to do it. There are many techniques you can use that help you remember things by helping organise your brain but you have to work at them like anything else. That's what she did. She used her job to train her brain. From what I could see it meant she found the job easier than other people because she was more self sufficient.

Just like derren brown and others. Who perform amazing feats both physical and mental. They all admit that they've trained themselves to do these things. Some say that makes it less interesting. For me it's the opposite. To feel that I could do what they do is so inspiring.

That's what I want to bring to education. Help connect people with these amazing feats. Give them the belief and the support to achieve them themselves. See that learning is the key to amazing things.

Could education learn from the Google docs business model?

Building on a blog post ive written discussing the notion that flow of resources is key to life. A colleague helped me understand how the same can be said for business models and can explain how to make money in this new connected age. How services like google docs could make good money and education could scale itself. 

In this case we're talking about how google can build a business by selling their tools. Gmail and gdocs are just their tools. Gdocs doesn't contain adverts so where's the business model?

To start with you can by extra space when youve used up the free allowances But that doesn't explain how they can stay competitive. We had to look a little deeper to realise that cloud providers can do things that local organisations and individuals find difficult. Real economies and practices of scale. 

We realised its actually just like the economy being built from banking. If every person withdrew all their cash the banks couldn't actually give it back. They only hold what's necessary to give people what they need day to day. They resell the money they hold and that's how they make money.

This is because it's cheaper for restaurants and car manufacturers to focus on what they do well and pay someone to look after their wealth. It's nore profitable for banks to see their cash as stock and resell it than to lock it up. That's just how the economy and most mature industries work and thrive.

So that's how google make a profit in software and tools. It's too expensive and a waste of effort for every company or individual to build and maintain their own web based office suite. Better to use one from a brand you trust. To make it profitable Google will not have the capacity for every person to use all their allowances at once. It's too expensive to actually buy and maintain the hardware and resources to support this. And also no one uses all their allowance all the time. It also doesn't matter if each persons data is in one place or distributed all over the place. 

All that really matters is the current demand. As long as Google can pull it all together and present it in the way the customer wants and expects they're happy.

So Google have so many customers they'll work on trends. They see documents and tools as data and customer traffic as data traffic and requests for data. Each day an average amount of new data storage is required. It will vary over time but this can be predicted with certain contingencies in place to cater for unpredicted events.

Once you master this you can build a reputation for global reliability. You always "just work". The price you can charge and the loyalty you gain for such reliability and dependability is huge. And this approach to it is cost effective and thus profitable. Thus it's a business model.

That is why I want to bring this to education. This is enterprise structure with enterprise profitability with an enterprise approach. It's what education needs. A platform and infrastructure that's built to scale to modern standards using time honoured approaches of achieving scale. Stand back and see things for what they are. Honesty, no warts. Go back to what you're good at and what people want. Reapply all you know but with a modern focus.

Neural Darwinism: is this how we learn?

I'm excited to have just discovered Neural Darwinism through an interview with Gerald Edelman on all in the mind.

The idea that our brain constantly adapts to our environment using the same evolutionary principles described by Darwin is what I've been coming to believe. It's clear that we create and remove connections every day during sleep and that our brains are constantly evolving from the events of the day.

It's nice to hear I'm not alone in my view and that there is a theory to go along with it.

The only true disability is a crushed spirit

Watching Aimee Mullims ted talk title "The opportunity of adversity" is just fascinating. She makes such a beautiful case for the strengths and values people gain from disability it becomes very clear that the adversity that may entail generally adds far more to us than it takes away.

Gaming can make a better world

Ok, so I'm just watching the best presentation I've seen for a while. I just had to share it.

The premise that gaming can make a better world is something I share and have actively been looking at how to bring gaming to education via the OU. I think Jane McGonigal just nails it and explains how gaming is a wonderful at create a problem solving mindset which is a fundamental attribute of good education.

The idea is that gaming has 4 characteristics that can lead to a better world

• Blissful Productivity
• Social Fabric
• Urgent Optimism
• Epic Meaning