The March/April edition of the Freelance is now out. My articles in it include:
News for a round earth
Investigative journalist Nick Davies warns that the profession of journalism is "disintegrating," and journalists have to look for new "mini-media" models for making money out of news. Read it here...
Financial journalists, dig deeper!
Are financial journalists just "fans of capitalism with typewriters" (or modern equivalent)? Peter Wilby on the role of financial journalism in times of economic crisis. Read it here...
Student snubbed in square
"Plastic plods" tell student film makers they need a licence to film for a student documentary in Parliament Square, and what happened when they came back with a letter from their tutor. Read here...
J K Rowling clarifies fair use
How a judgement against an unauthorised "companion work" to the Harry Potter books has implications for "fair use" of other creators' works. Read it here
The hokey Coaker
Mixed messages on the right to photograph. Read it here...
Work your proper hours
The point in the year at which, if you did all your unpaid overtime in one go starting from January 2, you would start working for money. Read this article here...
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Dig deeper, financial journalists!
Peter Wilby tells it like it is.
We are all financial journalists now, it seems, and the Treasury Select Committee has been grilling financial jounros about their role in the slide into recession. First journalists were accused of not predicting the recession (in fact, several had done so several years ago, and were roundly ignored). Then they were accused of frightening the punters into taking their money out of Northern Rock. Current Media Guardian columnist and former Independent on Sunday and New Statesman editor Peter Wilby spoke at a recent meeting on the role of financial journalists in time of crisis. Read my report on this here.
We are all financial journalists now, it seems, and the Treasury Select Committee has been grilling financial jounros about their role in the slide into recession. First journalists were accused of not predicting the recession (in fact, several had done so several years ago, and were roundly ignored). Then they were accused of frightening the punters into taking their money out of Northern Rock. Current Media Guardian columnist and former Independent on Sunday and New Statesman editor Peter Wilby spoke at a recent meeting on the role of financial journalists in time of crisis. Read my report on this here.
News for a round earth
Nick Davies speaks
Nick Davies, investigative journalist (recently at work on the Guardian's investigations into corporate tax avoidance) and author of Flat Earth News, warned journalists at a recent meeting that their profession is 'disintegrating.'Rather than dwell on this, however, Nick urged journalists to look for new models for how to much money out of journalism. Read my article in the March/April 2009 Freelance for more.
While his book is mostly doom and gloom, Nick was much funnier than I had expected. The meeting was a joint gig co-hosted by NUJ London Freelance Branch and NUJ Press & PR Branch. Nick asked one of the PR people in the audience which PR agency he worked for. His reply, 'Myself, mostly. I keep getting sacked for being too honest.'
Monday, 16 February 2009
Lens limits - government says "Cap it"
The February 2009 (online) only edition of the Freelance is now out. It includes a report on Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker's less than helpful comments on government policy on restricting photographers, and examples of clueless Police Community Support Officers telling photographers (professional and amateur) that they can't photograph in a public place, with or without a (mythical) 'licence'. Read more here. The March Freelance will be out soon.
BETT show for educational technology
I went to the slightly terrifying BETT Education Show at the end of January. BETT used to stand for something once, but its PR people now tell me it’s just BETT, which doesn’t stand for anything in particular.
As a humble correspondent for an English Language Teaching industry publication, I naively expected that the show would actually have something to do with education. I couldn’t have been more wrong. As part of the state’s current War on Young People, most of the kit on show was schools management systems software, attendance management kit, swipe cards to monitor where your students are at, CCTV cameras, kit to spy on what the kids are chatting about online, knife arches, electronic locks on equipment, and all the expensive paraphernalia of the iron boot of top-down coercive control freakery. No wonder there’s not enough money for teachers and books, all the money being thrown away on stuff to not very effectively spy on, regulate, and control the kids.
One day, in spite of the apparent best efforts of the managerial castes, the younger people of this country will attain positions of power, while us less young people will be forgetful old folks in need of them to provide an elderly care infrastructure. Will the younger people of today be in a forgiving mood towards the generation that fired subsonic Mosquito electronic warfare devices at them to disperse them, or issued Dispersal Orders on them to stop them congregating, or put them into a coercive ‘school attendance management system’? I don’t think so.
Then there are interactive whiteboards. As the EL Gazette’s Mexico correspondent, teacher Paul Morris told me, “Don’t get me started on interactive whiteboards!” He points out that the youth of today are disorientated enough by lots of streamed images and things going ‘beep!’ around them all day, miniature films coming in on their mobiles and computers, keeping them in a state of permanent distraction. The last thing “the kids” need is more time spent passively staring at screens. It was noticeable that among all the tech, tech, tech at the trade fair, the biggest crowd puller was a little space with some seating and a guy from government and a guy from education, sitting down talking about exam-based learning versus knowledge for its own sake. The only tech they had was a couple of radio mikes they were talking into. And the space was packed with teachers listening intently. With all the distracting images dancing around the kids these days, the calmness of actually sitting down and having the sound of real person just talking is more important than ever.
The interactive whiteboard industry, however, carries on regardless. The UK industry, with giants like manufacturer Promethean (excuse the pun) got a boost in the form of a £5 billion government investment in “education technology” (kit) when Blair took power in 1997. But they, and whiteboard market leaders Smart (Canadian) and Hitachi, look like they’re about to get hammered by the various Chinese exhibitors who were showing off giant flatscreen high-resolution anti-glare plasma screen TVs whose screens you can write on with a light pen. There’s less radiation, less power used and no fiddly expensive bulbs.
Look out everybody! China's flatscreen TVs, shortly to become cheaper than your interactive whiteboards
Promethean’s vast trade stand had a dedicated demonstrator who spend three whole working days just showing off interactive whiteboards, in Spanish.
Promethian's dedicated Spanish language interactive whiteboard demonstrator
There were a few items of kit that impressed me – simple, democratic ideas that filled an actual need. Pocket Projectors do exactly what it says on the tin, they are projectors the size of a mobile phone, ideal for an audience of about six. Their demonstrator said he did presentations on the Tube with them, and projected onto the white shirt fronts of his corporate clients.
Pocket projectors do exactly what it says on the box. This one is the size of a mobile phone
The white shirt fronts of Pocket Projectors' corporate clients have proved handy for projecting presentations onto whilst giving presentations on crowded Tube carriages.
ABCi Ltd run surveys for school students, asking them questions about their school, with people reading out the questions if they can’t read the questions yet. The finished surveys link to action plans, which you can get in person on the phone as well as online. A recent primary school survey they ran had a lot of questions about the school toilets, because that’s where the bullying happens. One BETT punter, a university professor was unimpressed, “Why should I care what the students think?” he asked ABCi people. He was presumably more interested in the knife-arches and the attendance management package.
Subsequently, one of the people from BETT's PR agency admitted to me in an email that she visited a refitted secondary school and was a bit taken aback by the extent of the 'big brother' technology in use to ensure every student was in their lesson on time.
© Words and images Matt Salusbury
As a humble correspondent for an English Language Teaching industry publication, I naively expected that the show would actually have something to do with education. I couldn’t have been more wrong. As part of the state’s current War on Young People, most of the kit on show was schools management systems software, attendance management kit, swipe cards to monitor where your students are at, CCTV cameras, kit to spy on what the kids are chatting about online, knife arches, electronic locks on equipment, and all the expensive paraphernalia of the iron boot of top-down coercive control freakery. No wonder there’s not enough money for teachers and books, all the money being thrown away on stuff to not very effectively spy on, regulate, and control the kids.
One day, in spite of the apparent best efforts of the managerial castes, the younger people of this country will attain positions of power, while us less young people will be forgetful old folks in need of them to provide an elderly care infrastructure. Will the younger people of today be in a forgiving mood towards the generation that fired subsonic Mosquito electronic warfare devices at them to disperse them, or issued Dispersal Orders on them to stop them congregating, or put them into a coercive ‘school attendance management system’? I don’t think so.
Then there are interactive whiteboards. As the EL Gazette’s Mexico correspondent, teacher Paul Morris told me, “Don’t get me started on interactive whiteboards!” He points out that the youth of today are disorientated enough by lots of streamed images and things going ‘beep!’ around them all day, miniature films coming in on their mobiles and computers, keeping them in a state of permanent distraction. The last thing “the kids” need is more time spent passively staring at screens. It was noticeable that among all the tech, tech, tech at the trade fair, the biggest crowd puller was a little space with some seating and a guy from government and a guy from education, sitting down talking about exam-based learning versus knowledge for its own sake. The only tech they had was a couple of radio mikes they were talking into. And the space was packed with teachers listening intently. With all the distracting images dancing around the kids these days, the calmness of actually sitting down and having the sound of real person just talking is more important than ever.
The interactive whiteboard industry, however, carries on regardless. The UK industry, with giants like manufacturer Promethean (excuse the pun) got a boost in the form of a £5 billion government investment in “education technology” (kit) when Blair took power in 1997. But they, and whiteboard market leaders Smart (Canadian) and Hitachi, look like they’re about to get hammered by the various Chinese exhibitors who were showing off giant flatscreen high-resolution anti-glare plasma screen TVs whose screens you can write on with a light pen. There’s less radiation, less power used and no fiddly expensive bulbs.
Look out everybody! China's flatscreen TVs, shortly to become cheaper than your interactive whiteboards
Promethean’s vast trade stand had a dedicated demonstrator who spend three whole working days just showing off interactive whiteboards, in Spanish.
Promethian's dedicated Spanish language interactive whiteboard demonstrator
There were a few items of kit that impressed me – simple, democratic ideas that filled an actual need. Pocket Projectors do exactly what it says on the tin, they are projectors the size of a mobile phone, ideal for an audience of about six. Their demonstrator said he did presentations on the Tube with them, and projected onto the white shirt fronts of his corporate clients.
Pocket projectors do exactly what it says on the box. This one is the size of a mobile phone
The white shirt fronts of Pocket Projectors' corporate clients have proved handy for projecting presentations onto whilst giving presentations on crowded Tube carriages.
ABCi Ltd run surveys for school students, asking them questions about their school, with people reading out the questions if they can’t read the questions yet. The finished surveys link to action plans, which you can get in person on the phone as well as online. A recent primary school survey they ran had a lot of questions about the school toilets, because that’s where the bullying happens. One BETT punter, a university professor was unimpressed, “Why should I care what the students think?” he asked ABCi people. He was presumably more interested in the knife-arches and the attendance management package.
Subsequently, one of the people from BETT's PR agency admitted to me in an email that she visited a refitted secondary school and was a bit taken aback by the extent of the 'big brother' technology in use to ensure every student was in their lesson on time.
© Words and images Matt Salusbury
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Meet your mentor
Can befriending increase the effectiveness of support for non-native speakers at English medium universities?
(This article first appeared in English Language Gazette of January 2009)
Matt Salusbury
Writes
WITH THE continued rise in international students in English-speaking universities, more EAP and Foundation courses are springing up. But alongside training international students in English and in study skills, there’s also another strand to support for non-native English speaking students to ensure that they can stand the course – mentoring. Course descriptions for courses designed for international students on various UK university websites increasingly show less emphasis on many hours of generic EAP in groups, and more emphasis on tutorials, one-to-one English language sessions, and mentoring. What is mentoring, and how can it be used to help international university students succeed?
Mentoring is an increasingly popular tool in the UK, according to the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation (MBF), who run training projects for mentors through nine regional coordinators round the country, backed by the Home Office and the Cabinet Office. Mentoring is a concept being used in many areas of life – from tackling bullying at school to settling young offenders back into the community.
Mentoring (the term is often used interchangeable with ‘coaching’) is about helping people acquire the awareness and confidence necessary to fulfil their potential. Several Chinese students on MA courses in the US interviewed for our recent survey, for example, said life at a US university got much easier when they suddenly realised they were expected to ask for help when they needed it. This realisation, while vital for their success, has little to do with English or study skills. Within mentoring there is ‘peer mentoring’ – in universities this will be by other students – and ‘classic’ mentoring, which usually means a role taken on by university teaching or support staff. Properly done, mentoring should always be monitored, usually by the university. The MBF run the Approved Provider Standard (APS), which has benchmarks and best practice for mentoring.
Charlotte Leather of the MBF told the Gazette about some of the developments in mentoring projects aimed at international students at UK universities. These are most peer-monitoring projects which engage students who are already enrolled in ‘befriending’ roles – providing social support for international students when they first come to the UK.
Charlotte says these befriending projects are important part of ensuring retention of international students across UK universities, and that students who ‘befriend’ incoming international students can also fill an important role in familiarising them with areas of the subject they are coming to study. Universities are usually able to get established students to work as ‘befrienders’ on a volunteer basis, as the experience gained by mentors is seen as very valuable to their future career. Academic departments or units that have a lot of international students are also starting to work closely with students’ unions on these mentoring projects.
Rong Huang of Plymouth University has done extensive search on mentoring support for international students at every level, and how mentoring affects success. On one course, for ‘direct entry students’ students from China and other countries joining a course in its third year, he found there was a 43 per cent failure rate, and that the international students’ ‘transition has currently been managed on an ad hoc basis.’ His response was to train student mentors, including international students who had just arrived, and to use feedback from the ‘direct entry students’ and their mentors to compile materials for the next international intake of this course. There’s now a ‘special visit day’ for potential students of the course, at which the university goes to gatherings of potential applicants abroad and provides them with a full orientation. As a result, the university’s agents abroad can provide much more precise information about what the student can expect.
Charlotte told the Gazette that the University of Exeter’s peer mentoring scheme now starts six weeks before the start of the degree course, when the student arrives at the airport to be met by a student peer mentor. It’s followed by introductions to subject areas, the library, the university and the UK, all before the course starts. Mentors are older students – at the request of the international student body they are a combination of international and ‘British’ students, as international students felt they weren’t meeting enough students from the UK.
Another innovative mentoring project is the one at Sheffield University, which has 23 international student mentors who can be contacted through an email network for enquiries about orientation and on subject areas.
Rong Huang notes that there’s a tendency to see international students in terms of their country of origin, and how this affects their learning styles – how the UK’s academic culture is different to that of Asia, and particularly China, for example. While there’s been a lot of work on addressing these specific issues – see the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCIS) ‘Prepare for Success’ for example – Huang says there’s been little research into the international student body as a whole. His research at Plymouth University showed they were generally satisfied by their courses and support services, but less happy with courses’ value for money and the quality of their seminars.
It was in their participation in social activities and sports that the international students surveyed felt dissatisfaction. Most international students were not ‘socially active,’ and their friends were mostly from their own countries. Only 15 per cent of them reported that their friends were ‘British’ students, and 77 per cent thought that UK students were ‘hard to get to know.’
Limited by their English? With increasing numbers of international students, is UK education risking its reputation? Read this article here
(This article first appeared in English Language Gazette of January 2009)
Matt Salusbury
Writes
WITH THE continued rise in international students in English-speaking universities, more EAP and Foundation courses are springing up. But alongside training international students in English and in study skills, there’s also another strand to support for non-native English speaking students to ensure that they can stand the course – mentoring. Course descriptions for courses designed for international students on various UK university websites increasingly show less emphasis on many hours of generic EAP in groups, and more emphasis on tutorials, one-to-one English language sessions, and mentoring. What is mentoring, and how can it be used to help international university students succeed?
Mentoring is an increasingly popular tool in the UK, according to the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation (MBF), who run training projects for mentors through nine regional coordinators round the country, backed by the Home Office and the Cabinet Office. Mentoring is a concept being used in many areas of life – from tackling bullying at school to settling young offenders back into the community.
Mentoring (the term is often used interchangeable with ‘coaching’) is about helping people acquire the awareness and confidence necessary to fulfil their potential. Several Chinese students on MA courses in the US interviewed for our recent survey, for example, said life at a US university got much easier when they suddenly realised they were expected to ask for help when they needed it. This realisation, while vital for their success, has little to do with English or study skills. Within mentoring there is ‘peer mentoring’ – in universities this will be by other students – and ‘classic’ mentoring, which usually means a role taken on by university teaching or support staff. Properly done, mentoring should always be monitored, usually by the university. The MBF run the Approved Provider Standard (APS), which has benchmarks and best practice for mentoring.
Charlotte Leather of the MBF told the Gazette about some of the developments in mentoring projects aimed at international students at UK universities. These are most peer-monitoring projects which engage students who are already enrolled in ‘befriending’ roles – providing social support for international students when they first come to the UK.
Charlotte says these befriending projects are important part of ensuring retention of international students across UK universities, and that students who ‘befriend’ incoming international students can also fill an important role in familiarising them with areas of the subject they are coming to study. Universities are usually able to get established students to work as ‘befrienders’ on a volunteer basis, as the experience gained by mentors is seen as very valuable to their future career. Academic departments or units that have a lot of international students are also starting to work closely with students’ unions on these mentoring projects.
Rong Huang of Plymouth University has done extensive search on mentoring support for international students at every level, and how mentoring affects success. On one course, for ‘direct entry students’ students from China and other countries joining a course in its third year, he found there was a 43 per cent failure rate, and that the international students’ ‘transition has currently been managed on an ad hoc basis.’ His response was to train student mentors, including international students who had just arrived, and to use feedback from the ‘direct entry students’ and their mentors to compile materials for the next international intake of this course. There’s now a ‘special visit day’ for potential students of the course, at which the university goes to gatherings of potential applicants abroad and provides them with a full orientation. As a result, the university’s agents abroad can provide much more precise information about what the student can expect.
Charlotte told the Gazette that the University of Exeter’s peer mentoring scheme now starts six weeks before the start of the degree course, when the student arrives at the airport to be met by a student peer mentor. It’s followed by introductions to subject areas, the library, the university and the UK, all before the course starts. Mentors are older students – at the request of the international student body they are a combination of international and ‘British’ students, as international students felt they weren’t meeting enough students from the UK.
Another innovative mentoring project is the one at Sheffield University, which has 23 international student mentors who can be contacted through an email network for enquiries about orientation and on subject areas.
Rong Huang notes that there’s a tendency to see international students in terms of their country of origin, and how this affects their learning styles – how the UK’s academic culture is different to that of Asia, and particularly China, for example. While there’s been a lot of work on addressing these specific issues – see the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCIS) ‘Prepare for Success’ for example – Huang says there’s been little research into the international student body as a whole. His research at Plymouth University showed they were generally satisfied by their courses and support services, but less happy with courses’ value for money and the quality of their seminars.
It was in their participation in social activities and sports that the international students surveyed felt dissatisfaction. Most international students were not ‘socially active,’ and their friends were mostly from their own countries. Only 15 per cent of them reported that their friends were ‘British’ students, and 77 per cent thought that UK students were ‘hard to get to know.’
Limited by their English? With increasing numbers of international students, is UK education risking its reputation? Read this article here
Friday, 2 January 2009
Picture research for writers, get that photo book published, Guardian multimedia “podheads”
The January 2009 Freelance is now on the web. My articles include…
What photo book publishers want
Advice on getting photography books published, from a specialist in the field, independent publisher Dewi Lewis. Read this article on the Freelance website.
Cash from pic research
Writers can make more money on the picture research side of the features they write - if they ask for it.
Read this article on the Freelance website.
The pod people are here! - at the Guardian.
The Guardian and Observer have just moved to a new site at Kings Place (apparently with no apostrophe) in King's Cross. Their operations will completely change. The staff will be re-organised into "pods"…. Read this article on the Freelance website. Thanks to Tom Davies for the info, and to my editor and co-author Mike Holderness for inventing the word "podhead" to describe the leader of a Guardian media ‘pod.’ (Picture: Guardian Media Group office reception, opposite the old Guardian and Observer offices, recently vacated, in Farringdon Road. © Matt Salusbury)
Snapping or writing about coppers to become a crime?
Reasearching the details of individual police officers or members of Her Majesty's armed forces may soon become an imprisonable offence, under the Terrorism Act 2008, which received Royal Assent in November… Read this article on the Freelance website.
These police officers from the Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) seem to have taken a keen interest in me over the years, enough to have given me the "photographic reference number" 1481. Would I now be committing an imprisonable offence if I tried to find out more about individual officers with FIT or other units? Picture: © Matt Salusbury
What photo book publishers want
Advice on getting photography books published, from a specialist in the field, independent publisher Dewi Lewis. Read this article on the Freelance website.
Cash from pic research
Writers can make more money on the picture research side of the features they write - if they ask for it.
Read this article on the Freelance website.
The pod people are here! - at the Guardian.
The Guardian and Observer have just moved to a new site at Kings Place (apparently with no apostrophe) in King's Cross. Their operations will completely change. The staff will be re-organised into "pods"…. Read this article on the Freelance website. Thanks to Tom Davies for the info, and to my editor and co-author Mike Holderness for inventing the word "podhead" to describe the leader of a Guardian media ‘pod.’ (Picture: Guardian Media Group office reception, opposite the old Guardian and Observer offices, recently vacated, in Farringdon Road. © Matt Salusbury)
Snapping or writing about coppers to become a crime?
Reasearching the details of individual police officers or members of Her Majesty's armed forces may soon become an imprisonable offence, under the Terrorism Act 2008, which received Royal Assent in November… Read this article on the Freelance website.
These police officers from the Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) seem to have taken a keen interest in me over the years, enough to have given me the "photographic reference number" 1481. Would I now be committing an imprisonable offence if I tried to find out more about individual officers with FIT or other units? Picture: © Matt Salusbury
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