Technology and the death of handwriting
By Hannah Goff BBC News education reporter
The art of handwriting is being threatened by the rise of the machine, research suggests.
One in three children struggle with their handwriting and almost one in five slip into text message language when they do put pen to paper, according to a recent survey.
Meanwhile, one in five parents surveyed for My Child magazine's Write a Letter Week said they last penned a letter more than a year ago.
If the figures are representative, this apparent demise of handwriting could have serious implications for educational achievement.
Currently, four out of 10 boys and 25% of girls, aged 11, fail to meet the required standards for writing in their national tests.
Although only 3% of the marks in this test are awarded for good writing and spelling skills, experts argue the child's ability to write and the quality of their text are inextricably linked.
Professor Rhona Stainthorp, who is conducting research into children's writing abilities, says there is growing evidence those who write faster and more legibly get better marks.
This is because poor handwriting itself is hampering a child's ability to express himself.
Instead of going outside and doing handstands against the wall, they are playing computer games inside Angela Webb Chairman of the National Handwriting Association
"If you are a slow writer you have not automated your writing skills adequately - so much so that much more of your mental capacity is taken up by processing that text.
"This even affects undergraduates in a stressed situation like an examination, but has a much greater impact at the younger age group."
It is hardly surprising that many children growing up in an age where instant messages have replaced handwritten notes to friends, will struggle when they take up a pen.
With the arrival of chip and pin, even a person's signature has become obsolete as a means of identification.
It is not just children's over-reliance on computers and mobile phones for communication that is the problem, it is the way technology encroaches on leisure time too.
Chairman of the National Handwriting Association Angela Webb says children generally have far less physical play these days.
"Instead of going outside and doing handstands against the wall, they are playing computer games inside," she says.
This has an impact because while they were playing outside they were also fine-tuning the physical skills needed for writing.
But these days they are more likely to be wearing their thumbs out on games consoles.
More PE
Head teacher of Newcastle's Hadrian School Chris Rollings says: "It's not just the fine motor mobility skills of the finger and thumb, but the whole body that's important.
"The head has to be held still, as well as the trunk and the shoulders."
At his primary school for children with severe learning disabilities, they use PE and physical play to try to open the channels in the brain associated with both handwriting and wider learning.
Mr Rollings says experience shows children with developmental coordination problems improve if they practise certain types of exercise.
"If you give these youngsters access to 'deep pressure' activities like wheelbarrow walking - where a child is upside down with his hands on the ground and another child holds his legs - then you connect the motor perceptual pathways that are needed for handwriting."
The same is true of other PE activities that involve hand-eye coordination, he says, and the benefits are just as rich for children without learning disabilities.
Information officer at the National Handwriting Association Suzanne Tibertius says children who have not had the chance to develop their fine motor skills before school often struggle with handwriting.
But can we blame the demise of handwriting wholly on children's increased reliance on technology and a lack of outside play?
Mrs Webb argues a lack of good teaching has a role to play too.
She says: "This generation of children has gone through school without being taught how to hand write properly because it wasn't a priority.
"And there's a generation of young teachers who were never taught how to teach handwriting."
Focus
Prof Stainthorp says schools are taking the issue of teaching handwriting seriously but agrees that many teachers lack the right training.
"One of the things that we have to face up to is that they are not necessarily thinking about how to move from writing legibly to writing quickly - that's one of the key issues," she says.
So should children with poor handwriting be pulled out of class and given remedial lessons?
This could be counterproductive, suggests Prof Stainthorp: "Handwriting is a very odd thing, when children move into adolescence criticising their handwriting is like criticising their core self."
What is really needed, she says, is a renewed focus on handwriting teaching in the early years of primary school.
Story from BBC NEWS:
Monday 31 March 2008
Thursday 20 March 2008
Arthur C Clarke Quotes.......
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Arthur C. Clarke
“Life is just one big banana. Science fiction allows us all to peel open the reality and discover the yellow truth inside.”
Clarke’s three laws:
“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
“The truth, as always, will be far stranger.”
“Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.”
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.”
Of UFOs: “They tell us absolutely nothing about intelligence elsewhere in the universe, but they do prove how rare it is on Earth.”
“Somewhere in me is a curiosity sensor. I want to know what’s over the next hill. You know, people can live longer without food than without information. Without information, you’d go crazy.”
“The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.”
Arthur C. Clarke
“Life is just one big banana. Science fiction allows us all to peel open the reality and discover the yellow truth inside.”
Clarke’s three laws:
“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
“The truth, as always, will be far stranger.”
“Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.”
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.”
Of UFOs: “They tell us absolutely nothing about intelligence elsewhere in the universe, but they do prove how rare it is on Earth.”
“Somewhere in me is a curiosity sensor. I want to know what’s over the next hill. You know, people can live longer without food than without information. Without information, you’d go crazy.”
“The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.”
Scofield the actor dies in UK
Famous for many roles as a classical actor on stage and outstanding in "A Man for all Seasons" Paul Scofield has died at the age of 82.
Scofield, Paul (1922-2008)
Actor
A celebrated stage star who looks and seems almost too remorselessly intelligent for conventional film stardom. On stage while still at school in Brighton, then professionally in London from 1940, he has played most of the great Shakespearean roles (including Hamlet, by invitation, in the USSR, 1955), with many Stratford seasons, and, in the '70s, at the National Theatre, starring in Volpone (1977-78) and Othello (1980), as well as many modern plays.
His preference for the stage has limited his film work, but even there he has been much honoured: he won an Oscar and BAFTA for Best Actor for repeating his London (1961) and Broadway (1962) stage role of Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons (d. Fred Zinnemann, 1966), capturing brilliantly the scholarliness, humanity and unassailable integrity of the man; nearly 30 years later he was Oscar and BAFTA-nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his role as the literary mandarin in Quiz Show (US, d. Robert Redford, 1994), and a BAFTA for ditto in The Crucible (US, d. Nicholas Hytner, 1997).
It is not the kind of film career to attract much multiplex attention, most often focusing on such literary enterprises as: Bartleby (d. Anthony Friedmann, 1970), from Herman Melville's novella; the bleakly magisterial King Lear (UK/Denmark, d. Peter Brook, 1970); A Delicate Balance (UK/Canada/US, d. Tony Richardson, 1973), a sort of 'concert' performance of Edward Albee's talkfest; Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (1989), as the careworn King of France; and Zeffirelli's Hamlet (UK/US, 1990), as the Ghost.
One can almost imagine filmmakers wondering if what they have to offer is worthy of his attention, though he is, by all accounts, a modest man who declined a knighthood, but was later distinguished by being appointed to the prestigious Order of the Companions of Honour in 2001. He married stage actress Joy Parker (b.London, 1924) in 1943.
BibliographyGarry O'Connor, Paul Scofield: The Biography, 2002.
Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film
Wednesday 19 March 2008
Arthur C. Clarke, Premier Science Fiction Writer, Dies at 90
By GERALD JONAS
Published: March 18, 2008
Arthur C. Clarke, a writer whose seamless blend of scientific expertise and poetic imagination helped usher in the space age, died early Wednesday in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since 1956. He was 90.
Rohan de Silva, an aide to Mr. Clarke, said the author died after experiencing breathing problems, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Clarke had post-polio syndrome for the last two decades and used a wheelchair.
From his detailed forecast of telecommunications satellites in 1945, more than a decade before the first orbital rocket flight, to his co-creation, with the director Stanley Kubrick, of the classic science fiction film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Mr. Clarke was both prophet and promoter of the idea that humanity’s destiny lay beyond the confines of Earth.
Other early advocates of a space program argued that it would pay for itself by jump-starting new technology. Mr. Clarke set his sights higher. Paraphrasing William James, he suggested that exploring the solar system could serve as the “moral equivalent” of war, giving an outlet to energies that might otherwise lead to nuclear holocaust.
Mr. Clarke’s influence on public attitudes toward space was acknowledged by American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts, by scientists like the astronomer Carl Sagan and by movie and television producers. Gene Roddenberry credited Mr. Clarke’s writings with giving him courage to pursue his “Star Trek” project in the face of indifference, even ridicule, from television executives.
In his later years, after settling in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Mr. Clarke continued to bask in worldwide acclaim as both a scientific sage and the pre-eminent science fiction writer of the 20th century. In 1998, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
He played down his success in foretelling a globe-spanning network of communication satellites. “No one can predict the future,” he always maintained.
But as a science fiction writer, he couldn’t resist drawing up timelines for what he called “possible futures.” Far from displaying uncanny prescience, these conjectures mainly demonstrated his lifelong, and often disappointed, optimism about the peaceful uses of technology — from his calculation in 1945 that atomic-fueled rockets could be no more than 20 years away to his conviction in 1999 that “clean, safe power” from “cold fusion” would be commercially available in the first years of the new millennium.
Mr. Clarke was well aware of the importance of his role as science spokesman to the general population: “Most technological achievements were preceded by people writing and imagining them,” he noted. “I’m sure we would not have had men on the Moon,” he added, if it had not been for H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. “I’m rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books.”
Arthur Charles Clarke was born on Dec. 16, 1917, in the seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, England. His father was a farmer; his mother a post office telegrapher. The eldest of four children, he was educated as a scholarship student at a secondary school in the nearby town of Taunton. He remembered a number of incidents in early childhood that awakened his scientific imagination: exploratory rambles along the Somerset shoreline, with its “wonderland of rock pools;” a card from a pack of cigarettes that his father showed him, with a picture of a dinosaur; the gift of a Meccano set, a British construction toy similar to the Erector sets sold in the United States.
He also spent time “mapping the Moon” through a telescope he constructed himself out of “a cardboard tube and a couple of lenses.” But the formative event of his childhood was his discovery, at age 13 — the year his father died — of a copy of “Astounding Stories of Super-Science,” then the leading American science fiction magazine. He found its mix of boyish adventure and far-out (sometimes bogus) science intoxicating.
While still in school, Mr. Clarke joined the newly formed British Interplanetary Society, a small band of sci-fi enthusiasts who held the controversial view that space travel was not only possible but could be achieved in the not-so-distant future. In 1937, a year after he moved to London to take a civil service job, he began writing his first science fiction novel, a story of the far, far future that was later published as “Against the Fall of Night” (1953).
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By GERALD JONAS
Published: March 18, 2008
Arthur C. Clarke, a writer whose seamless blend of scientific expertise and poetic imagination helped usher in the space age, died early Wednesday in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since 1956. He was 90.
Rohan de Silva, an aide to Mr. Clarke, said the author died after experiencing breathing problems, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Clarke had post-polio syndrome for the last two decades and used a wheelchair.
From his detailed forecast of telecommunications satellites in 1945, more than a decade before the first orbital rocket flight, to his co-creation, with the director Stanley Kubrick, of the classic science fiction film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Mr. Clarke was both prophet and promoter of the idea that humanity’s destiny lay beyond the confines of Earth.
Other early advocates of a space program argued that it would pay for itself by jump-starting new technology. Mr. Clarke set his sights higher. Paraphrasing William James, he suggested that exploring the solar system could serve as the “moral equivalent” of war, giving an outlet to energies that might otherwise lead to nuclear holocaust.
Mr. Clarke’s influence on public attitudes toward space was acknowledged by American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts, by scientists like the astronomer Carl Sagan and by movie and television producers. Gene Roddenberry credited Mr. Clarke’s writings with giving him courage to pursue his “Star Trek” project in the face of indifference, even ridicule, from television executives.
In his later years, after settling in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Mr. Clarke continued to bask in worldwide acclaim as both a scientific sage and the pre-eminent science fiction writer of the 20th century. In 1998, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
He played down his success in foretelling a globe-spanning network of communication satellites. “No one can predict the future,” he always maintained.
But as a science fiction writer, he couldn’t resist drawing up timelines for what he called “possible futures.” Far from displaying uncanny prescience, these conjectures mainly demonstrated his lifelong, and often disappointed, optimism about the peaceful uses of technology — from his calculation in 1945 that atomic-fueled rockets could be no more than 20 years away to his conviction in 1999 that “clean, safe power” from “cold fusion” would be commercially available in the first years of the new millennium.
Mr. Clarke was well aware of the importance of his role as science spokesman to the general population: “Most technological achievements were preceded by people writing and imagining them,” he noted. “I’m sure we would not have had men on the Moon,” he added, if it had not been for H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. “I’m rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books.”
Arthur Charles Clarke was born on Dec. 16, 1917, in the seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, England. His father was a farmer; his mother a post office telegrapher. The eldest of four children, he was educated as a scholarship student at a secondary school in the nearby town of Taunton. He remembered a number of incidents in early childhood that awakened his scientific imagination: exploratory rambles along the Somerset shoreline, with its “wonderland of rock pools;” a card from a pack of cigarettes that his father showed him, with a picture of a dinosaur; the gift of a Meccano set, a British construction toy similar to the Erector sets sold in the United States.
He also spent time “mapping the Moon” through a telescope he constructed himself out of “a cardboard tube and a couple of lenses.” But the formative event of his childhood was his discovery, at age 13 — the year his father died — of a copy of “Astounding Stories of Super-Science,” then the leading American science fiction magazine. He found its mix of boyish adventure and far-out (sometimes bogus) science intoxicating.
While still in school, Mr. Clarke joined the newly formed British Interplanetary Society, a small band of sci-fi enthusiasts who held the controversial view that space travel was not only possible but could be achieved in the not-so-distant future. In 1937, a year after he moved to London to take a civil service job, he began writing his first science fiction novel, a story of the far, far future that was later published as “Against the Fall of Night” (1953).
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Sunday 16 March 2008
Great player in a Great triumph as Wales take all the silver ware 2008
James Hook ~ one of the outstanding players in the Welst team as they take the Grand Slam 2008Thursday 13 March 2008
Alun Hoddinott dies in Wales
Tributes paid to late composer Tributes have been paid to Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott, who has died at the age of 78.
Mr Hoddinott, who was born in Bargoed, Caerphilly, had a partnership with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales spanning seven decades.
The classical composer, who lived in Gower, Swansea, died at the city's Morriston Hospital on Wednesday.
BBC Wales controller, Menna Richards, has said the new home of the orchestra in Cardiff Bay will be named after him.
She said: "All of Alun Hoddinott's friends at BBC Wales are very sad at the news of his death. He was one of Wales' most distinguished and influential composers with an international reputation.
"Alun Hoddinott's partnership with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales spanned seven decades. His work has been so significant and prolific that, in 2004, the orchestra undertook a year-long season of Alun's work to celebrate his 75th birthday.
"Later this year the BBC National Orchestra of Wales will move into its new home Hoddinott Hall [in the Wales Millennium Centre], named in honour of such a fine composer and distinguished Welshman."
'Distinguished career
It is understood Mr Hoddinott had been in hospital since he had major heart surgery last year.
David Murray, director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, said the composer was "inspired" by his long relationship with the orchestra, which he likened to "a long relationship of good friends".
Of the new Hoddinott Hall, which will allow a live audience of up to 350 to watch the orchestra perform, Mr Murray said: "It is very sad he won't see the building, but we will make sure his spirit and his music lives on in that building."
Huw Tregelles Williams, who became the first director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 1992, said Mr Hoddinott created an "entirely new musical language".
"He had great early success, of course," he said.
"He had a highly original, colourful style. Many of his scores, very colourful scores, filled with exciting percussion sounds, new brass sounds and so on - an entirely new musical language in the history of musical Wales."
Mr Hoddinott, a former Cardiff University music professor, had a distinguished career.
After graduating from Cardiff University, he studied for some years with the Australian composer and pianist Arthur Benjamin.
He was awarded the Walford Davies prize for composition when he was 24, and achieved his first national success a year later, when his Clarinet Concerto was given its first public performance at the Cheltenham Festival.
He went on to become a renowned composer, with commissions for his compositions coming from leading orchestras and soloists, including Dame Margaret Price and more recently Jeremy Huw Williams.
In 1951, he was appointed lecturer in music at the Welsh College of Music and Drama.
He later became a lecturer at Cardiff University and was made professor and head of department there in 1967.
Royal wedding
Among his many awards were the John Edwards Memorial Award, the Arnold Bax Medal for composers, the Hopkins Medal of the New York St David's Society and the CBE.
He was an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music, and a fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music.
In 1997, Mr Hoddinott received the Glyndwr Award for an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales during the Machynlleth Festival.
He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arts Council of Wales in 1999, Fellowship of the Welsh Music Guild and the Queen presented a medal to him as she officially opened the Wales Millennium Centre.
In 2005, he produced a fanfare to be performed at the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker Bowles.
He had previously composed music to mark the prince's 16th birthday.
As artistic director of the Cardiff Festival, which he co-founded with his friend, the pianist John Ogdon, Mr Hoddinott has had considerable influence in awakening interest in contemporary music in south Wales.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7292217.stm
Mr Hoddinott, who was born in Bargoed, Caerphilly, had a partnership with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales spanning seven decades.
The classical composer, who lived in Gower, Swansea, died at the city's Morriston Hospital on Wednesday.
BBC Wales controller, Menna Richards, has said the new home of the orchestra in Cardiff Bay will be named after him.
She said: "All of Alun Hoddinott's friends at BBC Wales are very sad at the news of his death. He was one of Wales' most distinguished and influential composers with an international reputation.
"Alun Hoddinott's partnership with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales spanned seven decades. His work has been so significant and prolific that, in 2004, the orchestra undertook a year-long season of Alun's work to celebrate his 75th birthday.
"Later this year the BBC National Orchestra of Wales will move into its new home Hoddinott Hall [in the Wales Millennium Centre], named in honour of such a fine composer and distinguished Welshman."
'Distinguished career
It is understood Mr Hoddinott had been in hospital since he had major heart surgery last year.
David Murray, director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, said the composer was "inspired" by his long relationship with the orchestra, which he likened to "a long relationship of good friends".
Of the new Hoddinott Hall, which will allow a live audience of up to 350 to watch the orchestra perform, Mr Murray said: "It is very sad he won't see the building, but we will make sure his spirit and his music lives on in that building."
Huw Tregelles Williams, who became the first director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 1992, said Mr Hoddinott created an "entirely new musical language".
"He had great early success, of course," he said.
"He had a highly original, colourful style. Many of his scores, very colourful scores, filled with exciting percussion sounds, new brass sounds and so on - an entirely new musical language in the history of musical Wales."
Mr Hoddinott, a former Cardiff University music professor, had a distinguished career.
After graduating from Cardiff University, he studied for some years with the Australian composer and pianist Arthur Benjamin.
He was awarded the Walford Davies prize for composition when he was 24, and achieved his first national success a year later, when his Clarinet Concerto was given its first public performance at the Cheltenham Festival.
He went on to become a renowned composer, with commissions for his compositions coming from leading orchestras and soloists, including Dame Margaret Price and more recently Jeremy Huw Williams.
In 1951, he was appointed lecturer in music at the Welsh College of Music and Drama.
He later became a lecturer at Cardiff University and was made professor and head of department there in 1967.
Royal wedding
Among his many awards were the John Edwards Memorial Award, the Arnold Bax Medal for composers, the Hopkins Medal of the New York St David's Society and the CBE.
He was an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music, and a fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music.
In 1997, Mr Hoddinott received the Glyndwr Award for an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales during the Machynlleth Festival.
He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arts Council of Wales in 1999, Fellowship of the Welsh Music Guild and the Queen presented a medal to him as she officially opened the Wales Millennium Centre.
In 2005, he produced a fanfare to be performed at the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker Bowles.
He had previously composed music to mark the prince's 16th birthday.
As artistic director of the Cardiff Festival, which he co-founded with his friend, the pianist John Ogdon, Mr Hoddinott has had considerable influence in awakening interest in contemporary music in south Wales.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7292217.stm
Saturday 1 March 2008
Rob Brydon pokes more fun at the Welsh
What is Wales, and what does it mean to be Welsh? Welsh comedian Rob Brydon is about to learn some home truths and assess his own take on his home country as he examines the national psyche, and questions his long held belief that the Welsh have a natural leaning toward pessimism and gloom in Rob Brydon's Identity Crisis.
Swansea-born Brydon's questioning was sparked in 1999 when he made a 10-minute appearance on the BBC's Clarkson show with material based on his experience of being Welsh.
Though his performance went down well with the studio audience, Rob's oldest friend David was less than impressed, turning off his television in disgust and claiming that the tone of the act was offensive and insulting. To this day he has a problem with his friend poking fun at the Welsh.
But why did his comedy cause offence, and what makes his notoriously patriotic countrymen so defensive? Why is it that Wales is so often the butt of the joke?
To find out he talks to a host of Welsh celebrities, including Griff Rhys Jones, Nicky Wire of The Manic Street Preachers, Max Boyce, Goldie Lookin' Chain and Rob's Gavin And Stacey colleague Ruth Jones.
The programme also sees Rob constructing a stand up routine of Welsh-based material which he tries out in a series of surprise appearances at comedy clubs around Wales, culminating in a sell out performance at the Aberdare Coliseum in the heart of the south Wales valleys. Will his routine impress Dave this time around?
AND IT WAS VERY FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!
Swansea-born Brydon's questioning was sparked in 1999 when he made a 10-minute appearance on the BBC's Clarkson show with material based on his experience of being Welsh.
Though his performance went down well with the studio audience, Rob's oldest friend David was less than impressed, turning off his television in disgust and claiming that the tone of the act was offensive and insulting. To this day he has a problem with his friend poking fun at the Welsh.
But why did his comedy cause offence, and what makes his notoriously patriotic countrymen so defensive? Why is it that Wales is so often the butt of the joke?
To find out he talks to a host of Welsh celebrities, including Griff Rhys Jones, Nicky Wire of The Manic Street Preachers, Max Boyce, Goldie Lookin' Chain and Rob's Gavin And Stacey colleague Ruth Jones.
The programme also sees Rob constructing a stand up routine of Welsh-based material which he tries out in a series of surprise appearances at comedy clubs around Wales, culminating in a sell out performance at the Aberdare Coliseum in the heart of the south Wales valleys. Will his routine impress Dave this time around?
AND IT WAS VERY FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!
1st March 2008
Happy St David's Day..........Greetings from the Limousin.
Hope everyone has a good day celebrating Welshness ~ whatever that means?
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