Paces

The Conductive Web R.I.P.

The Conductive Web is no more. 

This morning I deleted the Netvibes account for The Conductive Web. The Conductive Web was one of the first attempts - maybe even the very first - to attempt to aggregate links to all conductive education blogs in one place.

The Conductive Post, introduced in 2009, proved itself a much more attractive solution in every way and I ceased to maintain The Conductive Web.   This morning, I visited The Conductive Web Netvibes pages, a veritable graveyard of dead links and long since not-updated blogs. I did the only decent thing and closed it down.

Time to move on. And if you've not recently dropped in to The Conductive Post, do so soon. 

IPSEA on SEN Reforms - new blog

All parents and SEN reform watchers, for your information:

IPSEA has set up a new blog on the provisions of the SEN draft legislation "IPSEA on SEN Reforms".

Join in. Help IPSEA help you.
"IPSEA's blog will answer questions from the parents we support. Anyone can email ask.ipsea@hotmail.co.uk to tell us about their concerns and to ask questions. We will respond to the most frequently asked questions and common themes via the blog"

Dave on Wheels: a blog by David Rose. UPDATE - a hoax

A hoax.

People are not always who they seem on the internet.

"Dave on Wheels" was a fiction and "David Rose" exposed as a fraud, as this article in the Huffington Post sets out.

Rather than simply delete this post, I thought I should update and correct it.

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Hey ... and I thought I was having a bad day!  David's humour and cheerfulness puts me to shame! Some people are just inspirational. I've been reading some of David Rose's blog posts and "About David". Take a look for yourself.

"About David

"David Rose is a young man who was born with severe athetoid cerebral palsy and profound deafness, but he hasn't let that stop him from living life to the fullest and enjoying every minute."

"Feel free to friend him on Facebook and/or follow him on Twitter.

Being great is rarely a product of not giving a damn

Tom Bennett's latest post "Twilight of the GCSEs; new balls, please" came to me via Twitter and was such an amusing read on a serious subject that I stopped to read others of Tom's posts.

That's how I came to read his post on 5th August Lessons from the Olympics 2: Wanting the World is not enough

Here's how you inspire a child:

Part 1: You tell them they are capable of just about anything
Part 2: You tell them how hard it can be to achieve it.
Part 3: You show them how others have achieved it. No bullshit. No pretending it's easy.
Part 4: You tell them they can do it. Then you pass it to them.

His last sentence is: "It is also our duty to inform them that being great is rarely a product of not giving a damn."

What was it Dr Hari said of conductive education: it being about 'enhancing the quality of intention to achieve'?

The whole post is worth a few minutes of your time. 

The blog design is great, too. Have a play with the tab on the far left of the black menu bar. Or the thin, almost hidden vertical black strip on the far right. How does all that work? And it's not even Wordpress or TypePad but Blogger!

Thanks, Tom.

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Tom Bennett is on twitter as @tombennett71

 

Blogger's Block. Or just busy?

Blogger's Block. Is there such a thing? Like Writer's Block?

I was happily writing a post about 10 days ago and couldn't come up with an ending for it. Still can't. Since then I've had several subjects for posts pass through my head - but not found the words to get them out and down.

Actually, I've been rather busy. We all have. It feels excitingly like there's a renewal of the whole Paces' Project taking place. At the same time, we are preparing for the greatly looked-forward to the imminent visits of Angela Webdale from the Department for Education and Rachel Wolf of the New Schools Network - both hopefully furthering our Free School aspirations.

So there's a lot going on. Maybe that's why've I've got Blogger's Block?

2 blogs and a blogswarm - new to me anyway

Thanks to Glenda Watson Hyatt (@GlendaWH) for the ReTweet which led me to two blogs not previously known to me and to a "blogswarm" (also a word not previously known to me) campaign around the withdrawal of the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance from those living in care homes.

I've not explored either blog thoroughly enough yet to recommend them but here they are:

The Broken of Britain - the disabled people's campaign. On Facebook and twitter too. Their DLA campaign is called "One Month Before Heartbreak" and the original link from Glenda was this here.

Carer Watch's Blog - of the non-party-political group Carer Watch - a campaign group for carers across the UK run by independent unpaid carers.

Why blog? Why twitter? Why Facebook? What's it all to do with me? #CondEd

Dorothea De Courcey is, she says at the top of her new blog "A senior lady on an internet journey ...."

If you've ever been tempted to start a blog or join Facebook and held back,Dorothea's blog might be just the encouragement you need.

Dorothea has only just started writing, so you can still read her very first post and catch up.

Do take a look - and do let me know if you set up your own conductive education blog.

By the way, she's on twitter too - @DorotheaDeC

Living with Cerebral Palsy in the Web2.0 Era

I've only just caught up with this great post back in mid-August from Glenda Watson Hyatt (@GlendaWH on twitter) Living with Cerebral Palsy in the Web2.0 Era.

She begins her post: Three weeks ago today I had the pleasure of presenting with web accessibility consultant and speaker Tom Babinszki on the panel “Living with a Disability in the Web 2.0 Era” at the Plain Talk Conference held in Alexandria, Virginia."

Glenda types at 10 words per minute with her left thumb. That's a simple fact of her life. It's a simple fact of our lives who know her that she's a great blogger.

Take a look for yourselves and, as they say in the coffee shops, "enjoy".

Oh - and why aren't you blogging?

Top tips for reporting our impact #CondEd

With thanks to @NCVO on twitter:  "Reading: Top tips for reporting your charity’s impact"

"... a recent report from New Philanthropy Capital, Talking About Results, says that charities are much better at talking about what they do than why they do it and what it achieves ..."

I've been trying recently to work out how Paces can make better coordinated use of social networking on the internet to reach out to parents and friends.

I've also been pondering lately how Paces and, more generally, CE can report better what we do.

The 4 'top tips' for talking about results are:

• Bring it back to Why
• Use the voices of the people you support
• Think about how you measure success
• Be honest

I shall now go in search of the New Philanthropy Capital report. You can follow their top tips to the Ask Charity website - one I'd not previously come across and will explore after lunch.

Dynamic conversations

Continuing to experiment with this blog ...

I've added a TypePad feature called "threaded comments". According to TypePad, "threaded comments allow readers to reply directly to each other’s comments, creating a more dynamic conversation". You can also get an email when someone adds a comment to you yours. The layout should look a bit different too. It'll be interesting to see how it works out. 

Apparently "TypePad Connect" works with Blogger, too, so Blogger users might like to try it out.