Dyslexia displays itself in many ways, in relation to dancing I guess the two major areas would poor spatial awareness and an inability to remember sequences. I thankfully after a lifetime of playing sports have good spatial awareness but I am more than useless at remembering sequences. Giving me directions is pretty much pointless I wont remember it. Hence why I’m always asking people to email a reminder and when I travel somewhere new I print out the Google directions even it’s it’s only a few streets over.

The Google maps example there is one of the tools I use to combat this area of my dyslexia. Most dyslexic people develop coping mechanisms some advanced and some not so advanced. one of my favorites at school was writing both versions of how I thought a word was spelled on top of each other and hope the teacher would give me the benefit of the doubt (I’ve just discovered spelt isn’t a real word!).

The slightly more advanced mechanism I use is known as the gift of mastery. I read about it in a book a friend bought me called The Gift of Dyslexia. Each new challenge/interest I try that I don’t at first get I go into a mode where I focus on it and don’t rest until I am happy I have sufficiently mastered it. I did this in university with CSS, 3D Studio Max and Flash. Sadly I’ve not kept up with these and am not quite the “master” I once was.

When it came to dancing I had to adopt the same approach to learning the dances. I spent hours and hours going over and over the dances until I could do them without thinking. It was very hard and I have even more respect now for our pupils who manage to remember so many dances, especially if any of them are dyslexic.

This amount of practicing made me look like I was being overly competitive but in reality it was just my need to work harder than others just to keep pace. However it was easier to let people believe I was being over-competitive because I am very over-competitive at time.

Unfortunately by Friday I was physically and emotional drained; both of which increase the level of effect my dyslexia has on me and even with 3 hours of drilling myself after work on Friday I still didn’t manage to learn that night’s dance. I was quite annoyed at myself; 1 for letting my dance partner (who had made up a good wee dance) down and 2 from the feeling of failure I get when I set out to learn anything that I don’t get (it doesn’t happen often because I am very persistent but it takes time). I can be quite hard on myself and have some perfectionist tendencies, I’m sure Sarah Kerr would have a field day working out where they came from.

The ugly over-competitive side did come out a bit in work last week during a staff netball/basketball on Friday, however that was still me holding back and thankfully I didn’t actually hurt or shout at anyone, so it could have been worse! It was actually quite good fun, even though netball is officially the worst game ever!

Sorry for the ramble I just felt I needed to share this wee thought with the world and as no one reads my blog in the age of Facebook and Twitter anyway it’s really just good to write it down to help me process it all. Maybe someday a dyslexic will stumble on it and fell good that they have the same problem with learning routines.

I’m sure there are many dyslexic dancers about, after all I once thought it would be impossible for me to be a teacher and here I am. It just took a little bit of extra time and harder work than most. So if you are a dyslexic dancer all the best with that and as they say “Keeeeeeeep Dancing”.

As for the shows, I signed up to do it not to learn to dance but to help and encourage the pupils. There are some exceptionally talented dancers and as Friday night showed, choreographers at the Girls’ Model. The winning pupil was excellent, her partner was a former pupil now working as a classroom assistant who is also an excellent dancer also. The crowds entered into the nights really well and all in all it was great fun for all. On the Friday night I really couldn’t believe how good some of the dances were as they had all been made up by the pupils. Well done Girls’ Model.

What I did learn from the whole event was how many of the staff really do put themselves out for the good of the pupils. I work in a great school, with some wonderful staff and great pupils who have yet to discover just how talented they are and what heights they can reach.

I hope I can help them see their potential and have a good impact in the lives of the pupils I teach. Just like Mrs Harbinson, Mr Alderdice and of course Mrs Magee (the discoverer of my dyslexia and subsequent dyslexia tutor) had on mine. I’m sure none of you will never read this but thanks.

I’ve no compressed air or any good cleaning brushes so it’s a little dusty but it’s been loving looked after.

UPDATE: Was a bargain at only £40 for some lucky ebayer.

James' Biggest Fish

It says it all when I had to add a fishing category to this blog about how long it’s been since I went. I took my nephew James to Garren Point for our first fishing trip of the year.

The guy in the fishing tackle shop gave a gloomy forecast about our chances but we continued on ignoring this and the threat of rain.

My Biggest Fish

It didn’t take long for the fish to start biting and we racked up a total of 7 fish over the two and half hours we were fishing. James as always got more with 4 and I had to settle for 3. Mostly small fish mixed between Wrasse and Pollock. Only one was a decent size a Wrasse that was caught on my line but James brought it in as I was taking a fish of his line at the time.

Nice morning out with the nephew and now I’m relaxing watching 24 Redemption.

Happy St Patrick's Day

How are you celebrating St Patrick’s Day?

Since I was off I decided to start my day with a cycle. Dave and I did 30mi up to Gleno, across to Larne and back. I’m very week on the bike at present so need to put in a lot of miles this month. Post cycle the plan was to do some work in the afternoon but I’m wrecked and with running club later, I think I’m going to sleep well tonight!

Right now I’m watching a film and catching up on some jobs I need to do. One is trying to work out to but some sound equipment for X amount of money when it costs X x 1.2.

If you follow the link you can download the picture here for you computer desktop for free – Happy St Patrick’s Day.

You can see the numbers by using the menu above of by click on Number here.

Today I added …

45

46

48

Server Move

After a very busy Friday when the pupils were off, but most of the staff wanted a chat with me, I headed home to start half-term by spending the rest of the evening (and some of the next morning) facilitating a server move for the school VLE and sites. The VLE move was smooth but our school site is built on Movable Type and it was playing happy. Thankfully the people who host our sites (Synergy Learning) have great customer support and one of their staff worked with me via email until all the bugs were ironed out, even though they don’t officially support it.

Anyway after finishing off on Saturday morning, I had some lunch and then got on my bike for a ride to Browns Bay. It was only my second cycle of the year and I was happy enough at doing the hilly 30miles even if it was slow and well below the average cadence I aim for. It was good to be out on the bike and hopefully I get out on it loads over the next wee while to get my miles up and toughen my butt which is very sore.

Garman Route

I signed up for my first triathlon of the year, the Try-athlon in Portlaoise in April. Dave & Ian had planned to come but didn’t apply on time so are on the waiting list and will hopefully get a spot, otherwise it’ll be a long trip and boring night in a hotel just like last year!

I also got to watch True Grit on Saturday night (the new version) and it was great. Well worth going to see in the cinema, if you have 2 hours free.

I also managed to fit in 60 lengths on Sunday before church to add to the 60 I did on Friday and the 100 I did on Tuesday. I just need to get rid of this sore calf and get out running again and my training will be in full swing again.

To round off a busy weekend I installed this new theme for my blog and then spent about 10 hours fixing it to show what I wanted. I’m quite happy with the results – do you like it?

Teacher

I’ve got a feeling everything is about to change. On Tuesday I start a new job as a teacher, I’ll be teaching ICT, Media Studies and other general form class type stuff at the Belfast Model for Schools. I can see this will bring about many changes in my day to day routine.

What’s going to change?

• Since finishing university 5 years ago I’ve always enjoyed known I was getting home at the same time every night. I’ve a feeling this will change.
• Since finishing university 5 years ago I’ve always known that I didn’t need to take work home. I know this is going to change.
• Since finishing university 5 years ago I’ve not really had much job satisfaction in my work. I hope this is going to change.
• For the past seven years I’ve been working on a computer all day long and spent many a distracted 5minutes checking facebook, email, twitter, digg, bbc etc. This is going to change, I’ll not have time but I’ll not be have time to be bored either.
• For the past 9 years people have been able to phone me at anytime and I was able to answer them right away, often giving advice on something technical. This will not be able to happen as I can’t answer my phone in class.
• My evenings have been my own apart from committee meetings and a little bit of study for university the past two years. My evenings now belong to marking and preparation.

It’ll change in many more ways but all in all I’m very excited and feel very privileged to have this opportunity to share my passion for Information Technology Communication with the next few generations.

Sub Teacher

This year I’m only being paid as sub, which means although I have a full timetable all year I won’t be getting paid for holidays (and there’s a lot of holidays) so I’ll need to tighten my belt on the spending. Generous Dermo will be away for a little while.

I have really felt led in this direction over the past 5 or 6 years and in fact 17 years ago before I found out I was dyslexic I wanted to be a teacher but didn’t think it would be possible and my GCSEs only helped to make the point still further. It was a series of coincidences (or as I believe God’s guidance) that worked together to bring me here. In short:

1. University placement in Education Department at UUJ
2. 1st Job post degree Education Department BBC NI online, met Andy who introduced me to moodle
3. Next job webmaster Girls’ Model
4. Line manager took the PGDFHE route and advised it was possible to do
5. Accepted for PGCFHE/PGDFHE through Education Department at UUJ (my old boss was my course director)

I just hope I can do the job now but thankfully I have loads of people in work who will help and keep me right.

Firstly why do we need ProPresenter on multiple computer when we only really use it on the iMac in the church? Well there’s a couple of reasons:

1. It’s cold in the church meeting room during the week and our church administrator needs to be in constant tropical heat. Remote access to the library allows her to stay in her office.
2. Often Elia or I have to set make sure the songs are there and then add any missing songs needed for this week so it’s nice to do this from home.
3. We sometimes use Laptop computers outside of the main church building.

The plan still has it’s flaws as we need the PC version to be released to allow for Tracy (church administrator) to do this on her PC but hopefully it will be out soon and before the end of the summer, when it’s gets so cold in the church building even I would need to wear a long sleeved shirt and full length trousers.

Anyway it’s actually quite simple, first of you need ProPresenter (if you’re not using this then why waste your time reading this) and secondly you need Dropbox (it’s free).

Setting up Dropbox

You might be wondering what Dropbox is, so here’s my explanation. Dropbox is a little taste of “cloud computing”, that is it stores files you have on your computer on another computer (server) that you can access from anywhere on the Internet. Obviously it’s all protected by encryption and passwords so it’s a safe way to do this. But more than this is you have the same account on multiple computers, Dropbox will automatically synchronise the files from you’re other computer via the Internet on to the the computer you’re now on. To some it’s sounds a little like magic and to be honest I think it’s pretty awesome (you can even access files on your iPhone). You can also watch the videos to get a clearer picture.

As to how to install Dropbox please see their own instruction on the download page. I would suggest that you use a Dropbox account for each person involved and another one for the main shared computer. The raseon for this is some people will already be using Dropbox and any others will want to use as soon as they start using it. Dropbox allows you to share folders between users and therefore can give everyone access to the sync library area without giving access to other files you might use Dropbox.

Setting up a shared folder in Dropbox

1. Create a new folder in your Dropbox folder on your computer.
2. Right click on the folder and select Dropbox > Sharing options … (this opens up your web browser)
   
3. Add the eMail addresses of the people you want to to have access to the folder. The person at the other end will need to accept the invitation.
   

Setting up library sync in ProPresenter

The great think about syncing the libraries is that they don’t overwrite the actually files you use with out giving permission. It’s really very simple and is covered on the Renewed Vision tutorials.

The libraries only sync when you tell them to by clicking on the “sync” button in the “sync” tab in preferences control in ProPresenter, (ProPresenter > Preferences).

So to repeat in clearer English the files don’t actually change in your ProPresenter library until after you have clicked “Sync Files” and even then until after you have selected the files you want to allow to update. The “server” is the Dropbox folder and the “local drive” is the computer you are using’s own ProPresenter library.

Making it all work

So with all the technical things in place you need a standard practise to ensure people don’t overwrite the wrong files, however thanks to Dropbox allowing you access to older versions of files this isn’t that big a problem. I would suggest that everyone get’s trained and given the same set of standards i.e. how to name the songs & how to format them.

For this we name the songs with their first line (and sometime put a title in brackets) and the songs are split up with max 6 lines per screen (preferable 4). We have colour coding for verses 1 – verse 4, chorus, bridge, pre-chorus, endings and each of the verse 1-4 and the chorus have a continuation lable. The colours are hideous but effective.

After each service, it is advisable to save all changes and then sync the library before shutting down (to ensure any changes you made spelling fixes etc. are updated). Also before you go in to edit any songs do a sync to make sure you are working on the latest versions of all song.

Any questions just leave a message below.

Compress PDF

This again is more for me than you, unless you have found this page through searching the Internet on how to print / save files as compressed PDFs in Snow Leopard. This works for PowerPoint/ Keynote and anything else that allows you to print in Snow Leopard.

A workflow can be downloaded fro the Apple website. It basically adds a new option onto the PDF drop down menu in the print dialogue box.

Get a Mac

Apple are doing away with the “Get a Mac” advertisements. If you never watched them check them out here APPLE AND TBWA’s ‘GET A MAC’:
THE COMPLETE CAMPAIGN. Since I’ve just had a typical Windows related error I’ve posted the add that best relates to my issue, I wish I could bring my work computer home.

Here’s one of them titled “Broken Promises” from October 2009. The final three spots of 2009 focused on the newly released Windows 7. Here, PC is happy to announce the software’s release, and says it won’t have any of the problems his last operating system had. Mac feels like he’s heard that before, and we see he has.