David Shrigley's tube map

The reciprocal relationship between London’s underground system and the arts/popular culture has long born fruit, with the tube map itself providing the perfect vehicle for visual punning for numerous artists. The examples are plentiful, and range from Simon Patterson’s 1992 work The Great Bear to David Shrigley’s more abstract representation of the arrangement of intersecting coloured lines. Continue reading

The Handheld Learning 2008 event continues to go from strength to strength and its great to see friends nominated for awards. Alison Carter, an inspirational teacher who’s prepared to think outside of the box when working with hearing impaired students has been nominated for some fantastic work using PSPs. You can check out the awards (and perhaps cast your vote) by going to http://www.handheldlearning2008.com/awards/the-finalists

As a founder member of the Birmingham PortabilITy group way back in 1999 I’m absolutely delighted to see how handheld devices in all shapes and sizes are continuing to be used innovatively and at the same time challenging the pedagogy within our education institutions today. The success of the Handheld Learning conference, and the inspiration of teachers like Alison, can only but help to ensure that those technologies that are used day-in, day-out, by young people outside of the school day, can make a real difference inside the classroom too.

Handheld Learning 2008 promises to be better than ever before - and there’s still an opportunity to book your place before things kick-off on Monday 13th October.

I have a confession, I love biscuits. I love tea as well, so they go hand in hand- literally. However I have discovered there are people out there that have a love far greater than mine!

Not the best designed website ever, but they have a quirky kitsch idea going at http://www.biscuitboutique.co.uk/

My favourite has to be the Jammy Dodger rings and the Bourbon necklace.
Novelty design can sometimes be great fun!

How are you feeling?

Fascinating. Innovative. Inspirational. Take a peek at We Feel Fine. Truly wonderful stuff.

Artists in residence have been popular for sometime with schools, usually funded from some creative pot or another. This week writers-in-residence have taken up positions with eight London secondary schools. Their mission, unsurprisingly, is to help students develop their creative writing skills, reports the BBC. No doubt there will be significant benefits for the writers too - perhaps inspired to create Grange Hill - The Return (which of course was announced in just the last few days to be closed forever, no longer apparently relevant to young people today). Which begs the question….what if..we were to place our designers, our web developers, our programmers, our media developers…back in school for a period of residence? How would their creative outputs be influenced? Hands up, please.