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RECENT FROM CAPES POWER

T3 Analysing Power

Your analyses of 'Power' in the context of the list of media representations given to you.  You should be thinking back to the T3 set-up page where I gave you a number of sets of criteria to apply under headings like: Nature of Power derived from….. Motivation for the use of Power Impact of exerted power in Heirarchy of Needs terms. The power process Representation That Tianenmen square photograph: by Jeff Widener Vietnam Napalm girl photo Twin Towers Burning video Audi Logo Ukraine limepit WW2. Queen Under Pressure Obama Victory Speech video and folio The Queen The Prince of Wales The CIA Wikileaks Mark Zuckerberg The Cross The Dollar...

RECENT FROM Student Work

AI/IA Artificial Intelligence or Automatic Inability?...

AI/IA Artificial Intelligence or Automatic Inability?

Now there’s another AI for you!! This time last year  AI / Chat GPT and all the other derivitives had not been made openly available.  They came online in October. Since this date universities  have seen a massive rise in work being substantially (and more often than not entirely) produced using thse tools. To your teachers, your Exam Board, your Faculty and your University, it is an ‘Alarme Incendie’ which takes you to the ‘Sortie’: It represents a shortcut… yes… (but not the one you might be thinking of: a shortcut to a time-saving assignment submission; but rather to being instantly and definitively ‘shown the sortie‘ and failing an...

RECENT FROM texmex

FB: Personal Profiles Task...

Hi there! Hereunder you will find some important feedback from your exercise presenting yourself to your new employer in the form of a 'Personal Profile'. Please READ this, commit to memory and USE this in your future work/English conversations as soon as you can: once you USE it you OWN it and it will come naturally in future. OK? I WILL go over this in class….. Tutor's observations: I set this up as a professional exercise and was expecting a professional response, yet I think only three people actually produced something using a PC: why?  If your boss asked you to produce something for the company magazine or website,...

In Equality / Inequality?

This is MINTY our first dog, born sadly very ‘unequal‘ as she had massive heart valve problems that meant she didn’t get enough Oxygen and her poor heart grew and grew to try to compensate until it couldn’t take any more and we lost her at just the age of 4 1/2, some 10 years ago now… …. still miss you, Mint (sniff). Reading about a Minister’s resignation from the UK government for reasons related to inequality got us thinking (Me and Ellen).  In the UK the Equal Pay Act came into force in 1970 and Sex Discrimination Act in 1974.  We are old enough to remember these being voted (young as we were, yes!), but we were...

In Equality / Inequality?
posted on: 9 Jan 2018 | author: tjolley

17 into 18

I’m trying to think wisdom here … so a head without a brain seems comfortingly appropriate! Bit of a challenge, Tony… no pressure… but do I have any words of wisdom to offer at the turning of the year. Surely I must have some after nearly 60 years? It’s a tough one, like your top ten musical tracks.  You say ‘easy’, produce ten and then 5 minutes after the definitive list is produced you (or at least I) have 50 more actively competing to displace each one of the original selection! So I’m going to quote a philosopher who doesn’t know she is one; a close friend, Helen, from the UK who stood at her own front door...

17 into 18
posted on: 31 Déc 2017 | author: tjolley

Strange Interview Tests

Another dog, yes…. but there is a reason….. we had to go through a number of pre-ownership tests before Julie the dog could come to be with us….  The ‘clincher’ (look it up!) was would the puppy like us?  That seemed to be resolved with her climbing onto my shoulders, wrapping herself around my neck, going to sleep and snoring tunefully into my ear. So, where am I going with this? Well, I have just read an article on the BBC website today about the rise of pre-interview tests: some hardly surprising, but others rather shocking, actually. Here’s the link Please read this, especially if you are a MICAI student as some of the tests seem to be...

Strange Interview Tests
posted on: 26 Oct 2017 | author: tjolley

Protégé : Digital Literacy Defs 17/18...

The who, what, when, where, why & how of Digital Literacy….. « ………  is……. defines knowledge to do not everybody equally capable ability to find evaluate to communicate cognitive communication skills enabling competence teaching / learning find, produce & share content understand modalities across all digital techs hardware & software manipulate create tool use skills & knowledge gathering reception and understanding social environment different approaches not born equal receiving, opening …. omnipresent to access the world more than others….. ‘Some Animals are more equal than others’ digital cultural awareness  ...

posted on: 28 Sep 2017 | author: tjolley
L3 Intro 2 Business

L3 Intro 2 Business

posted on: 25 Sep 2017 | author: tjolley

OK… so in your research you saw through the obvious convenience in compartmentalising the key ‘environments’: SOCIO-CULTURAL TECHNOLOGICAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENTAL (Natural) … which is good, because in reality all of these are overlaid and interact with one another. So, as you are no longer JUST looking within your teams at the ONE aspect of the business environment, I’ll have to change our targets and the output required.  Here it is: In your teams of three or four, today: Find two changes within one or more of these environments each: i.e. 8 for a team of four  6 for a team of 3 Find the evidence: facts & figures, projections: what is changing how fast in what direction where? why? how What will be the impacts of these changes for particular organisations in terms of opportunities and threats What are the implications ……………………………………………………………… what should they do and why?  What...

Protégé : Fake News 2017 defn.

posted on: 21 Sep 2017 | author: tjolley

Our first Q was to define ‘fake news’ in our own words so that we could make a group definition covering not just the WHAT, but also the when, where, why, who and how…   Based mostly upon your thoughts, I have produced this definition: Fake News Fake News is a term that represents the output of a deliberate attempt to manipulate and mislead people who are capable of believing it and by so doing derive a sought for benefit.  It is never innocent, but rather calculated and intentional. A message of disinformation is developed and designed to deceive and encoded & transmitted (in the form of web pages, TV appearances/coverage, social network content, Tweets etc) then received and decoded by the recipient in the way intended by the sender so as to elicit a particular perception or action which will benefit or advantage the sender personally, professionally, politically...

Are you receiving me?

Are you receiving me?

posted on: 1 Sep 2017 | author: tjolley

  OK … this is a CD/DVD box rather than a traditional British Telecomm Phone Box, but it’ll do! The point is – that I’m listening, in the background to an argument about it to the extent to which: Sending does not mean Receiving. What am I on about?  Well, Jean-Pierre, I’m glad you asked … sorry, I’ve been watching too much Paul Taylor and his What the F…. France. So here it is.  Our youngest asked his Mum to drop him at the Driving Test Centre and then pick him up an hour later.  His Mum agreed and headed off to a short kiné session then drove straight off to pick him up. He was not there. He came out of the test centre early, couldn’t be bothered waiting, rang his sister to come and collect him then rang and left a message on his mother’s phone to...

Who 2 Believe?

Who 2 Believe?

posted on: 20 Août 2017 | author: tjolley

 OK, this is a pillar in ancient Delphi… so what’s that got to do with the title of this article? Well, as it happens, quite a lot actually.  The Oracle at Delphi was famous for giving enigmatic prophecies with multiple meanings so no-one could ever mount an accusation of fakery (which would have been fatal for the income stream of the Oracle – who, after all, would pay for an incorrect prophecy? People tended to interpret the prophecies they way that sat best with their vision of the world and their desires and hopes.  For example, a great king came to the Oracle before a major battle and wanting to know the outcome in advance and received the prophecy that there would be a spectacular victory.  The king took this as a sign that with his overwhelming forces the victory was most assuredly his.  Of course, it wasn’t and,...

Research Reports: Best of….

Research Reports: Best of….

posted on: 26 Juil 2017 | author: tjolley

  OK, it’s supposed to be an arrow – if you think like me! Thinking of his forthcoming ‘Rapport de Stage’ a mature student asked me to encapsulate my ‘Best Bits’ of advice to help him through the process from start to finish. Well, here they are.  They should be pretty self-explanatory.   ONE.  The Driven Process. Even before you start thinking about a topic/title, have a vision of how the whole process of delivery fits together; how each step in the process leads to the successive one.  That way you will never get lost in your own project: you will always know what is coming next.  Each step below is sequential – you can’t vary this order! let your interests drive the subject and title and that title will then drive the aims and objectives (A&O) your A&O will necessarily drive your secondary research / literature review (LR)...

‘Fake News’ – UK Style

‘Fake News’ – UK Style

posted on: 4 Juil 2017 | author: tjolley

You can never go back. Well, you can, but don’t expect it to have stood still while you were away….. Having been living here in France since 2004, we have often gone back to the UK to see aging parents, family and friends.  That was a pretty frequent event when our parents were ailing, but, sadly, they are all gone now, so we visit less and the kids over there visit us a little more here.  The result of this was that we hadn’t been over for a while (pretty much since the Brexit vote a little over a year ago) and when we went back recently we had some difficulty at times recognising our own countrymen.   We stayed in a small pub (usually costs less than a hotel and comes with the added advantage that you don’t have to drive off somewhere for something to eat and...

Politics & Plagiarism

Politics & Plagiarism

posted on: 2 Mai 2017 | author: tjolley

Plagiarism.  Blind repetition. Indiscriminate copying. In another election 100 days or more across the Atlantic, Melania Trump was given a speech to read that was significantly drawn from a source that was not acknowledged… and turned out to be Michelle Obama! Today (2nd May 2017) we learn that Mme LePen has used in a discourse significant passages drawn all but word-for-word from a previous speech made by her 1st round adversary M François Fillon. Here (link above) is the BBC’s side-by-side, simultaneous rendition of parts of the speech(es). Having heard a France Inter version a few minutes’ ago, I think there is more than the BBC report shows. The LePen camp suggests this is a wink and a nod to the Fillon supporters out there who need to be persuaded one way or another.  But… no reference to the Fillon speech was originally given, I understand: no source disclosed....

Micro-jobs

Micro-jobs

posted on: 25 Avr 2017 | author: tjolley

This is a totally irrelevant photo – but it is irredeemably cute and it is our Katy-Dog, so there you have it.  Maybe NOT totally irrelevant.  In our pack of three dogs, Katy specialises in certain things: most importantly she is head honcho of our night-time protection squad – she positions herself overlooking the stairs at first floor level where she has a direct line of sight to the front door, the corridor and to the stairs to the floor above.  She is also at the crossroads between the family bedrooms, the stairs, the bathroom and the loo.  She considers this her speciality: vision, early-warning and protection.  Here she is sporting her new, ultra-cool, night-vision glasses (thank you Charlotte!).  She stars in the next Fast and Furious film, you can tell! When we’re outside, awake, moving around and in a different context she tries to ’round us up’ like...

Inspiration?

Inspiration?

posted on: 17 Avr 2017 | author: tjolley

This woman was ‘inspired‘ (the most famous Azerbaijani poetess, Mahsati Gandjavi) to write poetry centuries ago (11th Century) which, inter alia, challenged the views of a male-orientated society and ideas of life and love.  This bust of her is in the new FLSH conference room which is called after her.  Not only was she inspired, but she has inspired others to write, to dare to dream, to love, to teach and to learn and continues to do so today. I am sure that, when she first felt the urge to write, she could hardly have imagined what that would lead to almost 1000 years later, but inspiration is forever a ripple in the pond of life that is a force for change: it changes those who receive such inspiration and in turn they are inspired, which touches others. The Larousse online French Dictionary offers two definitions that I feel...

Huddled Masses, Anyone?

Huddled Masses, Anyone?

posted on: 31 Jan 2017 | author: tjolley

Bartholdi, in Colmar, barely 30 miles from where I am writing this, conceived and constructed the Statue of Liberty: a present to the USA from a France grateful for the part the US had played in its liberation from German occupation in WW1. You may or may not know that the pedestal to the statue bears the legend: “Give me your tired, your poor,  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”  This quote comes from Emma Lazarus’ sonnet, ‘New Colossus‘ which paid tribute to the very spirit of the USA in managing to forge and unite a nation in the New World drawn from the flotsam and jetsam ejected from many nations of the old world: Europe largely.   For many this was the last hope as...

An Inconvenient Sequel

An Inconvenient Sequel

posted on: 22 Jan 2017 | author: tjolley

 Ten years ago, Al Gore (Ec VP of the USA and US President but for a few ‘hanging chads’) launched the film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ which did so much to move us along the AIDA model: Awareness Interest Desire Action insofar as our impact upon the Earth’s climate is concerned.   A sequel was just launched at Robert Redfor’s Sundance Film Festival and will be hitting our screens soon (early 2017).  DO watch out for it and go see it. Whereas, 10 years ago An Inconvenient Truth, was perhaps more about generating awareness, understanding and interest, the update is focused much more upon showing us the incredible progress which we have been making and offering clear evidence that the battle can be won. A foretaste of this is included in his recent TED talk. It is worth a look and is more than encouraging. You should also see his...

Walking for Water

Walking for Water

posted on: 20 Jan 2017 | author: tjolley

 As I said in the previous news article on this site, in 1989 I wrote about the early part of the 21st Century suggesting that future wars and political unrest might not be so much about megalomania and nationalism but about three things instead which I termed: Walking for Water Fighting for Food The Power Prerogative (in the context of assured access to energy) It struck me, upon watching world news recently and seeing the plight of refugees streaming over borders, desperate to cross seas just to be safe, have food and water and a chance to survive first and then actually live, that, unfortunately, I had ‘read the runes‘ correctly.  As a result, I ended up writing a song about it [strangely the song uses a ‘riff’ I’ve had in my head and fingers since the late 1980s and not found the right place to use it until...

The shape of things to come?

The shape of things to come?

posted on: 15 Jan 2017 | author: tjolley

 Just to try and show how difficult business strategy is in a world that is changing desperately quickly and largely unpredictably, I thought I would maybe dare to suggest possible (and to me perhaps even probable) changes which may emerge in the next couple of years. Arthur C. Clarke (Scientist and science fiction author) once suggested that the future will not only be stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we are capable of imagining. So I am taking on a task which is simply beyond my capabilities.  BUT, remember that organisations and governments are having to make decisions TODAY (16th Jan 2017) for new products, investments and developments which will only hit the market in a couple of years’ time and then will probably only produce the hoped for return on investment considerably later.  So businesses have to make educated guesses about future of the world in which...

LPHT 16/17 Sustainability Defs.

posted on: 30 Nov 2016 | author: tjolley

Global concept encouragement kind of devmt environmental respect economically and socially profitable modern origin 1987 preservation of natural resources assure human future everyone who understands shoul dbe involved dailyt life ecological actions recycling ‘green’ prods and servs political and legal action awareness essential. each organisation meeting current needs no prejudice to future generations we and they avoid waste respect stability way of life care change reverse damage money etc effects rich have greater responsibility new way of consumption living within the planet’s means use of renewable energies government directives way of thinking all humans resp (equally?) survival (Chief Seattle) TODAY (no waiting) All players Northern hemisphere prime invention govt + Soc +economy Help poor countries awareness personal responsibility ethics / morality Carrots AND sticks critical role of education notion growing individuals excessive consumption practical, simple measures urgency ‘Maybe’ … no guarantees…!   POSSIBLE DEFINITION  (TJ) The modern conception of...

MICAI M1 Inhibitors 16/17

MICAI M1 Inhibitors 16/17

posted on: 22 Nov 2016 | author: tjolley

This is your list of inhibitors, formatted a little in clusters: Personal circumstances Habits (old habits die hard) time (lack of) money (lack of) education (lack of) technical knowledge and skills (lack of) personal knowledge of and affinity with sustainability (lack of) sustainability education (lack of) perception that sustainable goods are always higher priced …. (or reality that they are?) shared accommodation => lack of control perception: I’m so small – my impact will be infinitesimal (implication: so there’s little point) no point if no-one else does anything lack of choice / alternative available to me OR lack of knowledge of any alternative available. feeling it is too late to act / react – so why bother? addiction to technology laziness fashion is ingrained lack of ambition / motivation / ‘don’t care’ A.I.D.A … I might be ‘Aware’, I could perhaps be ‘Interested’  but I am short on ‘Desire’ and a...

The Mouse that Roared

The Mouse that Roared

posted on: 15 Nov 2016 | author: tjolley

I know, that is the title of an old (1959) Ealing Film Studios comedy starring Peter Sellars.  So what has that got to do with anything… and why the picture of me and our first dog, Minty from 2005? Easy. First I haven’t got my own picture of a mouse.  Second, I’m having some trouble with coming to terms with the fact that I eat food from animals.   So here’s the story.   A few weeks ago a colony of mice installed themselves in our house and seemed to pop up from nowhere on the kitchen surfaces and in the drawers: one even ran between the gas burners while I was actually cooking the evening meal!  Now that gets unhygienic – we even found one had eaten its way in to a pack of sugar cubes and turned some of them a funny shade of yellow….. Yuk! Clearly...

Protégé : L3 Business. Choices.

posted on: 7 Nov 2016 | author: tjolley

The front-runners for selection (unless you have some last-minute ideas to add) are: 1.  Organic fast food chain   9.0      2 2= Local ‘eco’ hire car fleets  8.4   4 2= Low-cost rainfall collection & use system for householders  8.4  2 2=  Upcycling brand chain  8.4    1 5 =  Everything Dog  8.4     3 5. Eco-education university facility  8.1 6.  One stop sustainability shop  7.9 7.  Local currencies for big towns: a national movement  7.9   1 8.  Terroir Restaurant chain  7.7 9.  Eco-delivery fleet  7.6 So, which do you want to do?  You are sixteen in number and three is about the optimal group size, so that gives us the following possibilities: 4 x groups of 3  plus 1 x group of 4 (or two pairs?) OR 4 x group of 4    ...

Creativity 2016/7

Creativity 2016/7

posted on: 7 Nov 2016 | author: tjolley

  This (sadly cut-off – thank you WordPress!) image is of the homepage of my first ever website: I set it up as Tonyversity with a campus-style      building with a reception, course base rooms, resources centre, conference room, tutor consultation room plus notice  boards and email. For its time it was pretty creative. Where did my creativity come from at that point?   The drive that comes from being early-career and needing to carve a ‘niche’ for oneself – something I could call my own.   Pressure from the university to develop a personal and institutional research profile and a speciality that could develop consultancy income A preview of the very first ‘browser’ made available to universities which offered a veritable wonderland of opportunities in my opinion – whereas with all of my colleagues almost without exception it was seen as an interesting potential cataloguing tool for...

The End of Living…

The End of Living…

posted on: 1 Nov 2016 | author: tjolley

Chief Seattle had it right in 1854 when, in replying to the US President who had asked him if he wouldn’t mind selling his land, he concluded his review of the situation with the line: …’…The end of living – and the beginning of survival’ For his peoples on the Pacific margins of what we now know as the USA, it proved to be exactly that, caught,as they were to become, between reservation and extermination… For him and his people the end of the economical and simple life they had led for generations came pretty quickly. Now here’s the chilling thought….. Might we go the same way … even faster? —————————————————————————– This came home to me (again) when setting a piece of homework for my students of Sustainability here in France. I set them this – a choice of two topics based upon two texts some 150 or more...

Work in Progress

Work in Progress

posted on: 24 Oct 2016 | author: tjolley

  Working with AGEC (Culture Management) students, immersed as they inevitably are in their own creativity or those of the performers they represent or house, I thought I should at least ‘nail’ my creative ‘colours’ to the proverbial ‘mast’. So here goes…. and it is dangerous…. I am about to give you something which is very sensitive for a creative soul: an idea of work in progress.  In this case I have been teaching Sustainability at the Fondérie to M2 students and I find that some seem (very strangely to be relatively little touched – here you would say ‘impliqué’ – by the subject at a personal level.  So yesterday I started with a feeling and began to write… which is to say, I put my fingers to the fretboard and started to play and find words.   The only ‘picture’ I had in my head was that of...

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