Transitional Raw Cuisine

One way of helping to make the transition from eating mostly cooked food to mostly raw, is to introduce more raw ingredients into conventional dishes. You have to be careful this doesn’t become an excuse to eat shepherd’s pie with a few beansprouts thrown in though! The raw food has to be added in right at the end, or better the other way round, perhaps adding a cooked sauce to raw vegetables.
So I made a raw vegetable curry, which was good and satisfying.
I make the masala with chopped onions, celery, garlic, ginger and spices, scarcely browned in olive oil, add curry paste and tomatoes, then turn it into a roux with gram flour. Stir in warm water to make it into a big, shiny curry sauce and simmer until the gram flour has cooked out.
Meanwhile I place pieces of raw cauliflour, mushroom, peas and sprouted lentils into a cold roasting tray or lasagne dish.
Pour the curry sauce over the vegetables, give it a shake and leave for a couple of minutes before serving either alone or with (cooked) rice and salad.
Yum.

See more progress on: eat more raw foods

Distributed Action Research

I’ve pretty much decided to plump for the meta-research angle, looking at Action Research methodologies in the context of online communities. That’s the one on the A4 sheet, which has been fleshed out a little in the learning Set, in the degree title claim, in my voodoopad wiki journal and more so in my head.
I haven’t had any response from LFs yet, but then that also means that no immediate problems have been identified. I’ve even started some initial very small cycles, which wil help to inform the process of refining the proposal.
Next I need to take another look at the Learning Activities for Module 1.

See more progress on: Decide what to research for my third year action enquiry

Draft degree title suffix claim rationale

I’ve only been given a few days to work on this, but I’m sure there’s room for improvement.

Requested degree title:

BA Hons, Learning, Technology, and Research: Information Technology

Justify your choice of preferred award title
1. Describe your work context (max 100 words)

I have worked in the IT industry for nearly 30 years, in various fields including Local Government, Commerce, Transport, Print & Publishing, the Voluntary Sector and Education, most recently as an IT Technician and ICT Subject cordinator in a well-equipped Primary school. With an eye on relocation and possibly remote working, I am currently exploring opportunities to develop and deploy my skills and knowlege of emerging internet based technologies.

2. Describe your intended research focus in support of the award title you are claiming. Say what it is that you will do in your studies that is directly applicable to the award title you want. In this you must justify your choice. (max 250 words)

The activities I have already undertaken towards the degree involved:

Year 1

• investigating the role of an ICT coodinator in a primary school.


• researching internet communities.


• experimenting with open souce software


• An action enquiry project looking at the use of net-connected computers in the classrooms.


• Developing my own use of IT to include Flash animation, Java applets, and web streaming video.


• Evaluating the potential for using weblogs (blogs) for school websites in order to encourage wider participation and multi-authorship.


• The use of Social Bookmarking web services ( Furl) to collaborate with others and automatically generate reference lists.

In the PDP module, I identified my most significant learning of year 1 as being that related to the use and implications of weblogs, RSS and blogging software..

Year 2

• A study of Constructivist learning theory and my own practice centered around the book “LOGO – a guide to learning through programming” by Goodyear (1984)


• The use of ‘webnotes’, a globally editable workspace.


• The authoring of a personal multimedia blog with sound video, digital photography, analysis, hypertext links and distributed conversation.


• The development of a Business Plan based around IT tutoring.


• Installation and use of Personal Wiki software ( Wikidpad) to write up course notes and subsequently convert them into an interlinking website.


• Installation to a remote web host of MediaWiki software and the sucessful facilitation of an online Community of Practice to create an extensive collaborative resource using my installation.


• Exploration of the use of collaborative goalsetting web service ( 43things) to drive SMART tasks, peer review progress and publish entries directly to blog.


• use of online photo-sharing web service ( Flickr) to build Communities of Interest, investigate Folksonomy tagging and publish pictures onto blog and Wiki.


• Invention of a markup language in which to author a playscript in a personal Wiki ( VoodooPad) exported and published as a printable pdf file.


• A case study of the introduction of the Wiki to a Community of Practice.


• use of MySQL and PHP to rationalise the MediaWiki database after Spambot attack.

Year 3

My research focus for the final year will be selected according to criteria to which I have added “must have a strong IT focus”

I will continue to publish all of my coursework and other related activities as I go along in the form of a multi-media website, as well as maintaining an online learning Journal, various other blogs and web services.

See more progress on: update my degree title suffix claim rationale

Research proposal on a sheet of A4 paper - done

I managed to find a sheet of A4 in a cupboard but I don’t have a functioning printer, so please excuse the handwriting. As this is a technology degree, I thought – no need to walk to the postbox, buy a stamp and send the piece of A4 paper to the LF physically, you can use a scanner or a digital camera to capture the writing, attach to an email and then claim credit for innovation.

See more progress on: Write my research proposal on a sheet of A4 paper

tagging goals in 43things

goal tagging has been made easier in 43things, and more worthwhile I think. Now you can see at a glance how other people have tagged the same goal and ‘surf’ the tags. You can also generate a personal tag cloud, and ‘see all goals with the tag….’ So I’ll try to keep it. Oh yes, there’s the link with the same tags on Flickr and technorati too. I must re-adopt that goal about technorati tagging blog posts…

See more progress on: tag all of my things

leaning towards....

As of this morning, although I have not yet completed a systematic process of choosing a research topic I am leaning towards the idea of using the running of an after-school club as a domain to focus within. This could incorporate several of the possible research quetions/ problems/ ideas which came out of the brainstorming and it also seems to fit the selection criteria well. One possible stumbling block might be finding others adults to cooperate with, but all I can do really is to try my best to draw anyone in, then I’d have a clear winner I think.

See more progress on: Decide what to research for my third year action enquiry

Criteria for choosing a research project

• builds on learning identified from Y1+2
• attempts to solve a niggling problem from daily work
• something within my power to make changes
• can be made to fit into an AE cyclical methodology
• bear in mind the need to work towards an exhibition of it
• Must be something I would actually like to do
• important not only to me but to others
• a body of relevant literature to build on

See more progress on: Decide what to research for my third year action enquiry

Sprouting

The most convenient way to increase the availability of raw food ingredients is to grow sprouts. I’ve got this well underway now, with containers, netting, rubber bands and a box to keep the different kinds of seeds together.
The mung beans were problematic, with too many not germinating.
Chick peas need to soak for longer than 24hours.
Alfalfa is a staple
Amaranth is a bit weird.
cow peas are good
lentils also seem reliable.
quinoa still to try
hemp – not enough germination
sesame – doesn’t look hopeful.

See more progress on: eat more raw foods

A good start

I?ve mostly done these:

• remove trackbacks
• change comment system
• review title
• change colour

see http://blog.ultralab.net/%7Eblogger/andy/

so that leaves me with:

• review or remove categories
• move search higher up
• review links

See more progress on: redesign my blog