Thursday 27 June 2013

Glastonbury in numbers


As Glastonbury gets under way this weekend, we took a statistical snapshot of the UK's biggest and brightest music festival.
Glastonbury headliners by genre 1970-2013: ROCK (61) T Rex, David Bowie, Tim Blake, Peter Gabriel, Hawkwind, Van Morrison, Jackson Browne, The Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, Joe Cocker, The Boomtown Rats, The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, Happy Mondays, Carter USM, Black Crowes, Lenny Kravitz, The Levellers, Oasis, Pulp, Radiohead, Ash, Primal Scream, Blur, REM, Manic Street Preachers, Skunk Anansie, Travis, Coldplay, Rod Stewart, Stereophonics, Paul McCartney, Muse, The White Stripes, The Killers, The Who, Kings Of Leon, The Verve, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Arctic Monkeys, The Rolling Stones. POP (6) New Order, Level 42, The Communards, Shakespear's Sister, Sinead O’Connor, Gorillaz. DANCE (4) The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Moby, Basement Jaxx. FOLK (3) Suzanne Vega, Christy Moore, Mumford and Sons. SOUL (3) Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Beyonce. REGGAE (2) UB40, Black Uhuru JAZZ (1) Weather Report. WORLD (1) Youssou N'Dour. RAP (1) Jay-Z
There have been 82 headline acts on the main stage, which took on its distinctive pyramid shape at the second festival in 1971. Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, The Cure and Coldplay hold the joint record for number of headline appearances with three each. Six main stage headline acts have pulled out - The Kinks (1970), Red Hot Chili Peppers (1993), The Stone Roses (1995) Stevie Winwood (1997), Kylie Minogue (2005) and U2 (2010).
Glastonbury site in numbers. Size of site: 11,000 acres. Perimeter of site: 8.5 miles. Capacity of Pyramid stage: 90,000. Tents per hectare: 430. Market stalls: 755. Toilets on site: 5,487

How Big Really?

How big really?
Festival-goers at the first Glastonbury in 1970 enjoyed free entry and were given a free pint of milk on arrival.
The 1970 festival saw a modest gathering of 1,500 people, who witnessed a performance from T-Rex.
This grew to 12,000 in 1971, but the festival was not held again until 1978, when 500 held a small impromptu event.

From 1979, it became a three-day affair, and attendance increased year by year until passing the 100,000 mark in 1998.

During the 1980s and early 90s, Glastonbury attracted large numbers of new age travellers, but as the festival grew, its dynamic shifted. Free admissions ended, ticket prices rose steadily, and fences were made higher.

The festival is now considered the largest greenfield festival in the world. All 135,000 tickets for 2013 sold out in 1 hour 40 minutes.

Thursday 20 June 2013

Healthy v Unhealthy

What changes are occurring within society to control the consumption of unhealthy products?
What are the benefits both to the individual & society of positive outcomes?

Review the news stories below, what do you think?

Viewpoint: Charging for eating, smoking & drinking costs

Huffington Post: NHS should charge for smoking, obesity & alcohol related illnesses

BBC: Rise in child obesity-related hospital admissions

Task:
Use Storify to create a persuasive piece about one of these areas, showing your opinion on them (this should be bias to what you think!).  Introduce the piece and ensure you have a summary/conclusion at the bottom.  Focus on the two questions at the top of the blog.

Publicise your piece to your blog when finished.

You can not connect to Facebook, but Twitter will work if you have an account - if not, let me know and I'll enter the General Studies account for you.

Here's an example of a Storify piece:


Health Education - Your opinion

Write a blog post with your opinions on health education.  Think about the following areas when you write the post:

  • What should be included in schools health education?
  • What ages should they be taught?
  • How in depth should the education go?
  • Should it be bias?
  • How can we best educate?
This is your opinion, justify you reasons well - convince me that you are right!


Tuesday 18 June 2013

Health Education - how far should it go?

Starter:  Health Education in School
In groups, list out all the different lessons you have had related to health education, what subjects covered these lessons?

Discussion:  Do schools go far enough?  What else should be included?

Task:  Write a brief scheme of work on what schools should cover in health education.  Upload to blog and share ideas with others.  SOW Template

Jamie Oliver: School food revolution

Task: Create a graphic resource that could be used to educate secondary school students on an area that you feel is important in this topic e.g. alcohol, diet, smoking, drugs

Friday 14 June 2013

BBC E-mail: What is skeuomorphism?

Miss Squires saw this story on the BBC News website and thought you
should see it.

** What is skeuomorphism? **
Apple announced it would scrap the "traditional" look of its mobile apps which mimicked real world objects. This is "skeuomorphic" design.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/magazine-22840833 >

Greatest Technology Invention of the last 40 years?

What has been the greatest invention for technology in the last 40 years?  You decide!

Research the inventions for the last 40 years and identify which one YOU think is the greatest.

Create a promotional product to explain why this is the greatest invention, what impact has it had and how would people's lives be different without it?

Promotional products could include: a video, flyer, poster, podcast, animation etc.

Inventions of the 20th Century

Add the final product to your blogs.

EXT: What is the worst invention of the last 40 years and why?






Wednesday 12 June 2013

Friday 7 June 2013

Self-portraits and social media: The rise of the 'selfie'

Celebrity selfies: Kelly Brook, Justin Bieber and Rihanna

Celebrity selfies: Kelly Brook, Justin Bieber and Rihanna

There's a mania for sharing self-taken photographs online. But why, asks Charissa Coulthard.

The first smartphone with a forward-facing camera was the watershed moment.

You only need this second, forward-facing camera if you want to take pictures of yourself. Could there be any more conclusive indication of the ubiquity of the self-portrait or "selfie"?

The cameras, which focus automatically from arm's length, invite us to photograph on the spur of the moment, regardless of location or company.

Images can be shared with thousands of other people. Its immediacy - Look where I am! Look what I'm doing! Look at what I look like! - is exciting. To some.

There's the high angle photo, awkwardly featuring the taker's arm. There's the mirror self-portrait. There are posed selfies, with Bambi-eyes and pouting lips. And there are group selfies, even dodging a stranger's kind offer to take the same photo.

Internet's Impact on Society


Wednesday 5 June 2013


Thought-guided helicopter takes off

Researchers have harnessed the power of thought to guide a remote control helicopter through an obstacle course.

Read this article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22764978

Questions to consider
  • How would this technological development have an impact on our lives?
  • What would be the advantages and disadvantages of this technology?

Infographic: How Technology in Schools Has Changed Over Time

Can you imagine attending a school where whiteboards weren’t used,there were no handheld calculators, and headphones weren’t available? Travel back in time about 50-60 years, and that’s exactly what you’d get. This infographic takes a look at the changes of technology in school settings from the early 1900′s to present day.

Tuesday 4 June 2013

BBC E-mail: Logging our lives with wearable tech

Miss Squires saw this story on the BBC News website and thought you
should see it.

** Logging our lives with wearable tech **
What can we learn from the data collected by the many wearable activity monitoring devices which are now entering the market? Rory Cellan-Jones explains.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/technology-22767096 >

The Internet Revolution


  • How has the internet affected society both in terms of individual & mass usage?
  • What are the advantages & disadvantages of this form of technology?
  • What are the effects on lifestyle and communication skills?
  • What's the future?


Internet Revolution

Internet Revolution



In the mid-90s, the ARPANET was transformed from military use to the peoples Internet. It has become such an integral part of our lives, bringing with it a fundamental change not only technological, but societal and epic in scope.
Here are some questions for you to answer on your blog.
How has the internet affected society both in terms of individual and mass usage? 
How will the internet help to improve poorer countries?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of this form of technology?
What do you think the internet will be like in the future?