Will Knott

Today is Yesterday was (this post got stuck in draft) the day that the Leaving Certificate English paper 2 didn’t happen. The cause, this is really for my non-Irish reader (waves at Aunt Mary); a steward running the exam on Wednesday opened and put out paper 2 instead of paper 1 by accident in a school in County Louth.

This error has effected 51,800 students, and cost the steward his job. Admittedly, no one died. Only study plans are disrupted.

The funny thing is that this isn’t the first time such an error has happened. But this year the consequences are that the second paper is being sat on Saturday with a back-up English exam.

What occurred is a perfect storm of events…

Firstly, the timetable of exams changed. Until recently English papers 1 and 2 were sat on the same day (morning and afternoon). Since both exams are, well, tough and require a lot of writing it was felt that spreading the exam over two days would be easier on the students hands, if not on the students themselves.

If the error had occurred in the past, only the 15 students who received the wrong paper would have been effected.  True they could have informed fellow students that the paper featured “macbeth, deception, bishop, keats, walcot, larkin …” to quote the tweet, but most (lets face it, there is going to be a little comfort cramming between exams at least) of the study would have been completed long before the exam. Having a full day between exams meant that the important information could get out there and get spread widely.

Secondly there is the nature of the exam itself. Paper two of the Leaving Certificate is regarded as one of the toughest tests in the pre-university examination system. In out system exam marks mean points, and points mean University places. The English syllabus means that the students have to study eight poets and guess as to which two or three would be on the paper.

Had this been the Mathematics exam, then the information would be harder to spread. After all knowing the type of maths question does not limit the study as much as dropping 6 out of 8 poets. Equally has this not been one of the “big three” exams of English, Irish and Maths, the reason to spread the information would have decreased.

So you have a high pressure exam, which most if not all the leaving certificate students will be sitting, where the important details of which can be summed up in three or four words; the names of the poets. Words which quiet easily fit in the space of a single SMS message. Or a tweet. So a small amount of information can cause a huge amount of damage.

The third part of this is the fact that social media played a part. And yes I’m counting the leaving certificate discussion section of Boards.ie as social media. In fact it appears that the public dissemination began on Boards.

The timing is interesting here. Boards only started seeing this information close to 4pm. This implies that the information only started leaking around then. What is likely is that those 15 students started passing the information as soon as the afternoon exam (home economics as it happens) was over. Given that the steward reported the loss of confidentially around 4pm, when parents of the children informed him, this sound about right. Even if the steward had reported the breach immediately (and maybe kept his job over it) the spreading of the information would have followed the exact same time line.

Or to put it another way, the Department of Education found out the same time that everyone else did. Posibbly a short while earlier.

At least one, mostly likely two or three of the children waited until they got home, and got internet access to talk to each other. This spread the word. Needless to say, it spread very quickly amongst a number of interested students. Then wider.

Now a lot of students cut back on social computer use (e.g games) during the exams. After all its only two to three very important weeks for which they have worked two years for. Discussion was rife.

And the department of education picked it up very quickly.

There is a backup exam in case of leaks. Normally what would happen is that effected schools would get the backup paper. For a single school a delay is tolerable as the second exam of the day could be delayed by the same amount. In this case, because of social media and the internet, every school in the country (and beyond, the leaving certificate is not only limited to Irish schools, but I can’t think of any places that use it) was effected. The issue changed from containing the problem to distributing the exams to all the test centres.

So the exam was rescheduled. Not everyone was in the loop. I’ve heard stories of students studying for the English paper after it had been rescheduled. Which probably means that they had shut down all connections for study reasons.

What does this mean for the Department of Education.

1) All leaks are now national leaks. Unless the leak is a mistiming (exam starts and ends early) then assume all the information is out there. Students can only be quarantined in special circumstances, for example the Jewish students who cannot sit the exam on the Saturday for religious reasons.

2) Different colour coding for papers. All the morning exams have a different colour cover from all the evening exams. When both papers were on the same day, there wasn’t an issue, the colours were different. When the exam because consecutive mornings, then it became an issue again. Using more colours, maybe 4 colours with alternating colours for different mornings and evenings. A quicker, cheaper fix might be have the second paper being on the following afternoon. Or the following week. One would make mistakes unlikely, the other would give more recovery time.

3) Sign-off. The steward needed to get two students to sign-off the opening of the paper. Firstly these students are not disinterested parties, assuming malice, they would want this information. Secondly, these student have no training on the proper procedure. If the head of your exam asks you to sign something so the paper can be passed out, you’ll sign it. I know I signed off an exam (only 2 of us sat the paper) so I didn’t realise that I was signing a procedural document at the time.

In short, the current “the procedures have been followed” process have absolutely no purpose. Insisting that a teacher or someone equally fire-able by the Department sign off would at least make the checks viable.

So is this going to happen again?

Yes. You see, human error is likely. The consequences differ widely every time, in this case a lot of inconvenience for all the students this year. Next year, it could be something small.

Annoying, yes, but stuff happens all the time. Next ear we will all year about the steps taken to avoid this from happening again. Or at least, the steps to make if less likely.

And the odd on winning the lotto are?

take care,
Will Knott

Related articles by Zemanta

• Exam leak sparks chaos for Irish pupils (guardian.co.uk)

My schedule looks full at the moment. It happens, a rush of meet-up (usually unrelated to each other), yet most of these meet-ups are to do with the Irish blogging community (and yes there is an Irish Blogging community). The one exception is an effort to get a maker community working in Dublin.

Tonight has the BTW, a Blogger – Twitter – Whatever meet-up in The Porterhouse Central put together by Jason Roe.

Why do people do this. Organize meetings? Meet complete strangers even if there is a common interest between you? Actually look forward to meeting these strangers.

Well I wonder if neuroscience and survival instinct has something to do with it. In 1994 Ronny Eriksson proposed that our autonomic nervous system, our physical basis for feeling anything is divided in to four functions. The 4 Fs; Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding and Fu… er… mating.

There is one problem with this basis. If those were the roots of our instincts, then humanity wouldn’t have survived past one generation. Why? Well mating might happen, but without something else then the subsequent children would simply be left on their own.

For a group to survive there has to be another F. Fostering. Friendship. Family. Call it what you will but a need to reach out and nurturer in some way.

A need to meet others, meet-up is part of our hard-wiring. Kindness is somewhere in there. We are more likely to offer assistance to our own. The kindness of strangers is rare (it happens). Social media has had a strange side effect. We “know” complete strangers. Or at least think we know.

• “You can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror, but the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you” –The mother of Chris Abani who talks about humanity at TED.

We know the passions of strangers (or at least their thoughts) due to their blogs. Thanks to the likes of LinkedIn and FaceBook (and so many others) we know who their friends are. Thanks to Twitter we know that they are doing now.

Do we “know” them? Sort of. Pen pals have known each other for years. But social media makes, almost necessitates a community. And in a vacuum, it will create a community (yeah, I’m stretching here).

But that fifth F. Fostering/Family/Friendship. So much of our lives are founded on that principle. How come it is still left off that list?

See you at the BTW then?
Will Knott

Related articles by Zemanta

• BTW Meetup 2nd April – Will you be there? (theangryhedgehog.com)

“So what position did you play?” asked the good doctor.

“I’ve never played” I replied, and I could see a twinge of pity in his face.

I never went to a rugby school. I didn’t pay attention to the sport during college. The funny thing is that I only really got to appreciate rugby when I moved to Cork. When I moved to Munster.

On the Wikipedia entry for Munster Rugby says “Munster is known for its fan support and game day atmosphere”.

And while there I got to see just how loved the team are. The streets filled with red rugby shirts on a match day (and yes I have one). The roar of the crowd. I’ve seen the furious passion of the fans when in a Limerick hotel, and the bride delays her reception so she and her family can watch the match in the hotel bar’s big screen. And due to the coincidence of sharing the same gym as the Cork Constitution team, I’ve even met chunk of the team (best described as loud).

I mention this because the Tuesday Push this time around is for MyMunster a social network for Munster Rugby supporters. There you to chat and share views with other Munster rugby supporters, view club photos and videos, get the latest news.  Fans can buy credits to enter competitions for Munster goodies and match tickets – they also say that buying credits helps support rugby development in the province.

Not only be part of that army of fans, but support the team at the grass roots too.

You can also follow MyMunster on Twitter too.

The questions that crop up are, why have a niche social network like this when the all encompassing FaceBook could do something similar? Well, I think some things can start on facebook, but if you have a vary large following, it will support itself with the mass of the interest generated. Sign up and its only Munster without any vampires or sheep (but maybe a few trolls).

And Munster has an army of fans to raise it higher.

Enter lift off?
Will Knott

p.s. Puddleducks has embedded the video of the Haka performed by the New Zealand members of the Munster team during the Munster vs. All Blacks match in Thomond Park last November. Its worth watching (just remember Mowvember was still in play, it explains the moustaches)

It all started shortly before the Irish Blog Awards. That was the reason that Jason Roe was on the site, which caused the first insults.

The widely reported insult against bloggers which is being heard across the globe. I have been warned not to play in to Michael O’Leary’s hands and promote his apparent need for publicity (despite the ire its caused) over the company’s levels of customer service.

So much so that the search for their opposite is now on. LeCraic has the details behind the search.

Well according to O’Leary’s PR spokesperson, Stephen McNamara, we are “idiot bloggers” or “lunatic bloggers”.

Not to worry, as the company starts to limit their presence to online only, and as a lot of people type the URL in to Google (rather than the address bar) the negative rail against bloggers may bite them yet. Its is all very well being the name hat most people think of when they search for cheap flights. But they search, frequently when they don’t intend to (after all, Yahoo is a top search for term in Google, and vice versa).

However they didn’t say they won’t correspond with all bloggers – nor that all bloggers are idiots. But it sure is implied.

After the Blog awards I’ve come to take the Jack Kerouac approach. If we are the insane ones… we are a lot of fun to be with.

The only people for me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live,
mad to talk,
mad to be saved,
desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing,
but burn, burn, burn,
like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…

Burn brightly,

Will Knott

Rick O’Shea came up with a lovely idea; who would you like to meet at the 2009 Irish Blog Awards.

“Name 5 bloggers you haven’t met in the flesh before that you’d like to say hi to at the Blog Awards, say why if you want, link to them. They then, in turn, link to 5 bloggers they’d like to meet and so on.”

Now I have a problem with this. I keep meeting people.

I’ve have to re-do my list a few times as I bump in to bloggers and with the upcoming Twestival there is a chance that I might bump in to a few more.

So…

1) Robert Sweetnam.  He used to live near me and I never met him all that time. It tuns out our interests and situations were also similar (even started back in (different) college on the same date).

2) K8 the GR8. Wonderful fiction writer, and all round good person (with an evil streak, naturally). Her posts swerve from laugh out loud funny, to heart break to cruel twists of fate. And she also writes fiction. Having said that, I’m regularly freaked by her dad, Granddad, who I may want to avoid.

3 and 4) Le Craic and Maxi Cane. LC, because he comes up with brilliant ideas that I would like to see succeed, and Maxi as he got me writing fiction again (got to love a deadline).

And finally, 5) Sweary, or rather the Sweary Lady. Cause she makes me laugh, then makes me think. She is the Darwin Awards of blogs.

I should end here, but there are a few special mentions…

Omani – Partly to apologise (until he commented I thought his name was Grace O’Mani).

Darren Byrne and The National Lottie – who were on the list, until I met them at the PR Collision event. (And Darren, go ahead and tell her).

Phil Iced Coffee who I have met a few times, but he is the only other person I’ve seen do this.

Nick McGivney because I think I have already met him and Christian Hughes because after seeing him at the PR Collision even I’m convinced I’ve met before (if not, nice watch).

Graham Linehan simply because I like the IT Crown and Fr. Ted. And also because I don’t expect to see him.

And lastly but not leastly (if that is a word) Debbie Metrustry, one of the organisers of the Dublin Twestival who I am definitely going to meet, because I owe her money and I can’t get in to the Twestival until I pay her.

Some of you may notice that I’ve linked to blog posts an not to their blog front page. Well, if they have automated trackbacks, they’ll notice that I want to meet them. Its a touch more subtle than asking directly. Or is that my devious streak showing itself again.

take care,
and see some of you tonight,
Will Knott

Before you go to a Twestival, how should you keep an eye out for your friends off Twitter? Well, why not wear your Twitter friends? (yes that does sound like a very bad superhero team).

Wear their faces on your chest. (eewww) OK, pictures of their faces. Better? Or have their mug on your mug.

Walter Higgins at Sxoop (pronounced Skoop, or Scoop) is a image manipulation software developer for a a while now. The headlined Pixenate, an online photo editor, is integrated on many sites worldwide. He also has a history of making image manipulation tools for Twitter. He’s responsible for all the Santa hats this Christmas, and he’s brought out something new, the Twitter Mosaic.

You tell it your Twitter user name (no need for a password) and it generates a mosaic of all your twitter friends or followers. A big image. This can be turned into Mugs, T-Shirts and Bags.

All of this is made possible because of Web2.0 and the philosophy of open APIs (both Twitter’s and Zazzle’s). What has been done recently at http://sxoop.com/twitter/ simply wouldn’t have been possible a few short years ago. Needless to say, these APIs are being battered at the moment. Walter has more details on how to get things running quickly too and the end products seem to be reviewed very well.

So you can create a physical social (media) object and drink to the health of your fellow Tweeters from a Twitter Mosaic mug  (hopefully full of  clean water thanks to Charity:Water) and wear your friends in public.

The Twitter Mosaic is indeed the beneficiary of a Tuesday Push, so soon after demoing it at the Cork Open Coffee Club. And yes I got to know Walter through the Open Coffee movement. However its a cool idea, a great set of products and it since to see someone in Ireland making money in there times. And making money while Twitter is still trying out how.

take care,

Will Knott

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sxoop Technologies turn a buck on Twitter (patphelan.net)
• Tuesday Push was Sxoop (web2ireland.org)
• Twitter Mosaic: Using the long tail to make money from Twitter (antonmannering.com)
• My Twitter Mug is here – Merry Christmas to me! (u-g-h.com)
• Tuesday Push: Twitter Mosaic from Sxoop Technologies (ewritecork.com)
• Push it: Twitter Mosaic from Sxoop Technologies (cjwriting.com)

Get your twitter mosaic here.

On Thursday February 12, there is going to be a party, a tweet-up, a Twestival.

The difference between a normal tweet-up and a twestival is that the date is global (there are currently over 100 happening in cites worldwide). And its going to cost you money. All the “entry fees” collected are going to go towards a charity, charity:water.

It hasn’t been in the pipeline for long; in just one month, from volunteer effort alone Twestival has created events in 175+ cities, predicted to raise $1 million for the 1.1billion people in the world who can’t access clean drinking water. Growing beyond all expectations since launching in January 2009, Twestival takes place for 24 hours on February 12th, everywhere including London, Paris, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Austin, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Dublin, Munich, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Melbourne, Lima, as up to 20,000 come together inspired by community and charity.  Read the full press release for the global effort, but nearer to home…

(Search Twitter in Ireland only for Twestival)

The Dublin Twestival is in The Sycamore Club, No 9 Sycamore Street, Temple Bar , Dublin 2 and Is being put together by Aido McMahon, Anton Mannering, Debbiemet, Qamir Hussain and others. Given the musical talent on offer; there will be dancing (help).

The Belfast Twestival is in Laverys Bunker from 8pm – 10.30pm (currently before Radiation / Laverys DJs, changed from the earler venue) and is organised by Andy (Good On Paper) McMillan and Phil (Iced Coffee) O’Kane.

There are a lot more. If you’d like to help in a volunteerism role with any kind of Twestival organization, wherever you are, get in touch with Amanda Rose or Jaz Cummins. For updates, follow @twestival on Twitter.

I’m going to be at the Dublin one, are you going?

take care,

Will

Jennifer Connelly in charity: water Public Service Announcement from charity: water on Vimeo.

Twestival from charity: water on Vimeo.
Thanks to Neville Hobson for being the first to tell be about it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Global Twestival-time (twingly.com)
• Twestival Unstoppable: Live Earth Joins Twitter Fundraiser (mashable.com)
• Twestival Embraces Recombinant Culture (farisyakob.typepad.com)
• Twestival (and Reified Information) (farisyakob.typepad.com)
• Tactic: Twestival – Tweet, Meet, Give (digiactive.org)
• Twestival goes global for 2009! (jazamatazz.wordpress.com)
• Bloc Party For Twitter Festival (idiomag.com)
• Social Media Benefit for Charity: Water To Be Co-Located in Second Life (seomashup.blogspot.com)
• Twitter meetup spawns global charity event (uk.techcrunch.com)

I think the Media Virgins put it succinctly. “Before you fully commit yourself to a social networking site I think that it is a good idea to listen in on what is being said. The same idea goes when you are deciding which people to follow.”

And so it is with IGOPeople.com, the latest company being promoted in the revamped “Tuesday Push“.

The I, G and O of IGOPeople stands for Individuals, Groups and Organisations. The idea is that this is a network for real people. Not the social media elite (both of them) nor is it aimed at the youth market. The idea behind this site is that it allows individuals to contact organisations (mostly businesses, but there are a few charities in there too) and have the feed back in the public domain. It also allows for groups to form.

Groups like the proposed OpenCoffee Kilkenny. Groups like the DellCamp project to get things going in Limerick (and surrounds again).

Of the companies in there, its not just the technical ones like Blacknight and Eircom nor those using social media in other aspects like FBD and Vodaphone (who are running free top up offers) but accountants, recruitment companies and sellers of waterproof childrens clothing (who have their own special offer on IGOPeople).

This Irish company is paying attention to its users. Thy will take and act on suggestions. Its a tightly wel run (and threaded messaged) ship.

I joined it very early on, but I’m still listening. I’ve said this to the founder, Campbell Scott, I can see the appeal, but I just don’t get it.

Yet.

I’m still listening,

Will Knott

Young LeCraic had this bright idea… lets do a Irish Bloggers Christkindl. So I signed up and got something in the post.

“Please come to the sorting office”. After a nice chat with the sorting office people (where either they will leave stuff on my doorstep, or I’m showing up at 6.30am when they arrive at the office and I have to get a bus. I also got a package (censored below).

And inside the package was another package.

I know that sounds like a joke, but I wrapped my present too.
So knock knock open wide

Its a food package!
And a card (which the secret person signed, I won’t reveal him/her unless (s)he asks).
And the decapitated heads of endangered Swedish puppets.

And a crystal tree decoration which was promptly hung with great care and love

Hiding underneath the puppet carnage was the “Blackbird” album by One Day International. Oddly this arrived just when Darragh Doyle posted his interview with One Day International. Synchronous timing like this happens a lot. Lots of good things have been heard about this and there will be a review. Eventually.

Sadly I know I’ll be playing with the Titta heads for the next while.

But for the season they will be placed in another tree

take care,
Will Knott

Right now, freezing at the keyboard in my geansai gorm, I should be making slides and a talk for Barcamp Cork II. The talk is a HCI look at Twitter and twitter applications and interfaces (but I’m enjoying the data mining of the survey too much). However I’ve noticed something from that data.

I’ve asked people why they use particular twitter applications and interfaces.  In the process of discovering that people don’t always answer the question you ask, I’ve collected a few stories about why they use twitter.

Some use twitter for marketing purposes. Social media monitoring either for themselves or for their clients.

Some use twitter, Jaiku or other micro-blogging tools for a quick response to questions.

But most people seem to use it to stay in contact with friends. With their Tribe.

Think about it. Are you a sports fan, or a fan of a particular team in a particular sport? No one is a fan of GAA but not a team, but they are a fan or their club and county (even when their club is in a different county).They can admire another team, but they are fanatics for their own. Their tribe.

A fairly lonely sport like cycling has a community? Cyclists look to each other. Sometimes look after each other on roads when they encounter each other. Even as strangers, as their bike identifies them as being of the same tribe. Help will be offered. Tips will be swapped. A spare tube will be ‘lent’.

Going to a Barcamp, an un-conference identifies you as being of a tribe. A technical minded, or technology loving tribe. A tribe identified by their laptops, mp3 recorders and gadgets. A tribe allied with web 2.0 and a love of problem solving. Help will be offered. Tips and urls will be swapped. A spare cable will be lent.

And then we have the Jaiku versus twitter debate. Almost everyone in Jaiku is bi-textual, but there are tribes, groups, clans etc. Everybody wants to belong, be part of something bigger. Be part of a grander scheme. And one which makes person to person contacts. Everyone wants to belong, even if its to a school clique.

The older, traditional tribes; church, local neighbourhoods and work are disintegrating. So new tribes are forming.

And once a tribe is identified, it will be marketed to. (Buy Burma Shave).

take care,
Will Knott