Barack Obama said that the nation which “out-educates us today will out-compete us tomorrow”. That is very true and with 9 out 10 Chinese students realising that if they study hard they will succeed, they are setting an example to the rest of the world. Chinese high school children chant slogans such as “I must go to college” before they take an exam. It’s the same as a football team getting themselves ready for a big game.

The Chinese know that they are responsible for their own success because if they don’t succeed there is no welfare state to help them. This creates a situation where Chinese students are committed to education with an energy like no other nation.

We all know what poverty means, but I believe that many people in the UK and Europe have a “Poverty of Ambition”. This means that we don’t have the same hunger for success as they do in China and India. There is a very good report written by Forbes Magazine about this subject which I highly recommend you read, and you can read it here.

Poverty of ambition is the real poverty because without ambition and a hunger to improve ourselves we will never truly have all that we desire. Eventually this will affect the fabric of our culture and society and it won’t be easy to turn things around. It’s not as though we are doing badly, it’s just that western countries including the USA are slipping behind in education of their populations and this needs to be reversed.

We need, somehow, to reverse the trend of education not being “cool” especially with many teenage boys and instill the belief in all students that if they work hard and have the right attitude they can succeed. In China the emphasis is on ALL students doing well, not just the bright ones. This means that we must have the best teachers in the more deprived areas of the country. It’s easy to create an education system where the ones at the top succeed but there are bigger challenges to overcome in cities that don’t believe education is the key to success.

As Forbes magazine says, we need to recover the animal spirits that once drove this country to the heights that it once had. This needs teachers to be driving their students forward using the latest technology and teaching methods but it also needs parents to want their children to do better than they did and to have an enthusiasm for education. There is too much of “My dad is a plumber so I will be one as well” attitude.

Whilst knowledge and skills are hugely important, effort, commitment and enthusiasm are more important in my opinion.

We face an uphill battle that we must win !

This was taken on my Samsung Galaxy S2.

I emerged from the cinema after the film with a smile on my face. Forget the storyline. This is an action movie with amazing special affects. Basically, we have been sending signals to a planet that we think may have life on it and some time later the inhabitants of this planet decide to pay us a visit and they are not friendly !

It just so happens that the US navy is conducting war games in the Pacific and they come across several alien space craft that have landed in the sea. After several US ships are sunk and they started  the movie looking like their technology was far superior, and they were just about invincible, the US navy decides to start firing missiles. Why they didn’t fire those to start with is a mystery! The alien ships suddenly start to look vulnerable!

Meanwhile, the aliens, having lost their communications system they try to use Earths satellite system to communicate with their home planet, presumably to ask for reinforcements. In a race against time they bring the US Missouri battleship out of retirement and the only crew that are available are a group of retired sailors. So, the final part of the film is a group of old men up against a far superior alien force in their retired battleship.

There can, of course, be only one ending but the film is a masterpiece of CGI special affects and it is virtually non stop action. Forget the storyline, because this is good old fashioned action film and as long as you don’t take it too seriously you might actually enjoy it. I really enjoyed the movie. It’s almost a Top Gun movie on water and I can highly recommend that you go and see it.

It’s fun and it should put a smile on your face!

I have 5 websites, at least four blogs, two Twitter accounts (one with 2,700 followers), two You Tube channels, a Flikr account, a Tublr account, two Facebook pages, a Foursquare account, a LinkedIn account, an Instagram account, and two Google + pages. I also have Audioboo and Sound Cloud accounts. All those accounts take some maintaining !

The main reason I have these accounts is to promote my travel agency, Global Holidays and also because I enjoy writing. The more writing I do the better I get, although I suppose my readers will be the judge of that !

I have been calculating the size of my audience and its fairly impressive. My websites get about 4,000 page views a day, sometimes more. Add in my blogs and other stuff and I would think my overall page views and exposure on a good day will be about 5,000 a day. I recently registered with Klout and my Klout score is 37. Klout meaures your influence through your social media efforts. The maximum Klout score is 100 but not many reach that score, and Klout tells me that I am fairly influencial, so my aim is to increase that score which will mean my influence is increasing.

Back to Empire Avenue. In a way it’s similar to Klout but far more complex. You start the game with a pot of virtual money, called Eaves and you can use this money to buy shares in others. It’s very similar to the real stock market because you have to judge whether you will get good dividends and if the share price will increase. Now here is the interesting bit. Your share price increases based upon your social media activity. Just like Klout, you register all your social media accounts with Empire Avenue and they measure your influence by looking at how many interactions you have through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc etc.

I started with a share price of 10 and 3 weeks later my share price has gone up to 43 so I am heading in the right direction. The long established players have a share price over 500 and a portfolio value of £161M so I have a long way to go to catch up, if I ever do.

The reason I like the game is because I think there is a way to make money from it. You can use your virtual currency to buy advertising and also to reward people for “liking” your Facebook page, following you on Twitter or even watching a You Tube video. This, of course, is good if you have something to promote or sell but also, Google is using social media in its search algorithm so the more influential you are in social media the better your website will do in the search engines.

So, Empire Avenue encourages you to create good blog and other content which drives more traffic to your blog and web site. Give it a go. It beats Farm Town or Farm Ville !

Social media for a business is all about creating avenues of communication with your customers and potential customers, building your brand and driving traffic to your websites. It takes hard work to make it work. I don’t see that many brands have got it perfectly right yet but it’s still early days.

There is no doubt though that if a business does not have some sort of social media strategy they risk being left behind.

In my grumpy opinion, if you are a good singer you will get noticed and you can go on to have a good singing career. Once the live shows started most of the singers were nothing special but there had to be a winner and most went on to do nothing, apart from featuring in celebrity magazines.

Then the “The Voice” came along and showed us all how many good singers there are out there. With a refreshing format based upon listening to the singer and avoiding the life stories the show has shown us all that we don’t need the X-Factor to discover new talent, because we already have lots. Just about every singer on The Voice has been good but some have been fantastic. Tonight’s show with  Jaz, the final contestant, left the best until last, as we all knew would happen !  He must be a clear favourite to win in my view.

The judges on The Voice have also been great. From Sir Tom Jones to WILL.I.AM and of course Jessie J. I love the way Jessie J chair dances and sings. She is a natural !

Simon Cowell seems to have admitted defeat. Simon….It’s time to move on !

Well, I have to agree with this guy and well done to him for putting a sign up about it. Mobile phones have taken over a lot of peoples lives and they can’t live without either speaking to someone or texting someone every few minutes. Next time you walk into a bar or restaurant take  a look to see how many people are using their phones rather than actually speaking face to face with someone. You will be amazed how many people seem to be losing the art of conversation !

Watch the BBC video about this news story here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17687054

Following on from my blog article about how to make a simple You Tube video I have made another video from PowerPoint slides which I think is an improvement on the first one.

These videos were made using PowerPoint slides and then saving them as JPEG’s and importing them into Movie Maker. The good thing about Movie Maker is that you can import short video clips as well, to add to the storyboard and this adds a touch of professionalism to the video. You can find short video clips on several sites and many of them are free. Iused video clips from stockfootageforfree but there seems to be quite a few sites out there that do this. Search on Google to see if you can find free video clips that suit the subject you are making the video about.

One tip when making the PowerPoint slides is not to add too much text as it can be difficult to read the slides before the video moves to the next slide.

I would recommend teachers and tutors try making videos and uploading them to You Tube. They can be viewed by your students inside or outside college and they can act as a reminder of a previous lesson and probably help with their assignments.

I also think that it is worthwhile for tutors to encourage their students to make videos. They could be used as evidence for an assignment and, of course, they are learning a new skill. Skills like video producing are going to be very useful in our digital age.

One of the courses I teach in the Travel and Tourism department at Leeds City College is marketing and I’m going to encourage students to make videos rather than posters for their assignment.

This is the new video I have made and the video clip near the beginning is the free video I previously talked about.

It took me about 1-2 hours to make it. Hope you like it and if you have any comments please let me know.

The film is very simple and makes easy watching as the guests settle in at the hotel and each guests story of their past and what they get up to outside and inside the hotel is told. The film is fairly fast paced as all the guests think that they are past it, but events tell a different story!

About 15 minutes from the end of the movie the fire alarm sounded in the cinema so we ended up missing the final few minutes. I had to ask someone who had already seen the movie what happened in at the end. Needless to say I can’t say what the ending is !

Poll Everywhere can be used to set a multiple choice question that your students can answer using their mobile phones or other mobile devices. Answers can be sent by text message or using an Internet connection. You can also use Poll Everywhere to set a question that is not multiple choice but that can be answered using a message.

The teacher or tutor can display Poll Everywhere using a projector in the classroom and the results appear live on the screen as they are sent by the students. As the answers appear they can be discussed by the class.

I think that Poll Everywhere is a great system for use in the classroom. It engages students and lets students use their mobile phones for learning. In the lessons I have used Poll Everywhere it has been well received by students. Give it a go and see what you think. Click this link to sign up for a free account Poll Everywhere

Watch this short video that I made about how to use Poll Everywhere.