Welcome (31st July 2015)

Procter Periodical #2

 
 

Welcome back!

I didn't realise how good it would be putting these newsletters together. After just two it is so nice to be able to close off tabs and collate links from the last couple of weeks. It is very cleansing for my own sanity too which I was not expecting. I found some typos in the last newsletter and this was after reading "100 ways to improve your Writing" via @fehler (he is awesome) which basically advises that spelling errors just make you look stupid! Apologies for that but no one has unsubscribed yet so thats good.

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Now lets do this !

 

Camping/ Outdoor

Camping
I'm going camping again on the Isle of Wight and last year list Doug's list of stuff proved to be a great kick starter for any camping trip.

Fatherly

7 Apps to help you look like a pro when out and about this Summer.

Sun in your pocket ?
I bought this torch last year and it was great, however it was accidentally broken by one of my daughters (dropped it) I loved it ! 

Key Knife/ Bottle opener?

Yes please

Bag needed 

I am after a new bag, I love HardGraft stuff in general but this is probably too expensive for me.

Education related

The Role of Personality in Education

I can be really bad with colloquialisms and Dad joke's sometimes but I am into personality in teaching ! I tread a fine line with the Entertainer teacher sometimes (a PGCAP thing about students loving the session but recalling nothing, cant find link from that session though!). 

Guardian

Teachers get that work life balance sorted!

Times Higher Education

More on the Teaching Excellence Framework, this can only end badly.

iPlayer on Acid

If you are in an educational institute with BoB its ace, if not ask the powers that be to get it proto.

Medium
Explaining Graphic Design to four-year-olds. Simple stuff and some fun workshops / activities too.

JISC Digital Media

A pretty good infokit on Gamification applied to education.

Slack

We are going to pilot the use of this with our students as a place to share links and resources, cross year, cross module and cross programme, I like it a lot.

Maths

Minecraft and Multiplication colouring in! 

Barcamp Southampton

It was actually a little hard to pin down what Barcamp Southampton is about, I think they should fix that on the website, I thought it was coding wikipedia says Technology and the web so all good and there is one coming to Southampton which is great and some good people tweeted it at me.

My teacher wont let me take a picture of the whiteboard

Teachers failing to get tech, this is a great post on what it means when things change and how a "blackboard" should be used in 2015.

Productivity

8 Rules for writing

I'm trying to improve my writing for my PhD and these rules are pretty good.

Notegraphy

Really nice way to make short bits of text look nice without any effort. Picked this up from a Medium article on writing a Haiku each day.

Mod Notebooks

Basically a service to get your notebook digitised. I think some people at Winchester School of Art would like this.

Podcasts for Entrepreneurs

List of podcasts from the awesome Product Hunt.

Medium

Meetings that don't Suck... sounds like heaven!

Design thinking and making

Web Design the first 100 years

Nice slides and talk check it out, has been tweeted alot.

UX Design course 

General Assembly are doing more and more in the UK and it all looks pretty good.

Gitbooks

I am into the future of publishing and I love markdown... this could be good.

Medium

Quick typography tips to make anything better to read. We love a bit of leading and kerning at Winchester School of Art.

Cinema Icons

I always love a good icon set and you should check out Jon Hicks Icon Handbook and his talk (next link). He has great ways to help you make icons, I recommend Sketch app too.

Five Simples Steps Videos

Host of great videos and they can even cover your event, this one is Jon Hicks talking about making icons.

Forms on Mobile

Some research on creating forms for use on Mobile devices from Luke Wroblewski he is always doing good stuff.

Fast Path to Great UX

Simple stuff, get out there and see / talk to your users.

Interfaces are dead

Notifications are leading the way to kill off apps, and so perhaps messages are the new UI.

Marvel

Awesome prototyping app,

This and this 

Principles around Responsive Web Design.

Smashing Magazine 5

Awesome as ever.

Paul Rand

On logos yay!

Cannot live without Apps

Fantastical Mac and iOS

Natural Language calendar app aka awesome!

Papers Mac and iOS

Referencing tool that actually looks and plays nice.

Soulver Mac and iOS

The calculator app is a joke. This app is what a calculator should be on a Computer aka not a calculator, natural language, multiple lines and a host of stuff that means I never use a calculator app.

Flow for Mac and iOS

I love tasks and this task management app has gone from strength to strength.

Freeagent

This helps me produce invoices and run my small freelance work really well. 10% discount for life time with this link too.

Programming

Article 1 and Article 2

The Verge and bloated websites, plus another reason to get Ghostery ! Talk about trackers! 

Why girls should code

Having 3 daughters and being into programming I follow a lot of this stuff.

GoldieBlox

The original TED talk on Goldieblox. 

GoldieBlox Animation

I love this animation about failing and of course Girl Engineers ! 

Brackets.io Tips

Now I love Espresso and just can't leave it but Brackets is free and cross platform and a nice code editor. These tips are a great way to get the most out of this app.

ATP

The best podcast show bar none.

JSbin

I suggest the best in browser editor and if your an educator you can apply for a Pro account for free. Includes codecasting which I have yet to try in a class but I am looking forward to it.

Live coding

An educational live streaming platform where people code live, maybe good.

Fonts for coding

More fonts, always good.

Open source / Creative Commons

Happy Birthday

The fact that Warner Chapel make $2million a year 'owning' Happy Birthday has been a staple of my lectures on copyright and creative commons for a while and so it's fascinating to see that they may not in fact hold the rights and worse still they may even have known all along ! This could be massive if the case is won, cant wait to see the film either.

Creative Commons new song

Jonathan Mann makes some great tunes and here is one promoting the new CC book on Kickstarter.

Open is an attitude

Check out these links but specifically Laura's post.

Ind.ie Forum

With the pre Alpha Ind.ie app just days away they also launched a forum to talk about ind.ie products, exciting stuff !

Film to catch

Blackfish 

Great documentary and not on iPlayer for much longer.

Bridge to Terabithia 

Fantastic coming of age film, well worth a watch.

Vanishing Bees

Important stuff to know about neonicotinoids and there damage to bees.

"And not to say I’m not a button-pusher. I’m just pushing a lot more buttons.”

MUSIC

EDM is killing itself

I like stuff that sits on the edge of EDM, like The Knife , Chvches, Futurecop, Purity Ring and so on, this article is interesting from a capitalist point of view around popular culture.

Years & Years (Rdio)

Been waiting for this Album for a while and it's great.

Procedural Music

Some stuff about the making of the music for No Mans Sky.

Pixx

4AD I have to say is probably the best record label out there. This new artist Pixx on 4AD is equally ace.

MusicBox

Guy Garvey has a great new Music TV show.

Chvches

New track live, check it out via Rdio too.

Neil Young

Some are saying its a little too obvious but I like it ! Hoping to hear his The Monsanto Years record soon.

Misc.

Robot Consciousness

A humanoid robot has solved a classic puzzle called the wise-men test, showing it knows when it is speaking.

Entrepreneurs

Turns out most of the time coming from money is the way too success, annoyingly too true.

Emoji for Introverts

All good.

Shenmue III

Shenmue I and II are massive favourites in our household, it's why we keep the Dreamcast alive and obviously I backed this and it has now become gaming's highest funded Kickstarter. 

Robot Wars ?

Who didn't love Robot Wars on Channel 4 ?!? Well we might be getting more and more soon, I think it would be great, drone battling, drone racing bring it on! 

Not Just TV

UK is good at making all kinds of stuff.

Everything change

Its not just Climate Change its everything Change.

What!?

Some crazy stuff where the UK gov plan to wipe out all the bees, there was some tweet saying remember the face of Elizabeth Truss for killing off bees but I couldnt relocate it so here is a picture of a CC licenced Bumble Bee instead by Darling Starlings much better.

Threema

Secure Messaging app while we wait for Ind.ie.

A Patches wesite

I am getting back into real badges/patches see picture at the bottom for my latest purchase!

Economic Cleansing 

This is bad.

The BBC Matters

Don't let any propaganda tell you otherwise! The USA have gone nuts about Apple Music's Beats 1 station, why? because basically they don't have the BBC ! Beats is the first time they have heard decent radio in decades, unlike us in the UK who have 6Music and much much more.

Shell are Bad

Drilling in the Arctic is bad.

Shootings in the USA

204 mass shootings in 204 days in 2015 ! not good.

Into Football?

See if you can name all the Suffix's and just in case Dons is included even though it should never have been.

Ketogenic Diet

My nephew Harry is awesome, 500 people in the world like him ! 

Youtube
Portrait of Lotte 0 to 14 years in 4 min. 

Me elsewhere

inkubator.io
researchnot.es
adamprocter.co.uk
@adamprocter
Instagram

Thanks for your time and have a great weekend ! 
Adam