It was really good to catch up with some old friends yesterday, reminded me of the good old days.

It was also really good to see that we, despite having no help or input from various sources, are on the right track as a department. My friends are at a large and established college and we as a small and very much up and coming college are reaching the standards that we should be. Sure, there is some work to be done, but it's not insurmountable.

Incidentally, they, like us, are struggling to recruit decent quality lecturers. It seems like very few people are willing to enter the teaching industry, no doubt because of a combination of the money and the thought of having to teach kids who don't want to be there and a mountain of paperwork. I don't know about a skills shortage in industry, there is a severe skills shortage in education that doesn't seem to be addressed with many tutors teetering on the edge of retirement.

Going to visit an old workplace today to show some of my colleagues the differences between what we are doing and how we can do it. Looking forward to it though although there aren't many there that I know. I am sure we can pick up some ideas though.

On a different note entirely, I received yesterday an excellent email regarding my Electrical Qualifications site. It was quite heart warming that someone had gone to the bother to put such a nice email together and send it off. Makes all the difference.

www.electricalqualifications.co.uk

A new hope and Google

I'll probably never understand the Google search thing. Within a week of electrical qualifications going live, the site fluctuated between 1st and 2nd place on a search of "electrical qualifications". Within 2 weeks it cannot even be found, although I only tried up to page 27! When you perform the search, only the first 2 results currently contain any real information and one of them is not really aimed at electricians. The rest are random forum comments and private "become an electrician in 4 weeks" companies. I suppose I am over reacting and given time the site will gain popularity. It's just odd that it did extremely well within the first week is all.

All hail the search engine eh?

http://www.electricalqualifications.co.uk

The second day of blogging. Not too much to add. There was an article placed on my desk today, a photocopy from a prominent tabloid declaring that Gordon Broon has pledged more apprenticeships. Apparently, there is less than one apprentice for every 100 skilled workers in the country. Shocking really.

EDITED TO ADD: Please visit my website ;) www.electricalqualifications.co.uk

Hello and welcome

Hmmm, hello all who could be bothered to read this. I suspect that a blog is more of a personal diary rather than a means to anything else, but at least I get to vent my spleen a bit.

This is my first foray into blogging and it's on the back of my first real web presence. I have done sites before, plenty of them in fact for various reasons. I have also been quite successful in getting the sites well known on the popular search engines, probably because a mentor of mine, good old Tony Wilmore introduced me to the wonders of CSS and web standards many years ago. It seems that CSS is all it's cracked up to be as is the open source community, who's work has saved me many many hours of learning code to get the desired effect.

Anyways, on to the site. I am an Electrical Installation lecturer and an electrician by trade. Computers and the like have always been a hobby and were I to turn back the old clock, perhaps that is where I'd have ended up had I been bothered, who knows. For good or bad though, I ended up with a trade. I am not the most experienced lecturer, but I like to think my enthusiasm makes up for that as do my computer skills when creating course material. The past couple of years I have been teaching down south where all my skills have been quite pushed to the limit as the department seemingly struggles from one crisis to the next.

I am still not at the site bit...come on!

Ok ok. We get enquiries from everyone in the department. And I really do mean everyone. A mechanic, a warehouse worker, an accountant, a cheese packer and even once a vicar have all called asking me the same question:

"How do I become an electrician?"

Now if you search, then you can actually find the information. That is if you know who, what and where to search for though, not always easy when you come from nothing. That's where my site kicks in. I have attempted to create a site that answers these questions and hopefully a little bit more besides.

The first week has been quite positive and hopefully the future more so. I'd like to think that in the future years, my little 0.00000000000000001% of the internet has helped just a few people.

Laterz, as my students often say.

http://www.electricalqualifications.co.uk