Sunday, May 31, 2009

Lodge gets going



Had a very productive couple of days and as can be seen, the frame for the whole lodge is now up, as is the ridge board and one rafter.

Monday, May 25, 2009

The work begins

OK, so have spent the last few weeks off and on (as have had a lot of assessment lately) building the deck joists which will form the foundation for the lodge, together with the decking surrounding it.

Here is a time lapse video of the past couple of days work....

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Blogs in Blackboard

Started to think about next year's teaching and am definitely going to go down the Blog route for one of the assessments in both of my main Modules. I was going to get the students to create a Blog using BLOGGER, however I have now discovered that Blackboard (the University's Virtual Learning Environment) has a Blog tool built in which can easily be configured for each Module. Doing this means that all students enrolled on the Module will automatically be able to add entries to the Module's Blog. They can only see their own entries (together with my comments) but I can choose from a drop down box which student's Blog to view - brilliant! This means that it isn't necessary to navigate to an indivudal student's Blogger address, instead all Blogs will be viewable directly from within the Module Shell within Blackboard.

Images, movies, audio etc. can easily be uploaded too and the Blog can be exported as a standard HTML package for archiving purposes too.

There is also the option to automatically link the Blog to an assessment within the on-line gradebook too. I like it!

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Another roof option - much cheaper :)

OK, forget the previous post on lightweight roof tiles. I have not found a much cheaper solution with similar longevity. Felt shingles laid directly onto a felt underlay on standard OSB roof boards:

http://www.katepaluk.co.uk/gbu0-prodshow/SuperKLGrey.html

For the whole roof, including edge trims and ridge tiles, the total comes in at only £238 inc. VAT.