Negative Outcome Oriented Schemas and How to Avoid Them.

Fuck me - again?! I can't now remember just how many times I have been given the bum's rush from Dave's ESL Cafe. I think the last time was early last year, when I was dished out a dose of 'summary justice' for the alleged crime of posting the content of a PM - that's 'private message' to the uninitiated. The fact that the content I posted was written by myself was apparently irrelevant to the case. No appeals are allowed on Dave's.

So when I got a PM a few weeks back telling me off for daring to raise the question of just why one of my apparently innocent postings had been deleted by ''the mods' (the moderators), I responded in the most appropriate fashion. I told 'the mod' to "Piss off". And I called him a "dickhead". Well, that upset him, I guess, as I got the message you can see in the graphic - "You have been banned from this forum".

Not that it upsets me at all. In fact, this whole issue of getting the metaphorical bullet from one of Dave Sperling's little mods is just a cunning ruse to lead you to the real meat of this blog posting, namely that there is an excellent piece of ripping satire available there on the UAE forum, which you should find here. And it wasn't me wot wrote it - no mate, not at all, I'm afraid!

Just scroll down to the entry by scrog_420, and you'll see a priceless parody of vacuous educational newspeak, concerning the buzzwords of the day to parrot at a job interview. I almost peed myself with laughter when I read it, and I sincerely hope that you'll do the same. And just as a teaser, here's a couple of examples...

6. To succeed at HCT, you must embrace, you must love, you must worship technology. Remember, there is no such thing as too much educational technology. Remember that nothing counts if you cannot put an “e-” in front of it. Speak frequently, therefore, of “e-action plans” and “e-metacognitive paradigms”. Even better, speak of your “e-action plan to create e-student-centered e-metacognitive paradigms”.

7. Try to use as much educational jargon as possible. If you work a bit into an interview or discussion, those listening will be impressed because they will assume you know what it means and won’t dare reveal that they don’t by asking what it means. You should speak frequently of the need to...

• generate collaborative objectives
• aggregate outcome-based paradigms
• enable inquiry-centered schemas
• cultivate technology-enhanced interfaces
• exploit integrated technologies

The saddest thing is - it's absolutely true!