Summary
This episode along with the link to the escape room is available as a blog post: https://scotthibberson.com/2022/04/14/the-nightmare-before-the-end-of-term/
The Nightmare Before the End of Term!
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The Nightmare Before the End of Term!
Nope, it’s not a movie sequel – it’s my foray into the world of creating a virtual escape room.
I have to admit, I’m a bit late to the party when it comes to escape rooms. They’ve been around a while, but I’ve never done one, either in person or virtually. I know, I need to get out more (if that’s the right expression).
This term we ran a Jisc event to share teaching ideas and one of my FE contacts at Coleg Gwent in Wales mentioned escape rooms (thanks Natalie btw!). They sounded fun and a sure-fire way of gamifying the learning experience which appealed to me.
Context
I’ve put together an escape room using the free account on the Genially site. If you’ve not come across it by the way the site has lots of templates to choose from and the learning curve on their editor is minimal. It’s also a site for creating all sorts of interactive content you can use with learners, not just escape rooms.
I went with the horror theme and made my escape room a little tongue-in-cheek. As I intend to share it with teaching staff that’s the target audience. The context is a beleaguered member of teaching staff who has a number of challenges to overcome before they can wrap up the term and go on holiday.
Sound familiar?
It’s a little cheesey, I know, but I wanted to make the escape room fairly light-hearted and fun, as well as educational.
Feedback
Can you escape to that exotic Caribbean island?
Have a go and let me know what you think. Could you use escape rooms with your learners? If so, what type of scenario would you use? Let me know in the comments or drop me a tweet!
Open Day at Lampeter in 1993
Lampeter.
Not heard of it?
Neither had I until the spring of 1993. I was in my last year of A Levels and had the opportunity to attend an open day. My parents and I made the epic journey from Sheffield (some 200 miles or so – a 4 hour journey, even with my dad’s ‘Lewis Hamilton’ style of driving…).
Come to think of it, despite applying for other universities, Lampeter was the only open day I attended. Perhaps, subliminally, I knew it was the place for me.
We had to look it up on a map first – sat nav wasn’t really a thing back then. If you drove anywhere of distance the passenger rode shotgun with an atlas, providing directions en route. Lampeter wasn’t a place many of my friends had heard of either. It was one of those places you had to look up to check that it actually existed.
I first heard about Lampeter from my old Classics teacher who recommended the place to me. Lampeter was one of the few universities that taught Classics and there was no question that this was what I wanted to do. Apparently my tutor knew one of the Classics lecturers at Lampeter (a certain Tony Brothers) through his work with the Open University.
I remember meeting Geoff Eatough, the head of department for Classics at that time. Geoff was a gritty northerner, like myself, and had a charm that I instantly warmed to. The Classics department was based in the Bryn, an amazing building. One the Classics department shared with the Philosophy department and was slightly off campus, giving it a unique sense of character. What really impressed me too was how approachable the lecturers were at Lampeter. I’ve been to other universities since where I’ve been one of many students in vast lecture halls. Lampeter wasn’t like that. All of the lecturers knew you by name. I even went out drinking in the evening with many of them and visited their homes. Something that I very much doubt happens elsewhere.
Due to the long journey I stayed in halls of residence for the night whilst my parents stayed in town. I had a room in Dawson (in the 90s this hall had a bit of a reputation!). Back then many of the halls were split into floors and corridors, with about eight students living on each corridor, sharing one bathroom, one kitchen and one toilet. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Mundane things like someone drinking your milk from the shared kitchen or running out of toilet rolls (!) were regular challenges to overcome and all part of the Lampy experience. Along with queueing for hours at the local phone box on Station Terrace to make a call back home.
No mobile phones and no wifi then, obviously.
I remember going out in the evening round the pubs in town with my parents. Back in the 90s the humble pub was in its heyday – most people went and they were a hive of activity and atmosphere. Lampeter was no different and had a good selection to choose from – I would get to know these quite well over the next five years or so! The locals were really friendly and I remember chatting with my parents to the landlady of the Ivy Bush. Every time my parents came back to visit me when I started my degree the landlady always remembered my parents. That was the kind of place Lampeter was. People took the time to get to know you and they remembered you.
I’ve painted a bit of a picture of somewhere remote, and Lampeter was remote, but that was also part of its charm. That little town nestled in the rolling hills of the Teifi valley was a place apart, very unique and the experiences the students had back then in the 90s were like no other university experience.
There are many fond memories I have of Lampeter and the people I’ve met there over the years (perhaps you, reader, are one of those people and share some of those memories too?), but I just wanted to share my first impressions from that open day.
I return to Lampeter most years and still catch up with the friends that I met there all those years ago and I’ve even made new friends on return visits. It’s hard to imagine that open day was nearly thirty years ago now and I daresay some of my recollections are filtered through rose-tinted glasses. Maybe I’m a bit of a nostalgia freak – or maybe I was just so lucky to have had my time there.
Thank you, my old A level Classics teacher, for recommending this magical place.
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This blog post is part of the Lampeter Voices project, commemorating 200 years of university life at Lampeter.
The House of Leda
Beyond the Sanctuary of Aphrodite, just outside the small village of Kouklia in Cyprus, a trail meanders along the hillside. To the left lie scorched fields of yellow grass, broken by the dual carriageway that joins Paphos to Lemesos, before sweeping towards the endless blue expanse of the Mediterranean.
The trail is stony and littered with white pebbles. Occasionally, if you are lucky, an orange-tailed lizard scurries across the path.
After a short stretch the winding trail ends at the House of Leda. Very little remains of the house itself, apart from a copy of a mosaic of Leda and the swan. A silver plaque reads (in both Greek and English): Copy of a mosaic representing Leda and the swan. The original is exhibited in the Cyprus museum. The mosaic with the geometric decoration is the original one. 2nd-3rd century AD.
The mosaic is incomplete. Many of the little stones that make up the picture are missing, making the onlooker use their imagination to recreate the whole. Perhaps this imperfection is all part of its beauty.
The geometric border of the mosaic gives the impression of a crashing surf on the shore. This could be a subtle reference to the birth of Aphrodite herself (according to Hesiod in The Theogony, Aphrodite was born from the sea foam crashing on to the island of Cyprus. The Greek word aprhos means “foam”). The square central section depicts Leda preparing to disrobe, attended by a swan (Zeus in disguise) attempting to pinch at her dress. Shades of pink, white and brown capture the illusion of light. Although Leda has her back to the onlooker, she casts a backwards glance over her shoulder, as if she knows you are watching her bathe.
You are a voyeur.
Her shawl drapes over her left arm, dropping loosely in folds beneath her exposed bottom, before it’s clasped again in her right hand. What looks like a font frames her left side and a tree her right.
According to one version of the myth, Leda was bathing in a pool by moonlight when Zeus, the king of the gods, saw her and fell in love with her beauty. Fell “in lust” is probably more accurate, as the gods in Greek myth, especially Zeus, often take advantage of helpless damsels. Zeus transformed himself into a swan in order to get close to her and then ravaged her. Afterwards, so the story goes, Leda gave birth to an egg which hatched into a beautiful baby girl. The girl grew up to become none other than Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships, the most beautiful woman in all of Greece.
Helen is often reputed to be one of the causes for the Trojan war.
It’s an interesting myth. Like many myths, you can draw a number of lessons from it, depending on your interpretation. Is it a moral about beauty being the cause of conflict? Or perhaps the lesson is not to go out alone when randy Greek gods are on the prowl!
I’m not sure. I wonder if the original artist ever envisaged people still pondering over the mosaic centuries later? For me the mosaic represents how time has the capacity to change all things, sometimes even beyond their original meaning.
Week Four: Enjoy and progress
This is part of a series of posts reflecting on my experiences in the run up to the Yorkshire Marathon in October. I’m currently on week four of a twelve week training programme. The idea is to write a post every week charting my progress and reflecting on my training.
Enjoy and progress.
I must admit, I didn’t know what to write about this week. Not that it matters. I don’t have to have an epiphany every week. Nor do I need to see a significant shift in my running. Sometimes, ticking over is fine. Continue reading
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