M-learning – be careful – a 7 point primer

Warning – market’s a mess

Anyone who says cross-platform, m-learning content development and delivery is easy, is lying. A wander round the Learning Technologies exhibition induced a rash of promises that were at best economical with the truth. Mobile leaning vendors seem addicted to the word ‘YES’ in answer to any question. It ain’t that simple. Walk into any mobile shop, such as Carphone Warehouse and witness a fragmented market. Latency, bandwidth, screen size, methods of display, methods of input and the lack of universally adopted or agreed standards – that’s your technical environment. A quick glance will reveal iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Symbian and Palm. It’s all a bit of a mess. So be careful about what’s phones are promised.

Learning limits

Early research on mobile learning showed something that is conveniently ignored by mobile learning evangelists. Attention and retention may be seriously affected by small screen size. Few watch movies, read entire e-books or perform long pieces of linear learning on their mobiles.More worrying is research by Nass & Reeves that shows that retention falls rapidly with screen size. This pushes m-learning towards performance support, recording performance and collaborative learning, rather than courses. So be careful about what type of learning you want to deliver.

Technical complexities

Most serious developers use a tool that creates core code then cross-compiles to create native apps across a range of platforms. This is not easy as these things are difficult to write but the apps will be fast. A variation is to use a VM (Virtual Machine) which may be a bit slower but gives you control and flexibility. Or, more commonly, they will create web applications as browsers increasingly cope with worldwide standards such as HTML 5, Javascript and CSS 3. So be sure that you understand the means of mobile production as it will affect speed and options.

Content complexity

How complex will your content be? The three letter word ‘app’ covers everything from a simple text feed to complex geo-location, camera integrated applications with serious internal logic, interactivity, games and media manipulation. This is not easy in web apps, so be clear about the exact functionality of the apps you want to deliver. You may end up with some very limited options.

Managing through LMS/VLE

You have to consider whether you want integration with your LMS/VLE such as Moodle, Totara or Blackboard? M-learning isolated from your LMS/VLE may be difficult to justify and participation in the LMS/VLE functionality may be desirable. Do you want SCORM compliance?

Performance portal

Do you want the device to control and record performance in more ‘learn by doing’ or vocational applications? This evidence may need to be fed into an e-portfolio. Do you want to use the camera or GPS as part of the learning experience?

Collaborative learning

Is collaborative learning required? Do you want to integrate social media into your app? Or does the device already do this through their normal phone activity?

Conclusion

Take these seven issues seriously and you’re in a position to make a serious decision about whether you want to enter the m-learning market. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is now happening and would encourage participation. But you have to think context as well as content. Mobile learning may be more suited to some target audiences than others, younger not older, mobile not static, vocational not academic. Go into this with your eyes wide open or mobile will simply mean they take your money and run.

Lectures selling students short: evidence from 'Science'

Academics will go to any length to defend the lecture (see twitter feed on my Don't lecture me! talk). No matter how much evidence there is to show that it is poor pedagogic practice, they resist the change. Even worse are those on the technology side in HE who ignore the arguments. They’re like those creationist scientists who have to reconcile empirical evidence with blind faith. In any case, here’s another study (yawn) that proves the obvious – lectures are selling students short.

Lectures v research-based instruction

In this study ‘Improved Learning in a Large-enrollment Physics Class’ by Deslauriers, Schelew & Wieman, from the University of British Columbia, lectures were compared with research-based instruction. The study was well designed with two large groups (n=267 n=271), one taught using an “experienced, highly-trained instructor” who taught using lectures, the other by a “trained but inexperienced instructor” using research-based instruction, based on cognitive science. Both taught an undergraduate physics course on electromagnetic waves with clearly identified learning objectives.

Higher attention, attendance & attainment

The results were astounding. Not only higher engagement and increased student attendance in the non-lecture group but a massive difference in attainment. To be precise, the ‘lectured’ group scored 41% on the test, the ‘interactive’ group 74%. Pretty strong medicine.

Conclusion

The excuse is HE that ‘we’ve always done it this way’ but if other areas of human endeavour were to take this attitude "in medicine we would still be bloodletting, in physics we would be trying to reach the moon with very large rubber bands" says Wieman. The evidence is overwhelming from Bligh to Mazur – lectures don’t work. So let’s cut to the quick here, we have an entire profession ‘lecturers’ whose job title and practice are deeply flawed. Show me a Professor of Education, especially a Professor of E-learning, who lectures, and I’ll show you a hypocrite who doesn’t read the research.

7 reasons why Facebook is front runner in social media learning

There’s a lot of talk about social media in learning but where’s the action? Well, something’s happening in social media and learning, and Facebook is looking like a front runner. I first noticed this through the work of Millie Watts at Richard Huish College (see previous post) and Dr Ray Blunco sums it up in his Social Media in HE’ blog, when he says that the studies he’s run and participated in show that “students will overwhelmingly use Facebook”. Twitter seems to be used less and therefore less relevant and people don’t normally hang out in formal discussion groups in Ning! This has been reinforced by chats with the Facebook folks, who seem to have some serious plans in this area.

1. Why Facebook? They’re all there.

Interestingly, students argue that they prefer Facebook in learning because they’re already there and it’s easy to use. Almost all students are on Facebook and they’re there all of the time receiving updates all day long, so you can tap into their daily flow and make learning a part of their life, not just a chore through talks, tasks and tests. In fact, many report that they already, informally, use Facebook to ask each other questions, make enquiries about assignments and generally catch –up. So it makes sense to amplify that behaviour.

2. Learning automatically mobile

The fact that students get updates on their mobiles, is of course, an obvious advantage. Learning through Facebook, means for most, automatically engaging in mobile learning. This is a big leap forward, as learners spend a lot of wasted time being on the move – walking to educational institutions, hanging around waiting and so on.

3. Facebook - Groups

Let’s dispel the first myth. You don’t have to be ‘friends’ with your students, or respond to their ‘friend’ requests. You simply become a participant in a separate group. So think Facebook groups (not Facebook pages). A formal Facebook group is a private, closed space where you can share, poll, ask questions, chat, share documents, share images and so on. No one else sees the posts. Of course, you also receive notifications of group updates.

4. Tools (apps)

In addition to the group dynamics, there’s a rack of practical tools learners can use, as they can be interested into Facebook, including: Blogger (do teacher and student blogs), Slideshare (share slides), YouTube (show videos), Flickr (share images), CITEME (citation tool that finds and formats citations absolutely brilliant) and so on. We can also expect to see a rack of apps appearing that will accelerate this process.  ‘Appsfor good’ is a charity that runs courses for students in building apps (check them out). This is relevant, entrepreneurial and way beyond what the normal dull ICT curriculum teaches.

5. Facebook for educators

A useful starting point is ‘Facebook for educators’, a well written introduction which explains the basics. It has a useful list of the 'Ways Educators Can Use Facebook':

Help develop and follow your school’s policy about Facebook. 
 Encourage students to follow Facebook’s guidelines. 
Stay up to date about safety and privacy settings on Facebook.
Promote good citizenship in the digital world. 
Use Facebook’s pages and groups features to communicate with students and parents.
Embrace the digital, social, mobile, and “always-on” learning styles of 21st Century students.
Use Facebook as a professional development resource.


6. Civil use of social media
The bottom line is that world class institutions, like Stanford, have Facebook policies and encourage its use on campus. In any case using Facebook in schools, colleges, Universities and workplaces allows us to get the message across about the safe use of the internet, how to report problems, understand privacy settings, being civil, how to deal with cyberbullying etc. Using Facebook kills two birds with one stone – the medium is the message, so use the medium to teach the safe and sensible message.

7. Facebook as professional development

Devote a portion of your next INSET/training day to setting up a Facebook teachers/lecturers/trainers group to share professional knowledge. Surely there’s no better way to learn about the use of social media in learning than to simply get on and use it!

Lastly a shout for some of the good folk who are working hard to bring you advice, examples and so from the world of social media and learning, like Jane Hart, Jane Bozarth and many others.

Why m-learning changed my life

I’m a mobile learner. In fact, I’d say that of all the learning experiences in my life, m-learning has been the most productive. How so? Learning is a habit (see previous post)and I’ve habitually learnt on the move, largely in what Marc Auge calls ‘non-places’ – trains, planes, automobiles, buses, hotels, airports, stations. I’m never without a book, magazine or mobile device for learning. It’s been boosted recently by my new iPOD 6.0, which is about the size of a watch (indeed it can be worn as a watch) which contains 400+ podcasts. M-learning has become my dominant form of informal learning.

Young people not driving

Isn’t it interesting that, according to the University of Michigan, the number of US 17 year olds with a driving licence has fallen from 69% in 1983 to 50% in 2011? Among the several explanations for this, is the rise of the internet. The explosion of communication through texting, IM, BBM, chat, Facebook and email, has lessened the need for physical contact. Indeed, driving prevents you from being in the flow, as you can’t be online (legally) when you drive. Young people also choose to spend their money on small, electronic shiny devices, like smartphones, rather than large, hugely expensive, shiny, mechanical cars, which they may see as environmentally unsound. On top of this costs have soared, especially for fuel and insurance.

Non-driver

This caught my attention as I’ve never driven a car in my life. Don’t get me wrong it’s been more happenstance than moral stance. I’ve lived in cities such as Edinburgh, London and now Brighton, where a car is just not that useful. I’ve never really been stuck, in terms of getting anywhere, with just two exceptions; when I was a student on a campus University in the US and when I worked in Los Angeles. Other than that, my familiarity with public transport, has got me to some pretty obscure places around the world.

Learning time

By luck this has literally given me years of time to read and learn in the isolated and comfortable surroundings of buses, trains and planes. I actually look forward to travel, as I know I’ll be able to read and think, even write in peace (writing this now on a 6.5 hr flight from Middle East). Being locked away, uninterrupted in a comfortable environment is exactly what I need in terms of attention and reflection. I calculate that over the last 30 years,  of not driving, I’ve given myself about 20 days a year study time, totalling 600 days, so I’m heading towards a couple of years of continuous learning.

Non-places

It was the French anthropologist Marc Auge in his book Non-Places, who pointed out that many of us, especially heavy users of public transport, spend considerable amounts of time in railway stations, airports, hotels and other neutral, non-spaces, in transit to somewhere else. The good news is that these places have become havens for learning. I stock up on books, read in the lounge, browse magazines, buy newspapers, and generally see these places as opportunities for reading and refection. Witness the rise of airport bookshops and the commonplace appearance of a Kindle or laptop on trains and aeroplanes.

Conclusion

If you redefine m-learning, as learning on the move and get away from the idea that it’s just content delivered via mobiles, it becomes an important part of the learning landscape. So buy a Kindle, iPOD, notepad or load up your phone with content. Or stick to books. The important thing is to get into the habit of learning on the move and see non-places as learning spaces.

More pedagogic change in 10 years than last 1000 years – all driven by 10 technology innovations

Pedagogy - one of those words that’s used when people want to sound all academic. So let’s just call it learning practice. Of one thing we can be sure; teaching does not seem to have changed much in the last 100 years. In our Universities, given the stubborn addiction to lectures, it has barely changed in 1000 years. So what’s the real source of pedagogic change?

It’s not education departments who peddle the same old traditional, teacher training courses or train the trainer courses. It’s certainly not schools, colleges and universities which seem to have fossilised practice (to be fair some old practices are sound). It’s certainly not respected pedagogic experts. When they do arise, like Paul Black and Dylan William, they’re largely ignored. Here’s my theory – the primary driver for pedagogic change is something that has changed the behaviours of learners. independently of teachers, teaching and education – the internet. Let me elaborate…..

Suddenly we had Google, then in the last ten years Facebook, Twitter, BBM, MSN Messenger, Wikipedia, YouTube, iTunes, Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox. All of these have had a profound effect on how we learn, through radical shifts in the way we find things out, communicate, collaborate, create, share or play. The internet is a pedagogic engine, changing and shaping the way we learn. In this sense, we’ve had more pedagogic change in the last 10 years than in the last 1000 years – all driven by innovation in technology.

1. Asynchronous – the new default

Education and training have been tied to the tyranny of time and location. Being able to access courses, knowledge and media has been a huge positive flip towards learning where and when you want to learn. Clive Shepherd believes that the new default should be ‘asynchronous learning’ (not realtime) and not the traditional live, face-to-face, synchronous (realtime) classroom course. Only after you’ve exhausted the asynchronous online options should you consider synchronous face-to-face events. What a wonderfully simple idea, a massive pedagogic shift enabled, largely by online technology.

2. Links – free from tyranny of linear learning

The simple hyperlink encourages curiosity and is a leap to more learning. It has allowed us to escape from the linear straightjacket of the lecture or paper bound text (article, report, academic paper, book). It has led to more meaningful learning experiences adding breadth, depth and relevance. Links are a key feature of Wikipedia, online content, articles, reports and huge amounts of posts in social media that finish with a meaningful link. This pedagogic innovation has freed us from the tyranny of linear learning.

3. Search and rescue

Google aren’t kidding when they state their mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. They are well on the way to doing it and while they’re at it, providing educators with the tools, over and above ‘search’ such as Google Docs, Translate, Scholar… the list goes on. They’ve even invested in the Khan Academy. The challenge for every teacher is to ask themselves, ‘Is there anything I’m doing or teaching that can’t be found in Google?’ This pedagogic shift means more independence for learners, less dependence on memorised facts and answers to most questions, 24/7, for free.

4. Wikipedia and death of the expert

Jimmy Wales should get the Nobel Prize. A crowdsourced knowledge base that is bigger, better, easier to use, searchable and in many more languages than any encyclopedia that went before. In addition, it recognises that knowledge has blurred edges, so discussion is available. The 5^th most popular site on the web, everyone uses it – yes everyone. The radical pedagogic shift is not only in the way knowledge is produced but the fact that it’s free, seen as open to discussion and debate, and so damn useful.

5. Facebook and friends

Sarah Bartlett’s study has found that students are keeping Facebook open for collaboration right up to deadline during assignments. Social media is a way of sharing experiences and knowledge with a wide range of friends and weak-tie acquaintances and has changed the way we learn. It allows us to collaborate and access recommended links to learning, as well as learning events in the real world. Being networked means living within a new pedagogic ecosystem.

6. Twitter, texting and posting

There has been a renaissance in reading and writing among young people. They text, BBM, IM, Facebook (primarily a text medium), every day, often many times a day. This is often done even when they have the possibility of voice (mobile) and face-to-face services such as Skype and Facetime, which they often avoid. They are also keenly aware of what channels are archived (text and Facebook) as opposed to discarded (BBM, IM and voice). Far from drifting towards high end media, text is alive and kicking.

7. Youtube – less is more and ‘knowing how’

YouTube has changed the way we use video in learning for ever. The irreversible change is the idea that a piece of video needs to be as long as it needs to be, not an overlong, over-produced mini-TV production. This is why the 1 hour recorded lectures on YouTube EDU and iTunes U seem so damn awful. Why replicate bad pedagogy online? It also proved Nass & Reeves original study was right that high-fidelity video is not essential. YouTube has shown us how to do video, keep it short and that we don’t need big budgets to do good stuff. More importantly, for ‘knowing how’ as opposed to ‘knowing that’, it has proved incredibly powerful.

8. Games

Games have brought the proven sophistication of flight simulation into our homes and shown that failure (abhorred in traditional teaching) is the key to learning. Repetition, reinforcement, deep processing, learn by doing and fine-tuned assessment are all features of gameplay. Games, and console hardware has opened up possibilities for simulations and experiential learning that is already shaping learning in the military and healthcare. The multiplayer dimension is also changing the way we see the pedagogy of collaboration in learning. Gameplay is just another word for sophisticated, experiential pedagogy.

9. Tools

This is not often recognised but the word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tools have effected a considerable change on pedagogy. Word processing has changed, irreversibly, the way we write (reorder, redraft, use reference, citations, spellcheck, grammar check) as well as providing graphics and layout tools. Our digital documents are also replicable and easily sent by email. Spreadsheets have given us the ability, not only to do formula driven work, especially in functional maths useful in business and science, but also driven the easy and flexible representation of data as graphics. Presentation tools have allowed us to present text, graphics, photographs and even video into teaching and learning. Tools, pedagogically, allow us to teach and learn at a much higher level.

10. Open source

Open source in coding led to the idea of open source in tools and knowledge. From MIT Courseware to Project Gutenberg, huge amounts of learning have been made available online, across the globe, for free. Free books alone have opened up the canon in a way we could never have imagined, fuelling the e-book revolution. In this age of digital abundance, open and free content is the democratisation of knowledge. This is truly a digital reformation that has swept aside unnecessary barriers to access. Pedagogy, in this sense, has been freed from institutional teaching.

Conclusion

These are ground breaking shifts in the way we learn. Unfortunately, they’re not matched by the way we teach. The growing gap between teaching practice and learning practice is acute and growing. Institutional teaching, especially in Universities is hanging on to the pedagogic fossil that is the lecture. The word pedagogy has become a hollow appeal for traditional lectures, classroom teaching and summative assessment. The true driver for positive, pedagogic change is the internet.

21st Century Skills are so last century!

The new mantra, the next big thing, among educators who need a serious sounding phrase to rattle around in reports is ‘21^st Century Skills’. I hear it often, almost always in some overlong, text-heavy, Powerpoint presentation at an educational conference, where collaboration, creativity and communication skills are in short supply. Thank god for wifi!

But does this idee fixe bear scrutiny? In a nice piece of work by Stepahnie Otttenheijm, she asked (radical eh?) some youngsters what 21^st C skills they thought they’d need. Not one of the usual suspects came up. They were less vague, much bolder and far more realistic. Rather than these usual suspects and abstract nouns, they wanted to know how to create and maintain a strong digital identity, be nice, recognise what’s learnt outside school, learn how to search use my Facebook privacy settings. My suspicion is that they know far more about this than we adults.

Collaboration & sharing

Young people communicate and collaborate every few minutes – it’s an obsession. They text, MSN, BBM, Myspace, Facebook, Facebook message, Facebook chat and Skype. Note the absence of email and Twitter. Then there’s Spotify, Soundcloud, Flickr, YouTube and Bitorrent to share, tag, upload and download experiences, comments, photographs, video and media. They also collaborate closely in parties when playing games. Never have the young shared so much, so often in so many different ways. Then along comes someone who wants to teach them this so called 21^st C skill, usually in a classroom, where all of this is banned. I’m always amused at this conceit, that we adults, especially in education, think we even have the skills we claim we want to teach. There is no area of human endeavour that is less collaborative than education. Teaching and lecturing are largely lone wolf activities in classrooms. Schools, colleges and Universities share little. Educational professionals are deeply suspicious of anything produced outside of their classroom or their institution. The culture of NIH (Not Invented Here) is endemic. 

Communication

Again, we live in the age of abundant communication. There’s been a renaissance in writing among young people, who have become masters at smart, concise dialogue. The mobile has taken communication to new levels of sophistication. They know what channel to use, in terms of whether it’s archived or not, synchronous or asynchronous. Texts and Facebook comments are archived, some messages are not (voice and; BBM). You call people, synchronously, when you want them to make a decision. Text is asynchronous, therefore slower, more relaxed. They can also handle multiple, open channels at the same time. What do we educators have to offer on this front? Whiteboards?  Some groupwork round a table? Not one single teacher in the school my sons attend has an email address available for parents. I’ve just attended two major European conference where only a handful of the participants used Twitter. What do we know - really?

Problem solving

Problem solving is a complex skill and there are serious techniques that you can learn to problem solve such as breakdown, root-cause analysis etc. I’m not at all convinced that many subject-focussed teachers and lecturers know what these generic techniques are. Problem solving for a maths teacher may be factoring equations of finding a proof but they’re the last people I’d call on to solve anything else in life. Do teachers actually know what generic problem solving is or is it seen as some skill that is acquired through osmosis when a group of kids get together to make a movie?

Creativity

Beware of big, abstract nouns. This one has become a cipher for almost everything and nothing. I have no problem with art and drama departments talking about creativity but why does creativity have to be injected into all education. Creative people tend to struggle somewhat at school where academic subjects and exams brand them as failures. When it comes to creativity, my own view is that the music, drama and other creative skills my own offspring have gained, have mostly been acquired outside of school.

Critical thinking

I have some sympathy with this one, as critical thinking is sometimes well taught in good schools and universities, but it needs high quality teaching and the whole curriculum and system of assessment needs to adjust to this need. However, as Arun has shown, there is evidence that in our Universities, this is not happening. Arun (2011), in a study they tracked a nationally representative sample of more than 2,000 students who entered 24 four-year colleges, showed that Universities were failing badly on the three skills they studied; critical thinking, complex reasoning and communications. This research, along with similar evidence, is laid out in their book Academically Adrift.

Digital literacy

Across the Arab world young people have collaborated on Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to bring down entire regimes. Not one of them has been on a digital literacy course. And, in any case, who are these older teachers who know enough about digital literacy to teach these young people? And how do they teach it – through collaborative, communication on media using social media – NO. By and large this stuff is shunned in schools. We learn digital literacy by doing, largely outside of academe. To be frank, it’s not something they know much about.

Conclusion

Beneath all this, is there just a rather old, top-down, command and control idea – that we know what’s best for them? Isn’t it just the old master-pupil model dressed up in new clothes? In this case, I suspect they know better. There’s a brazen conceit here, that educators know with certainty that these are the chosen skills for the next 100 years. Are we simply fetishising the skills of the current management class? Was there a sudden break between these skills in the last compared to this century? No. What’s changed is the need to understand the wider range of possible communication channels. This comes through mass adoption and practice, not formal school and university. It is an illusion that these skills were ever, or even can be, taught at school. Teachers have enough on their plate without being given this burden. I’ve seen no evidence that teachers have the disposition, or training, to teach these skills. In fact, in universities, I’d argue that smart, highly analytic, research-driven academics tend, in my experience, often to have low skills in these areas. , formal environment is not the answer. Pushing rounded, sophisticated, informal skills into a square, subject-defined environment is not the answer. Surely it’s our schools and universities, not young people, who need to be dragged into the 21^st century.

Learnt to ride a bike from a single sentence in a book!

The Bike, by Robert Penn, is a brilliant paean to the bicycle and it brought back some great memories. Above all it made me think of my late, great, lifelong friend Frank Gormley, who hilariously learnt to ride his bike from a book. He came from a large, poor family in Barrhead (or Barrheid as he would pronounce it) in Scotland and never had a bike as a child. So when he bought one later in life, he couldn’t get the hang of it. Eventually, he went to the library, found a book and learnt to ride from a single sentence, ‘Turn the handlebars in the direction in which you feel yourself falling’. With this one piece of advice off he sailed. In fact, off he sailed, on his own, across Europe and through Turkey. Tragically, he died on his bike, coming off going downhill on his own in northern Spain. I like to think of him enjoying those last moments with the wind in his hair and the warm sunshine on his face. He was always an independent sort of guy, the sort I admire.

Despite the fact that I have fallen off, shattered my wrist and lay in agonising pain waiting for the ambulance, needing a full-anaesthetic operation and titanium plate, I also love cycling.  Like Frank I took to cycling late in life. In this, my 54th year, I’ve cycled the whole Hadrian’s Wall on a sort of ‘Four Men on a Bike Run’ trip, and loved it. Later in the year we cycled down the Danube through vineyards and orchards visiting the castle in which Richard II was held, Baroque monasteries and Vienna. Above all, I love to ride along the sea cliffs of Sussex and in my local woods where for the last two years I’ve seen the seasons change close-up; butterflies in summer, mushrooms in Autumn, snow and ice in Winter and wild flowers in Spring. I’ve even taken the plunge and bought a mountain bike (Andy tedd was the spur for this), and now relish the pleasure that roots, mud and weaving through single path routes in Stanmer Woods can bring.

I’m not a road bike sort of person, none of that lycra and drop handlebars for me. My good friend Ken is such a creature. It’s all sweat, effort and speed for him, on his Harry Quinn frame (rebuilt twice) and Brookes saddle (he’s a traditionalist). I admire this but it’s not for me. I don’t drive and prefer to avoid the manic world of roads, drivers and cars. When my other cycling mate, Ronnie, asked me what improvement I’ve had on my clock times around Stanmer Park, I replied. “Don’t know, as I often stop for a picnic!”

A bike even featured in a quite unusual family affair. My son's bike was stolen by a bare-chested, tattooed thug, who didn't reckon on him, his brother and mother's perseverance. After driving around Brighton for half an hour, in a long-shot attempt to spot the thief, they did. Gil operated a SWAT team swerve, cornered him on the bike  my two boys leapt out recovered the bike, and saw him off (they're both second degree Black Belts in Taekwon Do). As my son said in the article that appeared in The Sun, headlined 'Boys Belt Thief' "My mum;'s quite scary - she's Scottish!"
In any case, whatever your cycling proclivities, gentle rides in the country, hard road riding, mountain biking –especially if you’ve ever had that feeling of being king of the world when in the saddle or that rush when you’re hammering downhill, you’ll love this book.

Penn interleaves the history of the bicycle with personal memories (he’s cycled round the world) and his goal of building his perfect bike, one that will last the rest of his life. For the techies, there’s lots of detail on tubes, spokes, rims, tyres, handlebars and gears. He travels the world, at least the US and Europe, to get the perfect components and meets the people who make them and watches their often hand crafted manufacture.

But the real joy of the book is the sheer pleasure he (and others) get from this simple self-propelled vehicle. There’s nothing like a simple book where the author’s passion for a subject is just overwhelming, especially if it’s a passion you share.

Lessons learnt? It’s never too late to learn, don’t let adversity stop you, teach your kids to stand up for themselves, and (in learning) less is always more (even a single sentence can teach you a new skill). God bless you Frank.