Be Creatively Subversive with Windows 8

Its very often the case in education that we stumble across things by accident. And as educators, we often get to thinking – “hey, I could use that with my classes”. It’s very often not the way the thing we stumble across was meant to be used, but you know, actually, it could work with students in an education setting if we get creative with our thinking.  I guess this is a kind of  creative subversion (a term first used by Debra Myler back in the dim and distant last decade) and if we look at the Windows 8 tiles, a couple of examples jumped out at me recently. I'm sure I'm not the first to have thought about these, so I apologise in advance if I'm about to steal someone’s thunder.

The first is the Bing Health and Fitness tile. If you swipe through this, loads of teaching and learning opportunities jump out at you. There are the workouts for different times and places. Great for PE, obviously, but also for the life sciences as well. I mean why would you have a different work out when you are in a hotel to  the one you might use at your desk or even in bed? There are some fab fitness workout and individual exercise video clips too. Then consider the opportunities for cross curricular project work; the exercise, health and diet tracking tools are a really cool way to engage youngsters with really important health and well-being life skills.There’s shed-loads of useful info about healthy foods, additives and nutrition as well.

Continue swiping and you come to a section

which allows you to explore every part of the human body in 3D,and in incredible detail (some schools and colleges pay big bucks for software which does this – but this app comes free with Windows 8 …  happy days! ) as well as pretty detailed information on some common diseases and medical conditions.

The second example is the Bing Travel tile. Swiping through this opens up the world right in front of your students without having to leave the classroom! Not only do you get a huge list of destinations, but  wonderful 360 degree ‘panoramas’ of the chosen location to explore.

For each destination, you get loads of useful information including up to the minute weather reports, historical information, useful guides and even currency exchange rates. used in conjunction with Bing maps, this is surely a fantastic free resource for schools? Have your class plan trips around the world, compiling their itineraries in One Note workbooks and with more detailed research about each stop on the way like local flora and fauna, customs and traditions, national dress and foods. Plot the changing weather conditions on an Excel spreadsheet and graph the data, working out averages, means and other statistical measures like distance travelled and flight times. What about the cost of the trip,and currency conversion calculations? Get them working on group presentations as slideshows or even movies with narration and soundtracks relevant to each stop along the way. 

I’m pretty sure there are loads more things that could be done with each tile. And I’m pretty sure the developers had more than a sneaking suspicion that their apps would find their respective places in the classroom.

Creative subversion is a term I've liked to use for many years to describe what we do as teachers and educators every day. Here it is with with Microsoft Windows 8 in action! And how many other ways might there be? I'm off now to carry on exploring….

(Images are, of course, from Microsoft’s Bing apps )

Android Apps for Education – have they finally come of age?

I wrote a blog post recently about the three ‘killer apps’ you can find on Apple devices – Garage-band,  iMovie and Book Creator. And yes, its true these are far and away the best of the bunch in terms of creativity apps, pushing iPads ahead in the education tablet market stakes. However, the scene is a fast changing one and Apple will soon be facing an even more determined challenge for education market space from Windows and Android tablet devices, not only with better machines, but also with a new generation of apps for the classroom as well as a rediscovery of some existing ones…

Windows 8 and Android are finally gaining their education spurs. And looking at the Android platform, there are some great apps out there that you can use. So what can we get for our Android tablets that would be really useful in the classroom?

The folks behind the brilliant Book Creator iPad App are apparently working hard on producing an Android version, so I hear. We hopefully won’t have to wait too long for this (and Tablet Academyare about to launch a Windows 8 version called ‘Create Books’ )

Android Studio is a really good movie-making tool. OK, so it doesn't  have the Movie Trailer feature which is such a popular part of Apple’s iMovie, but you can only make so many movie trailers until the novelty wears off and boredom sets in, can’t you? This Android app is really easy to use and great for team project work.

When it comes to Garage-band, there are a few good Android apps out there doing much the same job – we just don’t generally hear about them do we? after all, Garage-Band is so utterly awesome. But Pocket Band,Groove Box and Walk Band do much the same thing on your Android tablet.

Pocket Band in particular has a great community of users offering help and advice  - I think its far and away the leader of the Android pack and you can even try it out for free before you buy by downloading the Pocket Band Lite app….Happy days:-).

Also worth exploring are…

• Simple Note (a note taking app like Apple’s Notes, but with many more export options. Great for use with a class on filed trips or outdoor class sessions).
• Create a Comic (get your students explaining bite sized concepts or parts of their course by creating a comic strip. They’ll love it and it really helps with deep memory retention of whatever it is they are doing).
• Sound Recorder (great for quick-fire observations and useful for recapping learning objectives or for taking home to help with work on essays or projects)
• Science Penguin (loads of great science resources and lesson ideas although the small banner adds between resources can be annoying)
• People (a contacts app which links to GMail,Google+ and hangouts for video calls. I find this app very useful for organising)
• Talk (Another great Google App for instant messaging, and VOIP audio and video calls)
• Quick Office (A productivity suite of tools for documents, spreadsheets and presentations, compatible with Microsoft Office which can be saved or exported to Drop Box, Edmodo, Microsoft One Drive, Google Drive or sent by email).
• Periodic Table (Lots of information, video and quizzes all about the elements. As a science teacher, I always look out for apps like this. 3D Brain and Anatomy Guide are other good science teaching apps)
• There are hundreds of amazing Primary school apps for reading, numbers, spelling, memory,  languages, and science. I’ve like to use many of these with my grandchildren. And they love them too:-)

There are Android apps for almost every iPad app you could mention, if you look for them. And I guess this begs the question, what is it which really determines our choice of tablet, especially for school use? Are we pre-conditioned by what we’ve already seen or heard or is it just the very clever marketing which has positioned the iPad at the top of our mental ‘must-have’ list? A really comprehensive needs assessment is a must before diving in to large scale tablet purchases. This will help you figure out which tablet device (or mix of devices) is the right choice for your school or college. And this could be iPads,Android, Windows 8 or a combination of all three…

Perhaps six months or a year ago, there might have been no real competition for the iPad in education,but I think this has now changed. Android has come of age with some fantastic tablet devices at really competitive prices (just look at the Tesco Hudl) and it’s slew of great education apps is now a match for most if not all of the IOS App store offerings.

So why not go check out the Android options before making purchasing decisions….

Some 'Killer Apps' for Android

I do quite a bit of work with Android tablets with Tablet Academy. One of the issues with Android, lets be honest, is that they are forever being compared with iPads. Perhaps this is inescapable as the iPad is held up as the 'Gold Standard' of tablet devices, however, Android is catching up fast.

I came across this blog post recently. It lists 101 great Android Apps for Education. have a look....you might be pleasantly surprised...

Where are the killer apps?

If, like me, you are an Apple fan who works with both Android and Windows 8 platforms as well, you often find yourself in the comparison game. Its not a good place to be. I'm a firm believer in making EdTech choices based on need (see my last blog post for more on this) and so I have no problem working across all three major mobile operating systems. I've worked with both Apple and Microsoft and I'm really impressed with what they both have to offer and with their commitment to education, be it through the Apple Professional Development programme or Microsoft's Partners in learning and Excellent Educators.
I've also done a bit or work with a fantastic Android device supplier and know that Android is catching up fast.

If I'm honest though, my iPad mini is the best piece of tech I've ever actually owned. For me personally, it does everything I need a mobile device to do. Thats not to say that other devices don't have their own places or niches. There are some great Android functions and apps and Windows 8 devices have this interoperability with desktop machines that is a real advantage for those who are a bit less tech savvy than others - its the simplicity and familiarity factors coming into play.

But in education, the Apple IOS offering is still ahead of the game when it comes to apps. The killer three really set the iPad apart from the competition. BookCreator, iMovie and GarageBand are the killer three when it comes to schools. The creativity goes through the roof when kids are set free to work on these apps and its a wonderful thing to see. My good friends at Apple in the UK have introduced me to some incredible individuals and schools who are making fantastic use of these three apps.

Android and Windows 8 are pushing Apple all the way for market share in education tablet device use. To me,what they really need to work on are the killer apps. Where are the Android and Windows 'killer' three to take on the Apple triumvirate? get this one cracked and we could see the battle for market share really hotting up

Tablet Devices - A Real 'Disruption'?

Here is an article which appeared recently on the website of Tablet Academy in Europe. The piece is interesting because it posits the view that mobile devices are the biggest disruptive influence to traditional models of education since the arrival of the internet.

This is a pretty big claim to make; after all, the internet completely changed the learning landscape and drove a coach and horses through the schooling model which had existed for over a hundred years. The one where the teacher was the most knowledgeable person in the classroom (it's now Wikipedia which can make that claim I guess).

The term, 'Disruptive Technology' was one coined by Clayten Christensen a few years ago to describe technology which disrupts the existing technology by doing things in new ways rather than by trying to replace the existing tech. If we widen out the paradigm, we can apply it to almost any new innovation which comes up against an existing or traditional model. Thus,we arrive at the appearance of tablet devices in education. It's arguable weather they are a true disruption, however, when used *as* a disruptive tool, they do have the power to drive real lasting transformation. The SAMR model, despite recent criticism, demonstrates how this might be so.

Tablet devices, with the iPad in the vanguard, have driven transformation in education. The on-line discussions, and increased interest in technology-driven school improvement from educators is evidence of this mind-shift. Schools,colleges and universities the world over are now adopting technologies for learning and the tablet revolution has contributed hugely to this.

When considering tablet roll-outs or BYOT (bring your own technology) schemes, it is important to do some research and take advice. Unrepresentative schemes involving very small numbers of devices making claims to be the first of this that or the other are generally best avoided, however there is plenty of good case study evidence out there, and plenty of folks who are able to offer advice.

Which platform to chose for your particular roll out is also important. You will probably get quite a one sided view from folks who have only been involved with one particular platform, whereas a more objective point of view might be obtained from someone with experience of all three major operating systems and device types. Contrary to what you might hear, iPads are not the 'gold standard' of tablet devices. Many organisations will be far better served by Android or Windows 8 devices. What is important is your individual need. Our tablet Academy Africa Windows 8 courses are proving more and more popular with many users who have preferred the tablet devices running on this platform for reasons of familiarity and inter-operability and informed sources reckon that Windows 8 devices will push Apple all the way for market share dominance over the coming months across Africa and the Middle East. Android devices, with their excellent Apps for Education from the Google Play Store make great choices, particularly where budget is an issue (although the higher end Android devices are superb).

I've been doing lots of work with Android apps recently, and they are closing the gap, and in some instances, overtaking iPad apps in terms of their use in learning and teaching. Windows devices give the benefit of both apps and web-based use with their ability to flip from app screen to traditional desktop view for more powerful functionality ( the Microsoft Office Web Apps are a great example of this).

And so when people say things like... Its not about the tech, its about the teaching  they are really quite wrong, in my view. Because the tech, and more importantly, the platform are the drivers of the shift to a much more self-organised learning experience which students relate to in this day and age (as opposed to the more traditional didactic model). All three platforms will play their own parts in this culture shift but the choice you make will be better served by being well informed before you make the shift and spend your bucks.

The Web 3.0 world of interactive creative mash-ups is pushing Web 2.0 out of the picture by using tools which are culturally relevant to today's learners (and that includes all of us, actually). Tablet devices and smart phones are pushing this web 3.0 world and with it, the Internet of Things increasingly centre-stage. Education can ride this change if we can dare to dare...and make informed choices.

Leading from the middle?

So do we still need teachers in this age of heutagogy? What are the necessary checks and balances, if any, to the notion of knowledge grazing?  Sugata Mitra takes it to the extreme  with his notion of the hole in the wall computer and self organised learning environments  but is this the way education is  going or is it more a case of a journey with many different  potential routes and destinations? Will there even be a final destination (in the form of an  exam or exams) in this age of lifelong learning where learning 'bites' can be rewarded with  badges evidencing achievement.

 Well, I believe we still do need teachers, because society is by its nature a structural paradigm and one   of the structures underpinning society is this concept of  'getting an education'. We rightly value        education in present day society just as much as we ever did. It is seen as the way out of poverty in the  developing world, it is valued as a prize to be achieved. Ask most people how they obtain a better job  or status in society and they'll tell you that doing well at school is possibly the biggest single factor  leading to such an elevation in status.  But is it still school that can deliver this? Two particular current authors of books about education certainly doubt this. Guy Claxton asks the question, what's the point  of school?  And Clayten Christensen posits the disruptive technology paradigm, so might the more  self directed heutagogical alternative to traditional schooling be a sort of 'disruptive technology' to    traditional schooling?

The glue which might stick all of this together for me is formative assessment. One of the biggest influences on teachers of my generation was Dylan William and Paul Black's work on formative assessment and the concept of Assessment for Learning, because it reminds us what great teachers can achieve, not by transmitting knowledge (of which they are not even the gatekeepers anymore) or by drilling facts into memory, or even to its most radical extent, pointing or signposting the way to set 'versions' of knowledge, but by directing the learner towards a path of self fulfilment and lifelong continuous achievement.

Society does need teachers and it perhaps needs to realign the concept of education to better fit an evolving understanding of the value of learning as an adjunct to development rather than the be all and end all. The days of passing exams to get through stages in education are probably coming to an end, at least in compulsory schooling. But what, if anything, do we replace them with?

Pasi Sahlberg, in his book, Finnish Lessons, might just point the way. In his re telling of  the story behind the success of the Finnish education system in recent years, he makes a  number of important points, but most of them can be traced back to societal shift. This,  when added to a realignment of the national structures governing education has driven  forward an agenda of huge improvement in the education (measured, it has to be said by  testing achievement in a way which is most un-Finnish: the standardised test). Trusting  teachers to assess rather than transmit knowledge has been a big driving force behind  this change. I saw this when I visited the country some years back, a focus on  continuous formative assessment forming the basis of almost every interaction between teacher and student. The professional status of the teacher in their society is high. There is much societal capital in being a teacher. It automatically conjures up the image of a highly educated child centred person in the mind of most Finns. It is something to aspire to being in the same way that being a doctor or lawyer does. The Finnish teacher education programme is built on the twin pillars of high academic achievement (masters level degree followed by excellent teacher training) and career long CPD

But it's rather more than just having excellent qualifications and top notch training. The system is free from external 'brakes' to slow down learning. Such things as external inspection and examinations are a thing of the past, replaced by trust and a willingness to keep faith with this excellent foundation of good people well educated and trained for their job. . The Finns have built in agency to their system as well as capacity, in that it is continually generating improvement due to the structures in place and the recognition of its importance to the success of their country in the world.

Assessment is why we need teachers. Not examinations, or even summative assessment, but assessment for learning. We need assessment to define the route map which can be followed so that kids can direct their learning toward their goals in life. We need teachers to question them on what it is they have learned, and how well they understand it directing them back and forth through their knowledge grazing journey. Teachers are needed to help them self assess their progress, and to help them reorient where necessary, not to tell them what to learn but to show them where to go on their journey through knowledge acquisition, and more importantly, skills acquisition.

It is generally recognised that there does need to be a curriculum of sorts I believe. Children do need to be literate and numerate and more than this, to be able to recognise that learning does need to have a direction, or set if goals if it is to lead to college, training, jobs or university based careers and professions. So there is still a place for school but not perhaps as we know it, for the Finnish lesson has been the disruptive paradigm pushing a change agenda.

Formative assessment might be the disruptive paradigm to traditional instructional models of schooling, and so this traditional model of schooling should be replaced by something more akin to real education. Badges are the disruptive paradigm to examination and summative assessment.

Good formative assessment signposts the way towards valuable achievement and attainment. Good teachers recognise that this is their skill-set and their evolving role. They can direct knowledge grazing toward fresh pastures without reining it in and keeping it in exhausted fields. This type of teaching encourages skills acquisition rather than knowledge transfer which is a redundant concept in this Information Age. Those pictures of Aristotle standing holding forth to a group of enraptured students are not what school is about. Perhaps having Aristotle sitting amongst the students subtly influencing the direction of their discussions is more apt if we are to transpose the image onto a more modern day vista.

Leading from the middle perhaps?

BYOD and 1:1

There's been a lot of nonsense about mobile device provision in schools talked in recent weeks. The South African Heads of Independent Schools Association  conference held recently appeared to have a very one sided exposure to this debate. Here is my take on this issue, gleaned from many years of working with both 1:1 provision of netbooks and tablet devices, as well as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) following wifi provision in schools. I think it is necessary to have this experience of both forms of device provision before forming an opinion. I have, and my view is that there has to be a 'meld' between the two.

The fact is that funding and rolling out 1:1 provision of one particular device is very easy in a very small school where there might only be a hundred or so kids, as is the management of the devices,  however, I've worked with schools where just one year group had double that number and it is this 'scalability' factor which appears to have been ignored in the conversations about 1:1 roll outs. Also, device suitability will almost certainly change with age. Whilst iPads and iPad Minis's might well be fine for younger kids, older pupils might prefer the familiarity of the Windows 8 mobile platform with its Office productivity suite. This means that a variety of devices might well be used in a school of over 1000 students. Android is making inroads into education territory previously inhabited solely by Apple. Some of the comments on Twitter I read about homogeneity being the most suitable approach to mobile device provision were quite concerning when made without the experience to backup that particular paradigm. We limit ourselves to one particular platform or device type at our peril....in my experience.
Tablet Academy Africa, launching in January next year will be completely platform agnostic, with advice given to schools on the various possibilities open to them across all platforms and devices.

And as to BYOD, this is in fact, already the reality in many schools particularly with the increasing ownership of smartphones and tablets by students. We would be foolish not to use this computing power in education. Yes, it does throw up issues of teacher workload (planning may well be more detailed) but also brings the advantage of using students as digital leaders in the classroom, which takes much of the responsibility away from the teacher over use of the technology. The wider psycho-pedagogical issues around teachers giving up 'control' in the classroom also swirl around BYOD, but as the prevalent reality, we must grasp this and run with it. Unless schools provide the same facilities as nearly every other place our students encounter in their daily lives,they will continue to mark themselves out as increasingly irrelevant to education,which is becoming increasingly informal. Wifi is becoming as essential to education in this century as textbooks were in the last.

 It comes to something when you can use your mobile device in the Mug and Bean but not in your school...

Microsoft Surface Pro - a serious player for the education market?

I've been working on my new Microsoft Surface pro this past couple of weeks. It's certainly been an experience, and a steep learning curve. I've spent the past five years completely reliant on Apple products, including the incredible iPad and iPad mini's. I had to get used to different screen swipes at first as the instinctive reaction is to use the iPad movements which have become almost like a form of automatic processing.  And this machine is starting to grow on me. The windows 8.1 platform is pretty cool, and of course, all the Office productivity apps which are included make using documents, spreadsheets and presentations across my Windows machines pretty seamless.

The Tablet it'self has a USB port, amongst the others, which is incredibly useful for printing and connecting other devices, if thats what you need to do. Whilst this might appear to be an advantage, the increasing use of the cloud and wifi for printing might soon make this superfluous? The keyboard is useful too and provides a useful cover for the screen when not in use.  Magnetic attachments for this keyboard and the charger are pretty cool too...

It's been said that the Windows App Store is the big let down for this tablet platform,but the range is increasing all the time. Might this soon erode the dominance of the Apple App store?  who can tell. But with Microsoft making a version of this tablet available for an incredibly low price, it certainly becomes an attractive alternative to the iPad particularly as Microsoft Office still dominates. The rest of the public sector might also consider this Tab a serious player too, on the same basis. Schools,provinces and districts using the Microsoft 365 for Education will also no doubt find this tablet a worthwhile alternative to consider. It is pretty chunky compared to the more stylish iPad, but in the mass market public sector, do looks really matter that much?

I'm going to continue working on mine. This doesn't mean I've abandoned Apple and my iPad - far from it.personally, I still think Apple have the education market dominance,particularly with their quite brilliant support and apps such as iTunesU, Garageband , and iMovie. And making the iLife suite available free from September 18th is a very canny move which will further cement their number one position at the moment.

...But the competitors, like this Surface pro and Samsung are determined to chase them hard all the way, and if I was Tim Cook, I'd be looking over my shoulder for sure. 

 All in all, good competition for the tablet market will be good for education too.

So when will Microsoft be making it available in Africa?

Here's an interesting article link  to some more information about using the Surface tablet.

  Unlock your Surface RT tablet’s hidden superpowers.

Paperight and Riso Africa empower schools to print their own textbooks??

I don't believe that this is empowerment at all. Having sat though the awful sales pitch from RISO at the African Education Week Conference in June, we now see an attempt to embed the practice of photocopying into schools in a way which just promulgates the status quo and becomes a barrier to the digital revolution. Just like I said in my post about the conference sessions.

Why not use the costs associated with this outdated technology to fund mobile technology. It doesn't need to be big 1:1 schemes, but anything which prevents this type of situation and breaks the text-book cycle and indeed, the reliance on printed materials has to be progress.

Paperight and Riso Africa empower schools to print their own textbooks | The Paperight Blog

Disruption: Silicon Valley's Worst Buzzword

Is this really becoming one of those overused buzzwords in education?  I've always been a big fan of Clayton Christensen's book and his concept of disruptive technology because it made absolute sense to me. To be honest, I don't think I'm ready to let go just yet...especially as we are in the midst of a seismic disruption in education. This of course is the mobile devices revolution which is causing disruption to so many entrenched practices which truly should have been left behind in the twentieth century.

What do you think? Is it another candidate for the education buzzword bingo card?

Disruption: Silicon Valley's Worst Buzzword | New Republic

HMV Twitter fail offers lessons in corporate communications

This story, about the demise of one of the UK's most iconic high street shopping brands is a perfect example of what can go wrong with a brand on social media. Brand reputation is increasingly becoming such an important strand of the customer service/relations part of any business in this day and age of the online presence. It's incredibly important to protect your business reputation and you should consider expert advice on how to do this on the social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare and Yelp,as well as consumer forums such as Hello Peter and Complaint's Board.

HMV Twitter fail offers lessons in corporate comms | Opinion | Marketing Week

Nomsindo - We Create Conversations... for your brand.

Blood on the Rooftops...

Let’s skip the news boy (I’ll go and make some tea)
Arabs and Jews boy (too much for me)
They get me confused boy (puts me off to sleep)
And the thing I hate, oh Lord!
Is staying up late, to watch some debate, on some nation’s fate

There’s been a lot of debate about what should be shown on television recently. The tragic murder of a soldier near his barracks in London earlier this year,as well as the Marikana mine shootings has brought this sharply into focus. With the advent of twenty four hour news channels and the hundreds of choices we now have, its easy to forget that not so long ago when I was growing up,we only had three tv channels. But would they have stopped whatever was showing to give a continuous commentary on the tragic events of this week? Maybe. After all, the Iranian Embassy siege and the subsequent SAS rescue was shown live and I remember as a child being rather annoyed at the interruption to whatever it was I was watching at the time.

So do we live our lives through television? Has the cult of celebrity and social media interactivity led us to live in some international ‘real time’ where our lives are dominated not by what we do or who we are, but by other influences reaching us by cable,wifi and satellite?

I was reminded of this by the lyrics from the Genesis song, ‘Blood on the Rooftops’. From my favourite Genesis album, Wind and Wuthering (and I love the reference in the lyrics to another favourite of mine, Lindisfarne’s  Fog on the Tyne) Its about a couple whose lives are dominated by the television of their day. Written by Phil Collins, they refer to a “typical” middle-aged couple that have very little else to do with their lives than to watch TV, and complain about the content. The various references to TV programmes show how the escapism of fantasy and fiction impact so deeply on their lives that they have real problems distinguishing between that escapism and the grim events of the real world. What would they have made of the TV footage shown repeatedly, of the young soldier’s murder I wonder?

Were the news channels right to show the tragic and gruesome footage over and over again? It’s certainly available on demand on the internet, but many will now be asking the question, should it be? The middle aged couple who seem to be narrating the story in the song don’t appear to like the serious stuff, all that blood on the rooftops is too much for them. They would be horrified with the twenty four  hour news channels today.

I think we've crossed the Rubicon myself. Our lives are made up of a pastiche of soundbites from multimedia sources, and in fact, its changed the way we view most aspects of our lives. I suppose we must also accept that for all the benefits this brings, there will be some potentially big negatives too and maybe recent events in London, and perhaps the shootings of the striking South African miners last year (also shown repeatedly on TV) are examples of this which certainly make some hanker for the simpler way of life from days gone past. But as the Genesis song perhaps illustrates the problem of living our lives through the media may always have been with us, in some shape or other…

Dark and grey, an English film, the Wednesday play
We always watch the Queen on Christmas Day
Won’t you stay?

Though your eyes see shipwrecked sailors you’re still dry
The outlook’s fine though Wales might have some rain
Saved again.

Let’s skip the news boy (I’ll go and make some tea)
Arabs and Jews boy (too much for me)
They get me confused boy (puts me off to sleep)
And the thing I hate, oh Lord!
Is staying up late, to watch some debate, on some nation’s fate.

Hypnotized by Batman, Tarzan, still surprised!
You’ve won the West in time to be our guest
Name your prize!

Drop of wine, a glass of beer dear what’s the time?
The grime on the Tyne is mine all mine all mine
Five past nine.

Blood on the rooftops, Venice in the spring
The Streets of San Francisco, a word from Peking
The trouble was started, by a young Errol Flynn
Better in my day, oh Lord!
For when we got bored, we’d have a world war, happy but poor
So let’s skip the news boy (I’ll go and make some tea)
Blood on the rooftops (too much for me)
When old Mother Goose stops, and they’re out for twenty three
Then the rain at Lords stopped play
Seems Helen of Troy has found a new face again.

“Blood on the Rooftops” as written by Phil Collins and Steve Hackett