Pig Sty Avenue

If, that is, I can find the DVD anywhere. That's Due soldi di speranza , "Ten Cents Worth of Hope" in the US. Directed by Castellani .

This is a follow up post. The original was blogged nearly 18 months ago , which shows how time flies or, perhaps, how slowly one's schemes proceed. Or something. Since January 2008, we've moved house, and now redecorated and at last put shelves up - just above the big telly. Sky is about to be abandoned in favour of freeview and a DVD collection. So here goes... Looking at that list again , I decided to put 1946 on hold for a while, and move straight onto 1949 and The Third Man, and whilst I was spending, went for 1951, too. Fröken Julie can't be found on Amazon or Play.com, but I got Miracolo a Milano ok.

...when I get the paint washed off my hands, and get some shelves put up, and trim the hedge and mow the lawn and, oh my God! It's a busy life, not working. Corpses have featured in my dreams several times recently. Maybe it's the paint fumes, maybe it's symbolic of renewal. No photography for weeks . Like Newcastle United, earning less and making long term plans.

Authenticity is the new black. See Bachman (1990) p300 et seq. Bachman, L.F. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

My reading for tomorrow morning: Goldberg, A., Russell, M., & Cook, A. (2003). The effect of computers on student writing: A meta-analysis of studies from 1992 to 2002. Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, 2(1).

The concept of parallel forms reliability (Weir, 2004, p25) is essential for the items I'll be using to collect data. So, for example, Item A must not vary too far away from Item B in terms of elicited forms and lexis. If A was "write an email to your friend about your last holiday", say, B should be something like "write an informal article for website about your home town". Thus register and lexis would be mostly overlapping.

"[T]he behaviour domain to be tested must be systematically analysed to make certain that all major aspects are covered by the test items and in the correct proportions"; (Anastasi, p132). In a C&G writing test, can anyone say what is the "behaviour domain to be tested"? Is an item which requires the writing of an email testing the ability to write an email. And if it isn't, what IS it testing? Has anyone actually considered the question of behaviour domain? Anastasi, A. (1988) Psychological Testing (6th Edition) New York. Macmillan.

Much of what Weir (2004) has to say about a priori context validity is relevant (pp 17-21). In the item "Write an Email to your friend/teacher/wtf..." what are we testing, if not the ability to write an email? Is handwriting, speed of handwriting, part of the construct? Is the ability to edit with a keyboard part of it? If we're to be in the domain of every day email writing, then is it reasonable to exclude automated spell and grammar checks? I'm sort of reaching for my Critical Pedagogy hat again here, because of the possibility of established conservative educational opinion that tests should in someway hurt and be difficult, and that spell checks are somehow cheating... Which is interesting of itself, of course. [Is there scope for a CP angle on Testing Theory? Or am I looking around for windmills to tilt at?]

I phoned up the local council, and they're in the process of looking at sites to buy for new allotments. But coincidentally the same day Herself saw a notice in the A&S Herald about vacant plots at West Kilbride. I got the form this morning. It might mean a while on a waiting list, but either way, I'll be getting Ayrshire's earth under my fingernails in the foreseeable future. AND growing vegetables one can actually taste! Woo hoo!

Weir (2004) (as part of an historical introduction) notes that the Cambridge exams marked "a British/European preoccupation with the trait, the what we are testing, as against an American preference for the method, the how of testing. This contrast was to last throughout the 20th Century until the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) Next Generation programme." Weir, C.J. 2004: Language testing and validation: an evidence-based approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Today I blipped Suzanne Vega Small Blue Thing , and that led me on to Tom's Diner , which led to Emotional Weather Report from Tom Waits Night Hawks at the Diner , thence to Dylan and Subterranean Homesick Blues (with its line about the Weatherman, and it also had a lyric about "the day shift", so that took me to a really obscure band called Pg.Lost with a rather good 11 minute track called Day Shift , and I'm well out of my comfort zone now, but I get back in there with Sister Sledge and Lost in Music... , the Deltawave cover, though. I'm going to sack most of the wankers I'm following and find new music through a chain of association in a stream of consciousness. Or something.

Working very slowly because of some kind of flu. Getting a crash course on language-testing & number-crunching from Bachman (2004)[full citation when I don't feel like shit]. Picked up an a by-the-bye ref to Authenticity, (as one of his qualities of usefulness) which I need to look up for the Dissertation (in Bachman & Palmer, 1996 - will need a day in the Strathclyde [?] library quite soon).

An Isolette I came up on A Well Known Auction Site (AWKAS), and it had filters (and a tripod, a timer and a shitty old flash). So I had to get it, just for the filters. It came this morning. The camera it's a very basic model with an Agnar lens, and a Vario shutter with only three settings (B, 1/25, 1/50, and 1/200) - and the shutter seems a bit reluctant to click sometimes. The filters are green, orange, yellow and UV. I just need a red and an infra red for a sufficiency. I'll probably keep the camera as one to go in a coat pocket whenever I'm out with a coat... And the tripod's a cute wee thing, the make is "rainbow": never heard of it; it too would fit into a decent sized pocket, but it goes up to five feet. So that's me sorted. Apart from the two red filters, I'm off AWKAS for a bit. I'm actually going to start taking photos, now that I've amassed enough 1950s hardware to be going on with. Voila.

This thread from I Shoot Shit is something I need to look at... When I get time.

Whilst perusing the latest Agfa Isolettes on That Auction Site (TAS), I came across this - a kind of freebie from the seller: In his book on photography, Dick Boer gives two useful rules for focusing, which I have found invaluable when using a folder. To get both the background and a near object sharp set the focusing to 30 feet (10m) and set the lens to f/8. You will get sharp focus from 18ft (6m) to infinity. This is effective for landscapes, street scenes and buildings. For near subjects set the focusing to 12 ft (4m) and the aperture to f/8. You will get sharp focus from 9 ft (3m) to 20 ft. (7m). This is effective for groups and any close subject more than three paces away. Boer continues: “Drill yourelf thoroughly in these two rule. They will help you enormously. You will take a sharp picture while others are still fumbling with their focusing. Always use f/8.” So, that's a rule of thumb, for what I want to do, of f8, focus at 12', speed according to light. Voila!

For when I get the time...

Agfa Isolette II Solinar 1st Roll 12 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . We're getting there . The outstanding problems are: dust and contrast. I need to build a tiny drying cupboard: say 6x6", and about 4' long, (there's probably a lot of dust in the lobby press where the negs are dried). And I need a red and a yellow filter, that should go a long way to sorting out the muddy look. The X-synch flash setting seems to work well enough with the little National electronic flash , though I need to experiment a bit more with it. Which means I can give up scouring the world for flashbulbs. (I've got 22 - so I can have a bit of fun with a couple of rolls. You can get them relatively cheaply if they come with a flashgun on eBay - but now I've got three flashguns...) There's an Isolette II with an Agnar lens going cheaply on eBay. I don't need another camera but there are filters with it, (and a tripod).

Pig Sty Avenue , originally uploaded by Komrade P. . Stranger in the city.

Woohoo! I've got another Agfa from eBay. It was a bargain because the seller had some trouble with the shutter, and was honest enough to say so. I think it was just that the weird "T" setting at the back of the camera was set. Anyhow, it seems to be working fine. I'll see when I've developed a couple of rolls if the Solinar lens is all it's cracked up to be. It came with a purchase receipt from a camera shop in Norwich dated August 1955. It was more than £25 quid, which I suspect was rather a lot of money back then. It's been in case since then, and looks like it's had little use. There's also a separate wee range finder, which fits into the cold shoe - you line up the images, and a scale to the left tells you the distance in feet. Brilliant. I'm putting the other one, with the Apotar lens and the faulty door, straight back on eBay. Assuming the lens is as good as I'm hoping, that's me sorted for cameras for the foreseeable f...

In asking a learner to write an email with a pen-and-paper, we are affronting the construct validity of the test: what are we testing? The ability to write an email? Or to wield a pencil?

Another blast from the past...

A bit drunk I image googled "ardrossan harbour", and thence came up with this beauty of a photo: the connexion with Ardrossan is a google thing, I suspect. It comes from the Toronto Family History Center , and no doubt many went west. Or, to put it another way...