Gillian Thomas
Founder, Telling research
Gillian Thomas is a fully trained qualitative specialist with over seven years experience in one-to-one interviewing, focus group facilitation and ethnographic fieldwork. She is experienced in a wide range of innovative research methods including in-home ethnographic studies and large public engagement events.
- Happy Birthday Congestion Charge It was the first anniversary of London's congestion charge yesterday. Doesn't time fly. Apparantly 75% of Londoners support the measure.A linked thought is about an advertising campaign from taxi-drivers assocation LTDA. I caught sight of recently on a billboard outside the Eurostar terminal. I don't know if any other Demosites saw it when walking into the office. But it was a picture of the pedicabs that are a common sight in the West End, with a caption saying something like "Do we want... continue reading on 18th February 2004 Comments (1)
- Puddle I perhaps should say something about community activism through the medium of digital video.But really I just think that there is something heart warming about the puddle video that appears on the pensioners section of the Southwark TV site which is accessible here continue reading on 3rd February 2004
- Wind Up Wonder What about that new windmill by the Thames then! I was so cheered to see it whizzing round the other day when I was down by the riverbank - and I had no idea it was going to go up. It's weird how things just spring up overnight in London. I have been reeling from the Country Life poll which listed windfarms as the worst eyesore in the UK. (see also demos blog November 13), but its good enough for the super cool south bank. Style leadership right outside our window. continue reading on 2nd December 2003 Comments (2)
- Hedonism no more Young people are getting older sooner, according to the Henley centre. A recent survey from them showed old heads on young shoulders. 50% of the 16-24s surveyed feel at risk from losing a job, and around 30% are concerned about having either no money or no carers in their old age.Are the young unable to live for the moment? How does this tally with the government concern with binge drinking and drug taking amongst the young? continue reading on 7th November 2003 Comments (3)
- Tug of love and money The government seems to be moving towards favouring funding early years, though of course lots of funding goes into programmes for older children, such as Connexions. The positions that seemed to be emerging from various participants in response to this either/or choice can be crudely summarised as below:More money all round (but saying this for years, and not completely realistic)In the short term focus on teenagers, but move to early years in the longer termFocus on teenage mothers which... continue reading on 2nd September 2003
- Nano-marketing Apparently nano is not just a new technology, but also the latest buzz word for marketing all sorts of goods and services.One of these is the 'nano-bag' to put babies in (?!), but there has been an explosion of others too.Read more here continue reading on 12th August 2003 Comments (2)
- Teachers need teaching too Isn't it funny that teachers spend all day, every day in a learning establishment, but get very little time to learn themselves? This article (registration required - but easy!) argues that "we cannot expect teachers to create a vigorous community of learners among students if they have no parallel community to nourish themselves". The authors describe learning schemes that enable teachers to learn more about pedagogy as well as their subject areas. continue reading on 14th May 2003
- From astrology to algebra Demos are involved in a pilot study in schools of a online portal which gives teachers access to interactive online materials from a variety of free and commercial providers. In case you couldn't work out how the test worked, the clue is that the symbols changes each time. To find out how the sum works, it is possible to use algebra.(10x + y) - (x + y) = Z10x + y - x - y = Z9x = THE ANSWER!So the symbols for multiples of nine will all be the same.Fun exercises like this have the potential to... continue reading on 27th March 2003
- Quiet kids According to this article in the Guardian (click here to read), children are not learning to talk as early as they used to. The usual culprits of 'too much television' and 'too busy parents' are blamed.But how much is this really the case? Might other factors, such as smaller family size, or more transient carer relationships also play a part? And is it really true that children are talking later. Might it also be that expectations of their performance in schools is higher, or even that... continue reading on 7th March 2003 Comments (1)
- Beautiful schools check out the schoolworks game which guides kids round a virtual school, helping them to improve things along the way. continue reading on 28th February 2003
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