Remembering Memory

Hilary McDermot, a lecturer in Psychology at the University of Loughborough, gave the AS Level Psychology students a talk on memory and eye witness testimony.  This is the topic that the students have been covering this half term.  The lecture was very interactive and Hilary got the students to contribute what they already knew about memory, which was useful revision.  It's great to remember things about memory, but not so good to forget things about amnesia.

 

There were also some memory experiments during the talk, and an activity on eye witness testimony where students watched a video of a shop being robbed and then had to pair up with someone to do an activity relating to this.  One person was the police officer and the other a witness.  The purpose was to look at the effect of leading questions (and also to see how observant people are!!) The results were fascinating, and shed light on how flimsy eye-witness testimony can actually be sometimes.

Students who attended said that the lecture was very useful and enjoyable.  They also appreciated the opportunity to have a look around the university grounds and sit in a university lecture theatre.  It was great to see lots of students volunteering contributions and answering Hilary’s questions.  We gave a really positive impression of the Sixth Form at Loughborough College.  Overall, a positive experience for everyone!

Black History month

On Thursday 26th September, a group of History and Sociology students went on a trip to the University of Leicester, to hear a speaker on the topic of Immigration and Colonialism. The lecturer was a Human Geography professor, who encouraged students to 'reset the mindset' - ie, rethink about why black people and some other groups are absent from the official history of the UK.

The lecture was an interesting alternative to college lessons, although it was felt by students that college lessons are better than the university lecture was! The lecture was certainly a zany approach to an interesting subject, although there wasn't really enough opportunity to mix with students from other colleges. Still it's good to go on trips to somehwere new, and students enjoyed a little taster of the university experience.

Raspberry Pi Club

Loucoll Raspberry Pi Club

Last Thursday, 3rd October 2013 saw the launch of the Loucoll Raspberry Pi Club.  We took our first bite of the Pi...exploring its components and discussing what we could do with it. We were fortunate enough to have in attendance Sean Sturley, a computing lecturer and owner of three Raspberry Pi. Sean showed us some very interesting websites of Raspberry Pi projects including one where someone is using his Raspberry Pi to control a robot boat that will pilot itself across the Atlantic Ocean! You can read more about this from a BBC News article. Sean has promised to bring in his three Raspberry Pi to our next club meeting.

We are also lucky to have two techies from the IT team, telling us all about their love of Ubuntu and Linux etc. I'm sure their input to the club will be most useful as we embark on projects!

We've set up a website which we hope to have ready soon to keep you posted with our activities. Till then looking forward to having a bigger bite of the Pi this week!