Hello and welcome to this episode of the Teacher Toolkit podcast and on this episode I am absolutely privileged to be hosting Joe Dale, obviously I'm Libby Isaac, hopefully you know me by now and we're going to have a really great chat.  Okay well first of all thanks ever so much Libby for this opportunity of coming onto the podcast. I'm a big big fan of podcasts and it's always a privilege and lovely to have a chat with a fellow podcaster so thank you so much for the opportunity. So to start off with for those people that don't know me I'm a former languages teacher I taught secondary school level for three years and then 10 years at middle school level on the art of white which is where I'm living right now and I've lived here for over 20 years now for the last 12 years or so I've been an independent consultant focusing on or the bread and butter what I do is working with language teachers but I'm also doing more and more cross-curricular work so I've been all over the world been to places like Australia, New Zealand, North America, the Middle East, South America, all over Europe before Brexit of course and since the start of the pandemic I've been working incredibly hard doing lots of webinars as well as a whole set of free webinars for the Association for Language Learning known as the tilt webinars tilt standing for technology language teaching and we've done over 140 of those all completely available for free on my YouTube channel and also on the ABL London website and for a fact that maybe people that know about me my first podcast was back in 2006 so I'm very much an early adopter and over the years I sort of fallen in and out of love with podcasting but I'm definitely going through another renaissance at the moment and that's why I've got this really lovely microphone here which is an ATR 2100X dynamic microphone and I should sound really cool even I get right up close to it like this and I sound almost like a DJ like that there we are. Well hey you'll have to give me some tips so obviously we didn't record this but when me and Joe came on the chapters now we did compare our mics so it's definitely something that he's very proud of and absolutely right as well. Can you tell me a little bit about what inspired you to be a teacher in the first place because obviously this is for all the teachers out there? Of course yeah so I was inspired well essentially my background is my mum my dad are both teachers, some of my brothers are teachers as well so I'm very much coming from a teaching background and at school languages were just something that I was good at as well as maths and so I just went with what I was good at and then as a result of that once I'd done my degree and I also had straight after my degree I had two years in French speaking Canada in Quebec where I was like a language assistant because I wanted to get a bit of experience of what it would be like to have some sort of sort of classroom experience and also I had a year in Montpellier as well as part of my degree to get my speaking French up to scratch and I just sort of fell into it really so first of all I was thinking about being a Teffel teacher and then having had the two years in Canada I then came back and I thought I would do a PGCE I also did a Teffel certificate as well in Canterbury directly after coming back from Canada and then I did a PGCE in Bangor in North Wales and then once I'd done that and I'd had some my two teaching practices I realised that actually I didn't want to be a Teffel teacher I wanted to be a French teacher instead and just went from there really. You're a bit like the ying to my yang so I am absolutely not very good at languages, never helping or maths actually so I'm more of a historian, stroke humanities, English although not very good at spelling that as my mother would tell you but my so my my sister's teacher, my brother-in-law's teacher, my nan was a teacher, we all teach history but my my father-in-law was a language specialist and he was an MFL teacher and he actually he spoke 12 Baltic languages sadly the last way now but he he was in the Cold War because he could speak so many of those languages so um so this is for him as well I'm sure he'd absolutely love to have spoken to you about everything to do with MFL so it's definitely in my family. So as we're talking about MFL I work in the secondary sector so I have been ahead of school and uh like I'm not ahead of school anymore so I've got a really young family and I've got other things to sort of focus on but one of the things that really struck me within that role was we just couldn't recruit well we found it very difficult to recruit for MFL teachers um can you just talk to us a little bit about that especially as we've got Brexit and we've just had the pandemic as well so can you just sort of tell me your sort of insights into that as well that'd be really interesting. Yeah sure I mean I think um unfortunately certainly the national press for many many years has been lots of negative stories around languages and I think that one of the things that I'm particularly proud of uh if not the thing I'm most proud of is um helping to nurture and create the um the the MFL Twitter art in the social media community of language teachers um from from the UK and from um from around the world and the way in which the hashtag has um bought a lot of positivity into the world um for many many years and certainly particularly because of the pandemic the way in which people have come together even more and shared even more and the way in which um for those the tilt webinars that I talked about the the fact that we had all that that feeling of solidarity of all being together say a hundred people all watching webinar at the same time uh and and sharing ideas so to me that's a real success story and uh a silver lining if you like around the pandemic the way in which because all these networks um had been um there for many many many years um the the early adopters getting into Twitter years and years ago and establishing these communities and so obviously with the language one in particular um to me it's it was a it has been a massive boon the fact that we had those communities established already and so that we were able to help everybody straight off the bat and so um I think that's been a really really positive news story uh and in relation to obviously things like Brexit then that will have an effect on the attitudes of young people I think um in fact there was um um an article this week um in the um uh the independent I think it was around the influence of parents attitudes towards languages for their children and any language teacher you know knows that already and unfortunately at parents evenings and things like that you'll hear parents saying all I was never good at languages at school therefore you know why should my son or daughter try at languages um but but teachers in general are very resilient people I think language teachers in particular very resilient and they'll just um come back with something positive and and and continue to promote the value of languages for all different reasons for for cultural reasons for cognitive reasons of um being able to uh uh to to wade off um Alzheimer's supposedly by five years if you if you're a linguist that those sorts of important things like that which I'm sure that um a standard teenager would take on board um as well as uh you know the opportunity to travel now that things are opening up a little bit more um but yeah in the last few years in particular there's been a lot of negative stories around languages but I think that it as long as we keep hitting everybody with positivity then that's all we can do um so in relation to a recruitment um yeah absolutely that's that's been uh the case for a long time now I think that you know language teachers are um are in demand or are scarce being in lots of ways my understanding is when there are there are um jobs advertised for language teachers that there are lots and lots of people who apply as long as it's you know it's a good school of course in other situations my understanding is say for roles of heads of department and and other such uh or maybe director of languages sometimes um it's very difficult to find people to apply I suppose that's the nature of the school in lots of ways so so yeah but I think the most important thing is that we all we all act together we all support each other we're all positive about languages and that's the way forward and then you know forget about all the negative stories it can drive a school if you think about sort of the the culture behind what a school is and and what languages can bring it I it can be at the centre of that and I I've seen amazing things inside MFL classrooms because one of my roles probably should go into classrooms and like some of the things that language teachers do is I'm just like wow like you know they get them repeating things they get them doing songs like you know you get some of the most tricky classes in the whole of the school and they are just absolutely fantastic in an MFL lesson and that's the constant retrieval concert it's just the way you teach and I think I think it's it can be complete magic and you know when we're trying to recruit for them I still really come on like because languages is such an important part of I think session week education and I've always worked in schools you know around sort of deprived areas I suppose or a very mixed match within you know mixed ability like huge range within mixed ability and I think it's more important than ever to you know get them sat round that table if they wanted to with the local private school in 10 years time and to hold a conversation of their own and I think languages holds the key to that or the culture behind it holds the key to that as well so I am a huge advocate. Yeah that's really good to hear because I think in some schools unfortunately the senior leadership team aren't necessarily positive about languages or can actually that this these are stories that I hear on Twitter you know a vocal about saying say in front of a class or I was never good at languages at school etc etc so or sometimes subconsciously think they can give that impression and also a lot of teachers talk about when it comes to the choices they make in year nine about sometimes languages are put up against other subjects so that it actually it's very difficult unless you really really want to do a language then you'll have to then sacrifice something else which maybe you'd want to do instead so I think yeah lots of things are stacked against language teachers but as I said already I think language teachers have worked really really hard and are very motivating and they have to be because they have to keep the students engaged they have to try and teach the lesson as much as possible through the target language and I think they're wonderful but I would say that would matter of course but I also think they're wonderful so in your opinion what what makes or what are the fundamental components for a really effective MFL lesson in your opinion if you had to so I asked her a question you know to Tom Sherrington about this before I've asked it so lots of different people we've done a podcast and you know it really puts you on the spot but if you had to for MFL because if we've got MFL teachers you know listening in and things obviously you're a huge specialist that'd be really good for them to find out and I also told a lot of the MFL teachers that I was doing this podcast now like oh my god ask him ask him okay so yeah if you had to say four or five things what for you makes a really highly effective or just effective MFL lesson okay well I think the first and foremost the most important thing not just for MFL but teaching in general is having a good relationship with the class so you know personal relationships I think is absolutely key you could be the best teacher in the world or be as organised as you know as the best organised teacher in the world but if you haven't got that relationship that rapport with your class and you haven't established a positive learning environment whereby the children feel you know loved or cared for or that you that you have their interests at heart I think that is the most important thing once you've got that established and that's not necessarily easy to do that particularly with challenging classes but once you've got that established then I think well personally I think pace is important to have a good pace as long as you keep the students with you of course at all times I think as much as possible to try and depending on the length of the lesson to try and do at least three out of the four skills maybe even all four skills depending on yeah if it's say an hour lesson then you could try and do all four skills but the most important thing is that you don't sort of just rush through things that you you do things with pace to keep people engaged but you make sure that each activity that you do with them that you know it's nice and meaty that it's it's differentiated that you I would say this of course that use technology sparingly when it's appropriate when it's purposeful when it's effective. Encourage the students to record themselves for say audio or video I think that's a that's a fantastic thing in general to encourage them to produce multimedia in the in the lessons from time to time and to occasionally to to veer away from the textbook I think that's important as well I'm a big fan of textbooks but I also think that it's really cool to be able to plan your own or create your own resources to to try and find things that you know that your class are interested in so you have that sort of personal touch so that if you if you know that for example lots of your class are like a particular football team or like a particular musician then try and get the language to hang around onto onto you know these personalities so things like you know having a picture of someone with a speech bubble but in the target language so making a photo story about about a character so the kids will then feel I think that um you're making it relevant for them you know your your um I know a bit of cool or the fact that the fact that that because it's I don't mean I it's not all about you know edutainment or anything like that but I think that I think that the relationships that you have with the students however you um you nurture those is it's the most important thing and if you get that relationship right then you can do most things I think yeah so I just started a new job and I'm I'm back in the classroom a lot and I'm actually teaching geography and I do a little bit that I'm a historian um so there's that aspect to it but um it's all about relationships so this is my second week um I work I work point six teaching I do other things within the other time but um you know I I can I can do or plan the whizzies lesson of the world think about my pace think about but unless I have those relationships it you know that comes first so that's what I'm working on um and it is going to take me a few weeks because it takes anybody a few weeks if not half a term a terms to get that with some of your classes and once you've got it then you can really play around with it so the fact that you've said that I think a few times within your answer I completely agree because I thank you thank you I'm really rory living living through it again at the moment yeah I also I also think that um that speaking is also really important I think that speaking can lead to lots of other things so for example um when I was teaching I was I took part in what was called the talk project which was around the early 2000s and I got really really into it and I it was it was essentially like a immersive teaching really so I was um as much as possible using only the target language I had lots of grammar posters all over my walls as well as some like cultural posters like movie posters things like that so I would regularly go to to Calais and to this city a lot which is a big shopping mall and and and spend whatever it was 30 euro at the time on magazines and do this like three times a year so I got the latest magazines but having having all those grammar prompts and and verb paradigms and high frequency words and all this sort of thing which is now very popular now with the new GCSE but I was doing it years and years ago and I used to have this this wooden spoon like you know one of those like large sets at like a wooden spoon and a wooden fork I used to go to car boot sales regularly on a Sunday morning and I'd pick up one of those and I would use it to be able to you know point at different verb forms or grammar points and I couldn't imagine you doing this yeah and the kids used to think it was a bit zany but but I think they really liked it and so a lot of the work was through speaking and then translation work and they would they they'd be able to work out that it was all a bit of a game so it didn't actually matter that what they were saying wasn't necessarily you know truthful or that like you know as long as they were able to manipulate the language and say things that were a bit silly that would make other people laugh it was it was cool and and and that was that was amazing so I found that was one of the key drivers in addition to all the all the things we did with technology that that engagement that speaking practice the fact that I could you know encourage them to use the target language as much as possible to communicate in the language and I'm still a big fan of that as well but that that was that was something which I found to be very very effective I think that that can resonate to all different subjects especially as you said you worked cross-curricular quite quite a bit and I think the use or getting the students to talk about the subject use that core knowledge use that target language that's really powerful and I think so I've gone into a new setting and I'm I'm either getting classes that a little bit off the wall or are you know nothing you know I'm not getting much back so you have to really train them you know it's okay to talk about as long as you talk about the target language because that's how it you know goes into your brain that's how you remember it um I think that's really interesting just just uh talking um a little bit to another point because you picked up there what what would your classroom look like now in comparison to perhaps when you started teaching because there's loads about sort of visual classrooms and about what best practice is so what would your classroom first but what would it have been like and what perhaps would it be like now or would it have been the same that's a great question that's a great question okay so when I first when I first started teaching it was probably well in in because I as I said I did my PGC in north wales I then taught there for two years and I didn't have lots and lots of things on the wall I started getting to that whole idea of of getting um you know cinema magazines and music magazines and that sort of thing but it tended to be those sorts of things more than um grammar grammar sheets and and posters and things like that so when I when I went to the middle school um at the end of the 90s my head teacher who I got on really really brilliantly with he um he said to me that he wasn't quite sure about my classroom in the sense that it was very what's the word um busy I think the word was busy it was very busy so I literally covered all the walls right up to the ceiling and um it was a little bit of like a goldfish bowl because on one of the walls there was um lots of glass so he would regularly bring perspective parents along and get them to look in through the the windows so I like covered everything with with posters um but he then he said to me you know um that a little bit later he realised having observed me quite a few times that actually I was very much using the classroom as another teaching aid and that was exactly what I was trying to do so I was trying to do the like the the the the the the grammar ideas um I put them on fluorescent paper as well so they would naturally catch the eyes of the children and I laminated them as well I used to have my keywords yeah there we are I put them so I had the board behind me um and then I had all those fluorescent grammar things um round the side of the board so the children would be then looking at that all the time and hopefully picking things up um in a in a sort of you know um subconscious way and then all like the film posters or have you would be either lower or higher or on the side but all the grammar things which I wanted them to look at as much as possible were right in front of their eyes because I had a horseshoe I'd always had a horseshoe and then the glass as I said the glass um the little windows on the on the side were uh again I would put other sort of cultural things and as well as um children's work of course but but I just thought if I have everything on fluorescent paper that's grammar based then that should catch their eyes and help them to remember things subconsciously that was the idea which I think it did work actually so what what would you do now do you do this I would I would do the same I think I mean I can well I kept I obviously have not been in the classroom now for a few years but I I found uh that having everything really busy like that um was something that works worked for me I think the children uh got used to it really quickly they liked the way in which I would refresh the um the movie posters on a regular basis I would also choose lots of posters which had um a vocab in it that they would need uh say quise shrie I remember we had a poster for the sixth sense with Bruce Willis um the fact that they need to know the um em um um uh structure uh the ccm songs for example and lots of other lots of other um posters I would and this sounds a bit sad but anyway but I would deliberately choose posters because of the fact they had certain words in them which I knew they would have to cover in quise age three and quise age two because at the middle school which is where I really sort of blossomed as it were um that proves there's so many arguments for it again so I know that I know what Oliver Configurio you were saying about this because of the sensory I'm sure yeah I'm sure I know that yeah but actually doesn't it prove to you've got you've got become comfortable in your environment also the students would probably think you know what he really cares about us because he's he's chosen those posters he's gone to France to get them and now he's talking about them and he's teaching through them and he's done that for us to sit here and to have an enjoyable lesson and I think there's a lot to say about that so it goes back to relationships as well so so a lot of interesting things to talk about though isn't it but I think as well in relation can I just say in relation to say power points things like that because I was I remember the head teacher he got the data projector in uh when it was about 2004 I think and he was a I think he was a little bit miffed about the fact that there weren't as many people using it as should have been if anyone at all so I said okay I always love a challenge so I decided to convert all my OHPs into power points which took me quite a long time I remember and then around yeah 2004 2005 that's when I really started using using power point in that sort of way for presenting vocabulary and I it was very much sort of even though my classroom was very busy the actual power point in relation to say dual coding and what have you I it was very sort of stripped back and I didn't have lots of fussy things on the power points but yeah my classroom in general it was it was very busy I must say it's yeah I've definitely stripped back my power points as well so I used to present everything in yellow don't know why it's my favourite colour obviously and and it became a bit of a joke where I used to work and they used to they presented me with lots of yellow things on the left um my power points were so busy they were so colourful like and I've completely stripped it back and I used the dual coding and it does really really work and it works with you effectively but I also like my classroom to me my environment and that has to have my personality in and I have to feel comfortable in it so I also agree with that so just just moving into you mentioned some technology there so talk to me a bit about technology because obviously you are an expert in this field uh you're really passionate about it so how do you use that within your teaching how would you you know advise teachers to use it what talk to us about that okay well I think there are there are two main ways in which you would want to use technology in languages one would be that sort of receptive quizzing uh retrieval practice type of uh web using technology using tools like you know quiz lirt and menty me to inquisiz and those sorts of things the way in which it can encourage independent learning the way in which the children can use a mobile device and can learn on the on the move um in fact recently I was um I was doing what I called a clinic session with a British council which was um I uh I put together like a google form and I asked the people who are going to be coming to the webinar if they can um write me some questions just to break things up a little bit so it's not just like me choosing what the content is going to be but but um I'm actually answering the questions that they put in and one of the questions that came up which I thought was fascinating was around the the use of technology in quizzing tools and the question was do you think that quizzing tools such as quizlet are more about teacher efficiency in other words saving the teacher time through the self-marking types of tools like that or is it more to do with student learning which I thought was a great great question so I of course I asked the emmerfield twitter arty what they thought about this and we had some lovely responses like the algorithm that you get with these sorts of tools such as quizlet um allows the the the student to be reminded of the words they need to work on um the way in which as I said they can work on the on the on the move they can it can promote independence um if they are not particularly organised it can help with that as well in the way that it can send you reminders or in the case of say duolingo um it can send you um remind by email you can go on streaks um to encourage you to carry on with the learning as well as all the other things like the the teacher efficiency efficiency as well but I thought that was really interesting so that would be one side I think of using technology and then the other way as I sort of alluded to earlier is this idea of promoting speaking and writing skills in particular the way in which you can use multimedia to record your voice to make little videos to make animations to make animated gifts to do a collaborative writing and say um a collaborative powerpoint or a collaborative class notebook in a Microsoft environment. I need to come and train me up on this. You know and then and then also I think um that the power of audio feedback is really really good in languages as well so using tools like moat for example I think that something that I've been talking a lot about recently moat is uh some of the the teacher I've been training face to face as well as online have been saying that they were have been using a lot more verbal feedback um as a result of the pandemic than they maybe had done before so I think lots of teachers um they maybe get a bit bored with um always doing the same sort of um uh the same sort of thing that they always love um variety and so in relation to uh let's say remote teaching or hybrid teaching um based on based on the different Facebook groups I'm part of and uh on the Emmaffle Twitter arty they're always looking for you know the next the next tool to look at or my children are bored with Kahoot what's a tool which is like that and those sorts of things so I think that having that variety uh there is is also really important and one of the things um that I think definitely some teachers have been playing with is the idea of verbal feedback so using tools like moat which seem to have really taken off um in the last last couple of years because I had a question from a music teacher who's obviously really struggling with you know how how do you assess the impact how do you showcase the impact without physically doing something for the sake of doing it or for the sake of doing it for offset or an external visitor and so I'm sort of playing around with sort of different verbal feedback tools so is that is that the one that you would suggest at the moment um well I think there's different ways of doing um verbal feedback there's tools like show b as well there's uh with class notebook it's very easy to um record audio and um you could for example have a table whereby you assign different students to different cells on that table uh to do like a live writing um exercise whereby uh you have a table with the students putting their names or the teacher putting their names in different cells they then write their little paragraph uh in another um in another column and then in the third column the teacher's giving uh feedback in real time which could be written feedback but they could give audio feedback as well so then the the student then sees what the feedback is and then responds to that in real time so again I think one of the great things about technology is the way in which it can give um just-in-time feedback or immediate feedback in some cases like if it's a if it's a quizzing tool then uh you can you can be told straight away if it's right or wrong or if it's like say a writing exercise uh the teacher can give written feedback or they could give spoken feedback and then the the child can then act on that straight away so I think that there's different ways of doing it but I think that certainly moat in a google environment in particular although you could use it in Microsoft environment as well with the with the moat's part of the way you can record audio and then post a link wherever you want I think that that seems to be something which has really taken off and I've I've heard lots of teachers saying oh yeah absolutely love moat I'm using it all the time it's absolutely brilliant so it's certainly something which myself and other people have been talking about for years and years the idea of audio feedback or audio QR code for example but I think what moat did really really well is just uh made it so simple and easy to produce uh so mo te mo te and it's and it's it's a chrome extension um and uh the the the first way in which um you could use it was to whenever you get a comment box in docs slides or classroom you get a little purple um circle with a white m in it you would just click on it and then you could give an audio a bit of audio feedback as a comment then they introduced the moat to slides option um which means that you then click on the same uh same icon but um within the slide presentation google slides and then you can record the audio straight within the slide which is obviously for languages brilliant for um uh oracy and and practicing your speaking and then they've done other things like with google forms now you can have the little moat icon in the question so good for holistic comprehension and then in multiple choice you can have each answer can be an audio player uh as opposed to a written uh possible answer so that's so that's that's really really good anything any tool which allows you to um have the opportunity of recording audio as a response or as a um as a prompt I think is is really good for languages for lots of reasons for confidence for pronunciation practice for modelling etc absolutely and I think I think there's there's two things as well with it it's like keeps up with the kids because obviously technology they're going to be surrounded by that's part of their their life isn't it in the future and also I think because because of the pandemic part of what our roles are even more so than it's always been really important but we've got to pick up on those misconceptions that mislearning and I think it can do that really imminently from what you're saying it's a really good way to to be able to identify it you know feedback and then you know move through your teaching because of it and respond to it yeah I I agree with that as well I also think on that point um one thing I noticed a lot at the beginning of the pandemic was there were lots of schools that were saying you're not allowed to do live lessons with say zoom or with um google meter whatever it was that you're using so there are lots of teachers I think who learnt for the first time how to make a screencast even if it was just using a powerpoint and recording some audio and embedding that in the order into the video sorry into the powerpoint and then exporting that as a video clip or if they were using a tool like loom or screencastify the way in which they were learning how they could narrate a powerpoint so it could be used as a as an asynchronous um learning resource almost like like flipping the classroom a little bit I think I think teachers were amazing um it worked really really hard and and I was bending over back to trying to help people and support teachers as much as possible you can imagine I was being absolutely bombarded by questions but I was seeing um on facebook groups you know questions like how do you do a screencast and and there was myself lots of other people chipping in and within a few weeks there were you know say three or four thousand members of groups that were just setting up um around uh uh the with the focus on technology languages so it was it was really really great to see that I thought yeah no I agree and it like like you said it it just completely flipped everything so you know it forced us to do things out of our comfort zone and and actually you know I'm a historian I like to stand at the front and I like to talk about history you know like that's my power that's my knowledge and you know I used to I used to stand by that and now it's come back around that's apparently quite good in the classroom um so so you know being forced to do things more online um you know it was good for me it was good for my skillset but also you know the students really respond to it they absolutely love they love they love it and you know it might take me a few hours to get used to it but then you know bringing that into my my normal day-to-day practice it's definitely the benefits of it so thank you um I think what we're going to do now we're going to do a little quiz so I'm going to ask you some questions so we can get to know you a little bit more and um the idea is to say the answers as quick as possible if you can like there are some that you might want to talk about in a little bit more detail but it's a really nice way to get to know you as well so my first one to you is what's the best educational book you've ever read or the best blog that stands this test of time for you okay well okay well um my favourite um two blogs at the moment are um whatjaneleartnext.blogspot.com which is Jane Bassnet and MFL craft by Esmeralda Salgado um those I've mentioned in many many different sessions that they are those two blogs are the best blogs by practicing languages teachers with with an evidence-based approach so they're absolutely fabulous um and if you're not a language teacher you would still gain a lot from them I think by seeing the sorts of techie tools that they're using um but it with an evidence-based approach yeah so those are my two favourites at the moment honestly do these podcasts like free cpd for me so obviously I could go back in back into my setting and be like right uh nfl teachers did you know um so it's really useful for me so the next one dogs or cats uh cats I think well I've never we've never had dogs I've never lived in a house with a dog um I've lived in in a house with various cats over the years so yeah cats I think yeah is a definite cat man uh why no beer it doesn't have to be either uh beer probably although I hardly drink nowadays um but I've just just recently been doing lots of work in Dublin so I've been having a few Guinnesses but the first Guinness I had a few weeks ago it was the first alcoholic drink I've had in about two years because of the lockdown and everything and I'm not a big drinker anyway but I have had a few Guinnesses now having had a few trips to Dublin working with that European teachers they advised pregnant women to drink Guinness so there we are it's good for you iphone or android uh right great great um I have an ipad but I have an android phone simply because again when I went to um uh Dublin the first time I had to have a phone to have the passenger locator form so I couldn't go unless I had a phone and I wanted to get the cheapest phone I could and I decided to go for an android one and having used it now I do like it but when I upgrade or change should I say when the contract stops I'll probably go for an iphone as well because I'm a bit of an apple what's your dream job if it wasn't what you're doing already um it's probably what I'm doing already I know that's a very boring answer but um I would I would like to do more international keynotes that would be my dream or an extension of what I'm doing at the moment so I would like to do more international keynotes and do more travelling internationally sorry I said I'll come with you uh yeah no problem anytime right what's your biggest regret professionally or personally I don't mind um my biggest regret um that's a that's a yeah that's a hard question that's a hard question um I'll have to think about that yeah what's your biggest achievement my biggest achievement um I think probably helping to nurture the mfl twitter arty because I think that that's had a massive impact on thousands and thousands and thousands of teachers over the years absolutely has I used to work in a very small school and basically one mfl teacher and um they'd find them like they used to work across the trust so there'd be mfl teachers across the trust but it's not the same as having people on the ground with you and the first thing I did was introduce them to your mfl twitter um and that was because the mfl teacher that left previously told me all about it so it's it just it it makes people feel less lonely because there's a lot of schools out there where you are on your own um okay so who do you think I should interview next and why um okay I think if we're talking about someone in the UK I would suggest that I mean Esmeralda Sargada or Jane Bassnet I think are fantastic people um to interview um if we're talking about internationally um I'm a massive fan of Greg Kulawick who is the man behind the term app smashing which he coined back in 2013 the idea of of um using let's say an iPad or that is not a device specific but using um a device to create um different types of multimedia content but pulling them all together with a final outcome so for example uh making a comic strip and then putting that into another tool and making um an audio recording an audio narration of that comic strip and then publishing it to a real audience and getting feedback so very much sort of hitting the top level of the summer model uh if you know if you've heard of that as a as a as a uh an educational technology theory the summer model I think that app smashing for me at the time tied in very much with um the redefinition level the top the top level of the summer model and app smashing so if you do a search on twitter for app smashing in my name you'll find lots of lots of references yeah you can get double ticks for that um when you're on a holiday do you prefer to be a swimmer or a sunbaver uh neither really um um I'm certainly not one of these people that likes to to lie around on a beach I've just never never done that I would want to be uh going for walks um enjoying the uh enjoying the nights whether but going for walks in woods or in fields that that sort of thing I'm much more of an adventurer than someone that sits on on the beach um I do swim but I'm not a big swimmer start a new project where you're doing sort of combining MFL with forest school ah well one one of my favourite things one one of my favourite things on my happy place is going for a walk on the isle of white because on the isle of white uh back in the 1950s um beaching the very unpopular minister at the time decided to get rid of all these um railway lines that weren't financially viable and as a result of that on the isle of white because the word railway lines everywhere they were all turned into a sort of cycle paths which means that on a on a sunny day you can walk as far as you want to walk um in the in the countryside um with the wind in your hair in your hair and have a great great time and listen to a podcast at the same time that's one of my favourite things to do listen to a podcast while going for a walk and just you know taking in the world and reflecting yeah that's definitely one of my favourite things in the world sounds like a good a good piece of advice for a teacher that needs a little bit of a break and sort of massage their well-being as well so my last question uh for for this sort of podcast is what's what was your favourite memory at school or your favourite teacher yeah okay so my favourite teacher at school was my Spanish teacher um and the reason I really liked him it was because of the fact that he was um he was very funny I felt he was very authentic I felt that he was he was being himself he wasn't it wasn't like a facade um and I did a level with him a funny story was when I went to the the grammar school um initially I didn't want to do um Spanish I wanted to do technical drawing instead but because I was um pretty good at French they didn't allow me to do technical drawing they suggested that I had to do Spanish instead and then I went on to do it for a level so he was a real inspiration uh for me and um yeah I just thought he was cool and he would yeah just just authentic and he made me laugh a lot um I think well that's your point isn't it it's all about relationships because I yeah I did history or became a history teacher I mean I failed as a snowboarder so it wasn't my first like thank god my parents said uh I wasn't very good at snowboarding but it was because I liked and respected my history teacher um and I did geography for a level because I thought they were really fun and you know there's more to it than that obviously I really I really really enjoyed in you know their their lessons and it's because they have a relationship with them and that's what it always falls back to yeah I think um so I'm going to do another question even though I said that was my last question just yeah no problem you're an MFL teacher and I'm interested what's what's the best ever trip you've taken students on? Right so when I was at the middle school um we used to go to um a place called San Carlos Guido which is in Brittany and um that was yeah that was the the best trip um um but I I took the the the children on it was absolutely fantastic seeing them go to the market in Matignon for example and actually used their French to to buy a pancake or to um to barter for something whatever it might be to to go to Mont Saint Michel and for them to walk up the the path and to see the abbey and to to get a real sense of you know real language and a real place in context which is part and parcel of what I think language learning is all about so to actually see the children doing that and also the fact that we took some children from let's say more impoverished backgrounds that maybe wouldn't have had that opportunity beforehand the way that that um really I think really helped them and also the way in which you get to know some children in different ways that you that you didn't know beforehand because the fact you're not you know sort of with them in 24 seven and obviously in the classroom and you get to see for example um the eating habits you might get some students who will only want to eat um process food all the time or moan about this and moan about that or you know so and then when you come back to the the school afterwards the relationships that you then um uh uh uh nurtured and benefited from as a result of those trips I think that will last um for a lifetime or the memories that you can create for a trip can really help with the relationships that then you have with the students afterwards as well so that will be my favorite trip hands down I absolutely loved it each year we did it that's really lovely to hear and I think um as I'm sure you agree I think trips are can be everything for a curriculum it can bring it alive and and as you say the memories and the relationships is there's nothing quite like it is there no um oh I think that that sort of comes to the end of the podcast um so thank you so much for your time this evening Jo um I think we've had lovely chat and I've learned a lot about mf3 teaching and uh you've been a fantastic guest which I knew you would be so thank you so much you're welcome thank you and I hope my sound sounded good with my lovely ATR 2100x microphone that's the most important thing my audio quality Libby well we'll we'll we'll we'll make sure we uh we'll give you a feedback on that but I'm sure it sounds fantastic cool so thank you again


I was in Madrid at that moment in July and they contacted me. One football agent from Singapore contacted me and we started to talk with the manager about some questions, my ideas, the project of the ISLFC. The team was like a good Marriott because my ideas, my project that I presented to them, they liked it. I liked the idea and the project and of course it's very good to know if this team goes to the Champions League and to defend in the league title so I think it was easy to decide to come. It was fast and easy. What I presented at that time and we try to develop here now, they wanted to bring a coach to develop and help a little bit the young players too. They have this idea to promote some young players from the under 18. So my idea was to bring one coach with this profile. Then what I presented to them, to develop some areas like scouting. We want and we try to develop one scouting department. Our idea is to help them to create a marketing department too and to create or to help them to develop the academy boys. So we don't have many time to develop until today all these things. So step by step we try to have meetings to improve some things. For example, scouting department, we started already because we have one program in stat. It's a Russian program. Already they sign with this company. We want to watch other players from other parts of another district in India. For example, to watch our opponents in the league and in IFC for example. Another department, step by step because it's not so easy and we don't have time because we have so many things to develop in our team to help our players. We think that it's the most important. Because if you think about, for example, Leicester won the championship one time and we don't know when they will win one title again in England. So it's similar here in the IFC. They didn't win this title, never. Just some MPL trophies. So in our opinion they need a very good structure behind all this work. The staff have to be in a good way. They have to make a very good organization, a professional organization behind our work. If not, it will be difficult to compete in I-League again against the strongest clubs with for sure a biggest structure and powerful clubs in IFC, of course. In IFC champions you need this for sure. So we try to pass this idea to the board and they understand they need to grow up in this way. So we try to help in this way too. Yeah, it's okay for you. If you are a football coach you must have an adaptation, adaptation behavior. If not, it becomes very difficult. For example, he coached Hong Kong in Portugal with me. I coached in Panama, in Laos, in Portugal, in Spain and here. If you don't have this capacity to adapt to the reality you cannot be a football coach, it's impossible. So I think it's very, very important to feel and understand where you are what you have in your hands and to work a lot. The most important is the project of the club. Of course, the way of life. If it's a city or a country where you cannot live, no. If it's not sure or something. If it's a project, you call it a city. It's enough for me. Yeah, of course. And then, hard work. Hard work always. Okay, to develop these young players it's a big challenge. Because at the same time you need to compete in the NPL. Look, I came here, I told you before. I came here on the Wednesday. I trained one day and on Friday I competed in the independence cup. We needed to win this game to go to the semifinal. So we won. You know, you don't have time to develop. It's not like a pre-season. We didn't have a pre-season. Because every week you have a competition. So you try to help them to develop. You pass some ideas, but at the same time you prepare the games to win and to compete. It's a very good challenge to have. Because we like challenges. We like challenges. Okay, we cannot compare. Here, in NPL, they play so fast. So fast. Transition, transition. We try to put our style, like control more the game with the ball possession. If you can, okay, we make transitions, but control. It's like not run, run, run, but a conscious style, no? In the iLeague, how you know, maybe better than us. Okay, it's another style of football. So we know this already. We have like five weeks to prepare. To prepare like a new team. A new team with a new style to prepare the iLeague. So it's a very good challenge too. They improved a lot. They improved a lot. Because if the next year, coming here, a new coach, for sure in the beginning, they need to know each other and they need how I think. They need to know my ideas. I need to know their capacities and the conditions that the board can give to us. So they improved a lot. Of course, always when we have a meeting, I advise them, hey, coming one year, we never leaving before. Because you never defended the title. Now we will defend the title. So we need a stronger, stronger support from the board. Behind our work and the team, the players, the staff, everyone. And the Champions FC, the same. Because it's the maximum competition in Asia. So they know, they know they improved a lot. But I think they need to improve more. Never is too much support. It's like a house. If you don't build properly below the house, so all support, all the facilities, they can give us, they can not give us, give to the team, to everybody, it's better and easier for us and for the team to perform well. Because the difficulties will come. I think difficulties, we hope, we know before. It's very good. It's very good. It's like our assistant in the pitch and during the training. Because he helped a lot the young boys. Mama's advice, we feel that it's very, very important to us and to the young players. He has a good feeling and a very good behaviour with them. He can, in future, be a coach. Because I see a good profile in Mama. When we did something during the game, sometimes he can make a correction to help the team, to help us. During the training, the same. If you feel that a young boy doesn't train or doesn't play in the right intensity, he goes straight with a very good behaviour. Try to correct this and to try to help. So we need more mamas in our team. I think all coach likes to have this kind of player in the team. Here, the key word, what I told you is adaptation. We don't have many time to go out. We have our time to enjoy something. We come here to drink coffee. We join with the foreigners because they are alone here too. We come here to dinner or somewhere to drink coffee. We go to gym, we go to massage, sometimes to relax. But the main point is that we focus on our work all day. And we don't have many time to enjoy. We love our work. We focus on the players, the team, preparing the training, preparing the games. We have many things behind our work, what we see in the training, what we see in the games. The food, if you put out the chili, the spices, it's not so different. I have a little bit of difference but we can eat in a good way. We buy our things to cook or to give the lady who cooks to us. We ask, we teach the lady, we like this. The most important thing is not to think about what you have in Spain. If I will miss everything I have in Spain, I stay in Spain. If I come here to work and to adapt. I think it's very good because you live many lives in one life. I live in Hong Kong, it's an amazing city but totally different because it's half China, half occidental style of life. Here in Portugal is different so you need to enjoy this difference and to adapt and to grow up as a person. Because here of course we have not the same facilities as in Spain but I think it can help us to grow up and to see how lucky we are to live in Spain and to have the conditions that we have in Spain. So it's another good thing. The courts have these facilities to work in Hong Kong, Portugal and Spain in Panama, Laos, many countries. So to take for you the best of all cultures and all countries what we see here. Many good things. The people are very friendly, very warm with us. So it's very nice, very nice. Safety place here, don't have a problem, very important. Many things here are good. What is in total, like a person or like a football coach. They love football so you are in the right place in the right place to enjoy your work because it's important to enjoy our work too. It's good to believe in it.


Good morning. Thank you for coming early in the morning and gave up your sleep to listen to me. I hope you'll find it useful and ours. I have been doing research in temporal databases since 1985. That's when my first article appeared in ACM-SIGMAT management of data conference. In those days, temporality was an academic curiosity and it is really interesting and somewhat gratifying for me to see that temporality is moving in the mainstream of information technology. That's really an exciting development. Actually, my talk will be somewhat cursory without going into details. I'll touch on many topics from basic concepts to modeling temporal data, temporal operations, temporal cura languages, expressive power of temporal data models, integrity constraints, and designing temporal databases. Of course, that would be a half a day or a day long presentation. I'll briefly touch on them. Feel free to interrupt me at any time to ask your questions or to make your comments. And also, this is a very conceptual presentation unlike the other Postgres presentations. So I promise you that you'll not see a single line of Postgres code. Well, why do we need temporal databases? Here you see various cases that I have cut and pasted from an IBM website that introduces temporal databases. Like in an internal audit, you need to see the transactions in the last five years. Or pending laws requires that in a hospital, the patient treatment before another treatment started. So they all involve temporality. A client files a claim to insurance company. And the claim needs to be processed according to the policy specifications that were valid when the incident occurred. And that certainly requires temporality. And here are some other cases and I don't really need to go over them to convert you. I guess you all see the need. Here are some transactions that involve OLTP as well as OLAP. And of course, typically in a database environment, the database is geared to OLTP. But of course, OLAP functionality is also highly desirable. It is more desirable than in the past today. Well, what is temporal data? Actually, our intuition tells us that the data is something current. However, if we scratch it a little, the data really has a temporal dimension. The data has a temporal context. And nowadays, of course, big data is the hot topic. And what fuels big data is high volume, high velocity, and high variety. When we add temporal dimension to the data, then it becomes long data as suggested by Samuel Eddinson. So truly, long data is feasible today. We can store, retrieve, and massage it. What are the characteristics of time and data? Clearly, it is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. And in today's technology, we have the capacity to capture, store, and process it. And definitely, it is essential for every aspect of human decision making, regardless of whether it is economic or industrial activity. From prediction to analysis, strategy, accountability, etc. Well, how do I see time? Actually, you can visualize time in different ways. And I will propose you a simple visualization. Time starts at a relative origin, let's say zero. And it progresses as the clock ticks. And the current time is represented as now. We can use the calendars values as you see on the second line. Or we can use integers, zero, one, two, etc. Because the calendar times nicely maps to integers. And of course, time granularities, we are well worse than them. And the conversion from one time granularity to another time granularity is very well explored. Now, how we visualize time and data generation? Here is a simple example, as you see. At the top, you see the timeline. And to make things a little abstract, I don't know why I did it. Instead of using zeros and ones, I used time, instant zero, time, instant one. That doesn't really matter. And events take place as the clock ticks. As you see, event E1 took place at time point two. And event E3 took place at time instant five. Now events generate data, and we're able to capture that data. And capturing the data, we have to connect the data values with the relevant time. Here are three choices available. Our intuition tells us that the events occur at time instances, like the first one here at T2, event E1 took place. At T5, event two took place. So as an example, for instance, let's say an employee started working at 1.2014 in the toy department. Of course, this is very intuitive. However, for capturing the temporal reality, it is incomplete. And a better solution is using time intervals that are designated by a lower and an upper bound. And if you look at the example, the toy department, actually the employee in the toy department, worked from 1.2013 to 5.2014. And of course, this is a very compact and complete representation. Still another possibility is using temporal elements that was introduced by Shashi Gadia, a prominent researcher in temporal databases. And here, a temporal element, as you see at the bottom line, is nothing but a union of maximal intervals, designating the time of event. What are the data types that we are dealing in a temporal database? Actually, in reality, we can identify three types of data. The first one is stepwise constant. That is, an example is a salary. The salary value is valid for a certain period of time. And the changes are abrupt and stepwise. Still another type of data is like sales that are valid at a time instance. A third type is analog continuous data, like the voice. So in a temporal database, we have to deal with all of them. Now, when we consider temporal data, I will use the relational data model as a presentation medium. Typically, what you see at the front is a simple table, employee name and salary, right? And the current snapshot is within the circle as you see it. And behind the current snapshot, there are the past values. So as you see, there is a third dimension. So that is how the reality evolves. Actually, we typically see it as snapshots occurring one after another at the clock ticks. In any temporal data modeling, the challenge is how we represent this three-dimensional structure, whether it is an object-oriented database, a relational database, entity relationship, whatever data model you are using. So the time you see here is actually called valid time that shows the validity period of the values. There are other names for that, like business time, logical time. For instance, in IBM DB2, it's called business time. Even effective time, if I remember correctly, is used. Now, let's look at the evolution of the data over time. Now, 1114, this is the three-dimensional structure we have. Now, let's look at a transaction that happens at 6114. And got a promotion, the salary moves from 12k to 13k. And Tom got a promotion, the salary is from 15k to 16k. And as you see, they are the current values. And if I have drawn my diagram correctly, the previous values should be behind those values, right? But I was not that prudent in drawing the picture or the diagram. Now, let's continue with as the clock ticks. And now, there is a correction at 9114. The correction says N salary was not 14k, but it was 14k, but not 13k. And similarly, Tom's salary was 17k, but not 16k. And as you see at the current snapshot, it is shown. What we see actually in the database is a correct and complete history. Now, if you ask a question as of, let's say, 10114, about the salary of N and Tom, you'll get these correct values. But if you ask a question, what was my previous, that was 6, if you ask a question like 7114, the values would be the previous incorrect values. So what I am simply telling you is that in a temporal database, if there are two dimensions, at the upper hand you see the time, that is the validity time. And at the lower dimension, that is called the transaction time, when the values are recorded or registered in the database, you have the complete history with all the changes that allows retroactive changes, even post-active changes. So in a temporal database that has two dimensions, it is called a bi-temporal database, as we will see in the next few slides. Well, feel free to ask questions or if I am going too fast, let me know please. As I have mentioned, valid time shows the time when the values are effective and valid in reality. That's also called the business time. Transaction time denotes when the values are recorded in the database. And user defined time is any time that the user interprets. Actually these three times have been specified by Richard Snuggrass in early 1980s. And by using this time dimension, he was also able to identify four different type of databases. The first type does not support time and it's called a snapshot database. So time is handled in an ad hoc manner. The second type of database is called a historical database and that has a validity time dimension. So not only we store in the database the current snapshot, but the past snapshots. So that is the historical database. The third type of database is called a rollback database or a transaction time database. And nowadays it is very popular and those are the immutable databases. As transactions occur, they are recorded in the database. There is no change in the database. There is only insertion of new transactions and that is an immutable database. The finally fourth one is a temporal database that includes, I'm sorry, I shouldn't really call a temporal database. I use the term temporal loosely to mean any type of time support. What you see at the bottom is a bi-temporal database because it has two time dimensions, the validity time and the transaction time.  In a temporal database, I can categorize the types of queries into several groups. The first one is a snapshot query. That is the typical query as we know in the database environment. There is no reference to time. A temporal query actually is a sequence of snapshot queries, meaning that the query is evaluated at different time points. And the other type of query is well known, is a time travel. Meaning that we want to travel in time backward or forward and see the database accordingly. And for time travel to occur, you need what? Can I give you a little quiz? No. TARDIS would be a step in that direction. Well, if you really want to have time travel, you need to have validity time and transaction time. Two times. Without having two times, you cannot do time travel. Probably this can be the most valuable take home message of this presentation. Why do I this? Because if I go back, this is my bi-temporal database and this is my validity time. This is my transaction time. And do you see the evolution of the database over time with all changes made to the database? Well, the next... Please. Yes. The next day I go in and I change his salary and say it's good to the end of May. So if you track both times, then you can say today I thought his salary ended at the end of April. And tomorrow I say his salary ends at the end of May. Is that the idea? That's exactly the idea. And of course we observed the progression of the database as the clock ticks. And now we are at this point in time and considering all the activities that took place in the past, by time travel I'll be able to answer the question which was correct as it is known at any instance of time. That is the time travel. Of course temporal integrative constraints are much like temporal queries. The integrative constraints are enforced at different time instances. Now how can I model temporal data that my three-dimensional cube in the relational data model? Typically a relation is made up of columns. Then here I have name and salary and I have a time for salary and I have a department attribute and a time for department. Clearly intuitively it should work but this is not a good solution, right? It creates excessive data redundancy and also querying the data would not be easy. We can improve it a little. We can combine the time of salary and department into one single column, right? Now this is better than the previous one but still it is not good unless the salary and department change at the same time. If they change at the same time this would work but if they do not it's not a good solution either. So what is my solution? There are two questions I need to answer. The first one is where do I attach the time? Do I attach it to tuples in relation or do I attach it to attributes? Actually this is a long-standing controversy in temporal databases ever since 1980s. There are group of people like Richard Snodgrass who are in the category of tuple time stamping and there are people like myself, Shashi Gadia, who are in the camp of attribute time stamping attaching time to attributes. The next question is what type of relations we use? Do we use flat relations? Do we use non-first normal form relations? Clearly if you attach time stamps to tuples you end up using flat relations, first normal form and if you use attribute time stamping you may probably end up in non-first normal form relations. How are we doing? Do I have... Good. So I guess since I gave you the opportunity to ask you questions if I use all of the time you wouldn't complain. Now what are the possible base relations that I can use? Actually let me go fast forward and then come back again. What I have done, actually I have developed a taxonomy of various types of databases, temporal databases by using attribute time stamping and tuple time stamping and whether we glue the time stamps to attribute values or not and whether we use flat or non-flat relations and some of the relations here are very interesting and I will quickly go over them as possible base relations. This is a possible base relation. You're introducing a tuple at every time instant. Of course theoretically it is relevant but it is not practical. The other alternative is adding two columns to a table from and to. For instance in this table employee name and salary and you have two columns for the time interval and this is commonly used in tuple time stamping. If you look at Richard Snodgrass' book temporal SQL that's the data model used there. Still another possibility is one step ahead is adding time as a range type, as a composite data type and that is available in Postgres and this is a much better alternative than the previous one. Now still other candidates solutions as you see the time is attached to salary and the top one and the bottom one are essentially same. You can disregard the bottom one. At the bottom one the interval is represented as a temporal set as just a set of time instance and it's not really a viable alternative but the top one is a good candidate. If you move one step more you can put the salary history as a set and you end up in a non-first normal form relation and that I believe is the best solution for the temporal database. I'd better not talk about this and you have seen the taxonomy now it makes sense, right? Here you see a properly designed application. There are employees, the departments for which the employees are working and the salary of the employee. Since the department and the salary do not change at the same time you add the time to each one of these tables. So that would be the solution in tuple time stamping. In attribute time stamping I would put all these tables into one single non-first normal form table and that would be my temporal database. By the way in all these examples I only have included the validated time or you can look at it as the transaction time and if I want to make a bitemporal database I need to add two more columns, right? For the transaction time that I did not do. So a properly designed temporal database in using tuple time stamping this one is a good example. Any questions so far? Go ahead please. It's a huge conversation and actually probably the slides at the end of my presentation may shed light on it as well. Now the temporal integrative constraints Of course the integrative constraint may be valid at one state that's single state integrative constraint or the integrative constraint may happen or may be applicable on many states and there is synchronous multi-state integrative constraints meaning the same integrative constraint applies at different time instances. For instance if you say that the salary should be larger than $100,000 so that applies today, yesterday, the day before etc. at each state of the database. On the other hand an asynchronous multi-state integrative constraint applies several states of the database concurrently. A good example if you say that the salary of an employee never decreases so that means current salary should be larger than the previous salary. That's the integrative constraint, multi-state. An important issue for an object we keep data about it in the database has life that I represent life of the object. Then the lifespan of the object that is captured within the database is a subset of object's life. So if you look at the integrative constraint the lifespan of an object, an employee that is stored in the database should be a subset of that object's entire lifespan, entire life. And that is represented in this table. When you look at the referential integrity of course the referential integrity has to be applied synchronously over multiple states. And in fact when you look at the department that is the referencing column and see the time of the department that should be a subset of the time in the department's relation in the department table. And actually that is nothing but the inclusion constraint that Jeff Davis mentioned the other day. What are the requirements for temporal data models? Now when we look at a temporal database we expect capabilities from the temporal database. Here I will list some requirements that I think are important for a temporal database. Actually I have listed them in an article that appeared in 1997, long ago in IEEE transactions on knowledge and data engineering. I had a paper on the expressive power of temporal courier languages and these requirements are from that paper. The first one says that modeling and couriering the data at any time instance. So if DB stands for our database so I should be able to model and query that database at time point 0, time point 1, time point 10, whatever it is. The second requirement says I should be able to model and query the temporal database over a set of time instance. And these are called also temporal queries. So I have my database dbt at time point t, db at time point t plus 1, db at time point t plus 2, etc. So I should be able to query and certainly model as well as query the database at these time points. It makes sense, right? And naturally if we have the first requirement we have to generalize it into the second requirement. Now the third one is modeling and couriering the database at two different time instance. So let's consider, okay, see I changed my slide in the upper two items but I forgot to change it here. This should be db, right? So that's the typo. So when you consider the database at two different times time t and t prime and those should be different that I should be able to query the database. The example I gave about the integrity constraint, the salary never decreases. Actually that is comparing the database at two different times. The time, current time, and the previous time, right? The salary should be different and the current salary should be larger. Now the next requirement is time travel. So a temporal database should be able to support time travel. The time travel involves the current view of the data, right? And it also involves rolling the database back to any time in the past and viewing the database as it is valid as of that time instance. Go ahead please. It's application dependent. You can go as far back as Big Bang if you want. Truly the model is very general and can support it. A temporal core language should return the same type of objects. Well, this may sound a little abstract and theoretical why relational data model is so popular because when SQL is applied on a relational database the result is another relation, another table. So that's why the language's relational algebra, relational calculus, they are closed. They work on the same type of objects and they create the same type of objects. And SQL violates that a little by not eliminating the duplicates but we can live with it, right? And another thing is actually whether the tuples are homogeneous or non-homogeneous. It occurs both in tuple time-stamping and attribute time-stamping. And this concept of homogeneity was introduced by Shashi Gadia and you'll encounter it in a temporal database as you do your operations. The idea behind homogeneity is if you have several temporal values in a table at different columns, whether those different columns can have different life spans or they have to be defined on the same time period, life span. If they are defined on the same life span then it is homogenous. If not, then it is non-homogeneous and it brings its issues together in querying a temporal database. Ten minutes, I'm almost done actually. So we have time for your questions as well. Another requirement is regrouping the data. We should be able to regroup the data according to a different criteria. Let me give you a little example. Consider a table, a department column and a manager column and assume also that we keep the history. So a department has all its managers, right? Now can I restructure this table into a new one where for each manager I can include the department history? That may be a desirable operation. Some use cases may require it. So would your temporal database allow you to do that? How would you do it? And that brings us to issues, unique representation of the relations. That means keeping the temporal data succinctly without any duplication. And the second one is weak relations. Consider a table. Let's say employee table, employee salary. There is employee's social security number, the salary, and then firm and two columns, right? Let's say employee's salary is from 1 to 5 is 50k. Now I can represent this as one single row or I can represent it as several rows. Employee's salary is 50k from 1 to 3 and 50k from 3 to 5. Clearly the first representation is better. It's more compact. But the second representation may occur including the database and that's considered a weak relation. The next one is the applicability. I'm sorry, go ahead please. Topple time stamping is simpler to implement. Yes. Yes, the other one requires more complexity. Absolutely. And of course in a temporal database since we're dealing with time, set theoretic operations and comparisons should be available. And the well-known example for this is Ellen's predicates considering two intervals whether they overlap. One is a subset of the other and one is before the other, etc. They all involve set operations. And finally, supporting multi-valued attributes. All along up to this point I talked about single-valued attributes and we want a temporal database to support multi-valued attributes as well. Well, along with the weak relations there is an issue of coalescing that I don't really want to talk about but on the left-hand side you see a compact unique representation. On the right-hand side, the middle one has weak tuples. And of course you can go from weak tuples to unique representation but you face the question of whether you manufacture in the process information or not that is not available in the database. But I shouldn't really bore you with this. If I want to talk about briefly about SQL 2011 standard that includes temporal support and that was heavily influenced by IBM and IBM included the 2011 standard in its DB temporal support product. Now, what is proposed is a conceptual range type. Here how it is used. A table employee is being created. Employee number integer clearly. Employees start date, employee end date two columns for the beginning and end of the interval, yes. And employee department integer. In this table we are representing the department of the employee. And period four, e period e start and e end. Period four actually is a conceptual designation that shows that e start and e end shows a period. That is simulating the range type of postgres in this standard. And IBM claims that they elected this alternative just to support backward compatibility. To a certain extent it makes sense but of course it doesn't really bring the full potential of the range type. And as I have said earlier there is a system time that is the transaction time and there is the application time business time or valid time in the SQL 2011 standard. And here you see the temporal primary key and forwarding key that they can be supported with these two types. And also the ellen's predicates contains overlaps etc. They are available to work on the period data types. Now what IBM does in DB2 actually is an implementation of 2011 standard and that's available to the temporal extension of DB2 on ZEOS. Now there is support for system time as of system time from 2 and system time between actually 2 minutes and I think this is the last one. Remember there is transaction time the system time corresponds to transaction time and since there is system time and there is business time that definitely supports time travel. What I don't like is actually the separation between system time and the business time is not clear cut. It's somewhat confused in my mind in IBM's temporal extension. And of course IBM implements a temporal table by two tables a current version and then a history version and in fact TARDIS Manus Agander implemented in a certain extent in his presentation yesterday. And finally what did I do? Okay that was out of sequence this is what I want to say about at the end of my presentation about Postgres. Now Postgres has the range type that's very valuable. Temporal keys can be implemented temporal referential integrity can be implemented and of course time travel needs to be added to Postgres. That's the challenge I had. I'd like to stop at this point for your questions and we have one minute Magnus or we are out of time. Out of time. Alright we can continue the conversation after if you prefer or you can ask a few quick questions if you want. Yes. What's the primary key? Well the primary key each table will have its own primary key and of course as part of the primary key you have to include part of the part of the bi-temporal and then you have to do the join. The join would be massive and most probably you will define the join operation when the business time or the valid time overlaps if they don't overlap probably it wouldn't those two tuples wouldn't qualify for join. So in a join typical join we don't have this problem but when we move into the temporal dimension since we have the time time plays into the join and you can define the join for the intersection of the time for the union of the time for the difference of the time depending upon the meaning of the query. It does make sense. So would signify your business validity rules by using range types but it has some sort of attribute on the column that is temporal based which is a huge project but it would probably be the most pure way to build this. That's true. That's true. Well, thank you very much.


The study proposes an improved spatial spectral classification method using minimum spanning forest, MSF, algorithm for hyperspectral images in urban areas. Two spatial texture features are first extracted using wavelet and GABA filters, then the weighted genetic, WG, algorithm is used to obtain the subspace of hyperspectral data and texture features. These are fed into a novel marker-based MSF classification algorithm that achieves approximately 17% and 14% better overall accuracy than the original MSF-based algorithm for Pavia University and Berlin Image Datasets, respectively. This article was authored by Davoud Aghbari.


How have you survived all that you have been through? This has been a nightmare for both of us. I hope that one day you feel my gratitude's us back. I feel like this has put a dent in our path. How can I pave a way to our new... I'm lost in my pain in fear you won't want to wait. Basically I was on a crosswalk and a car ran over my legs. I was pretty banged up. And I've always loved singing, always took singing lessons and even in the hospital started to come up with this song just in my head. Always took singing lessons but never wrote my own. About six or eight weeks after the accident I had a singing teacher come to my house. I couldn't walk. The first song I wrote was called I Got Run Over by an SUV. And then it just every few weeks or months I'd come up with another song and each song is a development of my recovery. Yeah I liked that one. Did you... were you happy with yours? I was happy with mine, yeah. Can we hear it? I was playing golf in Sharon Mass. Just finished the 18th hole, went out to my car to check my cell phone and I got a message from a stranger saying your wife was run over by a car and she's at Mass General Hospital. And then I went to Mass General Hospital and saw her bruised, cut, broken concussion. She was fighting for understanding of why this happened to her on a crosswalk at a stop sign that she was crossing the street and this girl didn't stop. Went through the crosswalk, made a turn, ran over her legs with both wheels front and back and gave her a concussion as her head hit the car. And she just kept on going for about a hundred yards until she stopped trying to understand what happened. It was horrific. She needed something that was cathartic to really get rid of the pain that she suffered mentally and physically. And thus she started writing songs. This is my song book. And I should probably... It kind of has all my notes on where to take my breath and what the song's all about. I mean, I know I wrote the song. I know I came up with it. I should probably be able to memorize it, but it doesn't really happen. Ready? It helped me figure out the stages of how to put together an album, a professional album with musicians. And so he introduced me to Mary, the piano player, and the drummer, Matt. And we've been practicing, rehearsing, and today's a big day. Trying to nail it. My name's Jack Byrne. I'm a musician, singer-songwriter, music teacher, and Megan's teacher. My dad's a guitar player. And we kind of grew up at my house, kind of just doing sing-alongs all the time. All my siblings play instruments. Yeah, I've been playing since I was 10. As a songwriter myself, I get the idea of putting emotion into a song and expressing the deepest feelings you have into music. And just everything that Megan's been through and the way she's been able to put it into a song has really been impressive to me as a teacher and a songwriter as well. She's come a long way. What happened to her really shook her up, and I think she's witnessed her kind of heal throughout the whole process. And kind of find a newfound confidence as well in both, just like in life, but also in her musical abilities and in her voice, you can hear it as well. Next song we're going to do is Crushed. My favorite tune. It's a big one. My fate has been crushed My fate has been crushed My fate Everybody goes through tragedy and everybody goes through illness and horrible experiences in our life and music has been such a healing way for me to express all that I've been through.  One thing that I'm very grateful about the accident is that it has really gotten me to appreciate life every day, every moment. We never know what's going to happen. And singing, it just feels so alive and so real and so perfect in a way. You know, when I nail a song and just write a song that just moves me, it feels good. It feels healing. It feels pretty incredible to have my voice on tape and I've been thinking about this for a long time and to actually hear them is kind of mind-blowing. Yeah, a lot of emotions. Going back to how I felt when I wrote the song it got wrenching at times and I can't believe how far I've come. And just kind of dreaming about the possibility is scary and exciting of what I could do with my music. But I realized how important it is for me to create music and I was thinking last night that I remember as a kid I always wanted to be Judy Garland. I always wanted to sing and dance and be in the Wizard of Oz and sing somewhere over the rainbow. I just can barely believe that I actually wrote all these songs and sang them and that they're a real live thing. A couple of days in the studio I'm full circle doing so well and made such an incredible recovery. But more I feel like I have hope again that I have hope for the future for living really out of my dream and what's really important to me. I realize how hard it is for women and maybe everybody but to really even dream like it's scary to even go for something and to be passionate about something but I'm so passionate about music, always have been and I'm excited to share these with the world and see where they go. I don't know if I'll ever get over my fears. I'm scared a lot of the times. But I just keep going anyway and keep doing things anyway if I'm scared or not scared. So even if you're scared, you gotta go for it. I'm so glad I just went for it and I'm doing this. I'm very, very grateful.


Any travel here from Australia, from Brazil, from Australia, from Russia, all over the world. We're seeing Aaron Black versus Kung Lao. Kung Lao? Did I tell you? This is the run back from World Combat X. Literally, the character's run back from EVO 2015 Grand Finals. Now he also used Katana to be clear. But it was Aaron Black versus Kung Lao for at least part of it. I have never heard that before. And how smooth are Aaron Black's one-liners? How many times have you seen Kung Lao versus Aaron Black? Zero. Okay. Here we go. This is unique for all of us, Sonic Fox, with the legacy character for this man. Who the duck in the punish comes right here. Kung Lao, when the first game came out, when the game first came out, some people thought that he was a little underpowered. I'll admit that I was one of them. But the more the game goes on, I see a lot of strength in this character. Yeah, the way that Foxy approaches, approaches the characters like to perform most other Kung Lows really on the planet. It's a lot of staggers. And a lot of throws. The man loves to throw. Yeah, he was explaining to me how to play Kung Lao. He was like, yeah, just use basically three moves and you're fine. Oh, he rolled through. The Sonic Fox special. It's couchopped all over again. There's an achievement for that. That's what we, that's what we in the business. Okay. The neutral duck. You mentioned before, he's known for doing it. But right back into things is Sonic Fox. Wow, what a pickup looking very clean right now is Sonic Fox. Look at this punish. This is damage over time.  And we're swinging this. Keeping it safe right there. Still maintaining corner control. Foxy's in trouble. Okay, the jump kick. It's got a great box. There's that back. Did you do once again? Absolutely pistol whippin' this man to death. Breaking up the rifle from down.  Game one for Sonic Fox. Actual character run back from EVO 2015. I can't believe it. And he sticks with Kung Lao. The Z-Hat. Okay, at least the trade for him. Punish please. He does. The beginning part of that was unbreakable. Very tricky stuff right there with that meaty Z-Hat. Very good recognition that it was the break right from Sonic Fox. Kung Lao does do a lot of damage in this game. If you can get opened up, this is going to be another punish. Not coming off the crushing blow though. Spitting out the air escape.  Okay, that was pretty sick. Keeping it safe again. Oh, lovely little approach right there. Oh, no. That's up on the dip for a while, but at least he's out now. And there's no break away. This is some of the damage we're seeing. The setup comes, the delay, and that means grab. So smooth as that set of big damage. Z-Hat being meaty. Oh, the cancel. But Sonic Fox was somehow ready. What reactions out of the young Fox with a jump kick? Foxy putting around to the board with Kung Lao. Out of the sky. Beautiful reaction. Can you get the crush? You can still get the crush. Oh, again, not anymore. Sonic Fox looking so hard to throw, which is Foxy's game plan. Centralized around this character. Z-Hat is going to save him. Are you kidding me? Still out there and spinning. No break away though. Up three, but he's... Still within the dip right now. Look at the damage over time. Still burning. Of course, naturally comes. Sonic Fox is right back into the mix though. Z-Hat. Keep it up. Oh, no. No, the drop. It actually could have been for the game. That would have been enough damage. Kung Lao hitting like a grown man. The down two crushing blow. No escape. Okay. And the fatal blow. Sonic Fox ends up taking that. Can't help but feel like that was a stalling around. Foxy Grandpa gave it up. He had a chance to kill. And it just didn't take it. Unfortunately for him, so he's got to try to battle back here. Nobody wants to be down two to zero against Sonic Fox. But you got... Oh my goodness. You got to look at the positive here for Foxy. He doesn't have a fatal blow in a round three if it comes down to it. True. Yep. Z-Hat coming to the rescue. No, he tried to get the whip punish, but the Amplified Combs on Block or Whip. You can do it. I don't know if there is breakaway naturally at Combs. Fox is still pressuring it. Still pressing. Tried to get up into the sky. Can he get a whip punish? Yes. No breakaway. Big damage on deck. It's already Z-Hat. No. The execution. I can't be two times in one game we've seen a big whip. He's got another chance. A Foxy Grandpa. A Foxy Grandpa. Going home to Kung Lao. This is what you want to see. The rematch of rematches from years prior. I can't believe it. 2015 MKX Grand Finals this exact matchup and we're seeing it relived on a stage like this. Out of the sky. Didn't go up in the juggle. Slowing it down. Amplified Teleport of course lets you delay it. And now a bit of an approach here for Foxy Grandpa. Not too wild. No anti or either. Sonic Fox consistently keeping things safe here in the way of the depressures. Couple of big whips right there. Trying to cover from downtown to Sonic Fox with those size 10 Texans from across the screen. Over time. Over time. That damage really mounts and didn't bother even breaking away. So now actually Foxy Grandpa does have the corner for himself just like that. What a switch. Not for long. Too far but not punished surprisingly. Oh the first time we've seen Sliden quite a while Foxy Grandpa somehow already. Good patient there by Sonic. It's almost as if Sonic knew that he was going to end it early because of the execution errors that we saw earlier. Either way Sonic Fox still has his break away. And again this is good damage before you even go into the sky. So Fox Sonic Fox getting grabbed. Foxy Grandpa has the life advantage. Oh another one. Okay. The throw is starting to work out. All tied up. One game apiece. One round off. Fight. Starting far away Foxy Grandpa would love to get something. He tried to get the whip punish. There you go. There is a break away available of course. Z hat set up way advantage on block and now Foxy Grandpa has the life lead. The crushing blow comes. He gets the grab again. Another escape failed. Wait a minute. He's coming out of character that has it on both rows. The pistol whip going to get punished here. No break away. Foxy goes up to one on Sonic with Kung Lao. Only on back throw for Kung Lao. We're taking a look at Foxy Grandpa's face.  It's not enough. It's not enough right there? Look at the determination on his face. Look at the viciousness on his face. It's not enough. Going back to the character select screen is Sonic Fox here. Remember he has not won Mortal Kombat at combo break. Could that continue? Sonic Fox as strong as he is number one at Summit. He's one game away from potentially making it another year before he tries again here. Making the switch to Jackie who is considered his, I believe his main at this point in time. There we go. Gave us the classic. But it's now or never. If you're Sonic Fox here. Down one, two. Foxy Grandpa with the Z hat. May not be something that Sonic Fox is necessarily ready for. And Foxy, you know I talked to him at Summit of Time. Talked to him coming into this. It's just a character he loves to play. Yeah. And when it gets going, it does feel comfortable. It's just something that makes him, I don't know. It's a mental thing. He clearly looks comfortable. There's no doubt about that. Sonic Fox took all that damage. He had the tension button. No. It's not about tears. It's not about matchup numbers. It's about passion for the character. Passion for the game. Foxy Grandpa. No. Knock it on the elimination door right now. Yeah, this is looking great for Foxy Grandpa, but Sonic Fox in the clinch. You know the back door is coming. One of the better options right there. And Foxy Grandpa has the range. He can harass a little bit. Great chip right there on the Z hat. Oh. And it was enough. Beautiful. It was enough. Fox. The best player in Netherrealm Game Studio's history. One pick up. At risk right now for elimination. Good to wake up by Sonic Fox not to get any of the blocks. Off of that Z hat to the corner. We go. Good idea right, Sonic. Not the rest. And not punished either. Fox seems like he is frozen just a little bit. This is rarely something that you see. Even the wake up, which is something we don't see very often either. Loading the crush and blow. Oh, easy hit confirm right there. No break away. Sonic Fox likes up a rounded piece here. In game number four. Trying to stay alive. Z hat. And good chip out of that as you can see. Oh, trying to dash punch.  Not the case here from Sonic a little too late. Super fast mid on the approach. Escape comms. And there it is. Sonic Fox is in again. No, the trap. Oh, no. I mean, it's so unlike him to do it. But we've already seen it two or three times just in this one game. Sonic Fox is in trouble. Oh, wait. Did we just see the micro bags out of Foxy? Is he trying to get into Sonic Fox's head? The counter throw. Yes. Into the clinch. Is it loaded? Yes. There's damage here. And no break away. You're eating every bit in this other corner. No. Sonic Fox does have life advantage. Oh, the big attempt. And that's something he's going to pay for with the game. Foxy put it all on the line. He went a little more. Returning the fatality. The crowd wants to see it. How disturbing is the heartbeat against the glass. I actually never noticed that before until right now when the sound is pumping into my ears. Jazz to the team over at Netherrealm Studios for delivering on these fatalities in MK11. For delivering on MK11 in general. Game five. Sonic Fox managed to recover there. Yeah, it is game five. It's still Jackie, of course, obligated to stick. And for Foxy Grandpa, he's stuck with the character as well. This time it works. Escapes. And they're trading buttons here, but Sonic Fox finds it. Loading one part of the crushing blow there on the clinch follow-up. Approaching. Foxy's in the corner. He's in trouble. A little bit of Foxy's own game here with his throws. Nice position. Another one. Wasn't ready for breakfast. That's the mix-up throw or meaty. Fox plays it incredibly well. Jumping over. Not punished. So Foxy Grandpa, just like that, now he's got the advantage in the corner here. Z-Hat set up. Escape failed. Escape failed.  Yeah, that's what it's probably going to be. He's ready. So Sonic Fox escapes and actually did not grab in time. Is this going to do it? Yeah, Sonic Fox is at match point all of a sudden. Foxy was in control just a few minutes ago. It's completely flipped around. He has picked a character that almost counters Foxy's game plan perfectly. All about countering throws and almost punishing you for them. So smart by Sonic Foxy on the pick, even though the system is... Oh, my God! Oh, no! Once you get both of those throw follow-ups, that's the crushing blow on the kick there. At least Sonic Fox did not want to see any of that. Ooh, nothing! Minus seven, it is your turn after blocking that dash punch. Yeah, he didn't press a button. Beautiful pick up. Sonic Fox knocking on the door. He's in control. The grab comes. That should do it somehow. Sonic Fox stayed alive and he ends up moving on and loser's side. Just as when they played in Evo Grand Finals back in 2015, he's the one who comes out on top. Moving along.