and another video that speaks volumes…
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I don’t teach.
Having been on a PGCE course I know how to teach but I don’t teach.
Why? I don’t think I’d be any good at it.
Maybe that’s down to self confidence or maybe is down to recollections of woeful, uninterested teachers that taught me at secondary school and the thought of me being like them (woeful, not uninterested) is enough for me to have found employment in another role within education and leave teaching to those who are good at it.
Another reason I don’t want to teach is from my observation of the education system as a whole. Teachers, it appears to me anyway, are now employed to get students through exams and nothing more. Learning, creativity and enrichment are all secondary to getting students to memorise information and regurgitate it in the exam room.
A great example of this is a ‘web friend’ of mine tweeted about his students’ GCSE results were lower than expected. Now this particular teacher is knowledgeable, a published author on his teaching specialism, a doctoral level student himself and, more importantly, passionate about his subject.
What was one of the reasons why he think he’s ‘failed’?
Because he tried to move away from the usual chalk-and-talk style of teaching and introduce a little creativity, using various Web 2.0 tools.
How can a teacher try and get their students more creative, more independent and yet more connected in their learning if they have the fear of being beaten with the poor results stick?
The school I work in is a great example of this kind of no risk taking. The GCSE results are fabulous, around 83% A-C’s inc English and Maths.
Now, which teacher in my school, under immediate pressure to maintain the schools existing high standards and meet the expectation of 80+% GCSE results, will take the ‘risk’ and dispense the chalk-and-talk method of 2-dimensional drumming of information into our students and allow a little 3-dimensional creativity to permeate into our classrooms?
I’d like to say “the inspirational teacher” or “the one who can see the bigger picture” or “the one who actually cares about the skills he’s passing on to his students” but I’d probably have to be realistic and say “the one who’d probably lose their job”.
I’m glad I don’t teach and until things change I will never ever contemplate going back and retake my training to be a teacher…
But to the point of the post… the video. It’ll probably prompt polar responses, but I found it inspiring… hope you do too.
Enjoy
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Having been a follower of Johhny Chung Lee for some tine now, I only realised today that I’d not actually posted anything about the truly wonderful, innovative stuff this guy produces…
As you can see… it’s simply breathtaking!
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I’ve just contributed my Top 10 Tools for learning & development.
Having decided to contribute to the project I found it a little harder than I originally thought it would be…. yes, there are a few resources and applications that did immediately spring to mind but a few of my entires needed some thought.
It’s a really good reflective exercise…
Here’s my list linky
Why don’t you contribute your list…
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Mmmm, apparently I’m an ‘uber_geek’.
A label I would normally brush aside, but when that comment was made by Ed Tech. luminary Doug Belshaw, I had to sit back and assess if I really was such a person…
The background… A few days ago, after a chat with the HoD of ICT, it was decided that it would be of great value to Yr12 & Yr13 students to gain exposure to ‘alternative’ operating systems so I’ve been busy looking at ways to get a Linux distro to live happily with my schools network of XP Pro loaded PCs.
After deciding I didn’t want to faff around with dual boots – two reasons really:
1) It would mean completely rebuilding an image – not my fave thing in the world
2) To have a ‘fully functioning’ Linux box on my network would pose serious problems as
I basically don’t know enough about locking Linux down in a pupil facing / network environment.
I decided upon having the Linux distro, in this case Ubuntu 8.04, loaded as a Virtual Machine.
Now, there are only really two choices for free VMs – Microsoft’s Virtual PC and VMware Player….
I currently use the MS offering on my main desktop PC at work to simulate an ‘average’ curric PC so I can test GPO’s, permissions, desktop environment etc and to be quite frank it’s woeful.
Yes it’s easy to setup but does it really need to run at 90% CPU usage all the time??? Using it generally means it kills my PC completely. Dead.
Which leaves VMware player – all I can say is go and download it and use it. You will LOVE IT.
So having decided on VMware Player, I downloaded it and installed it on my trusty, beefy and all round fantastic Toshiba laptop.
After a quick install, I downloaded an Ubuntu appliance from the VMware Appliance Marketplace and set about getting the appliance up and running. After the download it literally took me 5 minutes to get her up and running…. Too easy I thought… need more geek challenge…. Next stop XP Pro.
Using the QEMU Installer I created a .vmdk file and set about installing XP Pro – an hour or so later XP Pro was up and running in it’s on VMware Player… still too easy… need even more geek challenge
Only one option left….. Mac OS X
Now, I can’t say I dislike Macs. I’ve only briefly had a G5 (which got stolen – thanks Mr low-life burglar – I bought a nice new Dell Dimension with the insurance) so my knowledge of Macs is minimal, but I do dislike the Mac fanboi-ism that Mac users tend to ooze from every pore.
But, I wouldn’t let a little anti-mac fanboi stop me from geekdom…
So after 10 mins creating a freebsd .vdmx file I set about loading OSX onto the newly created VM disc
Slightly more problematic than XP and Ubuntu but after an alcohol fuelled hour or two (Absolut Citrus Vodka, works best in these situations) I finally got the newly created OS X loaded VMware player install to work…
Suitable geekdom achieved I went whole hog and did the Web 2.0 thing and posted on Twitter using 4 browsers – Opera, Firefox, Safari and IE – on 4 OS’s – Vista Home Premium, XP Pro, Ubuntu 8.0.4 and Mac OS X - from the same machine at the same time.
Yes, Mr Belshaw, I am indeed an uber_geek and proud of it!
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Just received a rather interesting email from the guys at Handheld Learning. They’re basically offering a free Nintendo DS and Brain Train game for people who early bird their registration. Fantastic offer, in my opinion!
The email:
Today is the final day to grab a bargain and register as an early bird for this years Handheld Learning 2008 Conference. Places have gone quickly and there are just 200 places left (nearly 700 already allocated)
Register today to save £50 (GBP) off the standard registration or £100 off door registration AND receive a FREE Nintendo DS console with Brain Training (to keep and use at the conference) AND free entry to the Handheld Learning Awards party on the first evening of the conference.
Your Nintendo DS will be dispatched immediately after your registration is confirmed so you can practice over the Summer
Register here:
http://www.handheldlearning2008.com/handheld-learning-conference-and-exhibition/registration
I have to say that the Handheld Learning site is a mine of useful information and resources for all aspects of mobile or ubiquitous learning.
Image: James Nintendo DS, by Baston
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Lets face it YouTube gets bad press in schools.
It’s a source of distraction, its a potential channel for bullying, its a bandwidth fiend so much so several LEA’s block it to free bandwidth…
But watch this video and see the true need to get YouTube used as a learning channel. A source of ‘good’ over the dismisive and negative potrayal it generally gets..
Watch, enjoy and learn!
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Promethean Planet 1.1 is here!
…said the promotional email!
Now, I’m a huge fan of Promethean’s Activ Board. From a techies point of view they’re a dream. We’ve ever had any issues with them - they just work - which is what techies and teachers both want!
From the curriculum side they’re a dream to use - even I can create materials easily and use them - and that’s saying something!
Here’s the blurb from the email I received…
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Promethean Planet’s got a new look. Plus, it’s packed with loads of new resources, richer content and improved functionality. |
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You do have to subscribe (free) to the site but I can’t recommend the site enough to any Activ Board user!
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Just taken a few photos of some of my toys….
In there is my new Toshiba 17″ laptop, my truly wonderful HP TC1100 Tablet PC - my favourite toy, IMHO has great potential for classroom use this coming year, my Asus EEE PC - 4G. I’ve upgraded it to 2GB Ram from Crucial and it runs XPS2, Office 2003, Firefox and Sophos with no performance issues at all. And finally my little Nintendo DS
Reviews to follow!!!
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While playing around with Google docs, which I must admit up until now that hasn’t been too often, I noticed that you can create simple Forms to use with your Google Docs Spreadsheet.
Now, as someone who has tried to work with Surveys in Sharepoint, I’m always on the lookout for a simple way to create surveys, questionaires, polls etc for students to complete.
This opens up a whole new, simple and straightforward way to get the staff and students participate in creating on-line questionnaires.
Obviously you are limited to pretty basic data entry type ‘questions’, but it’s more than enough for Year 7, 8 and 9 Data Capture.
Here’s a real simple example
A 30 second job to create and embed… it isn’t the most pretty of tools but it does the job!
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