| Digital - teacher | Education in a technological world

One entry, many thoughts.

Today is the last day before half term, and it's the last chance for me to hand in my resignation at school in order for me to be released in September. I've spoken to the headteacher and sent in the official letters, so there is no going back now. I haven't heard officially, so I need to find out whether my request has been granted. There were a few weeks of should I / shouldn't I before I came to this decision.

Another related issue: I seem to be suffering from a painful throat again (just in time for the half term) - why does this always happen??? At the moment I am sat at the computer with a box of strepsils, hot lemon sachets, and a large bottle of fruit juice just to try and keep my throat from feeling like a barbed wire fence - but it doesn't seem to be working.

Last night we successfully managed to get a collar onto Charlie, our cat. We had tried a few nights before but each time it was on her she then started throwing herself around trying to get rid of it. We finally solved it by taking the small barrel with her address off the collar. She seems happy enough now, and once she is used to it we'll try and put the barrel back on. This evening we might evening let her outside for a little while and see how she reacts to the open air (being an ex-research cat, she has never been outside).

I've been playing around with the new features that my ISP has made available on my personal website. I've set up a guestbook, contact forms and at the start of June I'll be sending out my first monthly newsletter to those who have subscribed to it. Not bad for a site that started out a year ago as just an idea.

Final call

Well I've written the resources for the next project - Adventure Island - and they are now being checked and edited.
The site is going through the last stages of design, and a few links and logos added.
We are almost set for launch.

The ferry is now boarding for All aboard!

The results are in...

Yesterday there was a poll on the musicradio website about teachers.
The results of this poll are:

A report says teachers face increasing workloads and growing problems with pupil behaviour. Do you feel sorry for the teachers of today?

Yes
59.2%
No
40.8%

Close, and reading some of the comments made as well, there are lots of people who still think that a teacher starts at 9, finishes at 3.30 and does nothing else. Oh, if only they knew!

Exclude at your peril

The number of children excluded from schools in England has fallen for the first time in three years, government figures are expected to show
- bbc.co.uk

Well sure, these figures are bound to drop. The amount of paperwork, hassle and appeals that goes with an exclusion is ridiculous. Surely if a child misbehaves they should be removed from the rest of the class to prevent anymore disruption to the learning opportunities for the other children.
Then of course we get the 'you can't deny a child with behaviour problems an education' brigade. I don't disagree, but you cannot prioritise one child over 29 others in a class. It simply isn't fair on those children who want to learn.

"Programmes to improve pupil behaviour are providing positive working environments for teachers, while our reforms to the school workforce are cutting bureaucracy and reducing the burden of work for teachers."
-DfES spokesman

Really? So why do I hear so many teachers telling me that their biggest concern is the behaviour of pupils and the impact on the classroom?

Related stories about this can be found here, here and here

Here, there, everywhere

Well if I ever wanted to see all of the UK this is my chance!
My calendar for June has (so far) visits and workshops in;

Milton Keynes, London, Berkshire, Dudley, Nottingham, Bristol, Chesire and Cambridgeshire.

I expect more to be added over the next few days, with many more schools involved in Adventure Island requesting a visit. Only problem is, I only have 8 more days free !!

Who would have thought back in September that I would have toured around so much. It's a complete transformation from being based in the classroom.

On a seperate note, my local radio station (and in fact the rest of the stations within the musicradio 'company' around the UK are asking a question on their websites today;

A report says teachers face increasing workloads and growing problems with pupil behaviour. Do you feel sorry for the teachers of today?

Guess what - everyone thinks that teachers have it easy. So once again, I suggest it's time for a national 'swap jobs with a teacher' week - let's see how non teachers view teaching after spending a week in the classroom. I somehow think there would be a lot more sympathy.

Seeing Patterns

The more I check through and edit the submissions to Dragonsville, the more I notice a distinct pattern emerging.
Each morning when I log on there are entries from the US and Canada, sometimes Australia, Hong Kong and elsewhere but mainly Canada and the US. Each entry tends to be from a different state or area, and there are never too many from the same school coming in at the same time.
While I am working through these, checking to see whether they are suitable for the site, fresh work starts to come in. This tends to happen between 9.15 - 10.30 and again from 11 - 12, and unlike the overnight submissions there are clusters from schools arriving one after the other.
Why is this? Well maybe because in the UK most schools have their daily literacy hour and some point in the morning.

So what is this telling me? Well, two distinct things:

(1) that around the world individual children are coming into the site (maybe through the link of the main Kids on the Net page, maybe through a link from Kids' Castle), looking around and submitting a piece of work or two.
(2) in the UK teachers are using the site as a digital resource for their classes. The whole class might be working on their letter writing skills and as a result 30 letters are sent over the course of the morning.

Which is great - because the whole point of these projects is to get teachers to use digital resources and let children produce online writing. So, take a look at the letters, the biographies, the instructions or the character portraits and see when a UK class contributed. There are quite a few on there.

I just wish I could tell whether or not a teacher was using the teaching notes and worksheets that were written for the site as well. If you are one of those teachers who is using the site, and you did use the resources - please let me know using the comment option below.

Reasons to be miserable: 1, 2, 3

1) It's overcast again after several days of brilliant sunshine. I was rained upon as I came into work.

2) My car is making a strange noise. Either that or there is a nail in the tyre.

3) The cat was sick on the carpet this morning. Lovely start to the day.

The [blunders] of technology

When it works, email is great. When it doesn't it, it tends to go wrong spectacularly! Take my email account at home. Over the last few days I been receiving multiple emails from the same people with the same message, sent at the same time. In one case I had 8 messages repeated over the course of a few hours!

As well as that, I am sometimes receiving replies to messages that I haven't yet seen the original version of (at this point you start to think that you forgetting parts of your day), and then when I do send a mail I get a rejected message, shortly followed by the email appearing on the list or group it was sent to.

It's very confusing, and slightly unnerving, when a mesage that was rejected gets through. I thought it was my machine, until I went to my ISP server status page and found the following messages;

Outgoing email issues xxx customers attempting to send email may currently find the mails take a long time to send, and may time out while trying to do so. This is due to a technical fault. Customers may also see the error messege "Server Error: 452, Error Number: 0x800CCC6C" Our engineers are aware and are working towards a resolution as soon as possible. Please accept our apologies for any inconvience caused.

and

Incoming (receiving) email issues. xxx Broadband Internet customers using the xxx Mail service may be experiencing problems accessing the service, this is because of a technical fault. Our engineers are aware of this issue and working on a resolution. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused

Well, that solves that one! It's not my machine, its my ISP (again). Their slogan is 'technology tamed' (can we think of better word that rhymes with tamed.....)

Behaviour Specialists

We're having a few problems with Charlie at the moment (if you didn't know, Charlie is the cat that we have adopted recently). She was very quiet when we first met her - not suprising for a cat that has lived her life as a research animal - but has gradually begun to gain her confidence around the house.
She also has a habit of hissing and striking out at anyone who doesn't give her attention when she demands it. (Thinking about it, she actually reminds me of several children I have taught previously).
Anyway, we spoke to the vets in Bristol who looked after her before she came to us, and they have put us in touch with a cat behavour specialist who is going to try and work out why she keeps attacking us.

I thought I'd mention that simply because I remember trying to get advice on how to cope with certain children in my class over the years, but I was never given details of a child behaviour specialist.

Strange that how I can easily get support regarding a cat, but not a child!

Website development

Unlike the previous project where I designed and built (several times!!) the webpages myself, Adventure Island is being built by a web developer. What does that mean?  Well, for a start it will look good, and it will work as it is meant to, so all aboard for the island!
Oh - and as before we have asked an artist to draw the images for us. We now have maps, signs and icons ready. Look at the ones below;

All the images above were drawn by Mark Burgess. Thanks Mark

They are going to look great on the site. I want to get on with this project now and start the workshops with children around the country.

Farewell, group one

Yesterday I went through the mailing list and removed all the users who took part in the pilot stage of Dragonsville, because we need to use the list for the people involved in the adventure island project.
It made it final that no longer would we be developing Dragonsville, now it is open and people can add to it, but there will be no new sections added as required.

Oh well, onwards to the islands now!
Today is resource writing and worksheet preparations, with the building of the new mailing list later on. Full speed ahead to

Image (c) Kids on the Net 2004

Bad planning...

OK, so last week there were the national SATs week. Scores of Year6 children walking to school, dreading what will be in this years tests; worried teachers wondering if they have spent the year revising the right topics with their classes ...

Was anyone expecting the bombshell in the English test? Children asked to read a story about a girls grandfather - and how he had changed after he had suffered a stroke.

So, let's think about this one from the view of the child.

- They wake up on Wednesday morning, they've already had two days of tests and aren't feeling positive about school just now.

- They make the journey to school knowing that there is another day of testing for them.

- They sit in class - or the hall - isolated on a single desk, without speaking, no turning round, no getting up, and the paper is given out.

- They wait for the teacher to tell them to start, wondering whether what they will be asked to do, and then they begin.

- They read the booklet; its a story about a girl, and her grandfather, and there are descriptive passages that talk about the changes to her grandfather.

- By now the child is feeling upset (maybe their own grandfather has suffered a stroke, and they are being reminded about it in the middle of the test)

- The reach the end of the story and open the answer booklet.
'QUESTION: comment on the girls feelings as her grandfather came out of the hospital'. By now the child is close to tears. They cannot concentrate, they cannot do the best piece of writing because they are feeling very emotional.

And yet, the score they get from this one day of writing will be hung over them all through their secondary school career.

That's fair. That's how the government likes it testing to be carried out.