Please Mr Andrew’s, let us remote teach…

Posted on by Dave GN

I know, it has been a long while since this blog was use. All my subscribers have left. Life got in the way, as it so often does.

I live in Melbourne. I teach at a wonderful Government school here in the Eastern Suburbs. I have been there 5 years a bit now and love my job. Not as much as I used to, because I can’t actually do my job at the moment, due to the global pandemic (you may have heard about it……..). The Job I am doing is making the best of a situation, but it is beginning to feel like I am being sacrificed and unnecessarily risked.

The news over the last few days have made me physically ill. Literally, I am so stressed and worried my stomach is playing up. The idea of returning to school, under these circumstances has made me too things; outraged and terrified.

  • The idea that the government is so willing to risk my health and those of my family, by making all schools go to remote learning, to achieve the purpose of making it “fair” for year 12s is absolute bullshit. Guess what Dan, the scores are not going to matter, as the Uni’s have already lost 50% of there enrolments due to no international students; there will be spaces if you bloody well fund them! You want to talk about fair, think of my kids who could lose a parent (as we are both teachers) or a sibling because we were forced back to work, when it was something we could do from home, like you keep saying – if you can work from home you must work from home.

 

  • Social distancing at schools is not physically possible – you built the schools that way, look at your own blueprints. Ask any damn teacher who was there last term, and it was a joke of a concept, we couldn’t truly enforce, which is why the government said, “social distancing does not apply to students while at school”.
    1. Yes, kids appear to be resilient to the virus, but teachers are not – we are adults and like other adults – we should be avoiding contact with everybody for fucks sake, as per the advice previously mentioned.

 

  • Remote teaching worked last time. It was painful. It sucked. It sucked for teachers, it sucked for parents, and it sucked for teachers who were parents (probably even more). I hated every minute of it. It was not the job I signed on to do and not something I would ever do again, unless necessary. It was hard – I worked harder than I every have. My wife and I will testify to this in court if need be; we spent 8 hours a day remote teaching, managing a 7-year old’s remote learning, providing childcare for our 18-month-old, plus normal household duties. Then after the kids were in bed, on average, we would each spend another 3 or 4 hours doing the work we could not do with our own kids under foot – marking, providing feedback, prepping lessons etc.

 

  • We tried remote teaching from onsite for two weeks before the students came back. All it did was make me depressed and worried; raised my general anxiety levels to new heights; cause me immeasurable stress; and overall made me worse at remote teaching and less productive in general.

 

Look this is a rant, but I need to express my feeling and thoughts about this. I want the world to return to what it was; I want to teach again, in the classroom, not worrying about getting sick or making my family sick. BUT that is not possible at the moment, we are in a global pandemic. That is the reality of 2020 and life for the immediate future.

What do I want moving forward? I want to do my job, without be lied to or being asked to do something that endangers my family. I work as a teacher. Not a doctor, not a nurse, not a soldier and not a cop. I am not a babysitter, though often treated like one. I am an educator. I should be able to do my job without jeopardizing my health or safety or that of my family. I want to remote teach from offsite, so that I can do the best job I can, working with the least amount of stress and fear possible; I want to keep Mickey and Lachie safe. I do not think it fair that I will have to risk them in care, when we have other options, that worked last time.

Please let us teachers go back to remote learning, Mr Andrews. Let us do the jobs you pay us for without risking our health and that of our family’s.

Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks

Posted on by Dave GN

 

(or why the Head of [ insert faculty] is going to my hit me in the back of the head)

I have been prepping recently for my first every presentation at a conference. I have been lucky enough or maybe crazy enough to be giving a presentation at Digicon 2017 (http://digicon.vic.edu.au/).  It seemed like a good idea at the time (still does, just with a lot more trepidation and anxiousness), but I thought it would be fun to share with my colleagues, what I am doing with ICT at my school. Thus I came up with this (caution, self-promotion in hyperlink below);

BUILDING ICT TEACHING CAPACITY FOR THE VICTORIAN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES CURRICULUM

At Mooroolbark College, when the new Victorian Curriculum in Digital Technologies, was introduced we realized that there were two major hurdles to overcome. Firstly, a knowledge gap in terms of coding/programming; the 7-10 curriculum is based on students having completed the F-6 curriculum, which won’t happen for the next 3-5 years effectively. Secondly, where are we going to get ICT teachers from, that can teach this curriculum? This presentation is about one school’s solution to this dilemma; how we are training teachers to code so they can teach year 7s and 8s confidently and effectively, so they are curriculum ready by year 9.  This is my and Mooroolbark College’s story about this so far, and hopefully a forum to share our experiences with others.

http://digicon.vic.edu.au/sessions/building-ict-teaching-capacity-for-the-victorian-digital-technologies-curriculum/

I wanted to call my presentation “Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks” but was told that, despite being funny, it is not professional to ever refer to colleagues, even metaphorically or as an idiom, as “Old Dogs”, even if I love dogs. Despite this, the name still lives in my head, and now due to this blog, on the internet. LOL.

A week of holidays has passed, and I will admit that I am nowhere near ready yet. I have put in a few hours of work and thought on this, but I am struggling finding the words. My principal recently told me that sometimes, when it comes to ICT, be it pedagogy or teacher practise, people have trouble getting their heads around the concepts or ideas that I am trying to explain.

She advised me, that it is not that I speak to fast or use too technical language, it is that they (those who I explaining too) often don’t have the ICT knowledge or experience to put things into a context where the ideas make sense. The whole “context” thing is a new challenge for me. I guess being at the bottom of the change pile not the agent of change that I have become (not my words, but I will steal them Rach!) has given me a tendency to forget that not everyone has the same context when it comes to ICT in education. This contextual difference, is what has me stuck at the moment.

The idea of context is why I think, that metaphorically speaking, another Faculty Head is going to hit me in the back of the head. In all honesty, I work with a great team of Faculty Heads and I respect them all. They are fantastic people and great educators, without exception. But change is something that most teachers seemed to be a little bit hesitant with, especially when it comes to technology in the classroom. As I wrote this last sentence, I gained some clarity on the idea of context!

My context, is quite different to most of the people I work with. I am into Computers and Technology. They have always been something I have enjoyed, something that I have dabbled in. I am a geek and proud of it. I also find computers and software something extremely easy to learn and incorporate into everything I do; I look for digital solutions as a first stop to problems. I happily will spend hours “playing” with a piece of software or hardware. I haven’t read a physical book in a really long time, unless I was given it as a paperback. Every book I have bought for myself since the first Kobo reader came out, has been digital. Outside of ABC kids TV (I have a 4 year old son) and the occasional News, I stream about 95% of my media consumption. Coding is not mystical or magical, it just part of technology. My phone is used more for emails, messaging, forums and social media, than it is for phone calls. I have a relationship with technology, that has integrated it into almost every aspect of my life. In writing, this I have realized that I don’t differentiate technology from the analog; it is all a tool that I use with ease.

And it is not this way for many of the people I work with.

I guess I have some thinking to do now.

Time as a Resource

Posted on by Dave GN

In the turbulent, chaotic, eventful times that are known as “End of Semester Report Writing”, on occasion, I have been thinking a lot about what I could do with additional resources. Not money (which would be excellent) or Sleep, but the simple idea of time. I have come to think of time as my most important resource. I have discovered (at least on a personal level) that time is resource I need the most, as it can provide solutions to all other resource shortfall; well at least the resource shortfall that are not consider insurmountable such as lack of air.

I have found, that given enough time, I can work around most problems I run into while teaching. The obvious ones are things like lack of sleep, work life balance, health, lack of patience and so on. All easily solved with time; typically, easily solved with sleep, but that is not the point. I have been more thinking along the lines of things like classroom resources – Money for materials and equipment; an ever-escalating work load; marking; classroom preparation. If I have the time, I typically find a work around to the challenge that I faced, or on rare occasions an actual workable solution.

Time has become a critical resource. I never seem to have enough. Far too often I must preform metaphorical triage on problems, applying band-aid solutions that are only short term; always promising that when I have time I will fix it properly; that close enough is good enough for now. While writing this I realized that we teachers often use future adjectives constantly; things will be done. I’ll get to it later. We’ll look at that next term. See me after………

We constantly are trapped in the now, which is full, so we push stuff in the future. Our time is spent before it even happens far too often. We are always looking for more and ever have enough.

This brings me full circle in my thinking; back to my original point. What could I do with more of this resource called “Time” (now with a capital T, since I’m going to treat it as a named object). To steal something, I remember from a piece of poetry or philosophy, source long forgotten in the cobwebs of my mind.

Time is infinite and finite; It is unlimited, but you can never have enough of it.

I have found that I am always time poor. I must prioritize and choose what comes first and what get my time. I always have more to do than I have time to do it in. I constantly decide what is important and what is not, not based on their true value of importance, but on how much time it will take to do, and how soon I need. This has resulted in ideas being shelved, projects being abandoned and things being left by the wayside. So what would I do with more Time?

First, I would sleep. Yes sleep. It is something that I have found as the semester ends I never have enough of. The candle gets burnt at both ends, with late nights and early starts the necessity of life. It would be wonderful to be able to get enough sleep and have time to do all the other things. Next, I would finish some of the things I have left unfinished; the projects that are good enough but not truly done. Those little things I am always working on, because they are interesting but externally a side project. For example, my research/exploration into VR as a classroom tool; the concept of gamification and applying it to the classroom; learning a new programming language; writing that app I want to make.  All those little side projects.

The final thing, would be spend more time with my family. Slow things down, and not cram in all the fun into brief hours, but actually have quantity and quality time instead of one or the other.

All in all, Time is something that seems to something I am wasting thinking about it. Which, all in all, not a bad thing. Best thing about time, is even wasting it can result in something.

Unit Planning in the Digital Age

Posted on by Dave GN

The last 4 weeks have been hectic, with the end of a term, two weeks of holidays and now the start of the final term for 2016. I haven’t had much chance or inclination to sit and write my thoughts down, in a publishable manner, or for that matter a manner that is more than a scribble on a post it. In the last few days, I have been working on my registration project, which thankful is almost done. I have also been finalizing my lesson plans for the remainder of this year. Once these two task are done, the next project on my plate is 2017 and documenting curriculum for it.

This year has gone quickly, and will be over in just over 9 weeks. Nine weeks sounds like a lot of time, but I have a feeling I will turn around and it will be gone sooner than imagined. I have no idea want I’ll be teaching next year, not even actually sure where I will be teaching. I’m happy where I am, but I’m not ongoing, so I have to keep chasing that enigma of teaching called “ongoing”. I am by no means unhappy with where I am, but I have to work to secure the stability for my family.

Circling back to my point, I am starting to document lessons and units of work for next year. It is the first time I have prepared documentation from an essentially blank slate. IT not that resources were not left for me, it is more that the new curriculum is so different from the current curriculum, most everything is new. I have based and run a few units of work off the new curriculum this year, but these only represent maybe 20% of what will be needed. The more I think about it, the larger the task seems.

I have a framework and the basics of a plan for next year, but I keep coming back to small details and how much do I need to document? I’m not sure of I should be writing detailed overviews accompanied by lesson by lesson plans, or a broad topical overview which leaves out some of the details for whom ever is teaching it to fill in. It is not keeping me up at night, but it has me thinking at the moment.

For, me, I typically operate digital only, with no hard copy if I can avoid it. I don’t really print anything besides my class timetable and that is only printed because I like to be able to look at my pin-board and see it. My preferred means of lesson planning is in Excel. It odd, but I like using tables and Excel is essentially one big table. My planning is formatted on a grid and Excel work s for me. The issue I am running into though is that, my peers like things printed. Anyone who has worked on large spread sheets knows, they are not meant to be printed; they are ideally suited for electronic perusal not paper distribution.  This has put me into minor logger heads with my teaching peers; they want hard copy and I find myself more and more working with documents that are not meant for the print medium.

I think this is an issue that is going to become more and more apparent in years to come, as students become more digitally savvy. Think about the average informative webpage. It often has imbedded media and graphics as well as a level of interactivity through hyperlinks. For digital documents, there is really no such thing “as single page” or “static” anymore.

Battling the End of Term Burnout

Posted on by Dave GN

For the first time, I have noticed in myself the end of term 3 exhaustion that has plagued many of my friends and colleagues over the years. I am tired. So very tired. I want to have a nap, and I am writing this at 8am, on my third cup of coffee and after a solid 8 hours of sleep. There are 3 days left, one of which I am on excursion for, before the term 3 break. Two glorious weeks of not sleeping in! I have a three-year-old, so the words “sleep in” have been removed from my personal lexicon for the foreseeable future.

But I am grumpy. So very grumpy. Yesterday may have been the longest day in history. I only taught for 2 periods and had 2 off, but it was so long. It felt like I marked forever, even though I managed to finish the last of my outstanding marking in about an hour. Time is slowing down at the moment; each minute is taking longer to pass than it predecessor. Oh, the injustice and drama of it all! (man it felt good to be over the top and dramatic about this!)

But I shouldn’t be. Life is good. My classes are running smoothly, my marking pile has been eliminated. I have all my lessons planned till the end of the term and for the first two weeks back. I have a clean house. My students also seem to be in high spirits, despite their only being 3 days left. They like what we are doing in my classes. Why the hell am I feeling burnt out?

I’m not an introvert. I never imagined teaching not being the chaotic, maelstrom of learning and teaching that it is.  I love my job, despite having those days where I don’t, which usually coincide with an illness or external stress. This is my first experience of the Term 3 Blues or Term 3 burnout, which I have heard about. Everyone, in this case defined as teachers I have spoken too or decided to write something I read about this, says that term 3 is the hardest of the year. It is when the pressure builds and the cracks start showing; everyone gets stressed. It has never hit me before though. I guess I have always had lots of other things going on; I have been chasing contracts or CRT; I didn’t work term one at one school; We had a baby in June one year. When I reflect about it, this is really my first year working for the whole school year, continuously, without there being something else major happening external to work. I guess I have been lucky.

So how do I deal with this feeling? For me it going to be a long 3 days. I’ll go to the gym and go for a swim. I’ll write some blog posts, which are becoming almost therapeutic; I actually find writing stuff like this organises my thoughts and provides me with a bit of introspection and perspective. I’ll keep clearing my plate, so that the holiday will be mine; I will only need to do what I want to do, with no pesky “needs doing” stuff for my job. I’ll focus on the positives; there are so many. I didn’t see them until I wrote this post. When the holiday gets here, I am still going to be up at 6am. But it will be on my terms (or at least the terms of a toddler). I won’t be taking off my pyjamas until I want to though.

Teaching Outside of Your Method

Posted on by Dave GN

I was reading this article, discussing how many early years’ teachers are teaching outside of their teaching methods. It talks about the statistics around this, touching briefly on the need due to timetabling. It doesn’t really seem to get into the meat of the matter, as it is article based on a report which was looking at the numbers, not necessarily the reasons behind them.

I have been teaching 4 years, with a year off between my 3rd and 4th years to be a stay at home dad. I have taught outside my methods, almost every year until recently. When I started teaching I had English and Information Technology as official methods.  In my first 2 years of teaching I taught; English, History, Geography, Information Technology, Religious Education, Automotive, and VCAL. And these were across the range of 7 to 10, with the exception of VCAL and RE which were year 11 subjects.  I should note, these were not as a CRT, extras or short contracts, but subjects I had for at least a term or two.

I was happy to give them a go, as I was young and ready to take on any challenge. I may have been naive as a fresh faced graduate, but I wanted to teach and would have said yes to almost any subject that would of but me in the classroom. I was not in a position to say no to work, and felt that I could take on any challenge. Some of them were big asks; Auto especially, which was luckily for a term and all theory and design. It was hard work, I was lucky enough to be “old” (I was 32) by first year teaching standards, and had no desire to have a social life beyond watching some TV with my wife. I devoted myself happily to the preparation and work that I needed to do to deliver these subjects. I never felt pressured to teach anything, but could see how you could easily be pressured into doing that, especially as an early teacher, who is desperate to just have a job.

It is an easy thing to forget, that secondary teachers are trained as specialists. We know our methods; we know the content and the pedagogy that surrounds those methods. We know about classroom management and general pedagogy. We typically are pretty limited outside our methods though! For example, I myself have 5 teaching methods; Information Technology, English, Humanities, Food Technology and Business Management. I admit that this is unusual and due to having too much time on my hands playing stay at home dad for a year, combined with my circuitous route to teaching. I can confidently teach in my methods. I’m also pretty comfortable teaching junior media, religious education, economics or accounting. Beyond that, I have pretty much no clue; there are some areas I won’t know where to start teaching in. I won’t say that I could not learn the content and how to teach them, but if you dropped me in cold, into a class out of my method areas tomorrow, I would have countless hours of work to take on the challenge. And the truth is, I would not be the best person to be teaching the subject. Take math for example. I am ok at math. I work with business math and computer math fairly regularly. I still actually use algebra, but I am not mathematically minded. I don’t understand it at a level that lets me see the how things are done. I cannot explain it in different ways; I am not a math teacher. No matter how much time I spend training and studying, I don’t think I will ever be a good math teacher; it is not my specialty or within my personal capacities. On the other hand, I am an English teacher. I understand English; the structure and function; the complex rules; the different styles and methods of writing. I can explain them in many different ways, and if needed figure out new ways to help a specific student understand what I am on about.

At a junior level, 7-9, there is a valid argument for everyone teaching everything. At year 7, most of us will have enough general knowledge to teach most subjects, except maybe math and LOTE (and the new IT curriculum, but that I’m saving for another post all by it lonesome). Through in PE and Technology subjects and the list starts getting long, but that is why we have specialist teachers; secondary education is about developing mastery in subjects not general learning.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with teaching outside your area, but I for one have never said “yes” to teaching something that I could not really teach; I’m not a math or science teacher; nor a PE or art teacher; I can’t teach wood, metal or plastics; don’t even ask about a language other than English or textiles. I know I cannot teach in those areas, because they are so far out of my personal context and skill set that I would do students a disservice in attempting to teach them. But this is me, not you. Some of the best teachers I have ever worked with or had, were in fact teaching in an area that wasn’t their method, but something they loved anyhow.

Teachers and Social Media

Posted on by Dave GN

Your either love, hate or fall somewhere in between when it comes to social media. In schools, it is an ever constant pain in the ass while at the same time presenting limitless potential; it is a devil and an angel. One thing is clear, that it cannot be ignored by schools any longer. Social media policies and popping up as separate entities to the standard ICT policies in an attempt to embrace and manage how schools interact with the social media landscape. Some schools are winning, some are losing and some are spinning their wheels making lots of smoke and noise, but going nowhere. Social media is hard; not for individuals but for schools. As an individual, you can ignore what you want and interact with it on your own terms. For a school it is far more complex. Schools have to both manage their social media carefully; they have to publish content that is in-line with a plethora of rules and policies (both internal and department) whilst creating policies intended manage the behaviours of teenagers.

Schools are social institutions; teachers and schools are held to different societal expectations and responsibilities than others because we interact with young people on a daily basis. Teachers are expected to maintain a “professional” public appearance at all times on social media. I’m not sure which side I fall onto in regards to this debate. On the one hand, teachers (like everyone else) have the right to a life outside of work. On the other hand, we have influence and are role models for young people in our charge. I really don’t know where I stand on this. I am a social media user. I have been for years. I just tend to live a very boring life, so this I don’t feel pressure to act one way or another; until this blog I have been a passive user of social media, especially outside of the small communities I am a member of, which are all pretty bland and geeky. My friends are typically people I actually know in the real world. I stay out of controversial debates, not because I am managing my profile, but because I don’t want to. I find the wars of words, when written, is not my cup of metaphorical tea.

Back on track, to me, the two arguments can actually be boiled down the same thing; are teachers public figures? Some say yes, others say no. We are not celebrities or politicians, but are known in the community due to the nature of our work. We are definitely not paid to be public figures, but we knew that when we got into the teaching game. In this day and age social media is part of our lives; it is not going to stop and is not going away. I think this issue is going to be debated endlessly, as both sides of the argument are equally valid. The only solution I see, is one where teachers are compensated and recognized for the incursion of their jobs into their daily lives; something will have to be given for something to be given up. It is about finding balance between our professional identities and our personal lives. I for one will keep using social media and keep working to help my school, my colleagues and my students become responsible users of it.

ICT Literacy: An Attempted Definition

Posted on by Dave GN

If your reading this, you are most likely considered literate in the English language in the form of written literacy; you can read and probably write in the English language (If you are using a translator, or text to speech software, hat’s off to you, because that is awesome!). Furthermore, this is the characteristically used definition of the word “literacy”; the ability to read and write in your chosen language. It is in fact, the primary definition of the word in the dictionaries that I took a look at. This definition also applies in other languages too, but I’m writing in English, so I going to try and keep it simple and only talk about it in that context. Literacy also has a secondary definition, which often reads: knowledge or competence in a specific topic or content area.

This is where things get confusing in teaching; how do you differentiate about what definition of literacy your using, when you say literacy? Unlike some other words there is no case sensitive versions that differentiate between the two definitions (example Aboriginal vs aboriginal); using the term literacy often requires a lot of context. In an educational context we like to talk about literacy as literacy and other literacies, with the term other literacies refereeing to areas like computer literacy, media literacy, visual literacy and so on. Confused yet? Hopefully not.

In this context, I am going to be talking about information/computer technology literacy, which I will just call ICT literacy for the sake of ease of typing. I have been thing about ICT literacy a lot recently, as at my school we have been looking at classic literacy across the whole school recently, as a PD focus. English is also one of my teaching methods, though I am not teaching it at the moment, so my brain has been in “expert” mode during these sessions and this has really got the metaphorical wheels turning. ICT literacy and literacy are very connected; they are not the same thing, but have an interesting relationship.

I have begun to examine the necessity of basic literacy skills to even access a computer. I realized that computers are built around the assumption of a user having a basic level of literacy; the ability to read (at a really basic level) is an essential skill for computer use. Computer interfaces are built around text and the ability to respond to that text. Think about the first thing you have to do after the thing is turned on; enter a password. We think of computer interfaces as being completely graphical, but they in fact are not. Text (and words) are integrated into the graphics to such an extent that we no longer realize they are actively present and being interacted with. Think about your desktop for a second. Every icon has a name. We use the visual cues provided by the icons to be efficient, but we typically read the name when we focus on one. And this is just on a surface level; think about what you do on a computer. Email, social media and browsing the web, are all text based interactions; we communicate with written language when using most computer technology. ICT literacy is built upon a foundation of literacy.

At this stage, I will concede that people can rote learn to use a computer, if illiterate, but find it very difficult to do anything beyond simple tasks. There are also alternative interfaces to assist the blind, but this is not the same as being illiterate, as to use them you need a different form of literacy that is far more complex and nuanced. But with this said, it does not take away from what has been presented so far.

This leads me on to a more complex question; what then is ICT literacy?

Within my education paradigm, many define it as the ability to use a computer and associated programs effectively. I think this definition is quite limited. For me, ICT literacy is more complex than that. I tend to expand the definition. For me ICT literacy is “the ability to use computer technology in an effective manner in order to communicate and express oneself. It is the ability to learn new software and adapt to the ever changing face of computer technology. It is about thinking critically and imaginatively about information. It is about meaningful communications using technology. ICT literacy is an extension of literacy into the multimodal world of information technology”.

I’m the first to admit it, but I am still not happy with this definition. It still seems too small, for such a big concept, but I will keep working on it. Some same ICT Literacy is one the “most important 21st century skills”. I tend to agree, but have begun to think of it as more of an extension of classic literacy than a entire field of its own.

Some Thoughts on STEM in Aus

Posted on by Dave GN

I was reading this post by EdTech and the first line really jumped out at me.

“Many high-demand occupations require a solid grounding in science, technology, engineering and math.”  EdTech

Despite this article being about America, I believe that their statement applies to education here in Australia. We are living in a technological society, and our education system is struggling to catch up with it. After years of funding cuts, we have become very disconnected from “Industry Standards”. Education has been about literacy, numeracy, and developing thinking skils for the last half century or so (give or take).

We really wanted people to be able to read and think, giving them the skills to be productive members of society and chase their dreams. This is as true today as it ever was. It is a fundamental purpose of education and that should never change. BUT society has changed. We need new additional skills and ways of thinking. Technology has experience exponential grow in the last 30 years and the way we interact with information has changed. We are quickly moving away from an industrial society, transitioning into a knowledge based economy, where what we know how to do and how we know how we think are becoming more important than our physical capabilities. This social /economic shift is already happening, and our education system is trying to adapt and grow with it, providing students with new skills and knowledge to empower them in the future.

STEM is the hot topic in education at the moment, but we are playing catch up to the needs of industry. We need students to understand the concepts and thinking skills the STEM disciplines need. In all honesty though it, might be too late for many of them; some students don’t have enough time left in their secondary education for this shift to have more than a small impact on their skills. They are not a lost cause or anything like that, but they might not have the same opportunities that will be presented to the secondary school generation that follows them.

I love how STEM, and with it Computer Technology, has become a driving idea of education. There is lots of talk, but from what I have seen and heard, very little action. The government has been talking big about STEM; promising to allocate millions to education. So far this money has not eventuated, with vast sums going to “development initiatives” which seem to exclude actual schools. I hope they will deliver, but odds are it will be too little too late and complicated by the usual bureaucracy which will waste the majority of funds.

On a plus, the action around STEM seems to be happening at the school and teacher level; teachers are doing what they; making use of what limited resources they have to shoot for the best learning outcomes they can conceive. It is what we do (imagine that I have inserted a winky smiley face here). I love the energy that the push of STEM has caused; the recognition that science, technology, engineering and math are key areas for the future, has breathed energy into the subjects. If the chips fall right, the funding materializes, there is a potential of a paradigm shift in education; one that will align our educational goals with what is needed in our technological society.

Whiteboards, Projectors and TVs in the Classroom

Posted on by Dave GN

I was reading this article about replacing white boards with TVs, and it got me thinking. I really don’t like the idea of it. I’m not a constant white board user, as an IT teacher, but do use it on occasion. I use my laptop, projector and OneNote instead, as I am lucky enough to have a touch screen and a digital pen. I get to distribute my scribbling to my captive audience, and they can focus on the discussion instead of trying to copy my notes.

But that is me. Not everyone has the resources or inclination to adopt this approach. Not everyone wants to. Yes HD is nice, 4K more so. Yes TVs are easy to use and work much better than projectors in a bright space. But I would still rather have a projector any day.  Until TV are the size of a whiteboard, a projector will trump them. I’ll finish with a question “What would you do if the power goes out, and you had no whiteboard?”