AndyMcSwan.com

In the process of moving!

2009-10-27T09:16:00.004Z

I've decided it's time for a change with the blog and have started the process of moving over to wordpress, the change will be happening in the next few weeks.

It's day 2 of In-Service here in Highland. Right now in Dingwall 1000 teachers from accross highland are taking part in the Curriculum for Excellence Showcase or as it is also known the Highland Learning Festival (HLF09).

I will be attending this tomorrow so here's hoping for a good day to travel (This time last year I had to get to Dingwall for an Internet Safety course and went of the road in the snow!).

In other news I"ve started putting together a teachmeet for computing teachers, No venue yet but the date is to be Friday June 11th 2010 and chances are it will be in Edinburgh (There is a reason for this to be explained later)

I was recently asked about a mobile phone quiz I created and thought it'd be a good idea to put up a link to the website that showed me how to do these, It's a blog ran by Joe Dale but here is a link direct to the mobile quiz post: http://bit.ly/G6ehd

My plan for today is to finally sort out my classroom and get materials ready for the next term, 1 day to go...

1 Year Gone

2009-06-09T15:25:00.002+01:00

This is a quick blog post in an effort to get me blogging again.

I'm starting a project with the S1 pupils to do some video editing and so they've chosen some songs they'd like to make videos from and it's quite interesting what they've chosen.

For those of you with Spotify you can check out the list here:
http://open.spotify.com/user/ghscomp/playlist/0iK4S9AYqK2j8TXAzEETSe

On a side note today marks the 1 year anniversary of me starting in the school, oh how time flies when you're busy.

TeachmeetXi

2009-02-24T20:24:00.003Z

I attended my first Teachmeet (in person) on Friday night and I also gave a 2 minute nano presentation looking at my classroom cool wall which seems to have been well recieved.

I really enjoyed the night and feel it was well worth travelling 600 odd mile round trip to attend. One thing about working so far away from the city and in a one man department I've found is that it's important to get out and network with other professionals whenever possible.

While working down in East Lothian the computing teachers would meet up regularly (and in the pub no less) for a networking session. So far this has not happened in Highland that I'm aware of but hopefully other events will come up.

However back to the point of the blog, there were lots of great ideas put forward on Friday night, wikis, Scratch and it's many uses, Animoto, iRiddles (I still want to see more of this David - next time perhaps, some computing examples would be great as well). Lots of great ideas that I'd love to try out in the classroom. I fear for the time being these will need to be added to the list of ideas to try in the future.

I'm now trying to figure out what to send the rest of my department budget on, Scratch boards are an option as well as Flip Minos. Anyone got any advice???

Finally a big thank you to Stuart Meldrum for organising the event and the conversation after during thr teacheat (Carpe Signum - I hope I've got that right)

Teachmeet Borders

2009-02-19T22:47:00.003Z

In preperation for tomorrow night's teachmeet I've made a Splashr presentation of the Cool Wall.

You can check it out here:

http://splashr.com/show/desktop/s-72157614078848745/

ICT Cool Wall

2009-01-29T22:23:00.003Z

I thought I would post a picture of the Cool Wall as it stands, I will post a list of all items that are on the wall soon.

Unfortunately I've been off sick most of this week, got quite a few websites to play about with next week.

At the start of the year I let the S1 play with vokies however some of the pupils were too young to set up an account with them. The other problem was with Safari not loading the pages properly so I'm turning to Firefox to help me out with that.

Hopefully this one will work Faceyourmanga.

ICT in my classroom

2009-01-19T03:30:00.002Z

I started this weekend in a strange way, I didn't bolt down the A9, didn't turn on the TV or games console but instead I participated in the flash meet and watched Teachmeet09 @BETT and since then my head has been spinning.

I enjoy working with computers, I spend lots of my time in front of them, talking about them and even fixing them but all these great new technologies I haven't really embraced in my classroom. I've never really seen how I could use them either.

I would now like to try and fix this. In the morning I am going to set up my class twitter account, I will then have the pupils in my senior classes do the same.

I am where possible going to use this to enable my pupils to work and discuss topics that have come up during lessons in and out of the classroom.

The idea of having a back channel up while teaching doesn't really scare me, I know in other schools it could be an issue but with the pupils I am working with this will not be a problem.

The other thing I am going to try is to issue a quick mobile phone quiz for the pupils. I got this idea from Joe Dale's blog and came up with a few (11) questions in order to test this out.

My aim is to test these out over the next week and see how I get on. If it proves successful I'll continue it, if not I'll revise it and try again.

I also have another tool to play about with – an IR pen. This along with a Wiimote will hopefully give me an interactive Wiiboard for my computer. Should this work their will be pictures.

Also – Must remember to follow up on the Cool Wall post from before with a picture of it.

To finish off I really enjoyed the Teachmeet on Friday, so much so I'm now looking forward to attending my first one in person in February down in the borders.

Digital Games Design

2009-01-07T12:15:00.007Z

We've been back at school now for almost 3 days and I've shocked myself, I've not set up the department Wii yet. Even more shocking, I've not played Guitar Hero on it this year.

I'm starting to think carefully about the digital gaming course I am running with 2 classes and have been inspired again by reading some of the consolarium blogs.

One of the activities in the course is to create a level for a computer game, my first thought for this came from the compednet forums for computing teachers and that was to use Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Wii to do this but now there are other ideas coming into my head. The pupils could create their own song for Guitar Hero for others to complete, create a whole world in Little Big Planet (Thanks to Derek for that idea).

I almost shelled out for a PS3 to see if this would be a good idea, I also quite fancied playing the new call of duty but eventually came to my senses and saved my money - until I found a camera I liked but thats another story.

Can anyone think of any other games about to create levels?

My other purchase over the holidays was a Nintendo DS, Which has given me other ideas. I'm going to poll the S4 games class and try to get them to bring it in next week for a competition.

End of term fun

2008-12-17T20:01:00.004Z

Well it's nearing the end of another year and term, August doesn't seem so long ago.

On Friday I was given a suggestion to have a charity guitar hero event which was a nice way to spend the morning. The pupils were given a choice of 5 songs to practice on and then a final song which could earn them house points. The most popular choice for the junior school was "Livin' on a prayer"

First thing in the morning The Wii and projector was set up in the school's main hall for the first session before moving up to the HE room.

We had 48 pupils take part during the course of the day but the best response came from the first and second years.

The winning house for S1 and 2 was Maree and the winers in S3 and 4 were Kerry.

The Cool Wall

2008-12-05T09:37:00.002Z

Today I'm starting an experiment, On the back wall of my classroom I've set up a technology cool wall and I challenged my senior and first year pupils to bring in some new gadgets/technology to put up on it and so far the pupils seem exited about it.

I've used the same headings as in the Top Gear Coolwall - Seriously Uncool, Uncool, Cool Sub Zero and the DB9 Fridge. We've now had the first 4 entries onto the wall and we now have one in all but the DB9 Fridge (Cooler than Sub Zero).

The S1 will be doing this later on today (Some of them seem really excited about their gadgets) as well so I plan to put up a list of entries to the wall as soon as I can.

The hope for the wall is that it gets the pupils curious and interested in new technology.

The future of assessments

2008-11-27T19:00:00.002Z

I spent today at a cpd session from the SQA at Dingwall Academy. This gave me my first opportunity to see another school in the highlands and give my throat a day off (there's quite a bad throat bug going around here).

The course was split into two sections the first on E-assessment (SOLAR) and the second was on E-portfolios and skills for life. Now both of these look like very good systems but from a computing standpoint I was more impressed with the SOLAR system (couldn't resist).

The tutorial we had today gave me a chance to look at the assessment for the Intermediate 2 Internet Safety topic which is the first course to only be tested using SOLAR. The interface was very clear and it gives the teacher control over the test and best of all... No Printing Required!

Pupils are given a unique code which they need to enter and it will give them access to the but the test will not be accessible until the teacher/tutor enters their pin to start the assessment.

The drawbacks to the program - to access the system computers must have the latest flash installed and it's not known if and how it would work on the MACs, I'll need to test that in the morning. The other slight flaw was that it doesn't automatically link to the SQA to generate qualifications, these still need to be done manually by centres.

I'd like to see this being implemented for NABs in the future, this would work well for all computing courses.

Internet Searches

2008-11-23T21:49:00.003Z

One of the things I plan to do with My S1 pupils is smart internet searches and in keeping with the theme of bands and music I'm looking for any questions people can suggest.

Leave a comment below if you can think of any for them to do

Software Development

2008-11-13T21:34:00.006Z

It's coursework time of year again, I sat in last night, watched the football and took a look at the new intermediate 2 software development coursework.

My advanced higher pupil has told me that I'm much more focused on the documentation than the pupils were previously used to so I really took my time on that part. It made creating the final program so much easier

I started by creating the structure diagram and used an online tool called Gliffy to complete this. This is a great tool I've been using for a while now and I've found it to be a very powerful piece of kit.

Now I should say that the last time I really undertook programming properly was in 2006 during my probation year but I didn't go much above the credit level. What I've done with it this year is to get it out of the way as quickly as possible with the S3 pupils, the S4 have finished it now as well.

Now that I'm happy with the credit/int2 level it's time to turn my attention to the higher materials. I'm aiming to complete the higher coursework next week.

This is the one topic I've not been involved with at higher level and at the moment I am relying on the textbook and the LTS Scotland notes to get me through (Not the most dynamic lessons) but I would like to hear how other computing teachers deliver this topic to mixed level classes.

Back to School

2008-10-25T19:19:00.004+01:00

Below you'll find the start of a post I was writing on Saturday but didn't get round to finish, With this now being tuesday a few things have changed.

Well I've enjoyed a good 2 week break this holiday and this week it's back to work. Monday will be a school in-service day with lots of activities however I'm really looking forward to Tuesday as I'll be taking part in Highland council's CEOP training course.

I was first introduced to CEOP last year while working at Musselburgh Grammar, I attended one of Ollie Bray's very successful internet safety talks as an "Expert" for parents to talk to during the break and was very impressed with the materials and believe it's a great course to deliver.

Due to unforeseen circumstances (Mainly the Snow, me skidding on it and putting my car into a ditch) meant I was unable to attend the training course so it's back to the drawing board.

I had plans for the pupils this week but am now a bit behind in what I wanted to prepare for them myself so the next post I put up will have more details about the new work the pupils are doing.

Until then I'm going to rest up.

Computing for Girls

2008-10-23T13:20:00.003+01:00

I hadn't planned on making a post during the holidays but as it seems I'm having a quiet day in watching cartoons with my cousin (so far Over the Hedge, Cars and Ice Age 2) I've been able to do some reading from the BBC website. They've posted a news article called Girls geek out over dinner it got me thinking about an after-school program called CC4G.

It's not something I've seen in any of the schools I've worked in and regrettably not something I've implemented myself although I don't think I'd ever be the best person to talk about fashion and celebrities with them. I wonder if this is something for the universities in Scotland to be thinking about, during my time working in East Lothian I attended meetings where Strathclyde and Edinburgh Universities and they were looking for ways to get more pupils to take up computing so this could be a market for them.

The Hero of Time is coming?

2008-10-09T00:52:00.002+01:00

If you know me you'll know I'm a bit of a gaming fan, and if you ask anyone who knows me what my favourite game is the only answer you'd get would be Zelda.

Ever since I spent years working with a friend to complete a link to the past on the SNES (The save game somehow deleted one temple away from the last temple the first time round). I then got the N64 for one game only and that was the Ocarina of Time (This time it only took 2 weeks to complete so I was getting better). on a random visit to youtube to see the new Snow patrol video i saw a link to this on the front page.

Now I couldn't decide if it's a fake or if it's real, a quick google search shows it was the cruel april fools joke from IGN this year. It's not the only fake zelda trailer on you tube but it has got 3,379,628 people having viewed it on youtube alone.

It was because of games like Zelda that I pursued computing after high school, I always wanted to create games which has got me thinking about the Computer games course and if studying these would lead to a new generation of computer programmers / game designers. We know standard grade is on the way out as is the intermediate courses so what will become of these new courses? will the new courses include these or will we be stuck teaching Word Processing, Spreadsheets and databases for the rest of time?

Back online!

2008-10-07T19:40:00.003+01:00

It's so nice to be able to type this from the comfort of my own room. You see I've been without my own internet access for the last 4 months and so now courtesy of BT I have uber fast broadband, one of the benefits of being 0 miles from the exchange!

I spent this afternoon working with my S1 classes on sending emails, demonstrating CC and BCC and making it as clear as I could that any misuse of the highland wide email system would not be in their best interest.

I'm also spending tonight shopping for the department on ebay. Digital cameras are the only item on the list for now, I'm attempting to pick up 5 for a cheap as possible (and while typing this out missed the ending of one of the cameras...doh!).

These may not seem linked together however in order for the pupils to use many of the resources on the internet such as comicbrush or to create their own voki.

S4 are out on work experience this week which affords some extra time to sort out the department. Since starting I've updated as many computers as possible from OS9.2 to OSX and with the help of Jim Henderson we're now up to 10 OSX computers and there's an 11th waiting to have it installed.

This setup has proved ok for most of the classes, however the largest classes I have are my S2 and an S4 class for 1 period a week can prove to be tricky but I've been able to use the band manager course to have the pupils working in groups

Time for a change!

2008-10-03T09:11:00.003+01:00

Well I guess I should start this post by first thanking David for giving me some encouragement to get my blogging going again, it was quite a surreal moment seeing the title of my blog as a posting on his.

For the first time in a few years I started playing about with the blogger site, gave it a new look and seen some of the new features in it. When I set the blog up I had to manually edit some of the HTML in order to get links in, the old counter and visitors map but just spending a little time playing about with it has made it look so much better.

This has got me thinking, over the last 2 years having worked with an authority that created websites using blogs with the WordPress software which platform is better.

One of the things that always annoyed me about blogger was the lack of titles in the posts, I never realised that I had to turn the option on! I had made do by posting the heading in the post and editing the HTML so that it stood out. I'm not sure where I stand, I think I'll try and use both for a while and take it from there.

As part of the new S1 course I've arranged for the pupils to undertake a Digital photography day in November which is then going to lead nicely into the next weeks fashion show and I've thought of an addition to it in the form of comics. Ollie Bray posted yesterday about a website called comicbrush.

I played about with the site yesterday and this is what I came up with:

After showing my higher class this I think it's now official that I'm a geek!

Desks of the future

2008-09-18T14:33:00.001+01:00

One of the biggest tasks I've had since I started in the new school was getting the computers in the department up to speed. At the moment I have a very big mix of Mac computers. From the old colourful iMacs (Tray loading and slot loading) to the newer eMacs and I have been slowly getting them upgarded to OSX but when I saw this article it got me thinking about what the future may mean for computing. You can see a demo video of these desks here.

These desks look very similar to the Microsoft Surface that's been around for a while now.

Have the days of 20 computers in a computer lab gone now, should we be looking to get in front of the technologies.

In the 2006/07 school year there was a pilot project being launched in and around Edinburgh to give pupils handheld devices to access the web to help them with their studies.

Even laptops are getting smaller, more powerful and "Lighter than air".

I can think of some fantastic uses for the computerised desk, programming could become very interactive especially programs such as scratch which I have seen get the pupils attention in a very positive way.

My worry is that these technologies will cost so much money they will stay out of reach to state secondary schools and be a great idea lost.

2008-09-11T23:00:00.000+01:00

The new term!

Well it's proving to be a bit difficult to catch a breath up here, so many things going on and I'm still getting used to the new way of working but so far I'm really enjoying working in the school.

I'm slowly but surely getting the department all sorted out and am certainly enjoying working with the smaller classes at standard grade level.

I'm in the process of creating a brand new S1 course centred around the idea of the pupils being band managers. This idea came from an ex-colleague down in East Lothian. The idea is the pupils learn how to use ICT skills with a purpose as opposed to just copying out and completing exercises in a book. So far there's been some Word Processing and even a little bit of photo editing using iPhoto which has surprised me with how easy it is to use. I'm also trying to get other departments involved as much as possible so hopefully this is heading towards the curriculum for excellence that's waiting over the horizon.

So what's next? Computer Games of course.
I'm attempting to run the Int1 & 2 computer games courses and as such now have a TV and 2 games consoles in my room to help with the playing of the games. if anyone has any experience of teaching this course I'd love to hear from you.

2008-06-05T16:35:00.000+01:00

How much would I like to attend this learning conference in London and get a free Nintendo DS!!!

I like the idea of using video games in teaching (Vital problem soving skills) but for some reason I can't imagine starting off my classes by saying "OK take out your DS and play exercise ...."

Hopefully I will get to try out some games modules soon (The SNES, N64 and PS2 are on standby). I am starting in a new job (Permanent) in Gairloch High School and have some scope in my timetable to try out individual modules and introduce new initiatives and will post details here after they are complete.

If anyone has any experience with these modules drop me a line and let me know!

The new job will be an amazing experience, it looks like a very supportive school and I'll have very different challenges to what I've experienced here in East Lothian and am looking forward to gaining experience in a new authority.

I'm aiming to make a new post by the end of June but please don't shoot me if I don't manage it!

2007-11-27T11:55:00.000Z

State of the Union

I felt it was about time for an update, well I finished up my probation year and after a weird summer holiday/unemployment managed to secure a maternity contract teaching business education until Christmas and so have been very busy learning not one but 2 new subjects (Administration and Business Management) and on the whole I'd have to say it's been a good experience so far.

I get to see school life from a different point of view and I have been lucky enough to still keep up with any developments in the computing field by attending the CPD sessions within the council.

So far in my current post I have applied many of the skills I brought to my computing classes last year and again work with varied success.

For admin I have been focusing on key skills involving Word Processors, Spreadsheets and will now shortly be looking at effective uses of the internet with the S3 pupils.

The S4 as I speak are revising for the final of their prelims and on their return will be heading towards their SQA practical projects of which I’m confident they will do well in.

In my NQT year I was well aware that I would have to leave the classes I’d worked with behind however I also knew I had a full year to work with them and to present them for their exams, this year I know I’m handing these classes over at Christmas and moving onto a new challenge and a new school starting in January and have mixed feelings about this on one hand I’m looking forward to teaching my subject again but at the same time never like leaving a job half done (Although in the case of doing dishes I’m more than happy to walk away from them!).

I’ll update again when I can think of something else to write.

Later!

2007-06-20T12:22:00.000+01:00

Well it's the end of a very quick teaching year, I've seen 2 higher / Int 2 classes through to their exam and one 4th year class.

I now feel I understand the phrase "two term dash".

over the last few weeks I have been looking at graphics with the new S3 Standard Grade pupils and to do this I created a small investigation where they created a new school logo. to do this they used a drawing package and from here they transferred it into a paint package. The investigation then began incorporating computer systems by looking at file sizes and backing storage devices. This seems to have worked well however may have been a bit early to bring in bits and bytes.

Over the last few weeks we've been letting the pupils use Scratch, an excellent games programming language from MIT. Pupils from 3rd through to 6th year have been using it and seem to have taken to it well. It's definately more fun than visual basic.

I had been using a class blog with the higher and Int2 pupils which worked well, however I will set up an online drop box for pupils to send me their homework electronically when I make use of it in future classes.

S1 parents evening tonight so if you'll excuse me, I'm away to warm up my voice.

2007-01-07T17:58:00.000Z

Well after years of resisting I've finally bought something from ebay, actually 3 things so far.

It really is quite addictive and even if you don't win, those last few moments of an auction where you drive the price right up make loosing ok.

whoever won it isn't getting as much of a bargain as they thought they would and you've not lost any money.

Today is the final day of the holiday and so it's back to school tomorrow. This term it's time to finish the core units and set about the courseworks. This should be fun!

2006-12-23T15:05:00.000Z

Guys this is going to be a big blog post so you have been warned.

So what’s the latest in my teaching?

Where do I start?

In my last post I mentioned creating a lesson using spreadsheets and packets of MnM’s. The lesson worked well apart from one pupil not being interested. The fact that they were getting to eat the chocolate after still didn’t help matters.

The class all created the spreadsheet no problem, some were leaps and bounds ahead of the rest but all got the basics for the topic which to me was good.

It has been a bit of a challenge to get motivated recently. Which when you’re trying to teach General Purpose Packages and are not motivated can prove difficult. However all seem to have grasped the basics of databases and so I am aiming to build on that when we start back.

The S4 have now been introduced to visual basic programming, with me only a few pages ahead of them. I’m really looking forward to getting into this software development side of teaching as it’s not a part of the course I have done before and will be a challenge.

From what I’ve seen so far it can be hit or miss for some of the kids but one pupil who hasn’t showed me much of a willingness to experiment while on the computers was able to complete an extension task I set for them which made my day (In actual fact my week as it was in the last week!).

Higher and Int 2 is still proving to be my biggest challenge and one I hope I’m working well on. I intend to apply some formative assessment techniques in the future as I fear I’ve been treating the classes too much like lectures. I experimented with this recently when starting computer software. This is the fifth and final topic of computer systems.

The pupils were asked to create PowerPoint slides giving information about one of the layers of the operating system. One higher pupil was paired with one Int 2 pupil and sent on their way.

Some of the pupils presented their own work to the others in the class, some I had to go over. I then made these all available to them on the network and set them some questions to complete individually.

If you’re still reading this I hope you have/had a Merry Christmas and enjoy the festivities over the New Year period.

All the best for 2007.

Later!

2006-10-21T14:40:00.000+01:00

I remember reading in another blog that it was their worst fear that the pupils find their blog,
well that's exactly what happened to me.

Not only did they locate this blog (Not very difficult to do right enough) and through this my personal E-mail address.They were also able to locate my MySpace account. so after a night of panic the email account is now dead and so is the myspace account however the blog is still alive and I've been in 2 minds about continuing with this one or starting a fresh version however there should be no problem with this since i'd never write anything down I didn't want people to read.

Finally moved into my flat, strange experience now living away from home but it had had to happen eventually.

Onto the important things...School.

1st and 2nd years are coming to an end of their business studies course and are coming into the computing section. I feel more comfortable knowing that this is going to be my subject now and not something I'm not trained in.

S3 are moving onto Spreadsheets this week and I think i'm going to borrow a technique from Bart and do the MnM's lesson. Will post once i've tried this although I do have one question, do I buy the small bags or the big bags of Mnm's

S4 are almost at their prelims so its theory for the next couple of weeks.

S5&6 I will be doing artificial intelligence when we start back I think, this may change though. Thankfully the scholar passwords are now with the pupils which takes some pressure off me, all we need now is the internet speed upgrade to be completed.

2006-09-05T20:15:00.000+01:00

Well under way

A tried and trusted method of getting 15,16,17 and 18 year old kids to be quiet, Is something so simple that you will not believe me.

Quite simply all you need to do is ask them a question.

The higher group has been quite a daunting experience so far. I've been worried about the class for a while mainly because of the artificial intelligence module but now it just seems like they're not getting anything I'm talking about.

The computer systems topic is a very dry one and involves lots of written work and questions.

The two support teachers I am working with and share my higher groups with are doing different subjects, one is doing AI the other is doing Software Development.

The plus points to this method are that when it comes time for me to teach these subjects with the classes that haven't covered it already the materials are ready and waiting to be used.

The class is a mixed ability class as well as mixed level (Higher/Int2) which also worries me but the decision that has been made is that we will teach to the higher course which incorporates all of the Int 2 course just to a more demanding level. While this may be ok for now I'm worried that the pupils who are Int 2 level will struggle to pick out what they need to know.

Anyone got any advice on this???

2006-08-24T23:59:00.000+01:00

August 25th

First off i'd like to appologise for the lack of updates. The school has been in for just about a week now and it's already proving challenging, I'm now on about the 8th version of my timetable which i now have more S1 and S2 less standard grade and the same amount of higher work. A fairly even spread I think.

I've not been able to get a grip with the higher groups just yet. The 2 classes are mixed groups or higher and Int2 (The school does not run Int1). During the course of the student year I observed very different methods of teaching the higher but am finding it difficult to develop my own style. The classes are not only split in ability but split between teachers.

I got quite worked up about it the other day and on advice from some supporting staff I spoke to my mentor (This is also something that has not been finalised yet as to who is going to be my mentor due to in school staffing issues) and raised my concerns so this is now being looked at. (I have noted in my profile for entry that i needed more experience with the post 16 courses)

Both sets come to me 3 times a week and another teacher in the department takes them for the remaining 2 periods. So the decision has been made that I will teach the Computer Systems Unit and the optional AI :(

Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have a better grasp on where I am with the classes and how I'll take them forward.

I also now have a 4th year registration class who seem to be really annoyed by my persistance about their school uniform but again hopefully by Monday they'll not need to be told.

On the accomodation front I'm still technically homeless, fliting from a flat, to hoime and to another house, doesn't make my weekends any easier and an hour's travelling time to and from the school is taking it's toll but it should only be for another few weeks.

I had pretty much decided to go for a mac laptop, got the money in place but am now pondering spending less money and either upgrading my computer or building a new one from scratch. Since my computer is not only used for my work it is also used as an entertainment hub for music, TV and movies maybe thats the best way to go.

I realise that I'm possibly sounding negative at the moment and giving a bad impression of the school and so i'd like to make a positive ending. I'm very happy with the school, The support I am receiving from my department is fantastic. Everyone is approchable and happy to help (So much so that I feel like i'm taking advantage at times). The pupils all seem good and generally are well behaved.

Thats all for now folks.
Andy.

2006-08-04T15:37:00.000+01:00

Summer 2006

I'm not less than 2 weeks away from starting through in East Lothian and so far my attempts at finding a place to live have not been very successful. I've been to see the council who have said I wouldn't qualify for priority housing with them but would help me find somewhere privately,

I've been to see some flatshares in Edinburgh and nothing's really got my interest that much. So the plan is to stay with family up ubtil the september weekend and just come back home at weekends so we'll see how well that works.

In light of the fact that i'll practically be homeless i've been considering the merits of buying a laptop so that I have my own workstations wherever I am the question is which one should I go for, On the one hand there's windows based machines, all seem to be decent but none have really caught my eye and on the other hand there's the shiny all singing and dancing macbook. I've never owned a mac but have been impressed by them over the last year even in the face of chris shouting "Click the right mouse button" when anything went wrong in a presentation.

The only issue was the price however by the time I personalised the windows laptops they were about the same price and the processor wasn't as strong so anyone got any advice???

Not much else to say right now, i'll have more educational thoughts the week I start back, until then I'm gonna enjoy this holiday.

2006-07-03T00:09:00.000+01:00

The latest

Well I've visited my school for the probation year, it's seems very nice, it's about 2 years old, the current crop of probationers have enjoyed it and done very well there so there's a lot to live up to.

The computing department is kitted out with Dell Computers and the rooms are pretty spacious.

Onto the timetable, as it stands i'm going to be taking:
2 S5/6 Higher/Int2
3 S4 classes - Standard Grade
3 S3 classes - Standard Grade
1 S1 - general ICT

The computing department is part of a faculty with business studies

The one bit of news i didn't want to hear is that the higher course is doing the AI optional module, this has always been a very weak area for me and so will be a big challenge.

So aside from the school i'm now focusing on flat hunting in edinburgh and it's amazing how much RSS can help with that it just downloads adverts for me it's "Stunningly Useful".

I think i've bored you all enough now so i think leave it at that tonight.

Later.

2006-05-30T21:50:00.000+01:00

East Lothian here I come!

Well about 6 months ago i ticked a little box on a form that said i'd go anywhere for money (Yes I’m greedy so sue me). The votes have been cast, the results counted and verified. I've been assigned to East Lothian. I'm still awaiting word on what school exactly but it's gonna be one of six so watch this space...

That's the APD assignment complete (Part 2 is ready to be handed in now) the C&P classes have pretty much wrapped up and everything else is a distant memory so to quote another blogger it does seem as if the "The guns ... they've stopped!"

It's been an insanely fast ride since august, and next year’s not gonna get any slower.

After speaking with the C&P tutors David Muir informed me that my new LEA are going to be giving every student in the area a blog so it looks like I’ve landed myself in a very ICT friendly authority.

Well when I have more information I’ll put it up here.

Until next time folks!

2006-05-21T17:29:00.000+01:00

3 Days left!

Well thats the last of the tutor visits complete and the school report is already in so all thats left is to get assignment 3 completed.

In the hope that he reads this David when was it you quoted the phrase "Stunningly useful" originally? I've heard it many times through the year and would like to use it for this assignment and just want to make sure i get my reference right for the essay.

i've been looking at the internet with my S2 classes this time round, specifically Malicious software which I've quite enjoyed.

S3 have been going through a small section of Commercial Data Processing so that I could do a research project but they are now starting to work through the fan letter project on publisher.

It's time to start the last week of placements and it doesn't seem that long ago we were getting ready to start placement 1! i'm gonna be sad to leave the school once again but i'm really excited to find out where i'll be going next year.

To anyone that is still to have their visit, what you doing reading this? (Only kidding) good luck.

The end is in sight!

2006-05-14T18:13:00.000+01:00

It's been a while!

it's been almost a month since my last post so i thought i better put something up.

Placement 3 is now well underway, only 8 teaching days left for me, and in that time the 3rd and final assignment for the course. For me the assignment is all about ICT. I can hear the cries of "That's easy for you" but knowing me I have to make my life difficult.

The crit date is set, and hopefully i'll feel a bit better once that's out the way.

Everything in the school seems to be winding down, the senior school are off for exams, the teachers are more relaxed, there's still plenty of work to be done though.

the 2nd years are currently looking at the internet, and for all my grand ideas for lessons with blogs, podcasts the same problems keep coming up...
my account's locked out,
I don't know my username / password

so trying to teach about the internet and email when some of the class can't actually use it becomes a slight problem.

As i'm writing this i'm working through 3 different things so I think i'll leave this for now.

Later!

2006-04-17T03:19:00.000+01:00

Easter, what a great time to have a holiday!

We've been off for the last 2 weeks and what have I done with the time...NOTHING!!!

This probably wasn't the best thing I could have done with my time but I just haven't been able to motivate myself into getting up before 1pm...lol

The deadline for changing my mind has passed and I'm now locked into going anywhere next year, well anywhere in Scotland that the GTC decide to send me (Providing I complete the course successfully!). It's a pretty scary thought, to up and leave everything and everyone behind. The week leading up to the deadline I had a worrying feeling about it but almost everyone I talked to about it said it was a great idea and that I should go, I'm unsure if they just want rid of me for the year or if they generally think it's a good idea...LOL.

So now I'm waiting to hear where I'm being sent before planning my summer. The GTC have said we'll be told by the 26th of May which is a pretty significant day, the end of placement 3, recall day 3 and it's the day assignment 3 is due...Talk about things happening at once!

Well if you'll excuse me I'm going to go back to doing nothing.

Later!

2006-04-01T00:17:00.000+01:00

Bullying

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/31/nbully31.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/31/ixhome.html

After reading the above article I felt like sharing my thoughts. Bullying in schools has always been a huge problem and it appears to be something that will never go away. Since the main theme of the article is centred around the use of technology it got me thinking (Very dangerous i know).

While out on school experience 1 there was an issue between 2 young pupils that at one time were best of friends. After a major falling out issues started to arrise outside of school, so the question is who's responsibility is it to sort this out. The pastoral care teacher from my point of view did everything he could, he tried to report it up the school but as it was out of school there was nothing they could do about it, his next step was to explain to the parent how to stop the messages getting through on Instant messaging software (Which will remain nameless).

I honestly can't think of any other steps he could have taken. It is possible that if the school had gotten more involved at an earlier stage the problems could have been sorted out but when it is not happening in school hours what can they do?

In a general sense what more can be done to protect children online, Should an internet security class be a mandatory thing for parents as well as pupils?

Any thoughts?

2006-03-26T23:07:00.000+01:00

Playing Catchup

Well that's assignment 2 done, all thats left to do is hand the damn thing into the office along with everyone else in the morning.

Looks like we've got a bit of an easy week coming up, The final principles class on monday, a day trip to the universities main campus on tuesday, coupled with a long lie and finally APD on wednesday then I'm off until the 18th of april WOOOOO!

The really scary thing is that we're so close to the end of this course. With 11 weeks to go, two of these are holidays, four are on placement and we all know how quickly those weeks will pass, where has the year gone???

I also should make note of the fact i've now had over 100 people check out my blog so thanks for reading, I hope I've not bored you too much!

Not really much else to report for now i'm afraid

Good luck to everyone with Assignment 2

Andy.

2006-03-08T19:50:00.000Z

Placement 2

So here we are, the end of placement 2. It's quite scary but on the
brightside I'm looking forward to a "break" when we return to jordanhill on
Friday.

Anyone who has read the first few posts I made will be aware that I was quite
worried about this placement, but I have to say it's been good for me.
I've had the chance to work with pupils using macs and not PC's with
windows, I've had many server problems, Lost my temper a few times and
that's just been today...LOL

I have also had the chance to try out new techniques and new ideas, I've
seen some work well, I've seen some fall flat on their face but overall
I've enjoyed this placement.

With 2 fourth year classes I tried some peer assessment.
The class were to make up questions for the other tables to answer.
With one class it worked quite well, with the second some of the pupils
responded well to it, others didn't.
What I have taken away from these lessons is that when I try it again take
more time to explain the task and have more support in place for any
pupils not interested or not taking part.

With my second year classes I introduced a five second countdown, they had
five seconds to stop turn around and face the board, rather than having me
shouting at them to all turn round and be quiet. With all classes it
worked well but I'm sure I can make more refinements to it

Third year was an experience I'll not forget in a hurry, one class were good, the other was nuts. I really wasn't sure how to tackle the class and when I did what I tried didn't work. Did anyone else encounter a class like this?

Well that's all for now, only 4 more classes to teach then it's all over.

Later.

2006-02-26T21:28:00.000Z

Update time

So the crit is done, I managed to get through it with a little help from a friend known as the robosapien. I used an interactive worksheet during it and david asked me to post it for others to use I haven't forgotten about this i'm just refining in before putting it up for the world to scrutinise. *EDIT - Posted on first class 28/02/06*

This week was quite interesting. Although it was week four it was only the second full week at the school. The PT of the department as just gone off sick and it looks like he won't be back by the time my school report is due so it will be interesting to see how this gets sorted out.

The school is getting a visit from the charter mark people on monday and have decided to visit my class period 1, the the class that always has network problems.

There are 3 computing classrooms in this school and they're furnished as follows -

1 PC room with 20 PC's ( Do not get to teach in this room )
2 Mac Rooms
- 1 with 20 Imacs
- 1 with 20 Emacs

Now the Imacs work perfectly but the Emacs for some reason just don't want to work. the school has bought all new pc's but are waiting until the higher programming coursework has been completed before converting the remaining two rooms

Not all the pupils have problems with the network which poses the question what do the pupils who have problems do if they cannot access the materials to do the work? how do i make sure all members of the class can do the same work? and with no ICT co-ordinator to help sort the issues (The PT has been doing that job) I'm slightly worried!

Well I'll stop boring you all now,
Later!

PS - I've edited the blog links at the side so they should all now be in alphabetical order if I have missed anyone from the list please leave me a comment and i'll be happy to add it.

2006-02-14T18:58:00.000Z

Holiday!!!

Friday was an in-service day in the school which was cool but it's a very eery feeling being in a school when there are no kids there. The best comment of the day goes to my old physics teacher who said "I bet you thought we did nothing on these in-service days" quite frankly i did think that, and given that all we students did was spend the day in meetings I still think that! I know next year I'll be working more on days like that though and that we didn't get to see all the work being carried out.

We were given talks about the probation year, discipline and behaviour management which were all very informative as well as that we were given the chance to participate in discussions regarding new policies for the school, most of the students ended up in the same room.

I'm trying to plan my lessons for the week which include spreadsheets for second year, automated systems for 4th year, word processing for one of the 3rd year classes and my crit but i keep getting distracted...(Damn internet). If anyone has any advice on spicing spreadsheets or automated systems up please let me know, the best i've got so far is a short video of Wallace and Gromit to try and grab their attention.

I have however today managed to get video's ready for the classes to watch but i'm not sure how much use they actually are.

I'm quite worried about taking over one of the 3rd year classes, they've been up and down like a yoyo over the past 2 weeks and it's been very difficult to step in, even the class teacher has trouble with them and has co-op lessons with the class.

Anyway i best get back to work!

2006-02-07T19:24:00.000Z

07/02/06

Ok so i'm feeling a bit better about this placement now, i've taught 2 lessons on DTP which i think went really well, had them doing the theory however i ran through my slides far too fast, i tend to speak far to fast at times and when i know i'm running out of things to talk about i get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach but improvisation is a great thing. The second lesson went far went far better, i cleared up some confusion and went over some more theory before backing everything up with a practical activity so things are looking up.

I've even got some marking to do for an assesment i gave an S2 class last week, and i'll get to run the assesment with 2 other classes this week so even more marking...yay! :(

I've been trying to think of good stuff to do about automated systems which i'm to do with 4th years for 3 weeks - All theory! All i can think of so far is a couple of video's like robot wars for the robotics section and i've got a great one for introducing automated systems with wallace and grommit after that i'm dead in the water...lol

It's been nice to see COMAL being used again, it's such a great little programming language but getting the classes to do the analysis and design first is a bit of a problem, i'm getting used to being asked for help with a program and wehn i ask to see the analysis and design for some reason they say they find it easier to program without it and work backwards...AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHH!

I've also has my 3rd crit arranged and would u believe it it's on friday the 17th, date of resubmission of assignment 1 and the day after my birthday so i guess my night will be a quiet one this year, just need to make up for it on the friday night!

I'll stop boring you now,
Later!

2006-01-31T22:14:00.000Z

Ok so two days down, 5 and a half weeks to go which I know is just going to fly in especially once I start getting more involved in the classes.

I'm finding it a bit more difficult fitting in with the department this time out, even though there's more people in it. I'm just not settled, but ask me again in a weeks time and things will probably have changed.

I'm going to have to sit down and work on my lessons for Automated Systems standard grade for 4th year classes that I've not really been in with yet (one of the classes was in today). I've got until the week after the assignment 1 resubmission which will give me a bit of time to deal with that first.

3rd years are very strange this time round, my previous placement had 2 mixed ability levels for standard grade and higher, not this time round, now it appears to have been streamed and I'm with the opposite ends of the spectrum which means totally different lesson plans, totally different techniques. I've seen the class teacher loose it with them already so I'll need to watch my temper!

Now for the second years, these are the kids I'm hoping to get involved with blogging so watch this space for more on that as it develops.

The school is also trying to set up a multi-media club which it seems podcasting could be something they will look at while I'm with them which would be fun.

At present the school is preparing for an influx of pupils next year due to the closure of another local high school so I was invited to a meeting to discuss concerns about the various issues arising. Basically all that happened was a lot of questions and no real answers.

This has been a really long winded blog and so for the benefit of those still reading and nodding off I'll leave it at that. (Which I nearly did in a higher class yesterday...lol)

Later!

2006-01-23T22:43:00.000Z

Ok so thats the initial placement visit done and this one looks like it's gonna be a challenge, but a good one.

First of all the department hasn't changed much over the years since i left (In fact they're still using the same I-macs and programming notes) .

After the initial meeting with the regent, and being taken to the department it was down to business, finding out what the classes were doing and what was expected of me and afterwards I was able to sit in with some classes.

But for now it's back to Jordanhill for 4 more days and I the joys of 2 lead tasks (Wednesday and Friday) which should be fun.

So in the words of Bugs Bunny... Thats all folks!

2006-01-22T03:36:00.000Z

Post -1

As David has posted in first class (prematurely i might add) I’m indeed planning to keep a blog over this placement, i was planning on waiting till Monday and I’d had my first day (Second first day if you count my time as a pupil) at my placement school, more meaningful posts will appear over the next few days (I hope) but until then all I’ve really got to say is:

Later!