What a Week

Well, just finished a very long week.  Put maximum effort into my Year 10 GCSE Class today.  Had learning objectives linked to bloom, national curric levels, 2 hours spent preparing the running order, powerpoints, starter, plenary, a fun quiz and so much more.  Were they interested No they really were not and I was very frustrated that my maximum effort resulted in the Year 10's looking merely bored and telling me they couldn't make the effort.  Tricky situation because I wasn't happy with the uniform and yet the Ast Head of Year 10 was observing me and I suggested that the pupils should sort out their uniform.  What went wrong  Well, perhaps I expected too much.  Or perhaps OCR theory is boring, perhaps it was just Red Nose Day ..... Meanwhile the Year 7's really didn't get the database lesson and I couldn't get the database up so we could all created in the form wizard.  A couple of the really smart kids got it straight away and were pilot navigating whilst the lower abilities, kept saying "what do I have to do miss".  I felt like saying "shut up" but I actually said research what OMR means!  And we had a nice hardware component starter which they liked.  Oh dear.  To top it off I had a rather unnecessary remark made by another teacher who is supposed to be in charge of the KS3 curriculum, of which everything is out of date.  I thought I'd have a moan because after this I am not going to do anymore work this weekend and think about it.  Yes, clearly I am asking too much, but guess what it's full moon tomorrow and the pupils always seem crazy at this time of the month.  Meanwhile, the HOD was very understanding and took us out for a drink.  Sue Sentence rang late on Friday to say she has found me a place for a week in VI Form at Sandon School in Chelmsford.  This was very encouraging and will get me out and about again so as I don;t take it all too much to heart.  I was going to write up my evaluations of lessons but this is really it.  Disappointment at my effort so badly received and I am thinking well it's only 2 lessons.......I think teaching music must be easier (and more enjoyable)!  Nevermind, press on.

TeachShare

TeachShare meetings are held online and are a great way for teachers to share ideas.

There is one on Monday 7th March at 8pm about using Scratch in Second Life. For more details see this website: http://www.vital.ac.uk/content/teachshare-welcome-second-life 
Leon Cych will be talking about MIT's Scratch for Second Life and Scratch for Open Sim.
He will be showing how get an avatar and how to download the programs to do this.
This TeachShare will introduce people to both technologies and how they can be used in classrooms.



Another teachshare is being held on Wednesday March 9th from 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Link:  http://bit.ly/eHiqF8 (open from 30mins before the meeting starts)
Topic:  *The Little Man Computer*
**
No registration is required, just log in using the link above, settle down
and enjoy!  (NB.  It helps to get in early to sort out any hardware/software
issues with the session ... we're still learning here :))

*The Little Man Computer is a free online simulation of a low level /
machine code programming environment.*

*What does this mean? It means that students can explore exactly what
happens inside a computer when it processes instructions. It can be used to
help students learn about the stored program concept, the fetch-execute
cycle, basic programming constructs and interpreters as well as low level
programming using machine code and mnemonics.*

*Already an incredibly useful resource for A Level Computing, the LMC is now
included specifically in the OCR GCSE Computing course as a board set
assignment for unit A452 (Practical Investigation Controlled Assessment).

Computing At School annual conference

The Computing At School annual conference will be held on 24th June in Birmingham and some of you might be interested in attending. More details are given here:

The keynote speaker is from MIT, who developed Scratch. It is also a good opportunity to network with other ICT teachers. It is always over-subscribed (it is free to attend) but there are places reserved for trainee teachers.

Sue

Two interesting articles

Two interesting articles for you to readm, or at least skim through:

1. This article is some research of the numbers of students taking qualifications in KS4 and KS5 in ICT  from 2007-2009.
2. This article gives yet more reasons why business needs us to teach ICT (and Computing) in schools!

Hope your week is going well!

Sue

Review of National Curriculum

Thought the comments interesting on ICT, wonder what the future holds for ICT teachers.  Just as well we are adaptable, I agree with the Acorn guy, it really is very boring for those who can write their own apps and have them Number One of the download chart at 14 years old.

Review of National Curriculum

"On 20 January 2011 the Secretary of State for Education announced a review of the National Curriculum in England. This section contains information about the review. The review will look at the National Curriculum for both primary and secondary schools.
The Department wants to hear from as many people as possible as part of the review. A Call for Evidence has been launched."

Read more about these developments here.

The Best of BETT

Hopefully you all really enjoyed BETT on Friday. What interesting products/resources did you come across? I was very interested in the Active Robot stand and the potential for engaging students by teaching them to control robots – there were a lot of different robots which were not too expensive, and could be used at different levels. I also was impressed by a small stand for YouSrc.com, a programming language for children that can be used to quickly develop games on an Android phone as well as in a web browser.