Teacher or Techie?

Save a life?

2009-11-05T21:56:00.002Z

I want you to know that I have added my name to the NHS Organ Donor Register so that I can help someone else to live after my death.

Every year hundreds of people die while waiting for a transplant. I want to help.

I registered my wishes to be a life-saver on the NHS Blood and Transplant website. You can find out more about organ donation by visiting their site: www.organdonation.nhs.uk

Remote 'Live' Access to Lessons

2009-10-08T14:46:00.000+01:00

Imagine this scenario:

One Year 12 student confined to his hospital bed for five weeks. He feels a bit better today, so he logs on to his laptop and using his mobile broadband dongle checks his emails. The subject teacher of one of his A level options has emailed the class timetable and this week's weblink to the class Adobe Connect page. The next 'Law Live!' session is after lunch, so there is time to log on to one of the previous sessions that have been recorded as a podcast and catch up with the last lesson. The interactive wipeboard is side by side with the video/audio display. It is nice to see his classmates on the screen, and they always leave a message for him at the end of the lesson.

Lunch was ok and the pudding made him feel sleepy, but after a short doze he logs on to the link again. As his screen filled with a view of the classroom and his headphones caught Andrea answering one of Mr T's cryptic news clues he heard John say "Bob's here Sir!". The usual banter greeted him and he felt like he was there in person. As the teacher collected the assignment essays, he uploaded his own effort, and also put a relevant website he had found into the 'chat area'. He wasn't using his microphone today because Dave was alseep in the bed opposite, but when he typed into the 'chat' box the others answered him as if he had spoken to them.

As the lesson came to a close the teacher outlined the next lesson's objectives and that meant he could progress the work using his blended textbook and Kerboodle.com, as and when he felt well enough to do it. As usual Mr T allowed the Plenary session to be used for the others to 'talk' to Bob. It was like having twelve visitors around his hopsital bed.

This scenario is not a fantasy, but has been piloted and is about to happen. All of the 6th Form students and their parents have signed a permissions form, the URL link is unique and only passed on to the absent student. If the school closes because of Novovirus, or Swine Flu, the work will go on.

So colleagues, what have I forgotten? Am I so close to the project that am I ignoring an aspect or a security issue I have not thought of? I would be grateful for your comments.

Why would I want to know how it works?

2009-06-21T13:18:00.000+01:00

I am resolutely an end-user.

I rely on my more technically minded colleagues to understand how something happens and I step back when I think that I am getting too close to the ‘techie’ stuff. My teaching innovation becomes creative because I don’t know that something is impossible! When I innocently ask “can we do this?” a more knowledgeable colleague will say “No”. When I persevere they sometimes say “Well, maybe”. I want my ICT to be market orientated not product orientated. I want to be able to say this is how I want to teach in the future can you find out how I can do that with ICT. I find it frustrating when a company tells me they have come up with a brilliant new front-end for a standard idea and expect me to come up with a way to use it.

I will try to devlop this theme on this, my first blog, and hopefully my colleagues will put me right!