Cam’s Ramblings

Check it out!

My student site is pretty much ready to roll at teh beginning of term one next year. I spenta a good part of my day relaxing after a family Christmas thing last night, and then this afternoon spent some time fiddling around and settin gup the student site. Basically I’m aiming it to my two Year 11 classes, with each topic and sub-topic given its own page where I hope to upload notes and provide additional examples and solutions to students. I took the breakdown of pages (for Methods) from the 2009 Student Unit Planner, (and for General) from the 2007 course outline I have… I’m sure I will get a 2009 version in due course.

As for the year 7 pages, well I’m not yet sure how much use they will get. I suppose it all depends on what we actually do in the classes and whether or not I think it’s going to be worth it.

But yeah, just thought I’d share the news of a now updated and ready to roll student site!

I like Windows Live Messenger (WLM, formerly known as the ‘Microsoft Network’, or MSN). I’ve been a user of this program for many years, and have been quite impressed by its continual improvement. It began as a simple chat client, became a great tool for keeping in touch with specific friends through the power of instant messaging, allowed you to speak in real time to a person at another computer, let you share files with each other and now you can video call.

I am all for the advancement of these sorts of programs. Recent years have seen the introduction of VOIP, a protocol which allows users to easily talk to each other through the internet. One of my subjects earlier this year required us to participate in an online lecture where we all listened in and were able to communicate with the lecturer (who was sitting in her office) by pressing a single button. She would know who wanted to speak, and would give control of the ‘lecture theatre’ to them.

But anyway I was using WLM earlier today to chat to a few friends. I had several windows open, and I was typing away madly to a few people, and actually talking to one. Despite all the advances in the software, and the hardware Microsoft must have in place to operate such a network, it still has its bugs. And some of them are quite significant.

My home connection is not great. I believe it is the slowest speed they can call broadband (256k or something like that). I’ve used Skype and WLM to talk to people before, and there is a noticeable difference between the two. WLM, which has evolved over time is the inferior to the new player Skype, which was purpose built. Maybe it’s just my shoddy connection,but I struggled to maintain a decent conversation tonight using WLM.

So here lies the question – how do we harness this technology in the classroom (I seem to ask that alot these days!)? I’m working with a great teacher next year who has been doing some great things for e-learning, and I hope to learn a lot from him. One of the things I would love to do is set up a series of ‘online classes’, especially for my VCE classes as they approach exams for them to contact me in an easy manner and get some real time help. I don’t know whether such a network is already in place, maybe it’s something worth investigating. Maybe it’ll be a big flop. I know many staff are using websites, blogs and wikis to share information, I’m just hoping to push the barrier one further next year!

Today I received my first lesson in school politics – don’t hesitate. I decided that, while the few remaining students at school were out on various fun activities, I would take the opportunity to have a wander around the place and continue to familiarise myself with my place of employment for next year.

I had a clear goal in mind. Find my homeroom and find my office. I called first into the office, just so they knew I was there. I bumped into one of the APs, who upon seeing me remembered they needed to ask me something. There is a chance that next year I won’t be the glorious homeroom teacher I was to be, instead I may have landed myself a year 7 drama class. It’s the only change that may occur to my timetable, and by no means is it final, but I jumped at the chance. After all, I do enjoy the theatre, and would love to be able to share one of my passions with students.

So I left the admin building and started wandering down towards B block. I walked through the building, and then down to the B and H block portables. This is the area I mostly wanted to check out. I went up and down the rows of classrooms, attempting to find two certain rooms. I was having no luck whatsoever. So I went back to the start of the portables, and what should I find but both the rooms I was looking for. So I spent a few seconds on what may still be my homeroom, then a few minutes in what is to be my office.

When I got in there, I found out that of the six desks there were two left. One I was told did not have a working internet point. So that kind of made my decision easy. I’ve left a post-it note with my name on the desk, which has a filing cabinet next to it and a bookshelf behind it.

This is where the lesson comes in to play. I hesitated. Not when I was there, but all day I’ve been thinking to myself ‘is it really worth going into school just to have a look at two rooms?’ Turns out that yes, yes it was. My desk, you see, is in the middle of the room right next to one of the doors. This means that if I’m in there I am quite likely the first contact person for students looking for someone. It also means I don’t have a corner. I like corners… my desk at home is on a corner, and it works beautifully for me. But Not I have to rework myself to work in a straight line. I’m sure I’ll manage.

So the morale of the story when it comes to school politics… don’t hesitate. If there is something up for grabs, and you want it, go ahead and take it because if it’s something good then many others will want it too!