Cam’s Ramblings

Things are moving… the economy is slowing down (which is driving petrol prices down, I paid 104.7 yesterday), work is speeding up and Christmas is coming. All of these things point toward one thing… a very frustrating month at work.

I sell school uniforms. I work in a shop which supplies school uniforms to about 12 schools in the local area. We are having a number of special days for each of these schools, where we advertise extra staff and benefits of coming in, to attract people in this side of Christmas. We had our first such day last week, I think I worked about 10 hours non stop. We have another tomorrow, fortunately I am only rostered on for the second half of the day. I am working a total of four of these days, I predict each one will be bigger than the last. But that’s not the point I was aiming to make…

Withparents starting to get serious about their kids uniforms for next year, schools are also very seriously looking at next year (I assume they have been for some time though). As with my teaching position sorted out for next year, I hopefully begin to gain an insight into what actually goes on. The first ‘official’ visit I will have with Kambrya is on Orientation day, 9th December. A day to meet new students, staff and not get lost trying to find my way around. It’s a day I’m looking forward to, because will be the first time I am surrounded by the people and the environment which I will be working in next year.

Before that though I will be calling in to meet with some of the leading teachers, and the obligatory paperwork. I just have to get in touch with Deakin, find out when I can actually supply what I need to supply… as with most administrative tasks at Deakin, I don’t expect this to be easy.

So there you go, things are moving.

(on a side note, I just did a spell check – every time I typed a word starting with wi, it separated those two letters and said it was spelt incorrectly. I should start typing these things in Word, at least I know I’ll get a decent spell check. And I know I need it!)

Next Monday marks the beginning of term four, meaning that the past two weeks our students have had time off. Uni has also enjoyed a week off, which I must has has been much needed by many of us.

Yesterday I got home and found piece of mail from Uni, from the faculty office. I knew what it was, as a few friends had received the same mail. It was one of our assignments, which we had submitted for one of our core units about a month ago.

This is the first year this unit has ran, and as such there is a bit of confusion surrounding the aims, assessment and expectations. Our tutor has been quite vocal at times in her confusion surrounding the assessments, and we have spent a lot of time trying to work out exactly what it is we are going to submit.

So anyway, we thought we had figured out what to do, wrote the paper and put it in the slot. We got them back, and I know I was quite surprised to see my mark. The feedback I got seemed to contradict a lot of what we had been told in class. And it doesn’t bode well for the second task which I am in the middle of writing.

We have been told various things about how to present this paper, using subheadings, not using subheadings, it’s an essay, it’s a report, it’s an analysis… each week we are told something different. As always, there is a lesson in this for me to take into the classroom next year.

Any piece of work I ask my students to complete must not only be purposeful, but also be clear. I need to explicitly define what I expect, and if I am unsure I need to clarify what is rerquired. And if I can’t confirm what is expected, I can’t penalise students for using a variety of formats.

Here’s hoping I do slightly better on the second paper!

Forrest Gump once said “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”

I couldn’t agree with this statement more. We could be really picky and say that yes, you do know exactly what you are eating from your box of chocolates. Mostly because of the little pictures and descriptions you usually find in the lid or on the bottom of the box. But the analogy I think Gump was trying to get to was one of those boxes where they don’t give you that information. You just have to guess. And if you are allergic to nuts, then good luck!

But that’s going way off topic. I was going to try and steer this post back toward the fact that the Assignment Roller coaster is back in full swing. You should see my desk at home, I have textbooks, readings, journal articles and the like everywhere. I think that somewhere under there is my printer (note to self: FIND PRINTER!).

Fortunatly I have a poretty cruisy semester, as long as I complete one assignment per week. In the week ending today, I am to complete my Diversity assignment. It’s nowhere near done, but getting there. And starting tomorrow I have a literature review and case study to do for Student Wellbeing.

Once these are out of the way, I have my favorite subject to focus on – GAME! Anyone who I have spoken to of late will know that ‘Games is the kick-arseiest subject ever!’ Allow me to explain. Our fist assignment was a 750 report on a game we ran at our practicum schools. Easy. Our second assignment is running a game with our class at uni. Easy. Our third assignment is making a poster about an online game. Easy. The fourth assignment is marking everyone else’s games and posters. EASY!

And get this, we learn bugger all, besides some cool classroom activities. Week one was all the administrative stuff, getting assignments etc. Week two Cathy, the tutor, ran a game with us. Weeks three – seven are our presentations. And week eight we mark other posters. And the biggest suprise of all, there are only TWELVE people in the class. I don’t get it……

So anyway, until I’m back teaching in October my great insights into the classroom will kind of stop here. I know I was planning on using my Student Site (http://mrdenham.edublogs.org) during this last placement, but the classes I had didn’t really allow me to do so. So here’s hoping I can on my next lot of rounds. I really would like to see if it works before running with it next year.

But that’s enough from me. I have an assignment to write.

I’ll give you a hint. It was me. Okay, that wasn’t really a hint, more of a give away. But still…

I must admit, I am very happy with myself on this effort. I am feeling more confident about getting a job now, and am even more excited than previously about the coming few months. I have gathered some major evidence for my portfolio, and am looking forward to sharing that soon. Hopefully over the next week I will have a draft I am happy to publish on this site.

And until then, it’s back to work. I have a curriculum day tomorrow which should be interesting, then post-practicum drinks with my special lady in town to celebrate. Have a good weekend!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the end. At 10am tomorrow, I will walk into room P3.14 which is where my first class of the final semester is being held. It feels a little bit weird, finally getting to the end of my degree.

Like every other semester I am studying four subjects, two of which I am looking forward to, the other two I am not so sure about. The two subjects I am looking forward to are Simulations and Games in Teaching and Learning and Transition to Beginning Teaching. Simulations and Games is going to be great, because it fits into my idea of the ideal classroom, where learning occurs through fun. Transition is also going to be fun because of the tutor.

The two subjects I am not looking forward to as much are Teaching for Diversity and Promoting Student Wellbeing. While the topics I will be doing a bit of study on are certainly important to my teaching, my hesitation in showing mas enthusiasm toward these subjects is simply explained – I haven’t yet studied a unit with similar content.

I have done units before with a focus on technology and student engagement, which is where I believe I will enjy Simulations. Hopefully after a few weeks I am more into the swing of study again, and am feeling more positive toward all my subjects.

Yay for my final semester!

The first semester of my final year at Deakin Uni has concluded. At approximately 11.23am today I walked out of the gym, having finished my last maths exam. That of course assumes I have passed it.

So now I’m faced with three weeks of time off. I’m taking a short trip to Hobart next week, then my plan is to spend two weeks working (saving money!) and continuing on my Portfolio. I have started to construct the shell of it, I just need to fill the gooey inside bits with all the goodness I can find. I realise I ended there with a pretty dodgy analogy.

Then in about three weeks, I recieve an SMS from Deakin, informing me of my results, and the end of of uni is then very close. Second semester is going to be great fun, I’m looking forward to putting more applications out there, going to schools for interviews and my last lot of rounds. But for now, it’s time to relax.

There is not greater truth amongst students that exams suck. Of all my friends, none of them like the idea of exams for a few reasons. For starters, it forces us to do a set amount of work in a given period of time. I know no one who works in that manner. Secondly, we have to write. Pen and paper style, none of this keyboard stuff. Thirdly, the fact we have to actually memorise things doesn’t go down to well for us either.

O was reflecting on this the other day, and then about the teaching profession, and came to the conclusion that there is no better form of standardised assessment than an exam. It does everything a ’standard’ assignment cannot. It measures how much the student has learnt (as no reference to notes is usually permitted), assesses students under pressure (I have a friend who has to write 4 essays in 2 hours for her exam next week) and really shows off our individual style of work.

So although I don’t like sitting exams, I do see the benefits they bring. It’s just a shame that they are often worth such a large proportion of the mark. My mark for Cyrptography is 40% assignment work and 60% exam. I think this is also ridiculous. I would much rather play down the importance of the end of semester exams, and play up the assignments during semester. I’ll write more on this over the next week or so, as I have quite a few ideas on the topic.

Professional Development Week is over.

From the reports I’ve heard, the 200+ students who were involved have had a great week, with over 20 sessions running from the Burwood Campus, Firbank School and Kambrya College. A huge thanks to our hosts at the latter two, and for allowing our students into your schools.

Personally, I enjoyed the whole week. I attended three sessions, on Unit Planning within VELS, Report Writing and Interactive Whiteboards. I have taken so much away from these sessions, a lot of little tips and also some bigger picture stuff I am sure to put into practice soon.

On another note, I am applying for my first job next week. Berwick Secondary College will soon be receiving an application from me for one of three Maths Classroom Teacher positions they currently have advertised. I am going to finalise that application and have it submitted on Tuesday hopefully, which is very exciting.

Finally, I received my mark for my Professional Journey today. I got 84 (out of 100) for this second part of my Journey, giving me an overall unit mark of 87, which is my best result for any unit so far at Deakin.

So it’s been a great week for me on a professional front. Tomorrow I go to work, earn some money and then relax on Sunday. Things are looking up down here in sunny (although it’s night time and pretty dark) Cranbourne.

I am incredibly frustrated. I have just spent the past few hours trying to upload one video to YouTube, to embed into my Journey to totally and completely finish it off. The video I was making was a PowerPoint with narration, so I screencast the whole thing, recorded the narration and saved it as a .wmv file.

I had used this file format for other videos I had uploaded and embedded before (for example, in my Technology assignment). SO I thought I’d have very few problems getting this to work. I was wrong.

I uploaded to YouTube, to be told that the file couldn’t not convert and had the upload had failed. I had no more information, so I just assumed some technical glitch. I tried again…and again… and again. I think I tired a total of five times before giving up. So a friend of mine suggested I check out TeacherTube.

I signed up (which took a while) then  went to upload my video. It uploaded fine, which was a relief. THen came the embedding. I tried three differant codes I had been given, one general, one general with search box and one specifically for edublogs. None of them worked.

So I have done the simplest thing, and linked my Journey to the TeacherTube video. Not very technical, but it serves the purpose it was meant to. It might also offer a download for people who are unable to view the video. Something I can do tomorrow though!

I have just two more things to do for my next Professional Journey – upload my list of Class Values and then submit the assignment cover sheet to Uni.

The series of Values I am holding off on, simply because I want to review what I have written tomorrow after I have had some time off from thinking about it. I have spent most of this afternoon updating and uploading the assignment, so hopefully with a fresh mindset tomorrow afternoon I am in a better position to further develop those values.

The submission to Uni, well that’s just a mere formality. It will be the first time I submit anything to the new Faculty of (Arts and) Education office. I use the brackets on purpose – I don’t see why they had to merge the two faculties, considering we (i.e., the Education students) now have so incredibly few admin. staff who are knowledgeable of our courses. I heard that for the best part of this semester, there wasn’t actually a Course Advisor for us. All bar one lost their jobs in the merger, and the one who was retained was on leave.

So yes, I was against the merger from the beginning, and will continue to complain about it until I leave Uni. Thankfully, that is now less than 6 months away. Bring on November 7, when I board a plane to the Gold Coast for a week of celebrating with friends. And before you ask, we’re not going as ‘toolies’, as the official Schoolies period starts the day after we arrive back home.

So yeah, now I’m going to go relax and sit in the spa. I think I’ve deserved it.

Oh and before I forget, the link to the Journey… just click ‘Professional Journey’ up top and go to the link for May-June, or use the links to the right —>   Please leave all Journey comments on the Feedback page.