It's another week off

Half term when I first became a teacher were a source of real agony for me. I used to worry so much about having a week off, worry about the children and drift aimlessly and helplessly through a week.

Nowadays, I'm a dad and half term this time has been a week of being head cook and bottle washer. There has been little time for the above worry. I share these thoughts with no need for you to express sympathy (unless you'd like to). It's just a thing that has bothered me non stop since I began work.

I have had a lot of nice times over this half term. Not least was my son's first bird-watching trip (he spotted and identified a teal). I had a lovely birthday. We went out as a family. But what is hard are the lack of 'middle gear' times. In term time I will have no time for any of this. And in the holidays, for all except about 12 hours, I have had all the time in the world. I have never reconciled myself to that week away but I now know I have to use that time to recover. And have a real relationship with family and friends.

Most jobs don't have this dilemma as they have no regular weeks off. We are fortunate in that respect. But if anything was to drive me away from teaching it might well be the lack of time in middle gears. To those without sympathy I say just this-people are not digital. It's not easy nor is it advisable to try to switch them on and off.

Not Interactive-but not bored

I had a sense of doom when the lamp went on my projector on Monday. What a week-lesson observations and the class preparing Viking presentations!
Ever since we had fitted iwb's in our school, I have used mine as the main and only board. The first job every day is to prepare the slides for every lesson. I use it to model ideas and set up hyperlinks and so much more.
But instead of the disaster I was expecting it turned into a good thing overall. It gave me a chance to revisit some old skool teaching techniques. Most crucially, I found myself becoming a more self reliant communicator. I was engaging the class more personally, not relying on graphics and animation for my lesson.
I suppose the lamp will be replaced soon. But I won't be rushing to fill lesson time with it as much as before. I have realised my delivery needs to be just as interactive as the board!

Braving the next step

I was working with our ICT technician during the week. We were (OK, he was) trying to reinstall an old program for pupils to compose music on. This is because our wonderful music teacher is going to try using ICT in a lesson for the first time. The secretary came in and looked at what we were doing. After a short pause she said "Music on computers. Why does everything have to be on computers now?"

This was of note for two reasons.

The first is that, with a new VLE and with Purple Mash also in school (and with my burgeoning interest in blogging to carry it all on with) I am trying to get so much more done using said computers. This expansion of ICT is met, it has to be said, with either detached interest or frank horror by many colleagues.

So why do it? Well, on Friday, I ran a session using a forum during a half-hour lesson. All pupils typed contributions and there was a lively exchange amongst most pupils. One, however, was content with "Hi guys!" every 15 entries or so. Inadvertently, this pupil was probably preparing their peers for real-life forum use!

But the rest enjoyed it so much. There has also been a wide range of comments added over the weekend. What struck me about these new comments was that there were those who were continuing the debate of the issue of which character was was most guilty in the classic poem 'The Highwayman'. These hardy souls were now debating strongly. However, others have played with the font and relied on vehement repetition to gain influence. Finally, a pupil who remains quiet in class and has average attainment burst in with a post. "What is this? A repeat yourself in as big a font as possible competition?" she stormed.

She would never have thought to be so challenging to their face or in class. But I am sure that the familiarity of the technology, excitement and to an extent the sheer novelty gave license to her courage. But, in a school where the mindset of many pupils/parents remains limited to giving safe answers and the attitude prevails that getting things wrong is bad, this was a crucial and significant sea change. They need to take risks like this more often.

Computers can enable that risk-taking with their relevance, their immediacy and by providing the means to encompass the sheer power of communicating with parents. They create an audience, they create meaning in itself and an end too. For many pupils, it saves the sheer tedium of writing. It develops choices. Genuine creativity is enhanced too by having to choose programs and find different and effective ways of applying their features.

The way forward, though, is beset by problems. Security concerns,  time issues and the doubts of the staff following me where I want to lead loom large. Also, I need to answer crucial questions. How many pupils will this approach actually affect with positive attainment? How many parents will be happy with the time spent in front of a computer? Will ICT take over lessons which could be spent doing something else much more productive?

It is imperative that I answer constructively and with clarity in order to overcome doubts and difficulties in order to make this happen.

So, yes, I want music taught on computers. I want to see more maths, DT, Science and so much more learned by the means of ICT. Also I want blogging, tweeting, and consistently decent and sustainable content on our online magazine.

But most of all, I want to hear that voice, that courageous voice from the forum post, in everything. I am convinced that this will happen once our school accepts that ICT is a mindset more than it is a set of skills or some nice programs to use. So, bravery is required of us all in order to take that next step.

Oh and the other point of interest? The secretary is the wife of the ICT technician. I hope they don't take issues from work home at nights!