Booruch
Education Podcast Reflections #44bThis week, I am in conversation with Linda Hartley, a former Teaching Assistant, who runs the Classroom Displays Flickr Group and is introducing a variety of other Web 2.0 tools for sharing and collaboration between Teaching Assistants and the wider education community.
It hardly hurt at all 
News: Survey reveals TAs’ unpaid work
Survey reveals TAs’ unpaid work
School support staff are still doing regular unpaid work outside of their hours, researchers have found.
The government-funded survey is based on information from nearly 3,000 support staff who returned questionnaires last year, and follows a similar survey in 2004.
It found that two thirds regularly work more hours than their contract says, and only half of these are paid for the extra time.
Most of the overtime is voluntary but a quarter of respondents said they worked extra hours because they were told to.
“The results reveal the extent to which staff can feel obliged to work extra hours to their contracts,” says the report.
Not much change since I did my degree then! Seriously though this was one of the things that put me off a job in an otherwise excellent school. There was a huge expectation that support staff would be prepared to work far beyond their paid hours. People who didn’t want to do that were warned not to take their applications further, as they ‘just wouldn’t fit in here’! Teaching assistants needs were not even considered for a moment. Now it’s all well and good putting the children’s needs first, we all do that, (I hope!) but there has to be a recognition that staff have personal needs too and that people are more useful and productive when they are in school if they have time and energy for their outside interests. Grrrr
Marcia McGowan’s first grade class used their self-portaits to create some online fun. She’s also involved in lots of internet exchange projects and I love her quote:
This is purposeful, authentic, engaging work that begins to prepare today’s learners for new literacies in the technological world of today and tomorrow.
Now I wonder if she blogs……and if she’s got any nice photos of classroom displays?
Tony Wilson died yesterday. A heart attack as a complication of cancer of the kidney. He was famous for being the founder of Factory Records and for the Hacienda. I remember him from a time before all that though. He joined Granada Reports as a ‘cub’ reporter and became “The Kamacazie Kid”. They gave him all the worst jobs and ribbed him endlessly about having a degree in English from Cambridge. He took it in good part and as he was 7 years older than me I thought he was wonderful. Blonde, good-looking, clever and obviously (to me at least) slightly ‘alternative’ I had a fairly major crush. My Dad couldn’t work out why I suddenly wouldn’t miss Granada Reports and decided I might want to be a journalist. So someone was pleased!
The crush wore off as I started being interested in real life boys. I met him once though. I was about 18 and I went backstage after a Leonard Cohen concert at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. I was hoping to gaze into the sad, brown eyes of Mr Cohen and have some sort of profound ‘moment’. Oh, and just to make matters worse I’d dragged my boyfriend along with me. (Please - what can I say, I was 18!) When I was finally ushered into the room, there was Tony Wilson,lounging back in his chair, feet up, looking very cool and at ease. He gave me the briefest glance, instantly dismissing me as being of no interest, raised one eyebrow and saying nothing, waved his hand in the general direction of a small, slightly crumpled, unimpressive man in the corner. I got my ticket autographed, didn’t even make eye contact with Cohen, and, slightly apologetically, slunk off into the Manchester rain.
Later Tony Wilson had a chaotic late night TV ‘music and culture’ show called So It Goes which I adored and which I loved even more because the title was taken from a recurring phrase in Vonnegut’s Slaughter House Five.
Later still, while I was at college in Didsbury, Wilson was in the area (Palatine Rd) starting Factory Records. I even went to the Hacienda a few times. A big, cold, unfriendly place with lots of hard shiny surfaces, it came to life when a good band was on.
And now he’s gone:
So it goes, pilgrim.
There’s a good video with Mr Wilson here if you are interested.
And in the spirit of the blog, what did I learn from this reflection?
I’ve added a new tag line to the blog:
Informal learning, Internet technology and Action research
This is taken from my degree title, of course, but as ever with the degree adapted to my own context! These are the main topics I blog about here so it seemed logical. I am also slowly, slowly, writing an About page like Andy Roberts and John at Sandaig. I can’t believe how quickly they’ve done it. Still, I’ve been busy writing an article so I might let myself off!
I’m currently updating the blog’s design so things might be a bit lumpy for a few days. In return for some research work Andy upgraded the blog to Wordpress 2.2 for me. This is a huge improvement and means I can start to use some of the techniques I’m used to having over at Classroom Displays Blog.
Still in order to make full use of the update I’ve had to change my blog design. After much swithering I think I’ve settled on MooPoint. It is very plain and functional which is what I want at the moment. I’m kind of tired of fussy blog designs. I suppose it might be a reaction to all the dark colours I was considering in my last post!
Having said that I will try to get a few more visual elements into the design, but I’m not sure how yet. I’m just enjoying the purity of the clean lines (lol - there speaks the daughter of a modernist architect!)
It would be great if people let me know what they think of the new design and any suggestions for improvements.
Via Primary Teacher Blog
BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Office printers ‘are health risk’
An investigation of a range of printer models showed that almost a third emit potentially dangerous levels of toner into the air.
The Queensland University of Technology scientists have called on ministers to regulate these kinds of emissions.
They say some printers should come with a health warning.
The researchers carried out tests on more than 60 machines.
Almost one-third were found to emit ultra-tiny particles of toner-like material, so small that they can infiltrate the lungs and cause a range of health problems from respiratory irritation to more chronic illnesses.
And yet - there they sit in many ICT suites in Primary schools in the UK. The health risk may be minimised for the children who are only there for one or two lessons a week. The same can’t be said for technicians or other staff members who spend much longer in there. Photocopiers are a recognised hazard and are often placed in a well ventilated part of the school or have an extractor. Laser printers are usually in the ICT suite, often a quiet poorly ventilated room.
So there you go - another good reason for minimising how much of children’s work you actually print out and persuading staff that saving work in an e-portfolio means they don’t need 3 copies of everything, all in colour, to take back to the classroom with them.
I blog here and at the Classroom Displays Blog I am also involved in Usefulwiki- educational resources wiki
