Well … I survived my first day. In fact it was quite pleasant

 My diary is filling up and my new phone with the much needed ’sat-nav’ facillity is very much appreciated - and needed :

(my lack of sense of direction has been the topic of many a Carronshore staffroom ‘chuckle’).

Good luck tomorrow to the new primary 5L/W, and to the new Ist and 2nd year Larbert High pupils!!

More soon  ….. 

I’m not the only one making a fresh start tomorrow. Miss Law included a great post about her thoughts on moving on from a student teacher to a probationer …. thanks for the lovely comments, Miss L

Primary 5L/W are lucky to be getting a new teacher who is very enthusiastic and genuinely excited at the prospect of helping them to enjoy their learning experience.

And, of course, last sessions Primary 7’s are all geared up for their new adventures at Larbert High

I hope that at least some of them continue to post to their blogs ……. and wikis.

Bethany’s last words to me in Primary 7 were that I should keep an eye on her pbwiki, because she intended to update it over the summer. Click on her weemee below to view the revisions she’s made to her stories - the most recent was just 4 days ago. I hope she keeps it up because I love reading her adventurous stories - and her awareness of audience is very apparent

Bethany’s PBwiki revisions can be viewed by clicking on her weeme here :   

I had trouble recently with receiving comments on this blog. I left a message in the help forums and noticed a post about ‘edublogstv’. It’s possible to transfer videos from Youtube, etc. over to edublogstv - great for getting around blocked access at school. There are teething problems, however, because it appears that only one video can be uploaded to a blog’s homepage … previous edublogtv videos then disappear. Hopefully they’ll find a way around this soon

Meanwhile, here’s an example. I’ve seen this somewhere on the blogosphere, but on Youtube (I’ll need to pop the code in, then ‘publish’ right away for it to work. As I can’t ‘preview’ it first … fingers crossed!)

I really wish that I had done just that with all my modules, too. Blogging about the final dissertation stage and receiving words of encouragement - or maybe just the occassional comment from others online was definately very benificial to me. Even just writing for a potential audience forced me to focus more on the different chapters. Rather than leaving loads of unfinished drafts, I felt the need to ‘tidy’ them up a bit before submitting them to the ‘world’.

David left a comment on Ferghal’s post to congratulate him and to ask what his next plans were. He mentioned ‘double modules’. I only heard of this option recently. Stirling are allowing the choice of completing the Chartered Teacher pathway in 3 years by opting to write double the amount of words on half the amount of modules (or so I’ve been told?)

 With the UWS route, I completed  four core modules at Post graduate certificate level:

Reflective Practice: Critical Self-evaluation and Development
(Module 1, Self-Evaluation)
Effective Teaching for Effective Learning
(Module 2, Learning and Teaching)
Equality and Diversity in Education
(Module 3, Education for All)
Essential Personal Communication
(Module 4, Working Together)

Followed by 4 Option Modules. The modules I chose were:

Teaching and Learning of Core Skills: Numeracy
Developing Cognitive Flexibility
Mentoring and Supporting Students, Probationers and Colleagues
Introducing eLearning, eTeaching and eAssessment

Each of these modules had to contain between 3 to 4000 words (I think it started out as 3000, but as the course progressed the ‘wordage’ crept up to 4000). It took 4 years to complete these eight modules. I then had the choice of undertaking 2 smaller dissertations (10-15000 words) over 2 years, or one larger dissertation (20-25000 words) over 1 year. I chose the larger dissertation over 1 year.

When I began the CT journey, there was no option to complete the course by doing double modules. I’m glad I completed all 8 core and option modules because I learned so much about so many different topics. If the Stirling option had been available, would I have chosen it ….. probably :)    

(although the cost would have been an issue - presumably the double modules cost double the money, meaning an outlay of around £2000 a year instead of £1000?)

Ferghal also shared his essay via scribd (I tried to leave a comment on his blog explaining how to embed it in to edubuzz, but I linked it to the carronshore blog by mistake. I’m not sure what happened but it seems that some comments appear right away and some require moderation??)

Anyway, if anyone wants a VERY long read, here’s my dissertation

The post arrived this morning, and along with the usual ‘here’s your latest bank statement / junk mail’ normal stuff, there was a very large brown envelope.Here’s what it contained

Oh my goodness! Now I’m there

I think it was worth all the hard work and I’m glad I finally got round to ‘going that extra mile’. My 800 word application was quite easy to write after all

Picture by Jack Vass

Today I went in to school to finally clear out the last of my clutter. I also met up with Cassie and ‘handed over’ the Carronshore Blog . Already there are two new posts. I really think she’ll enjoy blogging with her new class and I’m sure that her enthusiasm will take it to new heights

Meanwhile, I’m off on my ‘new road’ - and I’m looking forward to ‘blogging’ about what I get up to

……. but I also intend to keep in touch with any new posts or entries from the ‘old’ Primary 7 blogs and wikis. I’m in the process of transferring these spaces to this blog. They’ll appear on pages on this blog …. a work in progress, but you can check them out here and here meanwhile

offer to go along to one of the LTS ‘Inspiration’ sessions - It meant that I could have another excuse to pop in on her ……. and I also hoped to learn something, too

I had no idea what to expect, but I thought we’d be discussing Glow. It was great, therefore, to see that Jaye had decided to come along, too. I’m a reader of her blog, but don’t really appreciate the ‘chat’ because I can’t visualise what Glow looks like. It got a bit more confusing when David G’s recent post was discussed. In East Lothian, they’ve noticed problems with even internet savvy staff. I wish that I was in a position to get a little preview of what Glow ‘looks like’. I can read all about it (and often do) but I need the chance to ‘play’ with it before I can appreciate what’s being written by those who already have access. I suppose I felt a bit less ignorant when David N said that he’d only had a brief experience of glow.

I’m glad that I took the time to go to the session .. despite giving a very spur-of-the-moment response to Ewan when he asked me to give my opinion of the LTS website. When put on the spot, I tend to ramble … and I DID ramble - went totally off the subject

Anyway, it was just great to see all these bloggers ‘face-to-face’.

And my big sis and I had a lovely late lunch in the Art Lover’s Cafe just a short walk from her house. The rest of the afternoon was spent in the walled garden close by. We took some pics when we were there. I’ve made a movie and added the same ‘jolly music’ from Ewan’s delicious site that I put on to the class blog.

A letter arrived from the GTCs soon after I received the news of my success (still smiling!) asking for another essay - well, an ‘application’ actually (only 800 words - thank goodness!).

I need to explain how I’ve demonstrated that I’ve achieved and maintained the Standard for Chartered Teacher. I also need to explain why I believe that I should be presented with the ‘Professional Award of chartered Teacher’.

There’s a lot more that has to be included in the 800 word report.

Tomorrow …. or the next day …. or the next

Meanwhile I’m so impressed with Miss L’s recent post. Here’s a wee bit:

I think keeping a blog throughout my final placement allowed me for the first time to reflect naturally as opposed to the structured way in which I had previously. This helped me a great deal whilst writing my final assignments. For this reason I intend to keep writing on this blog throughout the course of next year and this, along with my learning journal, will hopefully help me to inform my practice and therefore complete the induction year successfully!

She’s inspired me to keep going with this blog. You can read the rest of her post by visiting her blog

I never saw it coming - well done me

… I hope that Kim realises how much her comments kept me going at the last stretch.

Meanwhile I allowed the P7’s total control of the camera when the nursery came to visit. They did a great job!

Take a look ……

 
Much to my surprise, I have been appointed the new member of my local authority ICT support team! I’ll be in the post for 23 months.

Meanwhile I learned that  Miss Law is returning to Carronshore as a Probationer Teacher. I am so happy that she has agreed to take over the day to day running of my Carronshore class blog until I return … I’m sure she’ll do a great job