Jon Hoff’s Teaching ICT (PGCE year)

It’s the end of the second day of my first week in University on the PGCE ICT. Words like framework, statutory, Key Stage, curriculum, targets, objectives and outcomes are bouncing around in my head and ticker-taping in front of my very eyes. I am hallucinating. This kind of rigid structure in education in this country is something I will have to get used to and accept.

Previously I have had flexibility and freedom. I’d bump into Tim the Language Arts guy in the corridor at AIS and he’d be like ‘Hey Jon, doing a project called ‘Choose your own Adventure’ and I’d be like ‘Hey that’s prefect for an introduction to designing websites, let’s do it…!’ Alas, I get the feeling that most British teachers are so inundated and restricted that collaborative projects probably only feature deeply in their subconsciousness.  I hope to be proved wrong. 

So, spent the day looking at Key Stage 3/4 and some of the topics involved. Collaboration with Google Docs was mentioned very briefly. Got a few presentations coming up including one xcurricular (use of ICT in Geography) and one on Baud, Bit rate and Banwidth. I’ll be plying tweeters for some ideas on those….

I have been assigned my schools. The second, longer placement involved a ‘challenging’ school with some issues. Ofsted report is smothered in 3s and 4s. However, I feel like I am ready for anything.