Three years later

Since my last post three years ago, I had the amazing good fortune to be the bottom of the list for a local school when they were desperate one day. From that came a Term 2 contract, then Term 3, then Term 4... and then they made it a permanent arrangement. 

Being a TRT had many challenges and many good points, but did very little to prepare me for being a full time classroom teacher. In my first year I was overwhelmed by literacy demands, and have really only just sorted that out. I was lucky to get in on the ground floor of some great maths training, and I'm consolidating those skills now. I smashed science - you'd hope, since I have a degree in it - and even spent six months last year as a NIT science teacher. Humanities were a little sketchy until this year. 

The area that has frustrated me to no end has been technology. Which, for a computer geek, is really saying something. 

For four weeks in 2014 and four weeks this year, I had no projector. This is not the end of the world, but does require a full re-plan of your teaching - a fact that administrators do not understand. It was an especially sore point this year, since I had planned a full Olympics unit and paid for premium access, only to have 28 kids crowd around a computer screen. Ouch. 

The school internet has been up and down like a cheap knock-off Coca-Cola yo-yo. I solved that problem myself, by bringing my own iPad with its own data connection. 

Many useful sites have been blocked by the department, and required individual unblocking. Not a problem so much now, but when we were in the cycle of 6 - count them, SIX techs in 2 years, getting what you needed was a slow process.

iPads were easier two years ago. Then, I could get away with buying an app I wanted and just quietly installing it on my five classroom iPads. That all went away for a year while they were becoming "re-managed". We now have what we need and it's not hard to get an app installed, but as they are iPad 2s, they're not terribly useful anymore anyway. 

We used to have a computer lab, filled with ancient crusty desktops that took hours to start up. We now have three sets of laptops that take hours to start up. These are constantly in varying degrees of charge and operability. Frequently, you can find a laptop with "Dose Note WORK!!!!!!!!!" (sic) written on a post-it and stuck to the lid. Unreported, unspecific and generally unhelpful. 

The outcome of all the technology fails has been that I rarely use it anymore unless I need to. I do project things onto the screen, and I'm beginning to put out the feelers again for more interactive tools, but having your plans scrapped all the time begins to wear thin after a while. You do need to be flexible when teaching, but with all the other variables, if I can take technology out of the mix, I generally do. 

So - while I learn, I will share. If I write a post on something, you'll know one thing - IT WORKS. Because I won't put up with it otherwise! And from this you will know - I do understand your daily challenges.