Useful Teaching blog!

http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog

Useful link above to the teachers blog from the Guardian paper. The blog is regularly updated and has a variety of blog styles from an academic reading to teachers sharing their thoughts and experiences.
I personally liked the reading list of useful current material with articles from the likes of Brian Cox.

With the option to add comments, it's good to get the perspective of a diverse audience, many of the them in the same boat as me and new to the teaching world. There is good links to affiliated useful websites, including to national reports and proposed changes to education.

One article witch I found very useful was a list of ten tips of what works and doesn't work when teaching, including things like building relationships with students, colleagues and parents, learning styles and the importance of having good subject knowledge.

The search bar makes finding relevant articles easy and there is an archive of older reading which is useful when comparing teaching developments as can b seen below;

http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/nov/19/teacher-workloads-job-changed

Overall a good blog and though lots of useful hints, tips for new up and coming teachers as ourselves and maybe a few for teachers who been in the game a long time.

How Technology helped my teaching

Where would we be without technology in teaching?  Although teaching is about the presentation of the teacher and engaging with our students, technology plays a big part within structuring lessons and preparing the teacher to deliver the most effective module both in and outside the classroom. Gone are the days of big puffs of chalk as the teacher bangs the erasers together with interactive boards having been introduced, which are connected to computers and PowerPoint’s, Pinterest and other programmes can be used as aide-memoires of the teacher and a visual aid for the learners.

Learning and teaching can now be 24 hours with the use of the Internet; VLE’s, social media, email and Google search all playing an important part of modern day education. From a teaching perspective lessons and assignments and extended reading material can be posted on VLE’s such as Moodle and blackboard, can be accessed by students any time and any place, hopefully ensuring that all students are up to date with their work and can be more engaged in lessons as do not have to make the same amount of notes.

Online registration and turninit can provide an online record of attendance and assignments handed in and grades, making scraps of paper every where a think of the past. 

As I'm finding my feet as a teacher I think I would be a little lost without technology as I found it real gives structure to my lessons and suppose is some sort of a comfort blanket holding my hand while these 16 year old students look at me with confused expressions on their faces. I do always love the use of a video in class just short and brief but think real helps the students grasp a concept and but fresh on the bones of what i am teaching them.

Although technology is great as a teacher, there is always the few seconds of blind panic when a video won't load or the sound isn't working;

Ted Talks about Twitter!!

POWER OF TWITTER - Interesting and scary Ted Talks video by Del Harvey who works in security at Twitter. The piece starts by talking about the explosion of tweets over the past 5 years; going from 2 million tweets a day in 2009 to over 500 million tweets a day in 2014, underlining the power that social media has everyday life.

She explains that 99.99999% of tweets are harmless and used for the right reasons and only 0.00001% of tweets may be harmful and treating, which seems a drop in the ocean and nothing really to worry about until she puts this in to really terms and 0.0001% equals 150,000 tweets a day, A scary thought!!!
 "PEOPLE ARE WEIRD" is a consideration that she says she has to consider, demonstrating this by showing a tweet saying "Yo Bitch", which at first you could think is offensive and cause for concern, but local and youthful dialect may be a factor and this could be a normally acceptable greeting between friends. However the picture that was tweeted with this statement was of a dog using the laptop, meaning the tweet wasn't only not offensive but also accurate, leading back to the notion "PEOPLE ARE WEIRD".

 Overall I thought the video was informative, interesting and delivered with a sense of humour, and open my eyes to the true power of Twitter and the volume of daily tweets. From a teaching point of view twitter can be an excellent source of up to date current knowledge and news, however consideration has to be made for the students safety and well being with the large volume of harmful tweets, even thou it is only 0.0001% of them!!

 Worth a watch!!

He's Big I bet he can shout!!!

This was my feedback from my tutor who I share a two hour lesson with after teaching my level 2 group for the 1st time. after being told how disturbed and naughty they are, they were model students and enjoyed the lesson, asked lots of questions and answered all the questions of the quiz without a problem.

When my tutor asked for feed back from the class they said learned a lot and enjoyed my teaching and I student piped up and said  "he's a big guy, I bet he can shout!!".

So with all the teaching strategies and theories we have looked at the secret to being a good teacher is being "BIG" and able to shout loudly!!!

Really enjoying my placement so far thou and feel like I have been there for ages, just re ensured that this is what I want to do with my life!!!