ICT+Diary

I seem to be spending hours and hours glued to a screen now - how did that happen? I used to love making things, knitting, sewing, painting and NOW....I am a problem solver attached to a screen.

Having first mastered uploading digital photographs onto Movie Maker, I then find that the films that I have made are a diferent format and my computer needs new free downloads to be able to recognise them - now to put music on, uh oh! Think about copyright, so I spent time searching for copyright free music to download to use in schools. My poor 10 year old son performed "The Wheels on the Bus" for me on Audacityto attach to a school trip video, now I owe him. Thats now proudly on the school learning platform alongside slide shows, discussion forums and videos of the children acting as pirates for literacy.

OK so I then learnt about drivers too so that my printer could recognise new things too. Nothing that I own seems compatable and CERTAINLY not with anything we use in school! I got the digi blues out, oh they don't seem to work with the new laptops either so somehow we have to find a fix for them It's not so easy to just fix things at school with a free download because all the network is Manager Protected of course.

Having survived the house fire my computer finally crashed - too much Stickman, Scratch, and goodness only knows what else I have put on it seems to have broken it's fragile state. So if all the Teaching Assistants are expected to master all this technology, who exactly is providing all the hardware or paying for the time for them to learn? I take home about £500 a month, lots of which goes on my University fees and books, I'm not sure that I can live without much more...maybe have to cut out the wime and cakes.....

In school I seem to have been propelled, with my minimum of knowledge and maximum of gung-ho!, into honorary 1st assistant to the ICT co-ordinator...."Could you just come and have a look at this....?" and my time is being spent trying to get printers to talk to computers, to get sound to come out of speakers and following leads back to switch things on at the mains. Even been given the password to change things on the Network Manager. Now I'm REALLY scared of what damage I could do and not have the knowledge to put it right.

But, strangely, I'm loving it and am very proud of my new skills (which probably the 5 year olds already knew). Having come in with new ideas I then had to learn how to put the programmes onto the school network, equally decrepit, and introduce them to the teachers too. We'll get there, but maybe not so fast as Bill Gates might like. Meanwhile, there are children needing educating and caring for, first aid and tiisues. Wonder when I'll get the chance to teach my class to knit..... Click here to go back to my home page. http://ictassignmentlevel2.wikispaces.com/