turkey_machine Wrote:
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> At my old high school, they were what's dubbed a
> "Specialist Technology College", and as a result,
> they got more money to spend on computer related
> equipment, classes, labs, software, that sort of
> thing. Blackboards and whiteboards were being
> phased out with interactive whiteboards
> (Activboard, Google to find out more), but there
> were still the old stalwarts that preferred your
> lung cloggers or drug satisfiers (chalk and marker
> pens in case you can't figure it out
), though I
> think by this time they'll have switched. Those
> systems I think were relatively cheap P4-based
> Celeron-based computers, that one teacher I
> remember complained that it took "bloody ages to
> start up!" What they were good for were not only
> demoing stuff and providing information more
> clearly and more interactively than the teacher's
> handwriting, but also playing Starcraft at the end
> of term!
The upper school I worked at for two years before Uni was a technology college. I think they're being reassessed for it this year and don't really expect to keep the specialist status. That's because the two deputy heads who applied for the specialist status and managed the money have left plus the three original teaching assistants, of which I was easily the best, have all left.
Actually the IT department doesn't have any of the teachers there from the first year we had the specialist status. The head left after being insulted by his boss. A trainee teacher left after one term finding it very hard. Another teacher left after I shopped her to the boss for being very very very crap. The sexy young brunette who was the head of IT's sister-in-law then became head of department but left after just a few months in the job for another school closer to home. Its been nearly two years since I last saw her/emailed her and she still hasn't bloody replied to the email I sent her.
Oh and those marker pens WERE brilliant. A little sniff of them made a difficult lesson that little bit easier, maaan.