First Week

I was so excited to start prac this week and by the end of the week I can’t wait to finish prac. My first week was awful, my mentor doesn’t really like to part with any information and actually stoped another teacher from showing me her resources. I’m on prac with another student who I am constantly compared to even though we aren’t doing the same things in our rooms. It’s got to the point where my mentor tells me to go and see the other student and do what she is doing. Can’t wait for this prac to be over at the moment. I really hope this next week is better and I don’t get another week of “I cant believe your third year and this is your first school prac” like it’s my fault.
On the upside it’s Under eight’s day on Friday so it’s really only four days this week yipeeeeee.

Finally

Well I finally met my mentor on Friday morning and got some information about the class I will be apart of for the next three weeks. I have 24 students and the teacher told me it’s a very challenging class. We have two little boys who are level three and level four ASD and another little boy with major behavioral issues. I went through what was expected of me with my mentor and the curriculum support teacher and they are happy for me to spend some lessons with the specialist Maths/science teacher. I’m really looking forward to this prac as I feel I can learn a lot from the teaching staff. My mentor has asked me to teach the students about setting up book creator and that’s what she wants me to focus on the first week as well as getting to know the students. So some research on book creator I will be doing this weekend.

Not long now

Well finally got hold of my mentor yesterday and I’m heading down to the school tomorrow morning to meet her. Feeling very excited and still a little nervous. I was reading jayneally http://jayneally.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/shopping-anyone/ and I hadn’t even thought about what to wear. I too have made friends with chocolate and chips lately so will definitely need to try on the old black pants to see if they fit. I’m so use to wearing shorts and shirt, so I’m going to have to put some thought into my clothes for the next couple of weeks. It’s times like these that I wish USQ have a polo we could wear for prac. We have students who come from other Universities that have uni prac shirts and they look great. It would make it so much easier, one less thing to think about and it would identify the Uni and students.
Link to five ideas for lesson starters http://www.creativeeducation.co.uk/blog/five-practical-ideas-for-lesson-starters/ it might help.

Placement

Yay finally got a school! After ring the placement office on Friday and telling them I was happy to travel if they could get me a school, within two hours they found me a place. Very excited and relieved at the same time, work was not going to let me change my holidays if it was delayed. Rang the school today and spoke to curriculum support and she told me there will be two of us there doing prac in grade one. First time I will have a fellow student with me so that will be good I hope.
I love reading what other students have to say about prac and their experience have been reading http://jayneally.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/my-worries/ and of course Mr Clancy http://mrclancyblog.wordpress.com.
Found a website about common sense digital citizenship https://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/digital-citizenship lots of stuff to download.

Looking Back

I wish I could say I was ready for PE. I still don’t have a school so I don’t know about their policies and processes for the safe, responsible and ethical use of ICT. I can only speculate that they would be similar in all schools. The lollypop You tube clip was an eye opener I had no idea you could find someone through photos so yes that has changed how I look at what activities I would do, even though I don’t know what I’m doing yet. Yes I can describe the ICT skills required thanks to that link from David to the Australian curriculum. http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/generalcapabilities/information-and-communication-technology-capability/continuum#layout=columns&page=5 that was very handy. I feel very unorganized waiting to find out.

Digital Citizenship

What do I know? Well I know not to give out personal details online or over the phone. I know there are certain websites at work I can’t use because of safety concerns and content. I know I check all my children’s devices and all there computers are monitored by their schools as well. I have had my credit card hacked once only recently, which is a pain in the butt to get fixed up. I know I have trouble applying for Visa’s over the internet because of my name. I know I have had to have a very awkward conversation with a parent when her daughter had sent an inappropriate photo to my son. I then found out that he could be charged if he had forwarded that photo on but not her for sending it. I have had one child experience bullying and when I spoke to one of the parents of the bully she told me her son was doing it to help my son. Still don’t know how it was helping.
Bullying quiz I got 50 precent I got the last two wrong and I was surprised about the cyber bullying not being more common than off line bullying. People are a lot braver when they aren’t looking the other person in the face. After reading the response to the last question it makes sense to address the whole problem and not just the person being bullied.
I got one question wrong in the cyber bullying it was pretty much common sense about what not to do but I was surprised about using your first name on sites I thought a nickname would be safer.
I find cyber safety pretty much common sense kind of stuff but having four children I know they don’t think the same way as me. They are fearless on the computer and I know they don’t think twice about chatting to other people on line hence why I am always checking and asking lots of questions.
Link to safety home page https://www.esafety.gov.au/

Two Weeks to go

I’m really looking forward to placement even though I don’t have anywhere yet. I don’t know if it’s just because I need the break from work or because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is my sixth year of study, I did my Cert III in Children Services followed by my Diploma and then on to my Bachelor. My husband is getting very sick of me studying. I have had some positive feedback from Jacqueline http://jacquelinehowlett.wordpress.com who has had the same experience as me with finding out late which school she went to and http://jayneally.wordpress.com who wish me luck finding out and passed on information about if your outside the 50km radius then you find your own school. Good to know!
I tried looking at David’s recommendation of trello, https://trello.com/but it wouldn’t let me log on could be because I was trying to log on from work sometimes it blocks me from certain websites. Will try again from home.

Panic

Well I’m a little stressed after getting an email from Professional Development Office, ten days after I sent the first email. It says if by the week before I start placement and I still haven’t heard from them I should ring them. Argh how am I to make contact with my mentor in a week when I work full time. Feeling very stressed, is there anyone else who doesn’t have placement yet? Has this happened to anyone else? What happens if they can’t find a place, do we start looking? I imagine it would be hard to find 200 plus students a placement spot for three weeks. Hope to hear something early next week.