In a break from the usual Teaching posts, I descend into a bit of geek.
Having spoken to a few people recently about how I handle my data, I thought it’d be useful to post the process. Here’s how I keep two laptops, two Operating Systems and a USB stick synced with Dropbox, shared partions and Synctoy.
It looks complicated, but it’s out of necessity; I have to share data between 3 locations and two Operating Systems.
Macbook
The Macbook is my main laptop which runs just Kubuntu. This is nice and simple, anything changed on here gets synced via Dropbox.
Samsung NC10
The NC10 is my school laptop bought as it was super-light, and also I didn’t have a Windows install before that. I use it to deliver lessons, but I don’t have access to wireless or the school network. It runs dual-boot, with a shared FAT partition between Windows and Linux. The hard drive is paritioned into two, the latter being mounted as ‘My Documents’ in Windows. This is then mounted to /media/ under Linux and my Linux folders are symlinked to the appropriate ones on the partition. This lets me have data on just Windows, and just Linux, and to share certain folders which are always the same. Both OS are running Dropbox too so the shared folders are synced to the Macbook.
USB Drive
As mentioned, I don’t have access to the school network so I need to use a USB drive to get data to and from it. I use Windows Synctoy to keep the folders from the Windows’ Dropbox synced with the folders on the USB. If I add anything to the USB it gets back to Windows and therefore Dropbox (and vice-versa).
So there we have it (I think), a setup which stops me having to think about my data and let software keep it organised for me.
Despite Christmas still seeming not long ago, it’s time for a half-term break (edit: it’s now the second week after half-term, time has been short…). It’s been a fairly exciting week in my life as I went for an interview for, and was offered, my first job. Now my experience in getting teaching jobs is literally limited to one interview, but I thought I’d post a few thoughts about it anyway.
Application Process
I’ll not patronise you by telling you where to look, no doubt your University or Google can tell you all you need to know; I found my job on the TES website, the daddy of education jobs and I’m sure the job was up there a good couple of weeks or so before it closed. The application deadline closed Monday evening and I received a call Friday evening inviting me for an interview on the Wednesday. They followed up by email letting me know what lesson and year group I was to be teaching.
Contrastingly to non-teaching jobs, schools have to allow you the day off for interview but it’s even less of an issue as a PGCE student as they’re expecting you to be looking for jobs at this time of the year anyway.
The Interview Day
I was travelling by train so I was aiming to shoot about half an hour early, as sod’s law would have it, my first train was delayed so I only just made it there on time. Leave as early as you possible can! I met with the other candidates, had a chat with a few members of staff before being prompty whisked off to deliver my lesson.
I decided to take a risk and concentrate my lesson more on the school’s specialism than ICT, something which the Headteacher noted appreciation for during the interview, but obviously your mileage may vary here. The only thing I can stress during the lesson is to try and stay calm, smile and interact as much as you can with the students. Getting some Assessment for Learning techniques in there will go down well.
After the lesson came the student interview. This is a vital part of the process so be on your guard. I was expecting it to be more “tricky”, as in, trying to catch me out, but the questions were fairly reasonable. Make sure you know the history of the school though. Take any opporunity to ask/chat with the students; it also was mentioned that this part swung the job in my favour so it’s obviously an important part.
After the student interview it was on to the real interview. My panel consisted of the Head, and two members of the SLT. The questions were fairly standard, I would advise being well-read on current education policies such as APP and AfL.
I’m sure there’s much more detail I’ve forgotten, so should you also want some proper advice, I can recommend Doug Belshaw’s (as of yesterday) free #getthatjob eBook.
The Friday before last was the last day of SE1 aka the first placement school of my PGCE. It was a sad day given that I’d had such a good time not just teaching in the school but also with the staff and fellow PGCE students. Like anything in life it had to come to an end but it does feel like that first breakup with your first ever school boy/girlfriend. Perhaps I’m being a bit melodramatic.
We had a week back in Uni which was a blessing and a curse; it was good to catch up with all the students on my course again and swap (horror) stories and sound out what our prospective new schools were like. The downside to this however is the impending deadline of “Rhetoric to Reality”, a horrible 5k essay based on primary research in schools. Me and essays never got on, hence doing all technical/IT related subjects since GCSE but obviously I hated myself enough to put myself through even more essays. That’s not to say the content it particularly dull, but I’d be resentful to write 5k words on how awesome I am, that’s how much I hate writing essays.
Looking past the near horizon-blocking essay deadline to my new school (which I’ve already spent two days in), is exciting. Having previously been in an all-girls school, I’m really looking forward to teaching some mixed classes. There definitely seems to be a different atmosphere when it comes to ICT in mixed schools compared to all-girls. The department setup is different in a few ways too, so it’ll be good to get more experience.
Which brings me on to jobs. It’s coming up to that time when we’re all scouting around for jobs which is both scary and exciting. I’m currently in the process of applying for my first one which is a definite learning experience; I’ll post something further on jobs I think though.
Today (and the previous two days) have been a first for me as a teacher, the equally revered and hated, snow day.
Longdendale Trail - CC licenced by thecrypt
Despite just having Christmas holidays, they went absolutely nowhere productivity-wise, so I’m taking advantage of the “free” time to catch up on the PGCE progress.
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I saw Kraftwerk live a few months ago and I recognised one of the riffs from another song. It’s taken me many months to find it:
Dom & Roland -- Get up
Kraftwerk -- Die Mensch-Machin
Uncanny!
Having seen a few people post theirs, I’m spurred on to post my favourite albums of 2009. In only managed to get an MP3 player capable of holding more than 50 songs in November so my list this year is fairly short.
I’m very tempted to post my top 10 of the 2000s but I fear that would end up in me spending several days listening to albums and making no decisions.
In no particular order but alphabetical:
Calories – Adventuring
I saw this band supporting Johnny Foreigner in Manchester and they totally blew me away. Their songs are pure indie-pop, but not the diluted type that seems to have been so popular. Their songs barely make 3 minutes but have melodies and riffs that last.
Frank Turner – Poetry of the Deed
Being a big Million Dead fan, I’ve followed Frank closely since going it alone. Probably one of my favourite live performers, he released his third album this year. The album is definitely more musically mature and polished but not in a way that loses any of his folksy charm, or punk-rock anger for that matter. A strong and logical progression of his music.
Memory Tapes – Seek Magic
This album seems like perfect come-down music, combining catchy beats, laid-back guitar and almost haunting vocals. Confusing, but still very good.
Passion Pit – Manners
I somehow managed to avoid Passion Pit for ages despite them being plastered all over the blogs everywhere you looked earlier this year, now I wish I hadn’t. This is sort of album I wanted Hot Chip to make; a genuinely good mix of rock and electro. Any band that can get the indie kids dancing this much has to be on to a winner.
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
I still have no idea to describe or classify this album. Nor do I care – along with Manners – this album never fails to put a massive grin on my face wherever I am.
So I’ve had the G1 for a good few months now and it’s pretty awesome except for the well-publicised battery issues. Now, I’ve recently started commuting which involves a fair period on the train and tube. Since I started, it seemed to be even worse battery life but I thought I was just imaging it; the battery didn’t seem to last until I got home however, this definitely seemed shorter.
It turns out that for whatever reason, the G1 really sucks when it doesn’t have a signal; it seems to rape the battery when it loses a signal while it frantically polls to find a reception. I installed Locale (a must-have app anyway) and an airplane mode plug-in for it and turned on airplane mode for the times I was travelling. The results are amazing, it literally lasts about twice as long.
Now, it goes without saying that this shouldn’t be necessary, the iPhone doesn’t need dirty hacks to last the day, but the battery issues were well publicised before I bought it. I hope this helps someone with their battery woes.
If you (like me, and apparently scores of others) are having problem with o2 Broadband and it dropping connections, it’s down to its crappy DNS. I recommend changing the router’s DNS to something like OpenDNS or Google DNS (which the Howto uses) for the time being.
Below is a post that I posted to the VLE of the school I am currently at. I don’t make any revolutionary claims here, I would imagine that all of the tools have at least been discussed, if not used, in schools already; this was just what I thought might be useful for this school.
Don’t be afraid to wait for silence or attention. As a new teacher you might feel self-conscious about standing and not talking but it’s effective and the students won’t think it’s odd; most of their Teachers will do it.