Ups, downs and everything in between...A progress report for 2013...

At the start of the year, I outlined some goals for the year and here's a progress report on how each of them are going...

Ups

• Establish and support a student ICT technical support program
• The "Tech Crew" has been established with the help of @_TarrynKennedy, with a roster of approximately 12 regular members. We're now at the stage of the Crew about to present on an ICT topic/s to staff and students during lunchtimes.
• Organise myself better
• The organisation has been 100% better, with almost no school work being done at home. I'm getting to work earlier in the mornings and being more productive with my "planning time". 
• Present more (Part I)
• Presenting to my peers at school has been a great success so far. My full day Internal Professional Development session titled "Web 2.0 in the Classroom" has been delivered once so far with another two days fully booked. It starts off with a general introduction to various tools and allows participants to explore these at their own leisure with the intent of implementing the tool or tools into their units of teaching.

Downs

• Establish a class blog
• Unfortunately, my class weren't as enthusiastic about this as I was. We got as far as establishing their goals for the year. I'll try again next year - poor organisation and dragging the setup over a few weeks didn't help.
• Present more (Part II)
• Unfortunately though, while my Professional Development facilitation has blossomed at school, my external PD facilitation and informal PD attendance (such as TMMelb) has taken a downward spiral. Let's see if I can get into it again soon!

The In-betweens

• Support my students better with the use of ICT
• This year I've introduced my students to a range of new (and old) tools, and look to continue this into the future. Some have been hits, some have been misses, and some somewhere inbetween. Look out for posts about these soon!
• Write blog posts on a more regular basis
• This year has rocketed by...like I thought it would. That being said I'm now at a point where I'm re-committing to blogging on a regular basis. So much so that I already (in the space of a week) already have drafts started for at least 5 new posts...more on these very soon. This post itself is the second in a week...what the....!!!

So that's me so far in 2013. They were always lofty expectations and goals however I still think most are achievable. I look back to the quotes I used at the start of the year for inspiration once again...

I look to the future because that is where I am going to spend the rest of my life.

George Burns

It always seems impossible until it's done

Nelson Mandela

So until next time...May the Tech Be With You

Jimmy V

Back to the Future? Great Scott......

I know its been a while since the last post (and I know that in the last post I promised to finish the Excel tutorial) but I've been a busy little bee at school, trying to focus on my core business which (surprisingly to some) is actually being at the front (or back) of the classroom, while being casually distracted by almost everyone's requests to "teach me this or that", "develop this or that for me" or "write this unit or assessment" (or four). Anyway enough of the excuses - I am going to try my absolute best to make up for lost time though!

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I was directed to a website that a number of you might not be aware of....Old Apps! (Thanks Mark Kelly)

Basically, you'll find the old versions of all your favourite (free) software on all of your favourite platforms (Win, Mac, Linux). Audio & Video utilities, IM's, browsers among the few. Betas are also available for some applications

Examples....

Don't like the new(er) interfaces of iTunes or Winamp? New version of Firefox not 100% compatible with your computer (for some stupid and unknown reason)?

Simply go to the website, find the application and version you want to revert to, download the file and install the program. You'll also get some "cool" information about the application at the top of the page.

Until next time...and hopefully it won't take so long...

May the Tech Be With You!