Student Teachers in School..

[enjay]

Also we get the student teachers saying i have so and so on my laptop, lets say smartboard, why dont you have it here!

 

Then point out they should uninstall it - Smart is not free to everyone, only people associated to schools which have Smart products, so unless they have a board at home, they're unlicensed.

[soveryapt]

I love one of the ones we've got at the moment asking why we didn't have SMARTBoard installed on our machines .. I mean ok, you might not know the difference, but pointed out it's because we have Promethean Boards and ActiveInspire instead .. lol ..

[StewartKnight]

No, they aren't. They don't have a contract, therefore they are not employees in the eyes of the law - and same with software licenses.

 

Actually your wrong, there is a contract between the ITT centre (university or whatever) and the school. All student teachers are told that they are part of the staff of the school they attend, and to behave appropriately.

 

Further, student teachers need to teach the lessons in the same way as any other member of staff. How are they expected to prepare lessons if they don't have the right software. Try looking at it from the student teachers perspective.

 

You've arrived in school, your nervous and you don't know anyone or the kids. Your given your timetable and get ready for the lesson, but you can't because the NM won't let you!

 

This is the kind of attitude that gives techhies in school a bad name. Instead of thinking of reasons why you can't, think of ways that you can!

[localzuk]

Actually your wrong, there is a contract between the ITT centre (university or whatever) and the school. All student teachers are told that they are part of the staff of the school they attend, and to behave appropriately.

 

Further, student teachers need to teach the lessons in the same way as any other member of staff. How are they expected to prepare lessons if they don't have the right software. Try looking at it from the student teachers perspective.

 

You've arrived in school, your nervous and you don't know anyone or the kids. Your given your timetable and get ready for the lesson, but you can't because the NM won't let you!

 

This is the kind of attitude that gives techhies in school a bad name. Instead of thinking of reasons why you can't, think of ways that you can!

 

Nothing to do with the NM not letting them. It is to do with common sense and proper use of funds not letting them. You must be in a lucky position then when you have the funds lying around to keep half a dozen laptops with the full compliment of software installed on them for the 6 weeks a year when you have students in your school.

 

We had 5 students this year. To ensure they had computers with all the software, we would have needed 5 laptops + all the licenses. So close to £4000 worth of stuff sat doing nothing for most of the year... Personally, I think £4k could be better spent elsewhere in the school. Every other course I know of in the country expects you to provide your own equipment. Why should a teacher training course be any different?

[ICT_GUY]

Promethean has a student edition of their software, which you can install legally. Its the same as the full blown version it just wont drive a whiteboard.

 

As for other software, its not worth going to jail or paying a huge fine for. Get SMT to make the decision in writing. If they tell you in writing to install pirated software report them and claim a big fat juicy reward.

[soveryapt]

Yeah, it's not that I don't want to help, I want to assist, I'm just interested in the ways people work round it. If we have someone in school working as a teacher I'm there to do my best to support them, but obviously WE can only give that support within the licenses that we have.

 

I think this is where it comes back to the SLT/SMT, that if they want us to support them, if we don't hold the licenses and/or hardware, they need to give us the £££ to make sure we do.

 

[Guest richard_s]

As for other software, its not worth going to jail or paying a huge fine for. Get SMT to make the decision in writing. If they tell you in writing to install pirated software report them and claim a big fat juicy reward.

 

I actually threatened to do that when I worked as a NM. The result was the various departments had to pay out of their own budgets for a laptop and all relevant software for each student teacher they had

[36Degrees]

We have 4 Thin Clients and 2 old clunky laptops in the staffroom for all to use and these usually have a PGCE student sat at each one (we have them pretty much all year round, not just for 6 weeks).

 

If the PGCE student is teaching a class then they are either supervised by a member of staff or they are covering that person's lesson so surely there will always be a laptop for them to use? (i.e. you should be teaching so in exchange for an extra free they need your laptop).

 

Although each member of staff was originally given a laptop now we have Terminal Servers and Secure Global Desktop they can access the system on their own PC at home. As long as there is a machine of some description in the room they teach to drive the IWB, do registers, etc. they seem to be OK.

 

Our biggest problem is convincing someone with a PC in their classroom and another in their office that there are other people in greater need of the laptop.

[p858snake]

Actually your wrong, there is a contract between the ITT centre (university or whatever) and the school. All student teachers are told that they are part of the staff of the school they attend, and to behave appropriately.

 

Further, student teachers need to teach the lessons in the same way as any other member of staff. How are they expected to prepare lessons if they don't have the right software. Try looking at it from the student teachers perspective.

 

You've arrived in school, your nervous and you don't know anyone or the kids. Your given your timetable and get ready for the lesson, but you can't because the NM won't let you!

 

This is the kind of attitude that gives techhies in school a bad name. Instead of thinking of reasons why you can't, think of ways that you can!

Most of the student teachers at the schools I attended used their own, and all their lesson plans were basically timetables explaining when they are doing something and what it is and maybe a detailed write up explaining how to do it.

 

My mother is a special needs teacher aid who has for years been making almost all her own materials using only word, it wasn't till about the middle of last year mum got access to Writing for Symbols to do more work with sign language/pictogram side of things.

 

[student] Teachers don't need every piece of software that is under the sun, and most already have their own copies of certain apps and if they really need something they should ask, and they should be able to adapt if for any reason if it can't be done (eg: time, number of licenses, no spare school equipment) and work around issues.

[soveryapt]

[student] Teachers don't need every piece of software that is under the sun, and most already have their own copies of certain apps and if they really need something they should ask, and they should be able to adapt if for any reason if it can't be done (eg: time, number of licenses, no spare school equipment) and work around issues.

 

That's exactly the reason I started the thread .. one of our teachers who has a student teacher in her class came to me yesterday asking "do we have any better machines" to which I said no and got met with the question "well what about those new netbooks we've got for the students" to which I replied "well she can by all means borrow one, but the moment a pupil needs it she will have to stop what she's doing and give it back" so I was met with "well if she can't have the equipment she needs she just can't teach then I suppose" .. I think the member of staff was expecting a reply, but I just got on with my other work ..

 

I mean, I've brought back from the dead (though some would say that's where Acer start! lol) some old laptops and put on the various pieces of software and links to things like Espresso / Knowledge Box etc and when I've tested them they work fine, yet I get blamed for making her nervous in an observed lesson because the computer isn't all singing all dancing! I felt like saying "so lend her your own f:censored:g laptop then, you're obviously not using it when you're not in the room teaching!!

 

You know, adaptation surely must be a big part of the teaching role, i.e. you write a set of lesson plans, the class don't quite get it so you have to adapt, the same for the technology (as p858snake said) if it's not available for whatever reason then adapt to work with what you have. Sheesh!

 

[dayzd]

We tend to allow personal laptops onto the wireless purely for internet access in lessons, provided they're up to date and have a reasonable AV solution. We don't typically provide software, and if we do, it's within our lisences.

 

Our bigger problem is being told when student teachers are going to be in school; the first we hear about it is when they're in our office asking for login details.

We've even had staff call and say "I've been sending emails to the student teachers. Why isn't student teacher X getting them?"

"Err, who is X?"

[nickandcath]

we have teacher laptops, however the student teachers use their own for the interactive wb's. We do not put theirs on the domain as there is a county policy stating we are not permitted to. they also have network logons so they can use staff room pc's