Helicopters, Mittens, Radioactive Peanuts, Socks and... Spaniels.
Okay, so I've been glancing a tthe front page of the paper a bit over the last wee while at work and I noticed a few things that caught my attention. First of all was the big splash the other day that was all about how the Government had decided not to spend money on a liscence from Microsoft to use Office etc on school computers.
Obviously, this sounded mad and I wanted to know more! It turns out that there were a few odd thigns about this bit of news. Firstly, the liscences were only for Apple computers and yet a bunch of teachers were complaining that it meant students wouldn't get experience with Microsoft products which are the predominant things they will work with. All I'm thinking is, why not get them familiarised with Apple products instead? And any PC's are still licenced up properly, so just get a few PC's in too. What the hell?
Secondly, the reason the Government hadn't spent the money was because Microsoft wanted to charge them for every Apple computer in schools they had, not just the ones that actually had Microsoft on them. It was an extra $2.7 million to liscence computers that didn't need it and Microsoft wouldn't compromise.
This was all in the same story, but the tone seemed to be saying the Government was very nasty.
Then there's all this news about NCEA being overhauled. Now, I know that I never worked under NCEA and I'm only vaguely familiar with it in my teaching training, but these changes don't seem to do much as far as I can see. One article today was talking about how now students will receive a certificate that says E, M, A or NA as applicable and that seems fine, but coupled with a comment asking how we will determine what grade to give someone across a whole subject based on standards I was left scratching my head. NCEA is basically Uni lite. Each standard is a paper and teachers are given a vast array of standards to put together into a program that will last a year and provide enough credits to pass the year level. Would you expect people to say that they had received a B- Bachelor of Science? No, they have a Bachelor of Science. But then you can look within that and see what sort of grade average they have and in what particular areas. Same with NCEA, you can find out whether they got Year 12 English with mainly Excellence or mainly Achieved (Or at least, as a teacher this is how I understood it) and see if they got it mainly in creative writing type areas or in analysis and business letter writing areas.
And then there was a comment about students with a 'passed' from 2006 might find it tough to deal with students with 'passed with Excellence' from 2008 going for the same jobs. Is it just me, or are employers not really interested in High School results anyway? either they require you to have a decent work history (Which I'm kind of including apprenticeships in) or a decent further education. If you ONLY have a high school education, then the sorts of jobs you'll find really aren't that fussed on what grades you got anyway.
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Then there was a tiny article that mentioned the most and least trusted people in New Zealand. I found it very interesting that Ahmed Zaoui was one of the least trusted. Given the coverage of him (and David Bain as well) I think it shows a wierd thing in our society. We're happy on the whole that these guys beat the system and have effectively had their moment on Fair Go to rectify a screw up, but then we still seem to think that they aren't good people.
Just... Interesting...
Obviously, this sounded mad and I wanted to know more! It turns out that there were a few odd thigns about this bit of news. Firstly, the liscences were only for Apple computers and yet a bunch of teachers were complaining that it meant students wouldn't get experience with Microsoft products which are the predominant things they will work with. All I'm thinking is, why not get them familiarised with Apple products instead? And any PC's are still licenced up properly, so just get a few PC's in too. What the hell?
Secondly, the reason the Government hadn't spent the money was because Microsoft wanted to charge them for every Apple computer in schools they had, not just the ones that actually had Microsoft on them. It was an extra $2.7 million to liscence computers that didn't need it and Microsoft wouldn't compromise.
This was all in the same story, but the tone seemed to be saying the Government was very nasty.
Then there's all this news about NCEA being overhauled. Now, I know that I never worked under NCEA and I'm only vaguely familiar with it in my teaching training, but these changes don't seem to do much as far as I can see. One article today was talking about how now students will receive a certificate that says E, M, A or NA as applicable and that seems fine, but coupled with a comment asking how we will determine what grade to give someone across a whole subject based on standards I was left scratching my head. NCEA is basically Uni lite. Each standard is a paper and teachers are given a vast array of standards to put together into a program that will last a year and provide enough credits to pass the year level. Would you expect people to say that they had received a B- Bachelor of Science? No, they have a Bachelor of Science. But then you can look within that and see what sort of grade average they have and in what particular areas. Same with NCEA, you can find out whether they got Year 12 English with mainly Excellence or mainly Achieved (Or at least, as a teacher this is how I understood it) and see if they got it mainly in creative writing type areas or in analysis and business letter writing areas.
And then there was a comment about students with a 'passed' from 2006 might find it tough to deal with students with 'passed with Excellence' from 2008 going for the same jobs. Is it just me, or are employers not really interested in High School results anyway? either they require you to have a decent work history (Which I'm kind of including apprenticeships in) or a decent further education. If you ONLY have a high school education, then the sorts of jobs you'll find really aren't that fussed on what grades you got anyway.
--
Then there was a tiny article that mentioned the most and least trusted people in New Zealand. I found it very interesting that Ahmed Zaoui was one of the least trusted. Given the coverage of him (and David Bain as well) I think it shows a wierd thing in our society. We're happy on the whole that these guys beat the system and have effectively had their moment on Fair Go to rectify a screw up, but then we still seem to think that they aren't good people.
Just... Interesting...