DialogClassic Lesson No. 2

I delivered my second lesson today, is section on the MSc course is a comprise of a set of four. After many years of being a student it certainly was strange to see the class from the other side of the fence. This shift or perspective change was hammered home, when we stared to discuss their assignment and I was giving them pointers which allayed their some of their fears.

Lesson Planning

OK – today I diarised the morning for preparing for tomorrows lecture. As unusual, it took far longer than I pencilled in. By the time I wrote a lesson plan, power point and arranged some additional exercises it took the whole day. I also amended my CV and biography for the University’s webpage’s http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/Christopher_Walker.htm

Lesson Planning

Today I spent my time dusting off my old notes from my PGCE course completed some years ago. Tomorrow the department is letting me loose on a group of real fee paying students. My job for the next four Thursday morning is to teaching the MSc group DialogClassic searching. A command based suite of databases. Well, they can’t say that I am not prepared!

Day at the Leisure Club

OK – today no work. It is the schools half term and by boy Sam is off. So off we go to the ‘gym’ as a family for swimming and something to eat. By ‘gym’, I should calling by its proper title ‘leisure club’—that sounds a little too fancy for me!

Planning Day

Another day finishing off my digit divide paper, it still needs properly checking and re-writing in parts. I think I need to be a lot less critical with my work. In my mind, I have the though that this needs to be at a academic certain level. My next project should be a paper on Web 2.0, I will put this on hold until I have reviewed and firmed up my proposal for my up and coming first six month viva in November. That will be my work for the rest of the week after I have prepared for Thursday lecture.

Teaching - D-day

Arrive at the University campus nice and early, double check the workbooks and notes. Off to the computer room, where I will be running the session. Doh! mental block what is my system login….

The session from my perspective, flew by – I loved it—I hope the class did too. I have forgotten how much I love teaching.

Digital Divide

More time on this ‘quick summary’ of the digital divide. It is a hugely interesting area of research, which has many links into information literacy. A lot of the research deals with bridging the technological gap between those how can and do afford the technology and those who can’t – aka the haves and the have not’s. This is reflected in different contexts i.e. between nations and also with societies. An interesting reflection is that in countries such as the UK, access to the technology is narrowing (divergence of technology: mobile internet access, internet access through your Xbox etc), this is re-focusing the question away from the technological ‘haves’ and ‘have not’s’ towards those who have the skills to use the technology namely … information literacy (or ICT skills).

Here is an interesting quote from the Oxford Internet Survey 2007 :

The 2007 Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS) reports that in 2000 only about one third of Britons had access to the internet; by 2007 over two thirds had access to the internet, of who four out of five used a broadband connection. The OxIS also observes that in 2005 internet users were more likely to use a search engine and specific webpage’s they may bookmark to look form information, however, by 2007 they were much more likely to primarily use search engines (p.66).