4 posts tagged “education”

Pandy

The attached 30-second video clip appears as a result of my recent attendance at the Conference of TAFE New South Wales International Centre for VET Teaching & Learning at Australian Technology Park, Sydney.

Some of the presentations were on ways of getting students to provide evidence of assessable tasks through using their 3G mobile phone (= cellphone).

This got me wondering just what my own phone can do.  Like most people, I don't use about 99% of its functions.

This clip was shot with my phone, then uploaded to my computer via email.  From there, I re-uploaded it to Vox.

In retrospect, I probably could have directly sent it to Vox by email if I had been set up for moblogging.  I have now done this.

A silly clip, I know, but as Paul Kelly sings, from little things, big things grow.

My thanks to Dr Pandy Bear for her guest starring role in this clip.

• If you are unable to download the video clip at the above link, try downloading it from YouTube.
  

Yesterday i started some teaching work at the Chullora Campus of Bankstown College of TAFE.  This is in addition to work elsewhere.

Chullora Campus is in the middle of an industrial area in south-western Sydney.  It is a former State Railways maintenance facility, converted to etaching of trade students.

The biggest bakery in the Southern Hemisphere is across the street! But alas, they don't sell to passers-by.

• Under New South Wales law and the ethics of the teaching profession, I am unable to publicly discuss the nature or extent of my work here.

Patricia Amphlett, aka Little pattie

Recently there has been some discussion in the news on the effects of sexually degraded lyrics in music on teenagers - specifically, that it can incite them to earlier experimentation

This led to the following splendid letter in today's Sydney Morning Herald:

Little Pattie was blamed for encouraging teenage sex in 1964. At my high school dance, the headmaster banned the stomp because it would shake up our genitals and turn all the 13-year-old boys into uncontrollable sex monsters.

John Goldbaum
Potts Point

Yesterday I completed some  work at Bradfield Senior College, Crows Nest (Sydney). This College is unusual amongst TAFE colleges in that it is akin to a senior (18+) high school.

The College runs a combination of TAFE subjects and VET (Vocational Education & Training) modules within an overall context of teaching the New South Wales Higher School Certificate (this Australian State's combined high school graduation / post-secondary education entry qualifying examination). 

The students seem to be very happy here, and the college appears (to this visitor) to have a good atmosphere.

One change from my school days - I commented to a student doing a TVET (combined high school / TAFE course) that it must be different going to a place with no school uniforms.  (We mostly have school uniforms in Australia.)  This student replied that no, there were no uniforms at this student's "home" high school either.

• Under New South Wales law and the ethics of the teaching profession, I am unable to publicly discuss the nature or extent of my work here.