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You can find previous Brain Dumps here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21. Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31, Part 32, Part 34, Part 35, Part 36, Part 37, Part 38, Part 39, Part 40.

Oh... my numbering got a bit out somewhere for this big ongoing thread of posts about my Masters of Education study. I'm still plugging away at it... more out of stubbornness to complete the degree rather than an actual desire to be qualified as a teacher. Quite honestly, the more that I learn about the education system and the actual requirements of teaching... well, the less I'm wanting to be part of a dysfunctional system that has been hijacked but people writing lots of big words about meaningless crap. In fact, I would argue that the industry of "education" has taken on a bigger role in schools compared to the seemingly useless concept of knowledge transfer and education.

... and don't get me wrong, there is an industry of this... from the academic and government blathering, to the corporations that are shilling everything from technology to textbooks and exam preparation. It is all a load of crap.... and none of it is really useful for teachers, and very rarely is it useful for students either. Mostly, it is more pontification and jobs for the academics/government and profit for the corporations.

Anyway... I had hoped that this ICT in Education course would have been a nice step away from meaningless crap where I get decent marks for having a incoherent brain spew... and it did start off like that. With an introduction to Scratch and playing around with that block-based programming interface. It was quite a eye-opener to see how it could be used across subjects to engage and surreptitiously teach coding and computational thinking/ideas! I enjoyed the programming tasks... but eventually, it took a turn towards the essay writing... which I hated.

... and then this last assessment is about doing a school presentation about introducing a robot to blah blah blah... lots of big words and a pitch talk that really feels targeting the old subject siloed metrics of school and student assessment. Honestly, I feel like I have done a crap job of it... I had a nice vision of what I wanted to do... but I had to cram and tweak it horribly to try to fit into the assessment requirements of addressing school assessment and things like that. Plus, the assignment was seemingly more geared towards primary school assessment (NAPLAN, the national testing...) and the current version that is not very future looking...

That leads me to my usual gripe about this Masters of Teaching (which I don't think is confined to the course, but endemic throughout the education system...). Most of the people in the education system have had bad experiences with Maths/Science and good ones with Humanities topics... and it isn't uncommon for lecturers/writers to say things like "I hated Maths, I wasn't engaged..." and things like that... and then turn around and essentially say, "If only it was taught like [Humanities topic] which was engaging to me".... It essentially assumes that the Maths/Sciences are not engaging topics unless the are "made relevant". Well... MY experience at school was that the Maths and Sciences WERE HIGHLY engaging and relevant (to ME!)... and that the humanities were endless exercises in just making up crap, dressing it up in big words and convoluted arguments, and cherry-picking points to "prove" your idea. I saw (and still see much of it...) as glorified storytelling with an end-goal already in mind... aka. making up crap to justify what you wanted to do in the first place.

For some reason... my opinion is not a common one in the education system... and this had led to the Maths and Sciences being deemed "too hard" and "too irrelevant"... and they get gutted from people who hated and didn't really understand the subjects in the first place! If it is any consolation, I also see the same thing happening in my professional field of Music.... where theory, harmony, and the actual technical ability to play an instrument are starting to be marginalised in favour of... well, something else! Of course, these skills are NOT the end and purpose of music... but they ARE vital structural elements! Just like a house needs the framework... and it can't just be pretty decorations on a structurally unsound wall!

Bah... So, I'm currently trying to finish this second assignment... I listened again to the example presentation... and it is really a meaningless array of hitting talking points and keywords. Honestly, I have no idea how people think that is a worthwhile form of communication... it is talking and writing when there is no need to talk or write.... but I guess that making noise is the modern equivalent of appearing "wise" and "intelligent"... or maybe, being "wise" is knowing when to talk and when to NOT!

At this point, I've really hit an end with this assessment... I'm not sure that I'm anywhere close to addressing the marking criteria... but I just don't care! I have an interesting idea that I want to try out (namely, linking computing coding/language to natural languages and the possibility for "bilingual" benefits)... and I honestly don't care if it doesn't address the targeting of "learning outcomes" or national assessment something something...

I did well enough on the previous assignment to get through the course if I scrape a pass on this one... and quite honestly, I don't give a crap anymore about the course. How is that for the actual implementation of the "engaging" learning ideas that we are taught about! Again, yet another example of do what I say (or get you to read about in linked articles...) and NOT as I DO!

I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
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