Talia Carbis

Uni

So I have finally recieved my Uni timetable. I start the year in less then three weeks, and today is the first day they’ve given us a timetable. I know, it’s rubbish.

9:30-3:45 on Monday and Tuesday each week is pretty good though. I already knew from calling the Uni and speaking to them that we were on Mondays and Tuesdays, but not the times.

To say it annoys me that they are so slack in putting out this information is a bit of an understatement. In fact, there are a fair few things that I am disappointed in with my Uni. Here is a list of a few.

1. Technology. My Uni couse is big on using ICTs- at least in the way that that’s what they teach, not in the way that they actually USE them themselves. Last year I created a virtual classroom that the kids in my class used and explored. It’s the same as what they use for their student site- Blackboard.

My Virtual Classroom:

The point is that my classroom was easy to use, and easy to find things in, theirs is not. My first year at Uni I think I spent most of my time on the computer just trying to navigate through their messy, messy site.

Blackboard:

Solution: It’s no good stating a problem if you don’t have a solution, so here’s mine: Pay someone to make your site better. I will gladly do the job, but anyone with a little experience and creativity will do. Things like linking more and naming things correctly and just putting things in a neat order… ek. It hurt my eyes to look at that site.

2. Another tech related tip, create RSS feeds. I should be able to have an RSS feed of all the announcements, all the lecture notes, and anything else I bloody well want on the site. Wouldn’t that make life just so much easier?!

Solution: The solution is to have RSS feeds. They could easily create on with Feedburner, and recommend that people use any number of the available RSS agrigators around. We all know that my favourite would have to be Thunderbird, just for the fact that it is combined with my email, and I don’t have to be online to view past enties.

3. I think that part of my problem in first year is that I used Internet Explorer for the most of it. I now use Firefox, which means that I can open all their confusing little sub categories in new tabs, and save the confusion, and the space on my toolbar (who like having 20 WINDOWS open?).

Solution: Use firefox, or clean up your site. This one goes a bit hand in hand with the first dot point. It’s always good to fix the problem BEFORE it’s a problem though…

4. Communication is the key, or so they say, which leads me to wonder why my Uni is slow to communicate anything that’s happening, or at all. A simple email would be so helpful sometimes. If it were sent to my real email address, instead of my Uni one that no one ever checks, that would be helpful as well. Letting me know about things like “3rd Year meeting, Thursday the 1st March. At the new campus in Noosa. Very important” more than a week and a half in advance would be really great, especially when I’ve got work and things like that on…

It would have been nice if someone had have told me that we had a new campus as well…

Solution: Email is your friend. The RSS idea would make that a LOT easier as well. Just put everything in the annoucements section and that way we can all dowload it ourselves and not try to log on to the icky webmail that doesn’t work with programs like Outlook, Thunderbird and Mail.

Here’s an idea, use a better webmail as well.

5. Consistency is also one of those highly regarded aspects of… life. I would really life it if I had the same timetable every week, and if you say that you’re going to start in week one, that we don’t wait till week two before the first lectures.

Solution: Plans, organisation, thinking ahead. These are all things that I like, and I find my life to run a lot smoother and everything I do to be more benificial when I do it. Maybe this will help with the problem of getting assignments BACK to students graded. It is the end of February and I have not yet received any marks for the course I did finishing in December. Two months. At least.

6. It is still unclear to me why we go to lectures. Tuitorials I can understand- they tell us exactly what we need to do for the assignments (presumably….), but lectures? I prefer to spend my time sending text messages to my fiance, planning my week, and writing down ideas for the wedding. Anything I need to know for the assignment I can google and find, or better yet, just download the lecture notes. If they’re up there before the assignment is due. And if the lectures actually stuck to the lecture…

Solution: A podcast of the lecture would be a great alternative, even if it were just audio, with no visual. I know that would kill a lot of people’s downloads (including mine) but download it AT uni and stick it on your ipod or USB while you’re there. Oh wait, I forgot, our campus is (or should I say USE TO BE) in Pomona, and their internet connection there SUCKS.

7. Whenever I write blogs that have a list I always end up doing 7. That was just because that’s all I could think of on the first blog I wrote like that and I like to keep in consistant the whole way though.

Communication with schools is the last thing on my list. My Prac teacher at the moment has no idea about anything to do with me. In regard to things like when I’m meant to be doing my pracs and what’s required of me during these times.

Solution: Be more organised and have a package out there and ready to ship to the teachers with everything they need in it. Including someone’s phone number.
There is one product that I would highly recommend for Uni students, and really for anyone, and that’s Firefox. Never has opening all your task sheets, assignment help sheets, and links pages been so easy. One word for you, tabs.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Prep

Remember your first day of school? I hardly remember any of mine anymore, but I do remember today. Today was my first day of Prep.

Since the Queensland Government first started talking about replacing Preschool with Prep in 2003/2004 it has been the subject of much debate throughout the State. I was always anti-prep, mostly because I saw it as a huge waste of time and money from the Government, as the whole reason other states, like Victoria, have Prep is as a ‘go between’ year. If Preschoolers aren’t ready for Year 1, they go to Prep.

The beauty of Preschool was the fact that it was only half the week, and sometimes not even full days. Now, while Prep is not enforceable as full time, this is what Education Queensland has to say about those children who don’t want to attend full time.

Part-time attendance has the potential to significantly limit continuity of learning, and may also interfere with the development of positive social interactions, friendships, independence and confidence in the school environment.

If everyone else at Prep is attending full time, then this is right, it will, but if you’re increasing the age you have to be to get into Prep, then what is there left for the children born after June?
This is the main problem with the Prep year, and it something that has angered many parents.

To be honest, the curriculum sounds great. Learning through play, inquiry based learning, etc. These are all great ways to teach kid, and children that age get a lot out of learning like that. Really, that philosophy and those teaching methods should be carried out not just in early childhood years and primary school, but is secondary as well. It could be very beneficial. “Real World Learning”, it has a ring to it, and reminisces to a few different courses available when I was in high school.

Prep should definitely be about preparing students for year 1. They need preparation for a big step like that!
But the Queensland Government has gone about Prep the wrong way. Shorter days or weeks at the beginning of the year would be a big help. My Preppies today were exhausted and were begging me to have a rest. We gave up after a while and spent the last hour or more of the day laying on the carpet, under the fans (not me - I wish - the kids). It was nice, and relaxing and good for a break. They get a day off tomorrow while the other half of Prep arrives, but they’re all there on Wednesday to start classes. We’ll see how this year pans out. Hopefully the best!

Is There A Difference?

On a global scale there is nearly an equal number of men and women. According to The World Bank Group, the ratio of males to females participating in primary, secondary, and tertiary education is almost equal.

BBC News published an article on the 2nd of January entitled: Oprah opens school in S Africa. According to BBC News Oprah spent US$40 million on a school in South Africa for promising girls. 152 girls aged 12-13 will attend in 2007.

The World Bank Group’s data on Education in South Africa says that there is a higher percentage of females attending secondary school. The question needs to be asked, why has so much money been spent on a school only for women, when statistics show that men in South Africa, and even the world, are harder done by.

US Magazine also published an article on Oprah’s gift of charity. A reader made a comment after the article, that “70% of the women on this earth live in extreme poverty. Also, anywhere from 50%-75% of women in developing countries are illiterate.”

This may be so, however, after spending several hours researching the issue, I’m yet to find the percentage of the males that live in extreme poverty alongside all the women. I would put it to the author of this comment that the percentage of men and women living in poverty would be very similar, and I challenge them to disprove it.

Also, according to The World Bank Group, the percentage of literate young men and literate young women is separated by less than 1% percent in South Africa.

The portrayal of the sad state of women’s poverty and literacy rates in third world countries and even the world is a huge bias against men. Statistics, websites, books, and opinions published in the last 30 years all share an unfair focus on women, or the population as a whole, hardly ever just men. Men are being so blatantly discriminated against, and I call for a more accurate representation in society of the issues facing both women and men, and help be given to both of them.