Trying to finish - Computer Science

I have my last report due for my University Paper, 5000 words. Its going ok, but grammar and references are proving to be a problem.

In some ways I am not worried about the grade, I am a full time teacher. It was more about the learning that I needed to be able to teacher certain topics to the students. This is what I intended the paper for.

It has been a incredible semester, working with fantastic teachers and inspiring others to take up the challenge of teaching computer science. For me I taught Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 Computer Science for the first time this year. Being awash with new learning and ideas brought a teacher energetic to teach the new material, being able to help students possibly obtain endorsement in Digital Technologies. It has been worth it.

Learning about some of the challenges of distance learning. I was lucky to be in Christchurch and able to attend the lectures at the University, my colleagues from around the country had to attend via Adobe Connect, which was a difficult at the start as some firewalls at schools needed to have some work done to allow the stream through. Content was also available through the Universities Moodle instance. Which as a student, rather than a teacher has opened my eyes to some of the issues that maybe my students face when using the school moodle server.

Tuesday was a very problematic day making sure that all students managed to hand something in, and get two level one standards, two level two standards and two level 3 standards away. This is an incredible achievement for my students as writing is always a challenge. But breaking it down and separate documents for each makes it easier, it is not until the end when they bring it all together that the realise they have written a large amount.

I look forward to the statistics that will come out of this in 2014. For the first time we will have statistics on three levels of Computer Science, three years of level one Computer Science happening in Secondary Schools. Three years of Computer Science that will change the world for those students.