Today I've mostly bin...

[giraffe]

I saw our piano teacher last week at the concert, while my car was being vandalised and we parted with the understanding that I would expect him probably tonight and probably at 7.30, but that he would text me.

Just after 6pm the doorbell went and it was him. I was just trying to start the dinner and he then kept me talking for 20 minutes while he told me about his bathroom. I don't have a problem with him moving the lesson from one week to the next, but sometimes he's an hour and a half early and sometimes he's 2 hours late and I've sent Lally to bed! It would help if he gave me some warning as it's so hard to know when to feed everyone.

[Bunnylump]

Flipping musicians... (I know, I've bred two of them and married another...)

[giraffe]

Grrr. Had another 20 minute motorbike story as he was leaving!

[tricia]

Went to the skin clinic today following the flare up after sunburn. Guess what the acronym is for the dermatology society

it is B A D so i am definitely in the BAD category

Tricia

[clvrlad]

BAD?? thought you were more...naughty


lol today ive been arranging a possible date.....

just need to check what holidays i have booked in or the rest of the year...... i cant ind my sheet with the bank holidays ive already booked on it

[tricia]

thanks cvrlad - i like that

Tricia

[eirian]

...travelling back from Devon

Oh, and starting to reinstall everything on my laptop. Nice of my harddrive to give out halfway through my holiday. Good job my IT support does house calls! (thanks, Scurra, even if all you could really do was confirm the hard drive was knackered!)

[LAT]

Oh dear! That's a bit of a bummer for you.

[Bunnylump]

That's not a very nice way to describe Scurra...

[LAT]

oh, do you think I should remove that comment before he sees it?

[Bunnylump]

Well you could. It would probably wind him up even more because he wouldn't know what you'd said...

[MBH]

That's not a very nice way to describe Scurra...

I bet eirian has called him worse that that in her time


Not a 'Today', but on Friday morning I had an interesting session at work. I've been working with different groups of Council staff doing exactly what I do out in the community - giving them their first steps in learning to use the computers and gain confidence. My argument is that they are also part of the community, they just happen to work for us [when I was pulled up for doing 'staff training' rather than 'working with the community' Line Management!!!! Grrrr]

So I've had gardening staff, care workers, road builders, [not had the bin men yet, but they're on the list] - and they are no different to the other groups I've taught. Same issues. Same worries. Many of the same reasons for not having used computers before.

This latest session which was supposed to start on Friday included a number of people put forward by the SWITCH team that has used some interesting footwork to allow a number posts to be removed without making anyone in the Council redundant. Working with the Union Learning Reps and this SWITCH team my planned visit was hopelessly oversubscribed - almost 30 names (and I only have 9 machines on my bus). So I said I wanted to meet ALL of them first and find out who they were, what they needed, and how to split them up. My suspicion was there would be a number of beginners and others with some skills but needed gaps in knowledge filled in or other things refreshed (I'm more than capable of doing this - but I keep reminding those that matter that the average Library person can't do this, it is down to my personal experience and knowledge ).

My line manager [who's post has been 'removed' but he continues in place] was at pains to remind me that I give people initial steps in using the computers and anything extra the SWITCH team should be sourcing elsewhere..... Hmmmmm!!!!

So on Friday morning I ended up with a room of 13 people and just listening to the conversations as they settled I knew I had a 'situation' to deal with. My Union Learning contact had brought along a skills survey with a set of statements that they could respond to on a range from "I am Very Confident" to "I don't know what this means". It then went on to ask what software they actually use in their work/home life and also what they want to learn.

EVERY person there was a regular and in some cases high-acting computer user. A number wanted to learn web skills using items of specilized software I had never heard of. Most of them had most of the statements ticked in the "I am confident" box. Yet at least 3 had written the same thing in the "I want to learn...." area:-

"All of the above"



I told them about ability and disability with computers (quoting examples from the people i regularly teach). I told them about confidence in learning and confidence in their own abilites. I told them examples of small elements of teaching that CAN make a big difference [like the man who could send and recieve emails perfectly but didn't know what the New-Line key did within his typing]. The thing that possibly amazed them most is I told them the things I couldn't teach them and made them think about the separation between 'being good with computers' and 'being good at doing specific things on computers'.

At the end of it all I still agreed to take them down to my bus in two groups and see what I could teach them. As we walked down the stairs one guy thanked me and told me I'd already answered a burning question of his and made him feel better and more confident just from my talk That was a 'result' for me already.

On the bus, my usual exercises in Word Processing were going to be no use as they would float through them using existing skills and learn nothing. Fortunatly I have some exercises I'd written myself using bullet points, numbered sections, special paragraph indents and spacing, and a few other tricks. Even the most experienced told me that they had learned something during their time with me on the bus and I was very pleased that I could give such a varied group of professional people a good experience (and whet their appitite to learn more, but with more resonable expectations).

The one thing I didn't think of until today.... if they all have email accounts I should have given them my email address and said their homework was to send me a mail saying what they had found out that they didn't know, or what I had told them that would save them time. I'll do that next week and see if I can build some evidence that I'm doing good work with them AND that no 'course' would give them what they picked up from me. [That last point is only a guess, but I'm thinking it's an accurate one]

A very satisfying morning's work - so I treated myself to an ice cream sundae of my own specification at the wonderfully atmospheric Happy Days ice cream parlour in Sunderland

[Bunnylump]

I just don't know how you do it. That scenario would have given most people palpitations. Well done on dealing with such a difficult task so effectively. However, you know, you really have missed a trick here. You could have, as you said, given them all the task to e mail you, and then you could have followed it up with an offer of a few private individual lessons... (Me? Devious? Never!!)

[tricia]

Frantically finnishing off 40 cards of various sorts. McMillan Cahrity day is Friday at work and I said I would make some cards. My auntie Nellie who shared the same birthday as me, died of cancer 3 years ago. She was nursed at home by Mcmillan nurses - so it is my way of paying them back.

Tricia

[LAT]

Good for you Tricia. Hope you make lots of money.

I did a charity walk last Saturday night. It was in aid of a local hospice. When I asked my husband to sponsor me I pointed out that there was a fair chance one of us might end our days there. So this was a kind of pay back in advance.

[Bunnylump]

Tricia - if you like card making you should see some of the ones Pebbles makes. They are absolutely fabulous - they look totally professional.

I like making cards too, but mine are always a bit more random. (Well, what else would you expect from me? ). The bit I like best is making the design myself and then picking what weird and wonderful things I'm going to use to make them with. Although I have to say that sometimes I'm a bit too ambitious. Like the year I decided to make all my Christmas cards ( I send about 120+). I decided I wanted each one to have a hand cut glittery card Christmas tree on the front, and then each one had thin coloured wire laced in and out round the tree, with miniature bells hanging on it. All well and good, but as you can imagine, I was heartily sick of it by the 120th one. Another year I hand painted a load of hand cut acrylic so that they looked like baubles. Then I hung each one by ribbon from the cards so they dangled. Mind you, the nice thing about that was that loads of people kept the bauble.

Anyway, today I've mostly bin...

going to my daughter's new house for tea and cakes (again- she loves baking - this time it was home made macaroons). D's sister and her daughter (the ones who live on a boat in Wiltshire) were down. Then we went to the marina open day. The marina is only about 300 yards from where I live, and I never knew they did this day!!! They had a band playing there and some stalls and boat trips / kayaking.

[Bunnylump]

OMG have I had a day today. We took half of year 7 (ninety five 11-12 year olds) for a "team building" day at Phasel's Wood. The school is cost cutting at the moment, so they couldn't afford to send enough teachers (who would need cover to replace them), so my department was out in force (we are "cheap", you see!!). They had also decided that they could get away with only one coach, which would do two trips. So, to start the day off, the OTHER half went off first while we waited in the hall. Bizarrely, the coach came back, and for no apparent reason, drove off again. So after a few manic phone calls to the coach company, he came back.

OK, so we get to the wood (it's an activity wood owned by the scouts), and I am allocated 11 children I don't know. We are told that each "team" will be following around various activities throughout the day, only SOME of which are supervised by Phasel's staff. First stop, archery. Thankfully, there was a young lad there instructing the pupils. But only one of him, me and 11 pupils. Never mind, it was fine (I even got to have a go - and even managed to hit the target twice.

Next stop - team challenge. Kids having to get from one part of a field to another whilst balancing precariously on planks and blocks. Then manoeuvring stakes using ropes into a pot and building a pyramid structure with blocks. This was when I discovered that my team had NO common sense between the lot of them. Still, managed to get through it with no trapped fingers or falls.

Next on my list was "aeroball". I had no idea WHAT aeroball WAS, or even where it was. I asked someone and was directed to loads of adjacent caged trampolines with "goals" in them. No idea what to do, but eventually managed to cobble a game and a scoring system together. This was REALLY nerve wracking, being responsible on my own for 11 bouncing, over excited children.

We finished the day off with something called "rolling rock". That doesn't sound too bad, I thought. Rolling rocks? I can do that. NO. Rolling rock turned out to be this giant machine in a shed, which was a climbing wall, operated by a computer (by ME ) which not only ROLLED up, it also TILTED. Trust me, tilting moving, climbing 11 year olds who were getting up to about 15 feet in the air was TERRIFYING. Still, they all loved it and had a great time.

Bad news, however, was that we watched the air ambulance landing just up the road. There had been an accident on the A41, and the road was shut. So, we had to supervise exhausted children for a further HOUR until the coach finally got there, then it took us AGES to get back because the roads were gridlocked. We finally got back to school at 4 30, and then had to organise for all the kids who were meant to get the school bus home to get taxis.

I'm SHATTERED. It was fun though, in a warped kind of a way.

[giraffe]

Lally's school had a day out today. Yes, the whole school went to the Black Country Museum to celebrate their Centenary. 11 double decker buses with about 750 girls. Of course there wasn't the usual ratio of staff to girls, so the sixth form were helping with supervising the little ones. I should think the staff at the museum were a bit overwhelmed!

My grumble of the day....why is 16 the new 18? F went to a fancy birthday party for one of the girls in his class on Saturday, with over 200 guests, smart dress, bouncers on the door etc. Surely that is what you do for 18 or 21 not 16? And today he has come home with an invitation for another one, at the local golf club, smart dress etc....

Well I'm not doing it for ours.

[Bunnylump]

Don't blame you. I also insisted that mine picked 18 OR 21, not both.

[giraffe]

Today's invitation is a proper printed one, not something run off on the computer. I just don't get it. At least this one is at the end of our road (very rare as school isn't local).

Mine will have to pick 18 or 21, I'm certainly not doing both.