Dazed and confused....

Missed my lecture last week (very, VERY sorry everybody!) because I was having "child troubles". Specifically, troubles with my eldest son, who is on the autistic spectrum and is struggling badly at school. To be honest I am finding it hard to focus on anything except trying to get him sorted out, at the moment. This is where it gets hard to be a good Mum AND an effective student. My head is so full of worrying there is hardly any room for study.

On the other hand, I did get my Inclusion presentation mark back and got a B - which I am reasonably contented with - apparently there were no A's in the whole year. I am more worried about my SEN presentation though - think I am more likely to be a C for that.

Ho hum. I played Civ IV this week - can I count that as research for my ICT essay?

BETT in London

So, major occurance this week was the Year 2 trip to BETT, an educational technology fair at Olympia, in London.

Lots of free catalogues and stuff - including some lego!!!

The particular points that interested me were a program called "I can animate", which is, as it sounds, a program to enable children to make stop-motion animations; a Speech and Language program, which has been adopted for use in my local LEA to diagnose and treat children with Speech and Language disorders, and which was explained to us in some detail. There were also a plethora of educational games programs, many of which I can apply for free trials to try out, which will help enormously with my Technology Assignment.

Whilst in London I also paid a vist to the Natural History Museum, which is just as great as I remembered, and to which I will have to pay a visit with my children in the near future. I also found time to pop into the V&A, where I met a friend for lunch, which was far more jaw dropping than I remember from previous visits - it was clearly wasted on a teenager! I didn't managed to sneak time for a visit to the Sir John Soames Museum, which I have been promising myself for ages, despite staying in a hotel in the vicinity. Next time!

The Road To Wales

Following instructions from my university tutor, I am setting up a reflective log to record my progress on my BA Education Studies class.

I am currently in Year 2 of the course at Swansea Met., although I studied Year 1 at Bournemouth Uni.  However, my dear husband got a job in Swansea, and so the children and I packed up our worldly belongings and followed him to Wales.  We are THAT devoted!!!

I am finding full time uni quite strange.  Until recently I was working full time at a school, and studying in the evenings - now I am a "student"!!!  I miss working at school though, and I miss the children, and indeed the teachers....

But - best foot forward and all that!  My first term was a steep learning curve, as I had to learn my way around the university and the names of all my new peers.  Now I have settled in a bit I am hoping to be able to focus more on the course content - as well as having volunteered to set up a Science Club at my local Primary School, which I am looking forward to starting!