Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play
They’ve been going in and out of style
But they’re guaranteed to raise a smile…
so I felt when I found, in an old box in my workshop at home, a copy of The Advisory Teacher’s Diary, published by MESU (Microelectronics Education Support Unit) in 1988. MESU replaced MEP in the late 1980s and by 1989 had been absorbed into the National Council for Educational Technology, the forerunner of Becta. This small book was published to provide reflections of some of the first Advisory Teachers funded in Local Authorities to support the development of cross-curricula ICT (computers across the curriculum as it was then).
Flicking through the pages it’s easy to be struck by both the similarities and differences with today. Here are five quotations that perhaps illustrate this:
1. Lloyd organises an I.T. InSET day:
“The second problem is finding enough micros, because … there’s a real shortage. I ring the County Adviser for I.T., who generously places the whole of the authority’s computers at my disposal - if all three are working at the time. This isn’t so much hands-on as fingertip experience, so I spend hours ringing up primary schools and begging to borrow their micros.”
2. Email without the internet:
“In the morning I’m called to a school to help sort out an Email problem. Turns out that the printer isn’t working - which in turn is caused by someone having fiddled with the DIP switches. A bigger problem is then caused by the Head bringing in the phone bill - which is enormous. Consternation all round, as we pore over the logged calls: there is a whole series of messages sent to Australia that no one knows anything about. Eventually, one teacher admits that she ‘lost’ her password list recently, when she had to leave the classroom for something.”
3. Double disc-drive InSET:
“Only 5 have turned up … we start (their suggestion) by looking at odd bits of software, and copy an adventure game for everyone to take away, as we have an LEA licence. Much interest is shown in copying with a double disc-drive as it’s so easy. Makes me wonder why we’re bothering with exotic things like satellite TV and interactive video etc., when these teachers won’t even have computers with a double disc-drive.
4. The kids’ enthusiasm persuades the teacher:
“In the end it’s not me who persuades her but the kids, by their obvious enjoyment. They take great delight in showing her how to put discs in, make the printer work, etc. She agrees (with the sort of enthusiasm usually devoted to buying a raffle ticket) to take a micro with double disc drive home at the weekend and have a go.”
5. The Parents’ Maths evening:
“The parents’ Maths evening goes well … Dave and I do the same turtles and masking tape sessions to start with. As I wander about I hear one father saying to his wife: ‘It’s electro-magnetism I expect…’ I finish the session with a Logo program called MAN. I sense a slight stiffening as the parents get to the end. The program produces (of course), a pretty picture of a weight-lifter.”
But I thought you might like to know
That the singer’s going to sing a song,
And he wants you all to sing along.
I think we probably know the words by now …
(Clearly my copy is worth a good deal.)
Tags: InSET, teacher support, 1989, advisory teacher’s diary
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May 3rd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
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May 14th, 2009 at 11:20 am
If I remember rightly, that was put together as a resource for training the ESG:IT Advisory Teachers’ training which NCET organised and ran. Happy days - 650 advisory teachers working alongside teachers in their own classrooms in England. Their training was two sets of 5-day residential courses, the first in ‘How to be an adviory teacher’ and the second in the place of ICT in teaching and learning in a chosen subject area. What impact that had!!!