iPad

Guess what I got for Christmas this year?  Ok, the photos and title give it away so I think it is safe to presume I got an iPad.  I have been wanting one for awhile so I combined this years birthday and Christmas into one good present.

While I was on Practicum I made a note of a lot of apps that they used in the classroom.  I saved some to my wishlist in iTunes and downloaded a few when I got to the end of the month with data still on my internet plan.  I am such a planner when it comes to some things.  By the time I synced this iPad for the first time I had apps ready to go both for my study and teaching.

I took advantage of the Apple sale and bought an iPad and apple branded case together.  Because I am SUPER dorky I decided to use the free engraving option and I got the University of New England's' motto laser engraved on both the iPad and iPad case too.

I got an iPad 4 with Retina display with the WiFi and 32GB option.  I possibly should have gone bigger but I still have a lot of available space so think this one will be suit my needs for some time to come.

I will have to review some apps over the summer as I have found some really great ones that I think are a 'must have' item now.

About Face...

...Awhile ago I mentioned that I had transferred into BEDK12 so that I could be a qualified primary AND secondary teacher.   A lot has happened since then but the upshot of it is that I have elected to continue with BEDPRM and focus on primary.

When UNE sent a lovely person to visit me while I was on prac they expressed some doubts on the wisdom of spending the same amount of time studying to get a watered down version of two degrees.  The thought was I would be a better primary teacher if that is what I studied alone.

Another issue was that as much as I really wanted the extra English and History units offered in the new degree I was losing 7 units and adding up to a year of study.  This adds up, not only in extra units but also in extra time before I can be working.

Then the school I did my prac at offered me 6 months work next year.  I am really excited about this.  The course rules for the new degree would make taking this job very hard as pracs are built into units with very set times to complete them.  As it is now I have a large degree of freedom under the old BEDPRM rules to organise my pracs independently to suit work/study and family obligations.

So there you have it.  I am right back where I started but I am happy about that.

p.s. I bought some new text books from Amazon.  I love mail packages like this!