One thing about working in a school is having to work with lots of highly qualified, professional people who have degrees, and all sorts of higher education qualifications that most of us wont have unless you have been to university, or something like that.....
.... So why is it that some of these 'professionals' have little or no computer knowledge whatsoever. I'm talking about a teacher who has to ring for technical assistance because they can't start their computer only to find that it just isn't plugged in at the mains, or a teacher who can't log on to the internet because he is trying to log on using the wrong username (even though they have been using the same username for the past couple of years).
I've come to the conclusion that all teachers should now have some sort of basic IT training because even though they may have the degrees, and the certificates to prove that they can teach, they simply can not work the simple things, which I hate to say, can be done by almost anybody these days. Come on..... this is the 21st century - todays children are tomorrow's workers. Most will end up working in an environment which requires them to have some sort of contact with computers and technology. How will they be able to do that when the people who teach them can not even switch on a computer, or even copy and paste a file in Windows.
I taught myself everything I know about computers, from the first day I touched a computer in the early 1980's to today ; How to build them, how to program them, to develop and code a website using HTML, programming (Visual Basic and other languages), networking, 3d CGI graphics, video and audio editing. I never went to university after school (simply because I just couldnt afford it). Not wanting to sound big-headed, but I know more about computers than anybody in the school where I work, and yet because I lack that piece of paper saying that I have a degree, I end up not being able to earn as much as someone who say has got a higher qualification. Why should I have to pay just to do an adult course (ie Open University), so that I can learn stuff that I already know. The wage divide between University graduates and 'common' school leavers like myself is discrimination - having a degree doesnt necessarily mean that that person is better at a particular job.
I'm constantly told at school by the teachers that I would make a really good IT teacher. Unfortunatly without a degree, that'll never happen. Fair enough, I could never teach a subject like Modern Languages, Maths, or English without having to study those subjects at a greater level than those I did at school, but my experience, and knowledge far surpasses a lot of the teachers at my school in regards to computers.
Personal experience and development will always beat qualifications.
Rant over....
Too true Stu
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