Not only am I really excited (and a bit nervous) - but I'm stupidly happy because the WiFi is free!

We've had some really interesting stuff already about how much they're investing in the role.

The text of this page was taken from the, now defunt, wiki.  It reflects my thinking in the summer of 2005 before I went for a (disasterous) job interview.  I might update it if I ever go for another one!

Hard Questions I might get asked! 

How will we notice that you're head of department?

I'm pleased to welcome PennyC and Alan D as guest bloggers, who are both History PGCE students from Reading University.

Your task is to discover enough to be able to cobble together some ideas for a lesson that will allow your year 9s to practise some historical skills. You're also going to have to gather some ideas about what makes a good "history through ICT" lesson, to buy you some time before you have to start cascading across the school (if it's possible to cascade across anything).

Conclusion

You have completed the webquest.  Hopefully you have got some ideas for your lesson, whilst feeling more comfortable about starting to use ICT in your own teaching.  Perhaps you also feel more confident about talking to other people about ICT and learning - including the head! 

You might want to take things further.  If you do, then you could do a lot worse than look at the following items:

How can 'bog standard' ICT help history learning and teaching?

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Introduction

Imagine that you are an enthusiastic and dedicated history teacher (go on, you can imagine that), and for years you've been passing yourself off as an expert on teaching and learning using ICT.  Your school has just bought a set of 17 computers for your classroom and the head keeps mentioning how much he'd like to come and observe "a couple of lessons" to see you "work your magic with them".

The truth is that you've used PCs quite a lot in teaching - but mostly to design worksheets and make the odd video to keep students amused.   You're just beginning to realise that you have not really begun to think about what it means for history students to use computers to help their learning of history. 

It is now Monday morning,  8.15 am.  Your pigeon hole is crammed with notes from the head of year 11 about missing library books borrowed by members of your form sometime in year 7, and never returned.  You spread the notes out on the desk in the history office.  In horror, you spot a "yellow" sticking out from the bottom of the pile.  A few words in the head's spidery writing are visible.   

"Good news" he writes, "conference at House of Lords been cancelled.  I'll be able to come and watch your year 9 set tomorrow - can't wait to see what you've been getting them to do on the computers, and to have a chat about how we can 'cascade' your good practice accross the school".  You sink onto the office chair, forgetting that it only has three wheels instead of four, and slither gracefully to the floor, still clutching the "yellow".