First month over...

Hi everyone!

Well this is my last blog post of February! Can't believe its been four weeks already!

I thought I'd talk a bit about internships in this post, so I'll cover where to find them, how they benefit you and how the benefit readers...and whatever else springs to mind!

So, I began blogging for the University back in the first few months of my first year. I got a notification on my 'BREO Shell' which is basically where I get my lecture notes and anything university related is on here. It's an internal site that all members of staff and students use daily to keep track of lectures and assignments and all that good stuff! So I believe the notification was a link to get in touch with the marketing team and arrange an interview. The interview was at the Luton campus however, which is about 50 minutes away from the Bedford campus where I am based, but this didn't put me off because I wanted the experience and realised how interesting it would be to do.

So I am the blogger for Education and Teaching for the University. There are bloggers for the other courses too I believe. I was surprised to find out when I first applied that no one else had snapped the opportunity up and I think this was because we were all new and didn't really know our way around the whole 'BREO' site etc.

This brings me to my first piece of advice; read EVERYTHING. Don't miss out on something really beneficial just because you couldn't be bothered to read an announcement. The University lecturers really do try their best to help you gain experience and have an exciting time at university. I am extremely grateful for my lecturer putting this announcement on BREO back when I was a fresher because now I'm still here and still enjoying blogging about my time spent at university.

Not only is blogging beneficial to the readers, for example possible students trying to get an insight into what the University is really like and whether they would suit a particular course or not, but it is also a really good thing for people like me to do to broaden my skills, have something to stick at, and one of the best things that I cannot wait for is reading back from the very beginning of my blog posts to reflect on university and all the obstacles I've overcome.

In terms of lecturers and seminars this week, not much has been happening. I've been super ill this week but I still managed to make it to all but one lecture, yay! In Comparative ed we watched a documentary on the history of South African education to add to the growing collection of countries we need to know about. It was actually really moving and terrifying to watch how some parts of the world lived. In Lifelong learning we had a lecture on the ICT curriculum. We are currently having lectures on all the subjects to help us decide which two we want to use for our poster presentations we've got later on in the year. Digital age was actually an optional lecture where we got up-to-date on our webfolios, as our next formative deadline is creeping up on us! Research methods was the lecture I missed but it was in qualitative data analysis I believe (I will be catching up on notes soon)!

All in all it's been quite an easy week; just preparing for the next lot of assignments in April/May time. But I thought I'd tell you all a bit more about blogging and internships.

In all seriousness, if you can, go for an internship. They really are great opportunities and if you can manage to bag one that you really enjoy (which I really have) then even better. They also show such commitment to future employers that you were involved in your university and got stuck in. I really would recommend one and good luck to anyone who is interested.

On a side note, if you don't manage to get a blogging internship I'd seriously consider blogging your experience at university anyway... To have all or most of your experiences in writing would be really nice to look back on and treasure. So, have a think about it guys because blogging really is fun!

Hope you all have a great week and I'll speak to you next Friday!

Here's a couple cliché 'Spring time' pictures to brighten up the post and get you all looking forward to the next couple of months!

M

2000 words... DONE!

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all ok!

So I think I mentioned last week that this weeks post would basically be a low down on one of my units called The Lifelong Curriculum, seeing as last weeks was dedicated to the Digital Age unit.

I had to make this image really big so that you can see all of the words, which I hope you can as this is the biggest it will go. This image is one of many that come up when you search lifelong learning online. I personally think it is a brilliant representation of what lifelong learning is. It shows so many different words that contribute to the whole idea of lifelong learning and they are all jumbled together which shows that things may not be in order but they still happen and we still learn. 

As we speak I have just uploaded my 2,000 word essay (well 1,849 to be exact, we are allowed 10 percent either side of 2,000), for my first assignment for Lifelong.

I'm not going to lie to you, this is one of the units I thought I would love. I primarily took it because I wanted to become a teacher which most people on my course want to do (obviously)! However, I'm not sure whether it's because I have had a change of career path or because the unit itself may not suit me as well as I thought it would, but I'm just not loving it,which is a shame I know. One of the main good points about being able to choose two units of your choice in second year is that you are more than likely going to enjoy the two you get to pick.

You are probably wondering now "Change in career....?" Well basically, I still want to work in education, I had just been having cold feet a couple months back about becoming a teacher. I do still like the idea of it, I just don't LOVE it. I'm not upset about it, because I have done a lot of research and am planning to go and see the career adviser's at uni so I  don't want to say anything until I know its definitely possible, I'm sure it is I just want clarification from someone who really knows what they're talking about. A.K.A a career adviser.

So I do still love my course and I know it was the right choice for me, I'm just slightly moving away from the whole 'actual teacher' role.

The course is still completely relevant to my possible career path.

Lifelong curriculum is all about how the current national curriculum supports us throughout our whole lives and is not something we just leave behind at school. You study every subject and complete an assignment and presentation about the subjects of your choice. It is very interesting and has actually opened my eyes to the fact that I do still use such things I learnt in school that I thought would never be relevant in later life.

As far as the assignments go, I've only completed the essay so far but I know the presentation will be the nicer of the two for me because I am quite a relaxed presenter and writing essays is not exactly a walk in the park for me, especially long ones like this one!!!

For this assignment, I chose the English National curriculum for key stage 2, mainly because I enjoyed English the most at school. It was difficult, I won't lie, and I found it hard to start off, but once I was into it, it wasn't so bad. I wouldn't say it was the best essay I've ever written though; I'm not the most confident about this one.

If you want to be a teacher, take this unit as it is recommended by the University that you do so, and I do see the relevance to a teaching career.

I'd also like to say that it really doesn't matter if you don't know what you exactly want to be. I was getting stressed that I had changed my mind and tried to convince myself teaching was what I was doing; I had made up my mind and I just had to stick with it. But I just flipped one day, and realised that I can be whatever I want, and began researching and found something I'm truly interested in. So, basically don't worry if you are taking or thinking about taking a degree but haven't yet figured out your career path or ideas of what you want to do.

I thought this was an interesting image as it represents exactly what this post discuss... the fact that even if you go off track and change your mind, you're still learning no matter what path you choose, and that is what lifelong learning is all about. 

Until next time,

M

A Week Gone By...

Hello again!

So as you can see by the title of this post, I will be giving you an overview of the past week(since my last post).

The weekend went by and I was just busy working apart from Saturday which I had off for my friend's baby shower. It was so fun I've never been to one before so it was a nice experience.

Monday came quickly, I had been given a two week extension for my Children and Young People in the Digital Age formative deadline due to illness and bereavement which made my deadline for Monday just gone. I got everything submitted in time which was a bonus and I have also received my feedback from my lecturer.

For those of you that don't know what my 'Digital Age' assignments are here's a brief description... we have a 5000 word webfolio to produce and a presentation. The webfolio is made up of six tabs which are on a software called pebble, this is just where we store our work and where lecturers mark.

Here is a screenshot of the pebble page, as you can see the six tabs are Presentation, Learning Activities, Social Change, Literature Review, Digital Research and Risk.

The tabs I had to complete for my first submission date were Learning Activities which we did in class, Social Change which was a 300 word section and Literature Review, this is 1,500 on any chosen topic and it is also a first draft. On the far right are three tabs, the tick with the number 1 underneath is the feedback tab.



Here is a screenshot of the feedback tab, as you can see it shows I have one piece of feedback which is expected. I'm sure you can see the feedback is quite good, especially seeing as we have another formative deadline before the real thing.

Formative deadline: a deadline before the actual deadline to gain feedback to help better the final grade.

Personally I love formative deadlines because it means the more work you put in for the deadline, the more feedback you get and therefore more chance of getting the best grade possible.

So yeah, there's an insight into Digital Age seeing as that's been my main focus this week.

I also went out this week(Wednesday night is student night in Bedford) and it was such a good night, I haven't been out for a couple of months due to illness. It has been a fun week with friends and successful in terms of uni work so I'm very happy!

My other lectures went well, the usual.

Next week is going to be focused on Lifelong Curriculum and my first assignment as I will be handing that in next Friday(I had another two week extension). So I'll inform you all about this unit and what it entails.

The university offers extensions if you have appropriate mitigating circumstances which I haven't ever made use of until this year as my personal tutor advised it was needed. It is a really good scheme and has really helped me out.

Until next time

M

Undergraduate Year 2! First Blog Post(kind of)

Hello Everyone,


I'm Megan and I have been lucky enough to have been given the role of Education and Teaching blogger for the second year running.. YAY!


So I thought it would be best to start with an introductory post for those of you who need refreshing and those who are just starting to read.
A bit about me...


I am half way through my second year at The University of Bedfordshire and I am studying Education Studies. It is a three year long degree, which in my first year began with a huge spread of what Education Studies entails; history of education, inclusion in education, social constructions of education and finally, the young child in education. These units were fine, broad but fine for year one, however moving into year two I have seen a huge difference between being a first year and being a second year.


About my course...
I LOVE my course and I really enjoy studying at the uni, my second year has been so much better than my first for so many reasons.
Some of you may know the situation I was in first year, I didn't get on with my flatmates due to being singled out, I was so poor and just in general homesick. So now in my second year, I have moved back home and I commute to university three days of the week(which is when my lectures/seminars fall), I still socialise at uni as my friends are kind enough to let me crash at theirs for student nights and I am just overall enjoying the experience a whole lot more.


Why I chose Bedford?


I chose Bedfordshire for one main reason, it was close to home and after everything that happened I am so glad I did. I really liked the university itself but I probably wasn't ready to move away and that's why all I had in mind was being close to home.
Now that I'm settled at home I can appreciate the actual university so much more, the campus is great and so nice to study in. We've just had a new building open which is incredible, I can't wait to study in there in my breaks, and Bedfordshire is just a really nice place to study.


What I like most?


The people I've met and am still meeting. I have got a really great bunch of friends, most people chat on my course which is lovely. The choices I made this year. I got to choose two options myself this year and I chose Children and Young People in the Digital Age, which is SO interesting and the lecturers are so interesting. I really enjoy those lectures and am definitely going to take it again next year.
I also chose Lifelong Learning because I read it was the best option if you want to do a PGCE course after your degree finishes. This would have been ideal as that's what I thought I wanted to do but recently I have been researching and I think I've changed my mind(I mean recent, literally last and this week)! I won't reveal anything yet as I still need to meet with the careers team to make sure it's definitely possible. But, if you want to take a PGCE I would definitely recommend this unit.


What I'm looking forward to?


I got an A+ in my last exam which I am SOOOO proud of myself for, I was so over the moon. So as geeky as it sounds I think I'm looking forward to getting more grades back so I can see what I am on track to end the year on... I am also looking forward to a few nights out I have planned as I've had a long time off partying due to illness.


So, yeah there's a good update for you all. The posts will be EVERY Friday until the end of July!


M