Introduction - Who I am

 

Hi my name is Tom and this is my first blog for the digital economy module. This is a new experience for me as I have never done a blog before so hopefully at the end of the module I will have learned enough to know if blogging would be a benefit to me in the business world going forward and in the future. My hobbies include football, horse racing (my favourite time of the week is Dundalk on a Friday evening) and socialising with my friends, I am also a big Manchester United fan unfortunately.

Information systems were a huge part of my work placement as I was on teaching placement in De La Salle College Waterford. I had eight classes of third year students for business studies and every day I used a system called VSWARE to mark the attendance of my students. This system is a large information system that is not just used to mark attendance but it has all the information of all the students in the school such as parents contact information, exam results, reports and medical issues. This system is the heartbeat of the schools operation and without that system I feel the school would be much more inefficient. 

Another role of mine was to carry out tests on students to see what students might benefit from a little extra help outside of class. These tests took a lot of setting up and were all IT based. First I had to download the class lists from VSWARE into an excel spreadsheet. From there I had to upload the class lists into the system I was using for the tests which was called testwise and each student got an individual code to put into the testwise website and once they put in the code they received their individual test. Once the test was completed by the students I received the results in a full report breakdown of where the student might benefit from extra help. I then uploaded these reports to each individual students page on the VSWARE system.

I enjoyed my placement and I was working with IT systems every day and they are an integral part of a modern day teachers life. When I graduate I aim to do a Primary Masters in Education in UCC and go on and seek secondary school teaching as my profession.

If you would like to learn more about the school I was based in please follow this link: https://www.delasallewaterford.com

I look forward to welcoming you all back to my blog next week, have a good one!