foolfillment: the blog

‘Mister, you’re on google!’ That was how my tutor group incredulously greeted me this morning as I got to the classroom door.* My first reaction was an instant, ‘So are you!’
I was pretty sure that most of them would be online in one way or another and I knew that a lot of them have been shown at some point on the school news podcast. They were pretty taken aback by this, they genuinely did not realise how much information google (or any other search engine) takes in.

I’ve not really used my websites much this year for a variety of reasons, so the majority of my pupils, I think, are not really aware of my web presence. My tutor group seemed stunned that I would have a website. I was asked quite determinedly why do I have a website? The first thing that popped into my head was ‘why do you not?’

Tutor time is always busy and usually a bit of a battle to get the register done and the announcements all read (and heard!) but today I said I would answer their questions if I could get the register done quickly which we managed quicker than normal. I explained to those who hadn’t heard the start of it all that I had been discovered and that someone had asked why I had a website. Then I asked them to put their hands up if they had a bebo account, I didn’t count but it was almost every one of them. I explained that meant each of them had their own website – they didn’t seem to realise. I ventured a few questions about how careful they are with personal information and was heartened to hear that they didn’t seem to do anything too silly.

In less than 10 minutes it is never going to be possible to cover everything but I did manage to broach the subject of future employers searching for them, put forward the idea of a portfolio site, asked them their views about filtering at school, and asked about levels of filtering at home. Most responses were fairly predictable.

I will have to spend more time on this with them, they sat and listened very well and were clearly interested to explore the issues.

I was struck by how much there still is to do to educate them. Do I put myself forward to get set up to run some CEOP training?

(Hawick pupils seem not to go in for ‘Sir’ preferring ‘Mister’ instead)