In the past 3 weeks I have begun a course at the mind lab.
I used to be a whiz, even taught IT, now It feels like Im starting from scratch post 23 years secondary teaching.
What is evident is whilst relieving for 8 years is that I have been distanced from hubs of excellence.
Living in Europe for so long made me spoilt from an information perspective, as so many skills were learnt by doing - everyone in education was doing it.
I've learnt where the google drive is, how to start a blog, buy a laptop with no c drive (odd), what the google platform holds, what a hashtag is, how to read educational articles in depth. Find an app, use it what a flip chart is.
In the last 5 years Design was taught alongside Graphics. So Graphics taught by WoodWork Teacher and Design Taught by Art teachers etc. Now a new subject has emerged called DVC Design and Visual Communication.
I ended up on this course because I had it in me to invest in myself as a practitioner as to date no-one else has. I hoped to meet others who were already doing amazing things which there is at my table, and perhaps others like me whom have moved across the curriculum and looking to obtain a bag of tricks.
These are the things Id like to do easily.

Make a flip chart
Start understanding in more depth the key concepts of the 21st Curriculum
Keep up with the pace with what is being covered in class
Be able to edit a sequence of film, be able to upload film from my I pad to google+
Find my way easily around the portal
And heaps more.

At my table I am the only teacher without ,a job,  a class, laptop with built in memory, suitable mobile phone to complete many of the tasks.
This week I got declined for a job as the only remaining applicant having spent the year in the Dept as a student teacher. The headmaster has since re advertised the position.

In exactly 7 days I should know whether or not I have a teaching position for next year. Its difficult to settle into an assignment that was due today without a job. I understand you don't need one for the purposes of this qualification, however a sense of belonging would provide a nourishing context.