Today I went to training on using robotics and also PD on what not to do. Totally new course what not to do but after today a very popular one. Robotics is a strand in the Grade 11 curriculum, so about 1/4 of the year is devoted to robotics. Our Minister of Education has committed UAE to host the World Robotics Olympiad in 2011 so there is a big push now. Arabs don't like to loose face, so we began our training now and ADEC supply all schools in UAE varying kits. My schools got 10 MindStorms, 10 middle school kits and 10 WeDos for juniors.
So......
Firstly men and women are segregated.
Secondly the training is advertised for 9:00am and we had to register but we get going by 10:00. The presenters didn't arrive till 9:45.
There were about 70 women in my room, only 5 Westerners. This was a small classroom where we sat squashed in. I would hate to evacuate in a fire, you'd have no show.
The presenter gets up and reads word for word off her PowerPoint slides. What do they say about PowerPointlessness?
She then speaks about Robot, the whole time in Arabic. Never once did she check out understanding.
I can speak a wee bit of Arabic and words like Robot don't have an Arabic equivalent, but even I couldn't couldn't understand a single thing.
After morning tea at 11:00 am we got to spread into the next door room, sit on the floor, and be given a kit and told to go for it...........
I was one of the lucky / unlucky ones. I had to go and pick up my schools kits which took the remainder of the day. And tomorrow is day 2!
Am I eager to return, or do I wish to go to school and work on data gathering and monitoring. Data gathering and monitoring is looking pretty good at this point
1 comment:
Oh dear, oh dear. the powerpointlessness of it all. You must have felt very frustrated but probably pleased to go and fetch the kits. I hope the second day was an improvement.
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