This week’s sessions are provided by members of the Capability and Integrity Unit (formerly Ethical Standards) of the Department of Education. In general terms, as a teacher, you do not ever want to hear from these guys. It means you are in strife.

There are two distinct topics this week. The first looks at how teachers use social media and what is and is not appropriate. Some might think these topics somewhat obvious. Data would disagree. Social Media is the leading cause of investigations in recent years.

I look back and thank my lucky starts that there was no such thing when I was a beginning teacher…Yes, I have been teaching THAT long. In fact, even now I have a very limited social media presence and post to that platform rarely. If you must have it, you need to look very carefully at what it portrays about you and how parents and students might perceive your social media presence should they find it. What did you take from this session? What are you unsure about? What steps are you going to take or have you taken?

The second part of the session is around obligations of state school teachers with respect to the Code of Conduct for Queensland Government employees, and the Standard of Practice that helps contextualise this broad document for teachers.

What areas were news to you? Which ones concern you or do you feel may impact you during your career?

For most of you, the ultimate aim of undertaking your Master of Learning and Teaching is to gain employment as an educator within your selected field. There are, of course, exceptions to this and other reasons for wanting to gain a qualification as an educator.

Rather than discuss the particular ideas put forward about resumes and interview skills discussed in this presentation, I would like us to talk about being ’employable’ more generally.

What do you think being employable means?

What strategies can you or have you put in place to make yourself more attractive to potential employers?

What are some of the enablers and barriers that you can see to gaining your first teaching position?

How might you either maximise the enablers and minimise the impact of barriers?

I am very happy for the conversation to explore and go beyond these initial questions.

As you have seen in this presentation, the QCT have a number of responsibilities with respect to Queensland teachers. Take some time to review the Professional Boundaries document and also take a look at the Code of Ethics for Queensland Teachers. Are there any aspects of either of these documents that you find challenging or interesting.

I would be very keen to hear your views. Also feel free to ask any questions you may have about either document or the functions of the Queensland College of Teachers.

Hi everyone and welcome to our EDM8004 blog site. As you may have seen in the Assessment area on StudyDesk, our course is going to help pilot a new ePortfolio platform (CampusPress) this semester. I am excited to be doing this as I will be learning alongside you, developing my own ePortfolio using the same platform.

As part of the trial, I thought it might be nice for us to have a place to share our thoughts about each week’s Industry Presentation. This goes beyond the assessment task, to actually talking about the implications of each presentation for you as a beginning (or soon to be beginning) teacher.

This week’s presentation was by the two education unions in Queensland. The QTU supporting governmental school teachers and the Independent Education Union, supporting those in other schools.

I was a QTU member throughout my career. For me, it was insurance against litigation. However, for me as a young teacher and someone not politically minded, I had always seen unions as a bit unsavoury and militant. Having said that, I most certainly benefited from the union’s cause and saw a raft of improvements due to their influence.

As a principal though, I was sort of caught between a rock and a hard place. When there were strikes, for example, someone had to be at school to look after the students that came in. I also had a young family and mortgage and could not afford to lose a day’s pay.

I’d love to hear your experiences and opinions. Please reply to this post if you would like to join the conversation.

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