Comments for Michael Burke Jnr

Comment on My Challenge & Charity For 2012 by mickburkejnr

mickburkejnr — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:10:05 +0000

Thanks Donna, means a lot! I’ll even have a headcam of me running as proof to everyone I did run it. It should make for boring viewing back in Mayo

Comment on My Challenge & Charity For 2012 by mickburkejnr

mickburkejnr — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:09:25 +0000

Thanks Sean. I will be in contact if I need the proper training or I need to take it to the next level!

Comment on My Challenge & Charity For 2012 by Donna Michelle Dempsey

Donna Michelle Dempsey — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:56:00 +0000

Michael
From all of us here I want to wish you the very best with this challenge,I know personnally how tough it is going to be for you BUT YOU CAN AND WILL DO IT.
Your Mayo Cousins.

Comment on My Challenge & Charity For 2012 by Sean Smith

Sean Smith — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:55:57 +0000

Hi mike,
Absolutely chuffed to hear that you have decided to do that for your Dad, and for everybody who has ever been affected by cancer, either directly or indirectly.

I wish you all the best for your training, and hope that injuries dont keep you from achieving your goal – although, by the sounds of things, not even a world war could keep you from hitting the pavement.

If you need any help with training – get in contact with me, and i’ll join you in a run or two.

Comment on Why Schools & Colleges Must Either Adapt Their ICT Lessons Or Drop Them Altogether by Paul Sullivan

Paul Sullivan — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 21:09:01 +0000

Agreed – even at BSc level the teaching standard is pretty poor in the UK apart from at the very top (Imperial College London, et al). Unfortunately though there is a catch 22 in so far as after they ‘qualify’ there is no external body validating the quality of education.

On a side note you may want to look at your css for nested comments. The font-size is stacking causing very large text sizes (I believe stacking ems causes multiplication of font size.)

Comment on Why Schools & Colleges Must Either Adapt Their ICT Lessons Or Drop Them Altogether by mickburkejnr

mickburkejnr — Mon, 09 May 2011 13:58:34 +0000

In FE you do get more time to do it, and at that level (you’d expect it anyway) that the students studying the subject have an interest and skill in it, so in that respect I guess it would be easier to teach CSS layouts in FE. I understand what you mean though in regards to Secondary education. You do get more of a mixed bag of skills as some students may not want to bother learning. A common ground must be struck though, maybe teaching a more agnostic view of teaching web design, like teaching the benefits of a good layout and why it’s important to the end user? They could still use Tables but understand the difference between tables or CSS.

I did check it on Safari on Windows, but didn’t know there was a new version. I have some planned design tweaks to do, so I will add it on to the list! Thanks for letting me know!

Comment on Why Schools & Colleges Must Either Adapt Their ICT Lessons Or Drop Them Altogether by Matt Tancock

Matt Tancock — Sat, 07 May 2011 21:43:22 +0000

I agree, it’s not ideal. (And I can’t speak for FE colleges) but the time pressures we have at secondary school – GCSE options get 2.5 hours a week over 2 year, in which we have to cover not just webdesign. And you’re right, a basic CSS layout wouldn’t take much longer than a basic table layout – the difficulty comes in the level of prescription which would then be required. Even for some of the more able, 14/15 year olds aren’t going to be able to customise a css layout without a lot of hand-holding or guidance. Multiply it up to a class of 20+ and you have some problems!

On an unrelated note, have you tried looking at your site in Safari 5. Font-sizes are a little on the funky side!

Comment on Why Schools & Colleges Must Either Adapt Their ICT Lessons Or Drop Them Altogether by mickburkejnr

mickburkejnr — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:05:33 +0000

I have nothing against dreamweaver. I think it’s a good tool to start learning HTML and CSS actually, due to the little drop down boxes that appear when you start entering in some code. This is a good tool and can aid learning in my opinion.

The blog was written from my personal viewpoint of teaching in colleges. My knowledge of teaching in Secondary schools is limited to what I received when studying for my GCSE’s. I agree that a school’s main function shouldn’t be just deliver skills for the benefit of the industry, but it should be an important function all the same.

What I did find with my experience, was that while there is never enough to time to teach a mixed class of kids to build a pure CSS layout, there is enough time to create a basic layout with CSS. It’s only ever going to be basic, even if you used a table, it would be basic. In my experience, I was told in the next year of the course they would learn about CSS etc, but that year they would learn how to use HTML. What is happening in that respect, is that we’re teaching these kids an antiquated way of building a site, only for them to be told 6 months down the line to forget what they done and learn how to do it properly. Isn’t it possible to teach kids the very basics of website layout using basic HTML and CSS, and then in the second year build upon this. But again, this is College stuff and not secondary.

Comment on Why Schools & Colleges Must Either Adapt Their ICT Lessons Or Drop Them Altogether by Ingotian

Ingotian — Thu, 05 May 2011 09:17:59 +0000

I set up a new Awarding Organisation to combat this. We use the ITQ (National vocational qualification for IT Users) but we do not prescribe methods, what matters is the outcome and meeting what are relatively broad criteria. We now have a number of schools and colleges adopting these methods and 2 EU transfer of innovation project. Self-employed and interested in joining in? Send me an e-mail.

Comment on Contact Me by Tariq SAEED

Tariq SAEED — Thu, 05 May 2011 08:37:24 +0000

Good morning,
I am a teacher and a member of CAS group I read your blog with interest. I totally agree with what you said in your blog but unfortunately, it all fell on deaf ears. Any how, would you please let me have a copy of resources which you produced to teach HTML (web designing). I shall be obiged. I am planning to run after school club for students to teach them stuff which they can use in their life. Please note that Guthlaxton College is situated in a very working class encatchment and I want to help my students to move forward in theor life.

tariq