I was struck by something Sean Connery’s character just said:

A bittery disappointed teacher can be either very effective, or very dangerous.

He was referring to a teacher who wrote a novel, which was rejected, and then instead turned to teaching english.

It reminds me of that saying

Those who can, do.

Those who cannot, teach.

I don’t like that saying. It infers that those of us who decide on teaching as a profession couldn’t make it in the ‘real world’. We failed at having a proper job, and so decided to teach in that subject area instead.

This is unfair. I never wanted to work in a laboratory for the rest of my working life. I wanted to actually do something worthwhile with my life. So, I chose to be a teacher.

I had an interview last week for my teaching practice placement, and one of the first questions the principal asked me was why I wanted to be a teacher. Yes, the obvious answer of “June, July and August” sprang to mind, but that isn’t really the whole story.

I had a few good teachers in school, and have had the opportunity to see a few others in action, as well as to see the effect a good teacher has on the students. Especially those who lack motivation, or are otherwise disengaged.

I want to be one of those teachers. I want to have a positive influence on the kids I teach.

And, when I graduate, that’s what I plan on doing.

My new plan, since I was encouraged to take over the running of the website for the family business www.saildingle.com back in February is to try and focus on making money from th’internet.

I have an idea for a website, that could be somewhat popular. With people of a certain age group. It’s actually pretty specific. But, it’s an idea, and one I’m working on at the moment.

Websites are great, and all, but unless you have a plan for earning money from them, they won’t do your bank balance any good. Advertising seems to be the easiest way of earning money from a website.

So, I have been reading around, looking at different people’s blogs and websites, trying to figure out the best way of monetising my website. Therefore, I’m going to stick a few ads in a few different places on this blog, and see how they turn out. Google Adsense is what I’m going to use for the time being.

I’m not expecting to become a millionaire overnight. But, at least I will have some idea as to how ads work, and how much money I could expect to earn from this whole interweb malarkey.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Or, why don’t you let me know what you think?

Logo for Moodle

Right. It’s been over a week. I’m not quite doing as well at this as I had hoped.

One reason I haven’t given any updates is that for the past week or so I have been trying to install Moodle on a new domain I registered recently.

I have a hosting package with the wonderful Blacknight. I cannot emphasise enough how amazing these guys (and girls!) are. Great support, almost instantaneous responses to even the most inane of questions. (Believe me, I know). So, a great big thank you to all of them.

For those of you who may not know, Moodle is “A free, open source course management system for online learning”. It is widely used by universities and schools to complement the traditional teaching methods.

Why would I want to use Moodle, I hear you ask? Well, I am currently a third year student in university, studying for a degree in Science Education. I am going to teach science at second level. So, I figured, I would like to be one of those progressive, forward-looking teachers. Since most, if not all, students at that age are online anyway, they may as well be learning something at the same time.

And that is what I have been doing for the past week or so. Yes, it took me that long to actually get it up and running. Since I don’t have a broadband connection at home, a lot of the work had to be done with the spare hour or two I could spend in the internet cafe in the nearest town.

The lack of broadband is not my fault. Ireland is remarkably bad for rolling out broadband access in the more remote regions. And, during the summer, I live in a pretty remote region. Not as bad, maybe, as some other parts of the country, but remote enough so that Eircom, who own the network, have absolutely no incentive to provide access for the perhaps three or four hundred homes who would like it. And there is not a lot we can do about it.

However, despite the slow connection and lack of time, I have slowly but surely been progressing with the installation. Until I receive an error message, which apparently are pretty common. Cue some reading of the manual, followed by searching the moodle support forums. And then the support tickets with Blacknight, who sorted out all my problems.

It may all have been a bit easier if I had a bit more experience with this kind of mallarkey, but how else am I going to learn, other than by trial and error?

But, the headache is now over. For the time being at least. Now that the installation is complete, I have only the small task of developing some content for the site. I’m thinking flash animations, interactive games and quizzes, and downloadable notes and slide shows. So, a whole raft of programs to learn how to use!

Should be fun! Stay tuned for more updates!

I also like my family. My immediate family, I’m talking about. We get along fine, we all have a similar sense of humour. Sure, we have the odd spat over something entirely stupid, but that’s no big deal.

My problem is when the two overlap. I run my own business, during the summer, that gives me a certain amount of spare time, as long as the work gets done, the rest of the day is my own.

My father also runs his own business, and employs my two brothers. Which is fine, although employing your children in a business has it’s own inherent problems.

My gripe this morning is, when I am free, and sitting around doodling on my laptop as I do, then all the things my father and brothers should be doing as part of their jobs are handed to me, and my mother. There is a certain amount of housekeeping to be done in any small enterprise, and I’m of the opinion that if you sign up to be your own boss, then you sign up for it all.

You don’t ask other people to check your mail for you, because you are too lazy to do it yourself. You don’t ask your wife to tidy the kitchen area, and clean up after you. You don’t ask me to start dealing with your customers, when you feel like going for a cup of coffee! I mean, come on!

Thankfully, the family business is not located at home. They have their own little unit in the community marina centre here in town, which means that if I don’t feel like getting involved, I don’t have to. I can just stay at home. But that’s where I work, so obviously it’s good to get out of there every so often.

Anyway, I guess this post doesn’t have much of a point, except as a general rant about my family. More about them anon, I would think.