Alistair: In order to prepare for this lesson we had to make sure - I had to make sure that all the equipment was working, that all the iBooks were talking to the server. Nothing's worse that starting a letter and a wee child says, it's not working, the battery's not charged, it's not talking to the server; I can't get on. So it's a hardware problem first of all to make sure everything's working - er - and the projector - is all linked up to the iBook which we use.
Then we had - I had to make sure that a photo of the school which a child had previously chosen was in their folder ready for use. There was a purpose for this because Helensburgh is a Navy town and we have developed links with - some Russian children in a Russian school, so the children are writing a wee bit about themselves and about their school or about their life in Helensburgh, and are corresponding with the children in Russia.
Mainly - I learnt my IT skills - well, I'm self-taught. One thing about Macs, they are very user friendly; if you make a grave error, it's quite easy now - one doesn't have to tear your hair out - um - nothing really fazes me. I've seen many problems with Macs, and I'm quite happy that I can fix most of them myself. So basically, I'm self-taught as regards the hardware issues. I have been on one or two courses - um - for Appleworks and Microsoft Word, but generally speaking it's all sitting down in the evening and playing around myself to see how to do things.
I do get a classroom assistant who comes in. We have a - a little child here who requires learning support, and so where needed she will come in and offer him assistance. Um - many times he's quite capable to do the work on himself. Fortunately, computers is one of his favourite subjects, so I can use her and she will come around the class and help me to back up what I'm doing with the children.