5/14/2007

Teachers TV - Is there any point in this channel ?


At school today we were discussing in the staffroom whether anyone watches Teachers .tv.

For those of you who don't know, Teachers.tv is a channel that is supposed to be for the "professional development" of teachers. However, nobody, I repeat, not a single soul at school said they watch it. What is the point of it ?

They don't have a "police.tv" or a "nurses.tv", so why a teachers .tv ?

It is supposed to aid professional development. But do teachers want to sit down when they get home and watch a tv show showing someone teaching maths then analysed the techniques used ? Only someone with far too much time on their hands can have the time to do this. We already have alot of professional development after school, in meetings, on training days and on courses. Teachers.tv. is overkill.

It must cost several million pounds a year to run. the cost of broadcasting it on Virgin Media, Sky and Freeview must in itself cost a lot of money. But more than that, the amount of effort that must go in to making the programmes must cost a small fortune. When you consider that less than 10,000 people a day watch the channel at all and over a 24 hour period that averages just 450 viewers at any one time. You have to ask "could the money be spent in a better way ?"

The TV channel says that all their programmes are available online to download. Wouldn't it be better, therefore, to make their channel a video on demand service for computers with Broadband connections ? Then every school could download something of interest whilst the enormous cost of the channel could be brought down. It could also be broadcast much like the internet tv station 18 Doughty Street, but for this government, I fear that is too logical.

Teachers.tv. argue that they also provide some programmes for school governors, Couldn't these be put on a free DVD for governors or again be made available for download ?

The only thing teachers.tv. is good for is as an exam question :

"Teachers.tv - What is the point of it ? - Discuss "

7 comments:

Antony said...

How very dare you Starling!!!

Teachers TV is very very funny and when you are awake with child at 3am you will be grateful for it. I know I was...

I enjoyed this classic from their Agony Aunt programme:

"I'm an NQT who can't control my class, finds lesson planning hard and my delivery isn't very good, what should I do?"

Me, 3am, shouting at the TV ... "resign you silly ****"

Anonymous said...

Both the teachers I live with during the week hate it with a passion, one's a NQT and the other has a few years under his belt.

One of their main criticisms is that the 'scenarios' used are always based on ideal conditions and so far from reality as to be essentially useless.

I didn't know it was costing us so much. Must have been thought up by the same numpty who dreamed up NHS Direct.

Nich Starling said...

It was a Milliband project.

Neil said...

Sadly I have to disagree. Before I got rid of sky I used to watched it on a regular basis and often thought that we would from benefit fom some of the programmes at school.

I have also picked up some good ideas/ practices that I have either introduced, adopted or would like to try out in the future.

Now I only have freeview.. the channel is not available 24 hours.

PS one of our teachers was involved in the advertising campaign... sadly my looks were not good enough.

Rob Fenwick said...

Well someone's watching it, cos it's making a healthy profit. I was involved in signing a deal with the company that run it, for another channel project, and got a rough idea figures. It's run as a commercial venture and is certainly not being subsidised.

Anonymous said...

From their website;

'Teachers TV is operated by an independent media consortium, Education Digital - which was selected by the DfES after an extensive tender process.'

A tender process. That suggests a contract and thus a payment / subsidy. I cannot find any information about ' Education Digital Ltd (EDL) - which provides the financial and administrative back-up to....[Teachers TV]', so can you enlighten me further Rob?

Nich Starling said...

I agree with Harry. The company that runs it is, if my understanding is correct, doing so with a government grant or subsidy. They may be making a profit, which in itself says a lot about the channel as obviously the government are paying too much for the service.

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