Occasionally I will come across something on the net that it is a bit surprising. Mostly it's funny things, occasionally it is something that is shocking, and other times it just something seems ethically wrong. What I found today was another 'Rate My' site, and despite the immediate thought of something unsavoury, this probably isn't what you were thinking of. How about RateMyTeachers.co.uk?

The thing about rating your mates on HotOrNot (still in there at 7.6) is that it's a joke and generally no harm intended, however I doubt the benefits of anyone just rocking up to a site like RateMyTeachers, (where the information is open the the public without signing up for an account) and they can view and add to a rated dissection of the staff for any given school in the UK. Surely this is just a chance for widescale victimisation of teachers; basically just a kid's popularity contest exposed for anyone to see? It's not even internal. There are teachers in schools who can't even use the internet who won't even know this is going on. Whoever thought that this would be a useful tool for 'Students and Parents', or provide 'Essential, Honest Critique' is clearly disillusional. Do we really need the very people who educate us being rated in league tables (especially ones where they have no say in whether they appear or not, or have any right of appeal or personal protection) for the world to see? Some of the most unpopular teachers give some the best education, 'popularity' is not the coefficient of 'getting the point across' - unrepresentative figures mislead, and this rubbish will lead to people forming stupid and baseless opinions - encouraging prejudice.

Of course no sane school would ever employ based on information like this, but a couple of net-using, bandwagon-hopping parents could easily kick up a fuss with the school that little Billy is being taught by Mr X who 'isn't very popular' according to the other voters (who are probably mostly kids - not the suggested parental aspect) and therefore deserves to be struck off, or at least demand little Billy be moved out of his class for fear of failure.

I'm not saying that monitoring teachers isn't a good idea, I'm just saying that allowing a load of 13 year old kids mark their own teachers with little smiley/not so smiley faces and display it for the world to see is a little irresponsible. It's probably even more irresponsible to 'Wall of Shame' the schools that have 'blocked' the site, then linked to a site explaining how to beat the filtering system because it's an infringement of your human rights! For f**ks sake.

[ - Rant Over - ]

Apart from brewing up with annoyance over the way certain sites speak before they think, today has been spent scouring the useful part of the interweb for dissertation related items. I've written a little bit, but it's no War and Peace yet, and with only four days left, I've got some pengrinding to do.

My client based work is really starting to make me itch. With all the uninspiring coursework going on at the moment my soul yearns for something I might enjoy doing e.g. some site or logo design. Roll on Christmas. Even if I do have enough time to do the client stuff over the yule break, I have to consider what is on the other side of it; the exams. Today was the day the timetable got it's first look at the sunlight and I discovered that although well spaced apart by a week, one falls the day after a major handin, which isn't the best news I've heard all year. It just means I've got to be Mr. Organised and get on with stuff early, which will be no problem (provided I can teach myself self-motivation for modules that get less thrilling by the minute as my interest in other things increases inversely).

Space Cadets was once again good fun. I'm so pleased they have got this far. Let's see some more.

Swan also told me to mention that he has won fifteen quid. Lucky Swan.