This is where drama, performing arts and dance teachers get together on TES. This group is a great source of lesson ideas and inspiration and is the place to share best practice and get your questions answered by your peers.
After spending the entire weekend writing my student profiles and records of work for Units 1 and 2 for Edexcel GCSE drama the only thing I had left to do was to deal with the video for the recorded session. I had the videos saved digitally on my external hard drive. This afternoon I plugged this in and with a fizzle and a lot of smoke the hard drive completely fried itself losing both the recorded session for units 1 and 2. I have the IT guys at school working franticly to try to recover it from the remains, but they are not very hopeful. I will of course be phoning edexcel tomorrow to explain the situation, but I am out of my mind with worry at what will happen. I have 26 students who have worked so hard for two years and was looking at pretty much 100% A-C grades.
Has anybody ever encountered a similar situation and how was it resolved? - it would seem so unbelievable that the students would be penalised for what is a faliure of technology that is nobody's fault, but I am scared that somehow they will be.
I'll mourn the loss of three years worth of family photos later - for now I am just concerned about my students.
Any advice/calming words/ shared experiences would be appreciated.
Thank you.
cymraeg cowboyAny advice/calming words/ shared experiences would be appreciated.
Advice 1 - always keep a backup
Advice 2 - what happened to the original recordings? If you used a hard disc drive camera and haven't used it much since, then the files are probably still on the camera even if you erased them. "Erasing" simply unlocks the drive space and allows the files to be overwritten when needed. So, unless you have used the camera a lot, the files might still be there, Use a programme like recuva to retrieve them.
Advice 3 - in future, burn the DVDs before erasing the original recording.
Advice 4 - if you are using a networked school computer, there could be a master backup of all users' data. (If it was a home computer that's a big mistake for all sorts of reasons).
Calming words - sh!t happens. You'll get a nasty report from your moderator. I'm sure you won't be the only person this happens to this year.The students should not be penalised BUT there is no corroboration for your practical marks.
Shared experience - I lose things too - my hard drive "fried" last week (but I have backups).
Hope the tech guys can help you.
ok
1st - I usually burn the sessions after they are done to ensure there are back ups, also it can be stored onyour schools hard drive if you ask nicely..
2nd - get in touch with edexcel pronto and get the appropriate forms filled in.
calming words;
Don't panic about it if they can't be retrieved, it does happen, just learn from it and don't let it happen again. (could be a way to get some new equipment - a seperate external hard drive for your work??) Our music dept had one given to them because they had a similar problem with recordings.
You're not the first, you will not be the last..
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