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Sunday, November 13, 2011

Working with Wiki at GNLC - I.T. class

The students  from my I.T. class at GNLC (Glenroy Neighbourhood Learning Centre), worked together to created a wiki. They are having so much fun on this project, working collaboratively to showcase their creativity throughout term 2 and term 3 of 2011.

It is very much a work in progress, and is very interesting to watch this wiki grow, as the students add and develop it with their amazing work. They worded with Microsoft Office PowerPoint creating a Presentation of their choice then converting it to slide share, Microsoft Office Word, "Photofunia" creating funny photos and lots, lots more.


Feel free to view the wiki at    http://gnlc.wikispaces.com/Home+Page

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Term 3 in my Computer Class at GNLC

In term 3 the students of the Computer class, had fun working with an online photo editing tool called "photofunia".  The students saved photos taken of themselves, then worked with "photofunia" to create funny photo montages.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Students on term 2 excursion to NGV

The ICT and Digital Media students at Glenroy Neighbourhood Learniing Centre, all had a great day at our end of term 2 excursion to the NGV (National Gallery of Victroria).

Monday, April 11, 2011

My Support Network


A reflective piece on my support network
This activity has made me  identify the various types of support networks available to me and where the gaps are.
I have always been very happy to have a strong offline support networks both personal and professional.  The connections I care most about, and love to be with, are my family, friends and my dogs.  I am lucky enough to have a great support network at work too with my colleagues, the community and resources available to me.
My online support network is good however, I need to work a little harder at: "Finding more Time" and "My turn on the computer" at home, being factors.  I have given myself a challenge and intend to investigate more web 2.0 tools regularly.  I realise that I need to contribute and nurture online support networks to keep me up to date with current developments in my field, I am a member of classroom 2.0, but need to make time and dedicate myself to a local resources as well, like ICT, ACFE, Skills Victoria, and more, for current updates in my field. 
I have made a great network of connections by participating in this course "Reflect and Connect". I will look forward to talking with participants of the course online in the future, also publicly through Twitter and classroom 2.0 and all those other networks I'm a member of through my elearning journey. I really enjoy regularly posting to my blog and reading other blogs which I will continue to do. 
In the future, to participate as a "digital citizen" and to help my learners, I will look forward to connecting and building my online support networks to grow my resources and skills.


Saturday, April 9, 2011

Community of Practice (CoP)

The task for Team B - Liz, Manjit, Penny, Gary, Sheryl and me, this week was to evaluate a Community of Practice (CoP) we chose "Classroom 2.0" - its a global network mainly for school teachers.
After signing up and looking into it,  I now see the many benefits of it.  I have always felt that I need to grow in my profession as a teacher, I need to be better supported, to have many opportunities to collaborate with other teachers and professionals.   This support network, Classroom 2.0,  will help me in that it allows collaboration among those in the teaching profession around the world, to participate in ongoing dialog with an online community to...
  • Problem solve
  • Request information
  • Seek experience
  • Discussing developments
  • Documentation of Projects
  • Mapping Knowledge and identifying gaps
To gain from this site I will need to be committed to this domain, and making time to regularly access this site, to get involved  in relevant content and discussions, replying to comments made by community members, post topics and entering in the discussion forums.

Follow the link to Team B's presentation on Classroom 2.0
https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AbBCWzpB3xlfZGhncGZibTdfOWdra3ZqbWh0&hl=en&authkey=CKmhu7EP

Critical Success Factors in Building Community
Management Challenge
1.      Focus on topics important to the business and community members.
2.    Find a well-respected community member to coordinate the community.
3.      Make sure people have time and encouragement to participate.
4.      Build on the core values of the organization.
Community Challenge
5.      Get key thought leaders involved.
6.      Build personal relationships among community members.
7.      Develop an active passionate core group.
8.      Create forums for thinking together as well as systems for sharing information.
Technical Challenge
9.   Make it easy to contribute and access the community’s knowledge and practices.
      Personal Challenge
10. Create real dialogue about cutting edge issues.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Cycling and e-learning



I remember that I absolutely loved cycling when I was younger, I haven't cycled for the last 30 years, at least.  We have a bike in the shed, so when the weather warmed up in December of last year, I started cycling, that was about 4 months ago.  I recall that It was so difficult when I started, all that pedaling,  I wasn't even going fast,  my heart was pumping at a million miles an hour, I had to make regular stops, to catch my breath, my legs were so sore from the muscles I hadn't used for years, going up hills was such  hard work, when I'd finally return home I would collapse in an exhausted heap. This bike had gears, I learnt how to operate them too (another challenge).  I persevered, slowly it got easier and easier, I now cycle every day and feel so much better, healthier and fitter, toned up those flabby muscles and lost a bit of weight too.
I can relate my cycling to my  e-learning journey, lots of hard work in learning new technologies, learning theories,  getting them to make sense,  then thinking of ways to incorporate them into existing educational programs, regular reflecting on what I have learnt.  There are lots of challenges in this course of "Reflect and connect", all well worth the effort, with the potential benefit for greater student learning in a ever changing technological world.  
I'm so glad that I took advantage of these fantastic opportunities that came into my life. I am happy to admit that I am now addicted to both cycling and learning about new technologies, and will keep them up as part of my lifelong ambition, as they are both so important.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Latest technology

This week was a struggle to try and balance work, the reflect and connect course, family and everything else in my busy life.  I am very interested in using technology that I have never used before, that is my goal, I never get enough time to explore it as much as I'd like to. 
This week I worked on a word document in the Google cloud, adding information as part of our assignment.  The part that I really was amazed by was that Penny was there at the same time adding her pieces of information, so we were working on the same document in real time, how exciting and amazing is that.  I have also joined a social bookmarking website, Diigo which I find very easy to use and very useful.  I try to twitter as often as I can as well. I am enjoying this course and feel I am learning so much about the latest technology, through this course, and thinking about ways to share it with my peers and students in the future.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Wiki

In this blog entry I reflect in working as a team member, in team B.  Our task was to evaluate a web 2.0 tool of our choice, we decided on the "Wiki". Having little knowledge of the wiki, I was interested in learning more about it.  I found the support in the team to be strong, Liz is a great project manager, keeping the team members informed.  Gale, another member of our team,  created  a "Wiki" and inviting us to participate in playing around with whatever we wanted to contribute.  We got together as a team and raised issues via twitter, the forum, emails, the discussion area in the wiki,  Liz arranged an elluminate session for our group, to stimulating discussions.  Every person in the team were totally committed in achieving the learning target, I enjoyed being part of this team, their enthusiasm was contagious, with my colleague giving me support.
It was a new experience to work with a Wiki.  I tried various tools within the wiki, some successful and some not so successful, lack of time to look into it thoroughly , being the problem. However, I did achieve my goal which was to access the wiki,  add/delete content to the wiki and create a voice thread of my evaluation and add it to the existing voice thread in the wiki .
This e-learning experience has opened an exciting range of possibilities and opportunities for me and my students, as a result  I have planned to teach the wiki to my students next term.  I believe that we should all more involved in e-learning and initiatives that will open doors for learning, fostering exchange of knowledge and the opportunity of self-improvement.

To view our Wiki go to  http://teamb2011randc.wikispaces.com/

Friday, March 18, 2011

Reflect on "Reflect and Connect"

It's the 3rd week of the "Refect and Connect" course, (CHCORG428A Refect on and improve own professional practice). Students and teachers get together once a week in a virtual classroom via "Eluminate", through "YNH services".
Since beginning this exciting course my time has been full of activity in using technology that I had never used before. 
I accessed "Moodle", for course content, forums and information about the course. I have begun using "Mahara" to create an "Eportfolio", set up a "Blog" and update it regularly, set up a "Twitter" account, contributed to on line forums, researched "Web 2.0 tools", joined "Gmail", "Diigo" and bookmarked my favourite sites, all really interesting stuff.
There is so much fantastic electronic information out there to support students and staff to utilise the online resources, which are easily available, to improve learning, with whatever it is you want to achieve, I am now thinking of ways to use this information in my everyday teaching.
I have enjoyed every minute of it ... so far.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Introduction


I began my working career in an office as a personal assistant, back in the last century.  It was there that I found I had a knack in working with computers and was sent along to many courses to learn various new programs and applications.  I worked in an office for 10 years then I left to start my family.  When my youngest child was two, I decided to attend night school, with my husband and my family happy to help and support me in my studies, I finally completed "The Bachelor of Education".  I gained employment at the local primary school, where my children attended. I taught many specialist subjects in that time, among them was I.T., Art, Library, Italian.  I really valued the sense of achievement gained in teaching new skills to children, whatever the subject, as a result of my eagerness I was asked to organise many special events for the children as a whole school event, some of those were, Italian Day, The Art Show, The Circus, Students short film festival.
However I had always wanted to teach adults and in 2006 I finally did. I began working at Glenroy Neighbourhood Learning Centre, where I started teaching computer applications.  I am very familiar with "Microsoft Office"  and have been teaching computers for absolute beginners, the certificate 1 and 2 course in Information Technology.  I enjoy my time at "Glenroy Neighbourhood Learning Centre" very, very much, it is a collaborative learning environment, a very nurturing and wonderful place to be, I am committed to the hard working staff and to the wonderful students that attend my classes.
So my love for technology began when I started working all those years ago, as technology is constantly changing and developing at a rate that is hard to keep up with, I decided I better try and catch up with it, so here I am attending a very interesting course of e-technology called "Reflect and Connect".

Friday, March 11, 2011

My Learning Goal

My learning goal is to extend my knowledge in  I.T., to try new technology, for example learning online, in a virtual classroom with elluminate,  to create a blog, to design an eportfolio, using programs that I have never used before like mahara, and gain greater confidence and awareness in I.T.

It is important to me because I want to improve my knowledge and awareness in I.T. learning in the long term.

People that I need to support me are my family, as they are the most important people in the world to me and their opinion and support mean a lot.  I am very lucky to have  great support at my workplace, where I can always consult with my work colleagues for constructive feedback and moderation in assessment tasks at any time.