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.

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/

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.

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".

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.