Tag Archives: Technology

Enage me! A 10 step Guide for Grads

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Well if you didn’t know yet, I might as well tell you one of my secrets, I LOVE PREZIS!  And I love talking about becoming a teacher.  So a Prezi about becoming a teacher is like peanut butter and banana… they belong together.

While tutoring on the Graduate Diploma of Primary Teaching at Deakin with @kath_morris, I made this Prezi to share with my students. Compiling such a list was extremely reflective and made me forever grateful for the teachers and friends I have met on my path to becoming a teacher.  It made me grateful for the inspirational teachers and principals I am lucky to work with.

So this 10 step Guide for Graduates became a list of inspirations of things in my first year teaching in Australia that were memorable and worthwhile. It also became a list of minor frustrations, things that I wish someone had forewarned me about!  Some of these warnings may have been useless perhaps, as it is as much about the journey as it is about the destination.  But, I thought I would share with other graduates out there some of what I learned, and feel free to pass on to share with graduates you may know.  I hope even if one thing strikes a chord with a Grad, it will add to the inspiration pile and help avoid more in the frustration pile.

Copy of How to Guide for Grads… on Prezi

 

What advice would you pass on? Anything else you would add to the list? What things helped you starting out? 

Digital Nomads

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I have always loved the term Digital Natives coined by Mark Prensky (thanks Heather)… UNTIL… I had a conversation with my fantastically inspiring Principal.  She got me thinking about the word native and whether a native was the most entirely appropriate word.  Pedantic yes, but a fun topic of conversation for a geek such as myself!

A native belongs to ONE place, living and growing there.  Do our students belong to ONE place?  Or are they able and capable of belonging to more than one place? Is the one place they are from Digital-Land?  Or is this whole myriad of technology that they are confronted with where they roam?  I would lean towards an adaptable generation.  A generation that is able to move from place to place, from technology to technology, able to handle multiple digital literacies all at the one time.

 

When the ever inspiring Mrs A, mentioned the word Digital Nomads, light bulbs flashed upstairs, and I knew she was onto a good thing.  Our students have no fixed abode in Digital-Land.  They were not born in one technology and remain there until the end.  They are nomadic and move from place to place from gadget to gadget.  The move with the seasons, with the teachers, with friends and parents. They are staying within the boundaries of technology of course, but they are not from one land with one language and one literacy.  I would argue that our students are Digital Nomads, and my job is to help guide them while they are in my corner of this technology territory and nurture some skills that they can take with them as they move to the next place, next season, next year.  This blog is my digital residence for now where I can share some of the nomadic wanderings of my class this year.  I hope you join us as we experience the nomadic life of some Grade 3/4’s in Victoria, Australia.