How are learning professionals dealing with the social web?
Iain's Page
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- Please tell the group about your work in education
- I am a recent arrival in the teaching profession; having started my BA in Politics and Psychology straight from school in 1990, it took me until 2000 to finish it. In the meantime I had worked as a shop assistant, a scaffolder, a barman, a leisure attendant, a bar manager and then a shop assistant again! After qualifying, I worked as the Operations Manager in a well known Health & Fitness Club whilst applying for the PGDE Primary at Jordanhill. Eventually, I got a job as a classroom assistant to help my chances of getting onto the PGDE (as well as becoming a barman again - classroom assistants do NOT earn much :-c ) and after a year as CA managed to secure a place on the course. This is now my third year out of my PGDE at Jordanhill. My NQT year was spent in a primary school on Skye, and at the end of that year I was lucky enough to get a permanent job at my current school, the Isobel Mair School which is a special school in East Renfrewshire. Despite being primary qualified, I am now teaching secondary age children who work towards Access 1 and 2 qualifications.
I have learned a LOT over the last 2 years, and continue to do so. I am currently undertaking the PGCE in Educational Support at Jordanhill.
- Briefly, in what ways do you presently use the internet in an education context?
- As well as using regular tools like e-mail and online resources, I am a member of The Access Network and tesconnect. I am also a member of the sharing network on the SMART site (as well as this network of course!). During my PGDE, I was very active in promoting collaboration amongst the student cohort using FirstClass.
Whilst enthusiastic about class blogs, so far I have not been greenlighted in either of my schools to start one, seemingly due to parental concerns about internet predators. I have recently started using Twitter in class, and aim to use it as a means of keeping the parents up to speed with what is happening in the class as well as using it to communicate between classes in our 3 different campuses. It would be nice if all the classes in the school would eventually follow suit, and we could then have a page for the school following the aggregated 'tweets' and making an almost real-time school 'blog'.
- What do you wish to get out of participating in edonis over the next 3 years?
- I hope that being part of the study will help me to maintain an impetus in my efforts to harness the power of the internet. I am also looking forward to learning from other practitioners, many of whom are doing inspirational work. I'd like to think that this would help me to become a better teacher and that my pupils would ultimately be the ones who benefitted.
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