Introductions

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Permalink Reply by Jacinta Gascoigne on April 26, 2007 at 9:32am

Hi to all in this incredible network. My name is Jacinta Gascoigne and I am in Australia. To be exact I live in Melbourne, Australia, but was born in country Victoria, in a town called Bairnsdale.

My folks still live in the town and to this day even though they are in their 70's continue to go to work everyday in the business they began well before I was even a thought. My father is the last fully qualified saddler still working in this country and my mother runs the bag and travel goods section and is helped with the saddlery by a couple of great ladies that have been with them for years.

You got it I am incredibly proud of my parents. I am a single mum with two wonderful teenage boys. They certainly keep me on my toes and keep me young.

I began my career in secondary education, co-authored texts for legal studies, was an examiner for year 12 both writing exams, marking and moderating. After having my boys I ventured into the publishing and training industries, travelling much of the UK and the USA. From there back into education, this time TAFE or VTE system, lecturing in Advertising, Marketing and International Business. I have spent close to 8 months living with my children and lecturing in Beijing and Xing Tai China, in english in the Advanced Diploma of International business, was an auditor in Beijing for the TAFE I worked for and trained Chinese teachers in the Certificate 1V workplace training and assessment course, in order to afford them a relevant qualification so that they could teach in the co-operative programs established between their organisations and the TAFE in Australia.
I returned to Australia to find I had been awarded a 'Flexible Learning Scholarship' by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework in 2003, as a change manager in the area of e-learning, giving me a year to pursue professional development in leadership and e-learning globally.
Throughout my time as a leader, I developed a portal for the TAFE, was engaged in learning to be an instructional designer at the TAFE, learning by doing in effect as I was asked to be the ID on two in house e-learning projects, one for basic accounting and the other for Art - Colour. Daunting and exciting all at once, a period of time where great learning took place. My reports etc can be found on the AFLF site under my name and the year 2003.
After this exciting year I returned to lecturing, hoping to apply my learning and help to drive change within the teaching population in the Business Services Centre I belonged to. This was fraught with danger as most did not wish to even acknowledge that Global Practice Firms, were any more than 'mickey mouse' environments of no learning as they did not see any 'teaching'. To mention any word that began with e-, was to ask for trouble as many staff had not even come to terms with using emails, missing meetings because they did not get notification in their pigeon holes and did not even open their emails. My greatest success I felt was getting a staff member who had never opened his emails, finally open them to find over 1,000 messages and wondered where they came from. After a few months, he was able to keep on top of it and even send messages (which was rare) but at least he did not miss any more meetings. Yes I am talking about the year 2004.
In 2005 I was approached to be the project manager for an International Project for the AFLF, you can find the details, reports and commissioned works under 2005 projects on the AFLF site or google my name.
I returned to the TAFE for a while and am now taking a break, to complete my masters in International Education, with a focus on e-learning and work collaboratively off my own back with others in Australia at this point, trying to convince educators and administrators that social networking tools and related technologies are not going to vanish, they will instead grow and evolve. We acknowledge that any tool on the www used without taking note of potential dangers and applying safe and informed use, can be dangerous, I myself have recently been a victim of cyber bullying in a professional environment online. If you google Kathy Sierra:Jacinta Gascoigne, you can find the details.
Unfortunately in Australia, we are seeing more and more fear mongering in the media as it seems social networking tools are now the root of all evil in the world. I must admit if I did not have the benefit of knowledge in these areas, I as a parent would be terrified of even turning on a computer.
We are also struggling to get others involved in professional online discourse or others we are working with face to face, to even acknowledge one benefit of such tools, instead the majority appear to believe that all of these tools are damaging the fabric of society.
I am still stunned at what is happening in Australia. The fear campaign seems to be politically motivated, as all educational institutions from primary through to University are now blocking not one tool but all of them from all educational environments, even blocking staff from accessing on campus.
As an educator in the business arena, I do not believe what I am seeing. I have provided examples of my own experience using myspace for a charity I was involved in for some time and now for my own business and also as the Director of Sales for Green and Gold Radio, collectively a number of my colleagues and I have tried to provide examples of the various tools and how they are being used in educational settings, by numerous industries and researchers, even by the Australian Government for collaborative efforts.
Still it is a battle and with the fear being driven into parents, most of whom do not know about the environments and have no opportunity presented to them to learn not only about what their children are doing online but how to use them safely (or as safely as one can), mindful of potential dangers but understanding the benefits and indeed the fact that the world has changed from the world they once new.
We are hoping that others more experienced and more expert than us, will join us in the ourspaces network and hope to share our learning and learn from others through engagement in what appears to be some already very well established networks.
We need help to make sure learners and educators in Australia are not blocked from the very tools being used by so many in the world as in our mind it is killing the creativity of our learners, their ability to learn in the ways that they now require, thus creating a new breed of discontented learners who have worlds that they already have an identity in, worlds that they may need to understand for their chosen career path, blocked, censored, classed as weapons engaged against the very fabric of society, by those in power who themselves appear from their actions to be uneducated and not of the real world that we are a part of.
I will stop the rambling here, but hope to see you here and in ourspaces.

Thanks for letting me venture in and thanks for sharing your individual and collective efforts and passion with those of us in Australia and beyond.

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Permalink Reply by LeeBaber on July 31, 2007 at 4:39am

Hello, Thanks for adding me as a friend. I will look forward to reading over your information. Sounds like you have a very interesting story. I am part of the teachers teaching teachers group over at the http://worldbridges.net edtechtalk community. If you would ever like to join us, please don't hesitate. We meet on wednesdays at 9:00 EST pm and the link is http://edtechtalk.com just click on chat and listen to join in. Thanks again.
Lee

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Permalink Reply by Erin Frazier on August 4, 2007 at 4:59pm

Hi Jacinta. I am very interested in your cause. I'm in the field of special education in Maine, USA. I am currently trying to use some of this technology to facilitate communication between my self and the special educators with whom I work. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure my district firewalls blogs, so I'm on a mission to overcome that obstacle. I'll let you know how it goes! Erin

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Permalink Reply by Karen Phillips on April 26, 2007 at 11:09am

Hello from Winnipeg! I am a transplanted Oklahoman who now makes my home in Winnipeg. I currently teach Grade 8 math, Grades 5-8 Computer Applications, and am the building technology leader. I am looking to network with people who share a passion in integrating technology into lessons.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Stein on April 26, 2007 at 2:26pm

Hello from New York City!

My students have been suing a number of Web2.0 tools in their classes; Google Docs, Del.icio.us, Flickr, an Elgg and few others in my social studies and digital photography classes.

I recently became a Google Certifiate Teacher.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on April 29, 2007 at 8:30am

Hi Ken
I've "heard" and "met" you through Teachers Teaching Teachers.
Nice to see you here, too.
Kevin H.

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Permalink Reply by Alex T. on April 26, 2007 at 5:26pm

Hi all, I'm Alex T. I'm working as a e-Courseware developer and a part-timer technical blog writter, currently focusing in writing articles related to Web 2.0

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Permalink Reply by Kip Leland on April 27, 2007 at 9:29am

Hi everyone :)

I'm Kip Leland and I'm in Los Angeles, CA (USA). I run the online learning program for the Los Angeles Unified School District and am eager to help build this online community!

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Permalink Reply by Margie Brown on April 28, 2007 at 9:02am

Hello from Austin, Texas!
I'm Margie Brown, and I work with elementary schools.
I'm looking forward to learning about what's going on around the country and the world in tech integration, especially as it relates to Web2.0 for the younger kids.

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Permalink Reply by Teresa M. on April 28, 2007 at 11:31am

Hello from Seattle. I'm a librarian exploring ideas for incorporating web 2.0 applications in a research methods class I'm teaching this summer.

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Horner on April 29, 2007 at 6:39am

Hi, Pat Horner. Originally from Ireland, but now live and work in the United Kingdom. I'm a senior teacher at a medium sized comprehensive school (11-18) and am a humanities specialist 'by trade'. I'm interested how ICT can be used to facilitate learning and how pupils can use ICT to demonstrate their learning. Recently I became intrigued by the idea of flattening classrooms and blogging. That was the thin end of the wedge, every web2.0 tool I'm introduced to (usually by communities like this, or by reading the ebublogosphere) suggests a widening gyre of applications for teaching and learning.

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Permalink Reply by Graham Stanley on April 29, 2007 at 9:53am

Hi everyone,

I'm an English language teacher and ICT co-ordinator based in Barcelona, Spain. I am very intereted in the use of emerging technologies for language teaching, especially blogs, podcasts, and (recently) games and virtual worlds such as Second Life.

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