Introductions

Please introduce yourself, let us know a little bit about you, and where you are from.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by kolson on April 12, 2008 at 7:38pm

Deborah -

Welcome! I think finding these resources before you even enter your own classroom is the best way to start - I wish I had done that! Take some time to visit the pages of people you find interesting here, it's a great way to form connections and meet people with similar goals. I look forward to learning from you :-)

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Permalink Reply by Prithwis Mukerjee on April 11, 2008 at 10:48pm

Hello everyone ... I am Prithwis Mukerjee from Calcutta, India. An engineer by education, a programmer by profession and an imagineer by intention, I have spent nearly 18 years in the software business before taking a dive into academics ... I teach systems engineering and quantitative methods to graduate students in Business schools. I am currently enamoured with Second Life and virtual worlds and would like to Dream > Dare > Deliver in 3D Virtual Worlds. To know what I am up to ... do visit my site Yantrajaal

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Permalink Reply by Anne Mirtschin on April 11, 2008 at 11:26pm

Hello Prithwis and welcome to classroom20. I have just completed a pd on Quest Atlantis which is a safe virtual world for students and will start using this with grade 6 classes in two weeks time. I am sure you will find lots of information to keep you busy in this classroom. Join some of the groups and follow the discussions. Check out the tags for 'virtual worlds' as I am sure you will find items of interest there.

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Permalink Reply by Raenette Taljaard on April 12, 2008 at 3:43am

Hi, I teach 25 Year 5 students in Auckland, New Zealand. Originally from Africa, I've been in New Zealand for the past 2 years. Teaching here is very different to the structured, whole class teaching style I was used to, but I love it! My class is technologically well resourced and my students and I are experimenting with a number of Web 2.0 tools. I am looking forward to learning and getting new insights from this network! I am one of the ICT lead teachers at my school, and everything I learn, I share in turn with the team I am mentoring.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Mirtschin on April 12, 2008 at 4:32am

Hello Raenette, welcome to classroom20 How fortunate your students are to be well resourced technologically. I also love using web2.0 in my classroom and have got lots of ideas from being a member here. Watch the discussions here, join groups that you might be interested in and make friends as there is so much to learn and share.

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Permalink Reply by Mark P. Collett on April 12, 2008 at 8:31am

Hi all, I'm Mark. Feel like I've been a career student -- part-time over the last 20 years. I recently finished a graduate program with Gordon-Conwell, Boston, after 5 years, nights. I presently work as AOD (addictions) counselor for a men's residential program. My heart is for education, and I'm planning on an EdD degree. I really would like to teach. As for IT in the classroom -- well I had better update that big time. Really glad to be part of this site now. Godspeed my colleagues.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Mirtschin on April 12, 2008 at 3:49pm

Hi Mark, welcome to classroom2.0 Teaching IT is a great spot to be especially with the advent of web2.0 as it opens up so many powerful learning possibilities. It would be interesting to see whether you could incoporate web2.0 with your counselling eg keep a blog with weekly journal entries or get some of your clients to do so (anonymously of course) Could be good for the healing process and good to share with others. As to updating that big time, I think even some of the most experienced, are continuing to update bigtime.! Enjoy your membership here.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Barth on April 12, 2008 at 5:15pm

Hey, Mark--
I'm a social worker by profession a professor and Dean by assignment and just joined Classroom 2.0 after a recommendation from a Web 2.0 seminar at the University of Maryland Baltimore. I want our graduate students to have more knowledge (so our faculty and administrators need some, too) of how to manage programs and information using new webtools. I've heard about some uses (e.g., "casebook" in which different sources of information enter data to a single loation to round out a court or psychological report) but haven't seen much. There's not a lot going on in classrooms, either, except for Blackboard type group work. I'll look forward to any thing you find out about uses of social networking in the field or in your graduate education.

Rick

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Bassill on April 15, 2008 at 1:22pm

Hi Mark and Rick,

I lead a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago and use the internet to provide information and ideas that our volunteers can use to work with inner city kids, and that donors, businesses and universities might use to help us make more non-school learning and mentoring programs readily available in more places.

I use the Internet for problem solving, and am trying to teach out kids and others to use it for the same purpose. Many social workers, teachers and others in Chicago use the Program Locator on our web site to find contact information for tutoring/mentoring programs where they'd like to place students. I'm trying to teach them to use this to help build resources for kids in neighborhoods where too few resources exist.

Our ideas and solutions can now be put on the internet, and students and volunteers can be part of the team managing this information, and helping others find and use it. I encourage you to take a look and see if these ideas mesh with any of your own IT and learning goals.

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Permalink Reply by Tracy on April 12, 2008 at 12:17pm

Hi, i'm Tracy Perry from Arlington, Texas. I started a blog on edublogger, and I am trying to incorporate technology effectively in my middle school ESL classroom.

I would particuarly like to visit the blogs/webpages of teachers who use forums/blogging/virtual learning environments in their language arts classes.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Mirtschin on April 12, 2008 at 3:45pm

Hi Tracy, there has been a big discussion on blogs, sharing blog sites etc recently on this classroom. If you search the blogging tool on the sidebar, I am sure you will find it. If not, contact me and I will get it for you.
You may be interested in looking at one of my school colleague's blogs as she teaches mandarin Chinese LOTE at our school and is big into all this. We are just about to experiment with Quest Atlantis as a virtual world for our students, but incorporating that into languages is further down the track. Anyway, goto www.technolote.com and you will find Jess' page and contact details. I am sure she would love to share with you as well.
Welcome to classroom2.0 - a great place to be!

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Permalink Reply by Marie on April 12, 2008 at 7:20pm

Hi all, Marie, Brisbane, Australia. Background is adult educator in business education, working with special needs students at present, moving towards high school teaching (maybe?), returned to uni to update my skills, love the technology side of learning, new tools, access to information, collaboration and sharing and excited about the future of education.