Resolutions for 2010

Having read back over my assignments and the marker's comments, I resolved to find more information regarding critical evaluation and writing annotated bibliographies.
I will read more widely,visit other local libraries and organise regular access to journals etc. My personal goals are to improve my typing and ICT skills and to keep up with professional awareness of uses for web 2.0 technologies and networks, I have subscribed to Bright Ideas -Slav blog. I need to organise my time to include exploration of these new resources i.e walls, wordle,prezi, twitter etc.to develop working knowledge with them and to blog more often!
I must admit I really needed a summer break and it gave me time to reflect on my
learning and my goals for the future. It also gave me time to read for pleasure, I decided to read a mixture of student novels and adult literature. I read the classic Bryce Courtney novel "The Power Of One" which could be used with upper primary school students to foster critical thinking about bullying, racism and social issues. It could also provide insight into the human ability to face adversity, to rise above it and focus on personal goals. Morris Gleitzman's "Then" is a serious novel that tells a tragic tale of World War 11 experiences from children's perspective. I would be reluctant to use it with primary school students because of the gravity of the subject. But,I would like to read the previous novel and more of Gleitzman's more recent work. Currently I am reading "The Book Thief" and despite the bleak environment and the harshness of the story, I am enjoying the author's unusual expressions of language, it's format and it's use of illiteration. Right now,I need to hurry up and finish it so that I can get into the reams of reading that we need to do for this course!

Hindsight on 2009

When I look back I now realize what a huge year it was- my son turned 18, my daughter's 2ist birthday was a major event to deal with whilst my husband and son were overseas. As well as returning to study after 22 years, I had a major health scare,and I went overseas with my mum to New York for nine days then returned to face the medical dramas. Nevertheless,I lived through it all and managed to pass the three subjects. Of the three subjects,I enjoyed "Information environment" the best because it was so practical and relevant. I loved making my own "mywiki', I learned so much through the process and got some great feedback for it. However it was a mistake to do it on the school website because James could not get access to it!. I will now have to try to recreate it on wikispaces so that I can re-use it with students and include the link on my eportfolio.Despite really looking forward to "TL as a Leader",I was disappointed in this subject. I found the assignment outlines ambiguous therefore they were difficult to complete and I got poor results. The group assignment was difficult to coordinate with everyone's various commitments, however I was lucky that I had a good group to work with and I learned and benefited from the professional imput of others. It was great to actually use skype ,google docs, wikis, chat lines etc. in a meaningful way, to learn by doing. It gave me more confidence and belief in my abiltiy to use web 2.0 technologies.