ejourneys

Hi, I am Anne Mirtschin  a teacher at Hawkesdale P12 College, in country western Victoria, Australia. In 2007,  I taught grades 3 through to year 12, IT. I also teach accounting and am really interested in web2.0 in education. A rich picture case studies grant by the Victorian Dept of Education, allowed us to create podcasts with grade 6 students. Our students have called themselves technolkids. The emphasis was on the use of web 2.0 and  as much web 2.0 usage  as possible. View our podcasts at www.murch.podomatic.com 

It was a steep learning curve for me and a curve that is still only at the beginning. Students and I have had to learn together. Peer mentoring has taken place and excitement has been put back into learning. Digital storytelling is another passion and my user name is murch at www.teachertube.com

Social networking has been of prime importance and my membership of www.classroom20.com and now twitter has allowed me to meet other teachers interested in the same skill development. This has enabled me to extend my social network well beyond our classroom walls and my country. One of the highlights was the use of skype to videoconference students in Korea. Gail Casey was teaching English there in 2007, and after 5 days of trialling we started to get some powerful learning happening.

I decided to not only use web 2.0 with grade 6 but to extend it to all my other IT classes. Grade 3/4 had a little webkinz pet called Patch which led us to virtual worlds at www.webkinz.com.

Other projects and web 2.0 used,  included

• podcasting 
• digital storytelling
• voicethreads
• vokis etc

This is a journal documenting my journey. Join me on it. A wiki detailing software used and how to use it can be found at www.ejourneys.wikispaces.com