First Post

This is my first post about my own and my school's learning journey.  The weeks go by very quickly in schools and a lot of amazing things can happen, quickly to be forgotten as we move on to the next mountain to climb.  I want to track our journey and maybe even help others with their journeys.

There was a time when I was anti-technology.  When I was growing up, beyond the Amstrad and the thing with the joystick that boys (all the players I knew were boys although I'm sure many girls enjoyed it too) played on the TV, there wasn't really much option.  By accident really when I entered the workforce I worked for the Cellnet division of British Telecom.  At the time this was cutting edge mobile technology and after that about 70% of my working experience until I became a teacher was in large technologically-advanced companies.  So I became very tech-savvy by default.  It was also a way of avoiding getting a "proper job" and left me free to do the things I was really interested in (that's another story).

If one becomes tech-savvy then eventually one ends up teaching adults - its inevitable and a good 40% of my work prior to teaching children involved teaching adults.  And finally, through this I found a vocation that actually felt in tune with those things I was "really interested in."  That was how/why I became a teacher.

My first child came along in my first year of teaching, followed fairly closely by my second.  This was fairly fortuitous (obviously from my parent perspective as my children are my greatest blessing) as it also allowed me the time, when I was not committed to paid employment where I could pursue further studies.  So I began masters studies through Victoria University and the first two papers I did were about e-learning.  So very early on in my teaching career I became aware of the possibilities of e-learning.  What it meant for me was that traditional teaching never became my default practice.  There's never been enough technology to do what really could be done with it but in small ways I've had a lot of fun and many frustrations making the best of what I have had.

Finally, I think we at St Joseph's are finally on the cusp of really changing how we do things.