Hi everyone, it’s nice to see some familiar faces and new faces in this course. My name is Alexis and I’m from Ontario originally but, have been living and working abroad for most of my adult life. I first started my journey with education technology in Wollongong, a suburb of Sydney, in Australia where I did my primary teacher training program. It was here where the need for technology was really pushed and I was jaw-struck to see full classes with iPads, digital cameras , laptops and document viewers in place in the classrooms (keep in mind this was 12 years ago). I was lucky enough to teach a year 6 class during my practicum where they were doing an experimental laptop program to see if they could have students complete most subjects using only their laptops. It was a dream come true for someone who had been freshly taught the perks of technology in education. Students were designing birdhouses digitally using architectural software, creating slowmation videos and using a class messenger to communicate to each other and the teacher. I guess I was spoiled because after that I have had less and less exposure to technology in the classrooms which has made me come full-circle and want more!
After this experience I taught in London where these materials were available but scarcely used due to time constraints of an overwhelming curriculum and most recently in Spain where at least in my schools there was little technology used at all beside the IWB until the pandemic helped accelerate this. After which, my school then implemented an LMS by the name of Frog and it was then we were left to flounder and figure it out after our 1 day of training. In the end, I found it to be really helpful after the initial floundering as the LMS helped to add communication portals to the communicate with the parents easily and helped with displaying materials on the IWB, helped to organize course content and added interactive homework components to name a few things.
Finally, I took this particular course to help add more business acumen to my many years of teaching and recruitment work to hope to be a part of a digital education start up or join together with like-minded individuals to create a new educational technology component or venture in the near future. I hope to collaborate with you all soon!
Hi Alexis! Your international school experience sounds amazing!
Thanks Cindy! If you’re interested in doing it sometime, I’m happy to offer tips from my experiences.
Hi Alexis- I spent several years in Sydney as a kid, but the opposite side- Lindfield. It’s interesting that you’ve been able to take an international perspective on technology use in schools. I started the pandemic in the UK, so I’m now comparing how they handled homeschooling vs Canada, but from a parental perspective.
It’s a small world, I used to have a friend living in Chatswood! That’s really interesting, I know there were a lot of problems with students in the UK not having access to the same amount of homeschooling time-wise as others so would look forward to reading your comparison between the two countries when you finish your study!
Hi Alexis,
I visited a sister school of ours called Agora Sant Cugat in Barcelona about 3 years ago (there was a conference there and I did a presentation on educational technology). Any chance you know that school? This is basically my only experience with Spain, but I loved it!
Surprisingly, while I lived and taught in New Zealand for a year, we never actually made it over to Australia, which is something I regret!
I am looking forward to working with you throughout this course.
Oh wow that’s great! You must be quite experienced in the field already I gather then? I am still a novice I believe but am looking forward to learning from you and everyone else here with our unique skill sets. Unfortunately I haven’t heard of this school you mentioned, but Barcelona itself is a very enchanting city! I’m the opposite with New Zealand, I wish I went there for longer than 5 days!