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Category Archives: professional development


Do social networks have a positive impact on education?

January 17, 2008 – 9:23 am

This is the topic of the Economist.com Oxford style debate currently taking place. It is the third of a series of debates conducted at http://www.economist.com/debate/ on education and connected issues. The first two issues: Technology in Education, and University Recruiting, are no longer active but the third on Social Networking has just begun. The debate moderator […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in Educationau, teaching and learning, Australian education, professional learning, learning environments, networking, community building, social networking, me.edu.au, PLE, personal learning environments | Comments (3)

Web conferencing and professional development

December 4, 2007 – 12:12 pm

This morning I joined in a Japanese class where a teacher in an Adelaide suburban school was taking a class of 6 students in rural West coast school. My role was mentor/helper. We were using an instance of Live Classroom in an edna Sandpit Group. Live Classroom is a web-conferencing plug-in to Moodle which we […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in Educationau, communication tools, professional learning, community building, web 2.0, edna Groups, edna10, Live Classroom, web conferencing | Comments (0)

Where do Australian educators sit in the online world?

June 29, 2007 – 1:26 pm

I am wondering if it is fair to say that Australian educators are still largely newbies in the online world?
It also seems to me that there is a real possibility that the gap is widening between those who ‘have the knowledge’ and those who are yet to start.
If you are yet to start on an […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in Educationau, online technologies, Australian education | Comments (4)

Thinking about Second Life, VLEs, and other 3D environments

April 13, 2007 – 1:00 pm

A good friend, Lindy McKeown, ACCE and ISTE ICT Leader of the Year 2006, is ‘doing’ her PhD on use of 3D learning environments. She has set up Terra Incognita in Second Life as an island for educators. A dozen of us have become her “lab rabbits” and have begun thinking about how such environments might be used […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in Educationau, online technologies, Australian education, professional learning, community development, Second Life, SL, learning environments, 3D, virtual environments | Comments (4)

Wikis in education (2)

April 3, 2007 – 9:14 am

Wikipedia itself defines a wiki as “a website that allows visitors to add, remove, edit and change content, typically without the need for registration. It also allows for linking among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
Most wiki sites including wikipedia […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in Educationau, teaching and learning, online technologies, professional learning, community development, eduausem2007 | Comments (0)

Innovative PD/PL venue

March 21, 2007 – 9:53 am

Derek Bartels, Lutheran Education Queensland’s ICT executive officer, told me this week about an innovative professional learning program running on the TILT train to Bundaberg. Participants board the TILT train in Brisbane and then stay on to Bundaberg. Derek books the business carriage out and sets it up with laptops. In Bundaberg the group work with […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in Educationau, teaching and learning, professional learning | Comments (3)

Professional Learning or Professional Development: PL or PD? A matter of perception?

March 21, 2007 – 8:58 am

Locally I belong to the management committee of CEGSA, Computers in Education Group of South Australia [www.cegsa.sa.edu.au]. One of the questions we have been debating in recent weeks is how to label our offerings for members of our professional association. We run workshops and mini-conferences that we have previously called professional development or PD. However […]

By Kerrie Smith | Also posted in Educationau, teaching and learning, professional learning | Comments (1)