OERNZ/training/OERNZ2/Introductions

Wayne Mackintosh
I had the privilege of starting the WikiEducator project in February 2006 from a small desktop server based at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Today WikiEducator is one of the world's fastest growing and most productive wikis in the formal education sector. It's great to see teachers around the world collaborating and sharing knowledge in this way. I have to say that WikiEducator has been the most rewarding project of my working life as a teacher. If you want to find out a little more about my work in WikiEducator, feel free to visit my userpage. Otago Daily Times has published a short summary of WikiEducator. It's humbling to know that this global initiative is head quartered out of little Dunedin, New Zealand. I'll CU in the wiki. --Wayne Mackintosh 00:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Pascale Hyboud-Peron
Bonjour! I am very excited on the eve of boarding the WikiEducator training programme! I am a teacher of French (secondary), UK trained, who's been in NZ for 11 years. I have been managing a teaching resources website called [ http://www.french.ac.nz] since 2008. I have only became aware of WikiEducator recently, at the Learning@School 2010 Conference, and I am fascinated by its potential. After the initial training, where I am hoping to refine my grasp of the whole concept, I intend to present it to the teachers on my network. Learning Languages is about global citizenship and so are collaborating and sharing knowledge! (Ooops not quite the pic I wished to display but eh, editing skills should get better after a couple of tutorials!)


 * Greetings Pascale -- great to see you in the wiki and glad you could join us. The French teacher resource site is an impressive resource -- Hopefully over time New Zealand French teachers may be able to use WikiEducator as a collaborative authoring environment for the development of resources for your webstite. Don't worry about the picture -- in the next few days you will have the skills to change this. Have fun! --Wayne Mackintosh 08:55, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Mark McGuire
Greetings, everyone. I am a senior lecturer in the Department of Design Studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, where I teach communication design and digital media theory and practice. I moved here from Toronto in 1993. My research interests include virtual communities, public conversations, and public space (both online and offline). I use blogs to support my courses, and I am currently teaching a mixed group of 400-level Science Communications and Design Studies students. The creation and use of Open Educational Resources is central to the course, which you can follow at http://markmcguire.net/. I look forward to meeting others who share an interest in Open Education.


 * Hi Mark, Your use of blogs to support teaching is inspirational :-) -- not too mention that your content is appropriately licensed using a Creative Commons Attribution license :-D. I've pulled in a rss feed of your course blog into the Webliography for our workshop. Let the mashup begin .... --Wayne Mackintosh 10:27, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Ian Bunckenburg
Hi, My name is Ian Bunckenburg. I am a Hard Materials Technology Teacher at Tawa Intermediate Scholl in Wellington. I signed up because I am interested in changing my teaching program around, by finding different projects to make with the students. I would like to present what I do and see what others find successful that other teachers make with their students.


 * Hi Ian, welcome about. Wiki's are a great place to test ideas and to collaborate with other teachers that share similar interests. Welcome aboard! --Wayne Mackintosh 03:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Faye Booker
Kia Ora. I am the Head of Learning Area - Science at Alfriston College. For most of my teaching career I would've introduced myself with the note that my specialist subject is physics but now I consider it to be pedagogy. I am excited by the possibilities of WikiEducator and look forward to seeing how it can support one of my passions - student directed learning. Sorry there is no photo - I haven't learnt how to do that yet but am sure I will be able to add one easily by the end of this course.


 * Kia Ora Faye, That's a great combination -- Physics and pedagogy! No worries about the photo -- in the next few days you'll be adding photos and rich media. Wiki's are a great technology to nurture studuent directed learning, A very warm welcome to the WikiEdcuator family :-) --Wayne Mackintosh 04:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC) 

Lulu Maitai
Kia ora koutou. Recently our Digital Society class was privileged to be visited by Jim Titsler who talked to us about wikis and WikiEducator. As a result the students, thanks to a kick start from Jim, are creating two class wikis - one in Wikia and the other in WikiEducator. This learning journey is not mine but ours. Like Faye, I am excited by the possibilities of wikis and how they can enhance the rich learning that is happening through our epals exchange with two schools in Turkey and one in Louisiana. I would like my students to enjoy global citizenship through, as Pascal mentions, the collaboration and sharing of knowledge. I am not sure if they are directing the learning or whether we are co-constructing it together, but like Faye, I am doing my part to support them in line with the instructions for Monday, "You can't learn to swim without getting into the water. So now the feet are wet.


 * Hi Lulu, Pleased to meet you virtually. You're lucky to have Jim collocated in Gisborne. Jim is Lead Software Engineer for the OER Foundation and helps with the technical magic behind the scenes of WikiEducator. You're very right -- this learning journey is not mine -- but ours! I'd be very interested to learn from your experiences in using Wikia and what we can do better here in WikiEducator. (incidentally Wikia uses the same software we use for WikiEducator.). Welcome aboard! --Wayne Mackintosh 20:20, 22 March 2010 (UTC)  

Veronique Olin
Hello everyone. Monday was Otago Anniversary Day and I completely forgot that the course was starting then, I realized this on Tuesday but the day was chaotic, so apologies and excuses aside, I will have to spend some time this evening catching up on the tutorials. I am an Educational Developer at Otago Polytechnic supporting staff in using Moodle and technology in their teaching. Many people presume I have a technology background but nearly all my digital skills and knowledge have been gained over the last few years as a teacher and learner playing and experimenting with various tools in order to provide a better learning experience for my students. I want to gain some skills in using WikiEducator to be able to encourage and support others here at Otago Polytechnic who wish to use it.


 * Hi Veronique, welcome! That's what I like about flexible learning approaches -- you can adapt learning time to fit your schedule. Observing your work @ the Poly -- I can confirm that you're an eLearning natural and talented online educator. Have fun with the wiki! Wayne Mackintosh 21:14, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

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Sabrina
''' Hi. I am from Wanganui. I teach Computing and Math at Cullinane College in Wanganui. I want to create a Wiki website with my class. I am excited to learn more about wiki.

Leigh
Hi I am AP and Horticulture teacher at Ruapehu College in Ohakune (carrot and ski country). I am keen to use wikis in class and for staff use. I have invited staff to come on board with me and if they dont Ill force them into it later. Lol! I do want to know why my entry looks so amateurish compared to all the ones above and why hasnt there been any editing of it, and why dont I show up on the list of participants. And why do I have so many problems navigating to the main page of wikieducator OERNZ training, shouldnt I be able to see it on the navigation column to the left, why do I have to keep returning to the original email to get a link. Yes I know I have a lot of questions but.... I am a beginner as you can see.

Tabitha
Hi, I live in Auckland and work for Unitec as well as HRDNZ. I volunteer for one laptop per child. I am keen to learn more about WikiEducator and to show others how to use and contribute appropriately to it. I have used wikis before but am hoping that the workshop fills in gaps in my knowledge. This is my page - User:Tabitha - I learned a lot of new things making this page as I had never made an "info box" before.