User:MaryR

Mary Robinson
Website:	http://www.stcuthberts.school.nz
Employer:	St. Cuthbert's College
Occupation:	Geography Teacher
Nationality:	New Zealander
Languages:	English
Country:	New Zealand, Aotearoa
	email
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Date & Time : 21, December 2024 11:55

Professional Background

I teach at St. Cuthbert's College[1]. This is an independent school based in Auckland. New Zealand. The school is for girls from aged 5-18. I teach senior students from Year 9 (13 years) to Year 13 (18 years).

Whilst teaching at St. Cuthbert’s College I have held many roles: HOF Social Sciences and HOD Geography and Social Studies (2006-9) which I love. I have a fantastic faculty and department. The people I work with are wonderful. They work hard, teach with enthusiasm and energy and are all round great people. I have also been a dean for four years which was a fascinating experience.

I am involved in many things at St. Cuthbert's College. My ICT involvements include presenting a workshop for staff on a new absences program recently installed at the College. I have run courses on ICT in Geography (2008 and 2009) and ICT in Social Studies for the Auckland Social Studies Association (2009) and later this year I am running a course on ICT in Social Sciences at St Cuthbert’s College in October 2009. In 2007 I presented a workshop on using ICT and SMARTboards [2] at the Social Sciences Conference. I have held responsibility for the implementation of Moodle (intranet) in the Social Sciences faculty. I have also attended a conference on Interactive Whiteboards and their use in the classroom on the Gold Coast. I have attended a variety of GIS workshops (1999-2007) and presented at the TUANZ Conference on GIS in the classroom.

Professionally I am involved in a number of things both within St. Cuthbert's College and beyond the school. At school I have been a member of the Curriculum Drive Team (2008) – Deputy Chairperson (2008 and 2009); Curriculum Committee (2005-2008) – Deputy Chairperson (2008 and 2009) Assessment and Reporting Committee (2003-2005); Alchemy Rich Task Planning Committee (2006-2007); Year 9 Rich Task Planning Committee (2003-2007); Teaching and Learning for Excellence Committee (2006-7); Thinking Skills Committee (1999 - 2001) and the Staff Development Committee (1999).

Outside of the College environment I have been a committee member on the Auckland Geography Teachers Association[3].

I have taught at a number of different types of schools. Semi-rural schools include Kaipara College (Helensville) and Mahurangi College (Warkworth). Large co-ed schools (Macleans, Lynfield and Avondale all in Auckland)

Web Resources

Vacancies in NZ schools - Education gazette [4]

NZ Online learning centre [5]

Ministry of Education [6]

Quality software for schools Software for Learning website on TKI

Collaborative learning

Moodle

Teacher 1987-2009 - how it has changed!!

Here is a small video I made about different ways I use ICT in my classroom as well as addressing how things have changed since I began teaching 22 years ago!

<kaltura-widget kalturaid='oe11y9leu4' size='L' align='C'/>

Education

Diploma Of Teaching, Auckland College of Education (1986); Master of Arts (Hons.) in Geography, University of Auckland (1985); Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Economics, University of Auckland (1981-1984)

Currently completing the Learning4Content - 29th Online Workshop (August 24 - September 4, 2009)[7]

St Cuthbert's College.

Where I spent a lot of time at the University of Auckland.

My Interests

Besides teaching! Well, I love hanging out with my family and friends. I enjoy reading, watching TV, kayaking, walking in the park and going for tramps. I also like scrapbooking when I have a bit of time.

Up at Cape Reinga New Year 2009 with my kids.

I am a Geography teacher so my real pleasure is travelling and seeing different places. I have travelled extensively in South America, Australia and New Zealand. Have spent lots of time in Europe and the UK. Have also visited Malaysia, China and Brunei.

Wanting to visit Africa, particularly Tanzania where I am desperate to visit.

Some of my interests include being a computer geek and I love learning new ideas such as this wiki course and learning about collaboration and it use via wikis, learning how to use GIS and how it can be used in the classroom is cool too. I have also had fun doing things on Moodle, making movies and learning how to make a web page.

Web Resources

Scrapbooking NZ

My Family

I have a wonderful husband, a brilliant son and a fantastic daughter.

Husband

My husband, Anthony Fowler is a lecturer at the University of Auckland in the School of Environment. [8] He is a researcher into how trees can indicate past climates and uses this information to predict future climates. He specialises in kauri trees and has worked in this area of research for a number of years. [9] I don't fully understand the research but I do my best to sound interested.

Son

My son, Michael, is 18 and is in his first year at University. He is at the University of Otago. He began the course doing pre-med but has changed to a BSc majoring in Chemistry despite the brilliant results he got in the first semester which could not have been better. He has no idea what he wants to be and I am happy with this.

Michael is in a hostel called St. Margaret's in Dunedin. It is a very supportive place and he enjoys it a lot. I think quite a lot of studying gets done but also a bit of play as well which is great - that's what being a student is all about.

Michael getting ready to go to Dunedin.

Daughter

My fantastic daughter is nine years old and is a real character. Always happy, cheerful and outgoing - she gets involved with heaps of stuff like:

• soccer (Now called football, Mum - get with the programme!)
• swimming for a club
• attending Brownies
• playing flippa ball (a kids version of water polo)
• belonging to a reading club
• learning french
• playing cricket and tennis, and
• attending music classes where they create music on their computers using Garage band
• playing on the Wii
• reading
• playing with friends

Her favourite colour is purple which is also the house colour of the house she is in at school!

Boy oh boy she is a busy kid but loves it all. And by the way she goes to school as well.

Thoughts on Life

To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends,to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better,whether by a healthy child,a garden patch...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.This is to have succeeded! Emerson

Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood. Emerson

It takes a village to raise a child. African proverb

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." -- Albert Einstein

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself." -- Chinese Proverb

An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life." -- Source Unknown

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." -- Albert Einstein

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Wiki Prayer

“Grant me the serenity to respect pages I should not edit, the courage to edit the pages I should, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Thanks to Gladys Gahona for putting this up on her Wiki.

Photos of my family and travels

Anthony and Alex at Dunedin Railway station

Alex and Michael at Moeraki

Things I want my classes to be doing by the exams in November

1. Stop asking me to dictate! (why they bother with this I have no idea as I never do this!)
2. To be prepared to make big mistakes when they are working and not to panic about it.
3. To learn material in different ways - e.g. changing the written word into a diagram; a diagram into a 3D model or make a movie to show how something has occurred.
4. To be thinking about the lessons beyond the classroom.
5. To realise that they are responsible for their learning and that they should work together to improve their understandings.
6. To be independent learners
7. To encourage creativity in my classroom and in my faculty - being happy with the tried and true is no reason to stick with it.

My Sandbox

My sandbox

My Reflection

I am involved with a number of Social Sciences organisations such as the AGTA and the ASSA and would love to share ideas with teachers within New Zealand about use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. A wiki is a wonderful way to get people involved in learning and to get new ideas for use in education.Teachers now need to be so adaptable for teaching this new generation of student and must be able to get students engaged and motivated so their learning is collaborative and can be exciting.

Ideas for Teaching Geography lessons

In the Geography classroom there are many exciting things that can be done using ICT and thinking. Some cool new lessons for teachers will be shown here but at the moment I have not done this [10]

Using web pages with teacher as learner

One of the activities I find particularly useful is when I demonstrate I am a learner along with the rest of the students. Recently I asked students to create a web page on how people use the environment and why it varies across the environment. Rather rashly, since I have never made a web page, I said I would complete a web page as they were going to be doing, as well. This was a little scary but the students found it very empowering to be working alongside me.

We collected material and learnt in small groups in a collaborative way about how a particular group used the environment in the Amazon Basin.

Then, we began working on our web pages. I did one on my own and the students worked together to produce their web pages.

I had provided the students with some information, relevant photographs, some small video clips from YouTube and other resources and they decided how to layout their pages (about an hour or so).

Students began with basic pages, then as they learnt more and more working together they got excited and began to add things to their pages like links to other pages, links to websites and even embedding videos and activities which they had made on Hot potatoes. They loved doing this as each time we met we quickly shared what we had been doing. I was very proud of them and of myself as I learnt a great deal too. They loved the fact that I did not know what I was doing and that they could help me when I put up my hand in the classroom too.

I can see that we could have put ideas up on a wiki to discuss and problem solve ideas with the students as we were doing this activity.

When we had completed the work we shared our learning and I uploaded the completed web pages onto Moodle for students to read. They were thrilled with what we had learnt and I was thrilled to have worked alongside them learning as well.

Things to do this week

1. Read a few pages of my book - more than the two normally read to put me asleep
2. Write reports (groan!)

Feedback & Notes from my WikiNeighbours

(: Cheers Mary - Wiki-ing is addictive stuff - looks like you are having fun Rekrapenator 4/09/09)

• Hello Mary, thank you for developing such a wonderful page plenty of interesting stories. I loved the kaltura video. We certainly have many common interests. Saludos. --Gladys Gahona 13:46, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

(: Hi Mary, good to have such interesting people in the course. Maybe we need a get-together-at ULearn '09. Are you going?--Paul Seiler 05:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC))

(: Hi Mary - thx for your note. We should look to catch up and compare notes at some stage. And how do you manage 2 pages before sleep? Opening the book usually does it for me.--Rob McCrae 09:06, 30 August 2009 (UTC)) (: Thanks for the kind comments - I love doing this it's lots of fun - would love to join the planning team - how do you do this? --MaryRobinson 20:03,29 August 2009)

(: Dear Mary, Greetings. Thanks for your comments. I love NZ!! I had been to Massey Uni at Palmerston North in 2006. -- Ramesh Sharma 09:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC))

(: I agree with Wayne - and please join the planning team. Love your page! Go the Kiwis indeed! --dragonsinger57 10:51, 28 August 2009 (UTC)) (: You're a wiki natural! You need to be on our OERNZ planning team. Well done! -- Wayne Mackintosh 08:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC))

(: This is a really cool page Mary, thanks for your comments. My secret to having done a lot of different things? It's called age, I'm afraid :-) -- Richard Jones)
(: What an inspiration you are Mary. This is a fascinating page --antico )

(: Very impressive, Mary! Congratulations on your quick WE learning and excelling in your wiki skills progress!--Dr. Ludmila Smirnova 03:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC))

(: Hi Mary- just popped in to your lovely page. It looks really fantastic and very well organised! A real inspiration. --Janet Bianchini 15:10, 4 September 2009 (UTC))

(: Hi Mary. Thanks for your little note on my discussion page. Your page is full of interesting info and it looks very lively. Indeed there is no doubt that you have enjoyed the workshop!--Dorothy 16:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)) Hi Mary great start I am enjoying reading your page if you need any help just ask me Rima

• Upload the image as it is then change the size this
  is the syntax [[Image:file name|type|location|size|caption]] more about
  changing the images view is in Wikieducator_tutorial/Images_and_Media/Frames_and_Thumbnails I am glad that you asked me any other questions just ask warm wishes Rima.
  

(: Hi Mary, Yes i am enjoying the journey thru Wiki processes - all be it a bit slow. But it's good to be able to go at my own pace.-- June Anderson) (: Hi Mary your page is amazing. I am sorry I got your question that you added it in my user page about the info box too late only taday but it seems you did it by yourself that's great. If you need any other help it's better to send me email thanks warm wishes Rima 21:34, 6 September 2009 (UTC))

Hello and welcome to eL4C29, a free online Learning4Content wiki skills workshop.

Enjoy the workshop.

You may wish to check the schedule and layout of the workshop and introduce yourself.

1. Click on the link EL4C29.
2. The page that will open is the workshop page with all the links you will be using during the workshop.
3. See your name in the list of participants.
4. Whenever you have time click on each of the boxes.
5. You may even start with Day 1 activities.

Enjoy the workshop.