Introducing Wendy Paton - Educator, Life long Learner and World Traveller
Summary of this page
This page contains these sections:
Table of contents
Introducing Wendy
A New Zealander by origin, I have spent the last few years working and living in the Middle East - a region that continues to provide surprises on a daily basis. Currently I am resident in Alexandria, Egypt where I am taking an extended break.
Most recently I have been teaching English for Travel and Tourism for the University of Washington in Abu Dhabi.
Previous Lives have included:
Police Constable - NZ Police (hence my chosen avatar)
Owner/Operator - Travel agency, Auckland, NZ
NZ Manager - Flight Centres International
NZ Manager - Abel Tasman Tours
Human Resource Manager - Tek Travel Group
General Manager - E-Flights Group
before returning to education, albeit in an ESL environment.
It seems that every role that I have undertaken has always moved back to education. In the Police I spent the last few years in Law Related Education delivering single lessons and units of work at all levels - kindergarten through to high school - as well as delivering training on Child Sexual Abuse Awareness to teachers, social workers and within schools.
As an owner/operator of a travel agency I was responsible for training all staff likewise with Flight Centres I set up national training programmes which operated in tandem with Australian training.
With Abel Tasman Tours I was lucky enough to break new ground. Abel Tasman was a Seattle based company owned and operated by New Zealanders that operated a retail and wholesale division. David Rowell,
The Travel Insider
, was the owner at that time. We began corresponding based on a common interest in travel to Russia and during our discussions David becane to conceive the idea of creating a satellite office in Auckland thus extending the trading hours and reducing costs of the US based operation. The resultant position as NZ Manager was an exciting time. We became the very first commecial install of an ASDL line in Auckland and operated a WAN to Redmond with realtime live booking database. Exciting times. David is certainly an innovator and his weekly newsletter will often include details of the latest technology that he has trialled.
You can read additional information about myself at:
http://studentweb.usq.edu.au/home/w0077937/wp
My main interest is travelling and experiencing other cultures - to date I have spent time in 26 countries. On the Priority A wishlist are Oman, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey (for Anzac Day) and Malta.
My USQ Courses
EDU5472 Computing in Education
FET5621 Introduction to Web Publishing
FET8610 Creating Educational Web Environments
EDU5471 Computer Based Resources in Education
In Semester 2, 2008 I am currently enrolled in:
FET5622 Creating Interactive Multimedia
and
FET8611 Emerging Environments for Learning
I will be undertaking these papers from my base in Egypt. So far so good - the internet is working but the challenge seems to be an inability to purchase catridges for my printer - perhaps a learning curve to go truly on line?
For course work I have completed the following sites over the last 12 months:
ESP - Business English for Travel and Tourism
Destination Abu Dhabi
Interactivity
Related knowledgeGarden pages
I am currently facilitating
Classrooms vs Learning Spaces The Changing Face of Education.
Please feel free to visit this page and to contribute to it. Remember to complete the guest book and add your avatar.
Assignment 1 - Progress Report
1. Wiki pages that I am facilitating
Classrooms vs Learning Spaces The Changing Face of Education
The basic page layout has been established, content added and a search made for other kG pages with similar content. A detailed reference section has been included.
Initial permissions have had to be removed in order to enable other course participants to contribute.
2. KG Pages that I have made contributions to:
iPods, Education and You
Google much more than a search engine
The opportunity to comment on other facilitated pages has been severely hindered
1)by the instability of kG
2) the lack of pages as yet facilitated by others undertaking this course (presumably due to issues with kG)
However it is my intention to contribute to at least 5 pages, time and kG availability permitting within the assessment submission dates.
a) Facilitated Pages
I am currently in a work group including Nick Saunders, Deepak Prasad, Seema Prasad, Janice White and Stacey Werder. This work group has been formed to allow us to support each other and to provide us the opportunity to make contributions to each others pages.
Currently contributions have been made by welcome comments to the following pages which have been shared with other members of our workgroup.:
- Nick Saunders
- Deepak Prasad
- Stacey Werder
- Seema Prasad
II have corresponded with Janice Whites who is also a member of our Workgroup and she is in the process of setting up her home page at present. At present she is challenged with permissions but I will add a comment as soon as this is possible.
3. Strategies for facilitating my Wiki page
• Add page to Facilitated under TOC:8611 Sem. 2, 2008
• Invite people to contribute by including a invitation on my user page and facilitated page
• Invite people to contribute through the discussion forums
• Invite people to contribute through the Shoutbox in KG
• Request other friends who are members of kG to and comment.
• Request the members of our group Workgroup 1 to contribute using messages, forum and our Wimba sessions
• Thank people for making contributions.
4. Problems I foresee
a)Stability of kG
Unfortunately kG has proved over the last week to be a very unstable forum – it was unavailable totally over the weekend of 1 - 4 August. When access was restored on 4 August challenges continued with “Preview” closing the page without saving the edit.
b) Time Constraints/Frustrations of other Learners
- The instability of kG has effectively shortened time available to review and comment on other students work.
- I am confident that we will not be penalised by USQ for the instability of a USQ learning environment but rather my comment relates to the fact that many students focus on their studies over the traditional weekend of Saturday/Sunday and having lost one weekend to kG being unavailable I am concerned that others will prioritise their pages at the expense of commenting on my facilitated page.
- Additional time requirements to produce material in both kG and also in the Ease submission add to time constraints.
5.What’s important for me?
The most important thing for me is to learn how to contribute in a wiki environment, to learn the advantages and disadvantages of the functionality of a wiki in an applied educational environment. In respect of the environment of kG I would like to learn how to apply the functionality available within in kG to create a visually interesting page that encourages others to contribute to it.
The learning curve continues.
Wendy
Assignment 2 Proposal
The Challenge: Absenteeism - Societal Expectations vs. Academic Attendance
One major challenge facing the teachers within higher education in the United Arab Emirates environment is the high rate of absenteeism from the formal classroom environment due to societal demands. Learners tend to prioritise family and religious commitments over and above the academic expectations to attend formal classes.
Commitments that occur include:
- Condolence visits to family/friends in the event of death
- Death of a family member (close and extended)
- Weddings
- Umrah (mini pilgrimage often taken by Emiratis as a family)
- Haj (annual pilgrimage which many Emiratis undertake as a family)
- Care of family members in time of illness which may include, if male, travel overseas for support whilst undertaking medical treatment
- Birth of a child
- Lack of access to transportation (driver/vehicle committed to another family member)
Whilst not replacing the importance of physically attending class (which in itself involves the learner applying time management skills and a commitment to an established goal) technology may provide an opportunity for learners to remain current with course content during periods that they are unable to attend class (subject to still meeting minimum attendance requirements) due to wider societal commitments.
Anticipated Additional Benefits
1) Ability to Readily Review Material/Summary Post Class
- other learners could review material covered thus increasing their familiarity with the material concerned.
2) Future Reference Source
Development of reference materials that might be able to be used by the learner when they gain employment (in many instances there is a significant delay between course and employment),
Identification/Review of Technology with Potential to Provide Continuity of Study
Identification/review of technology with the potential to provide continuity of study would involve:
- Analysis of absences from past class records that I still have access to
- Liason with past colleagues still working in the UAE environment to develop a broader understanding of this learning opportunity
- Research to locate and personally trial tools or techniques which may be used to address this problem or opportunity
- Identify a short list of technology that may assist
- Liaise, where possible with previous students, to ascertain if such tools would have assisted in their circumstances and if they would have been socially/islamically acceptable
Proposed Implementation Plan
It is anticipated that a possible implementation plan will be outlined as part of this project based on a higher education environment in the United Arab Emirates.
Potential Difficulties: Implementation & Evaluation
At this stage it is unlikely that I will be able to implement and evaluate the use of any technology that I might identify as part of this project as I am currently a full time student and therefore do not have ready access to a class within the society to which I am referencing. Although currently resident in Egypt my intention is to return to the United Emirates and thus I have targeted this project to this environment as it will be relevant to my future career.
Evaluation would therefore need to be on the basis of identification of technologies that have the potential to fulfil the need to link absent students with classwork and their relevance to the society in which the use is intended.
References
Info. 
Wiki
.