Joanne Foster,
Hello my name is Jo foster and I live in Brisbane in sunny and "very dry" South East Queensland in Australia.
I am a registered nurse and a lecturer at QUT. I have been fortunate and been able to work and travel interstate and overseas with my job. I love teaching and learning and am very passionate about the use of ICT in eduation.
I am continually challenging myself and current practice to try and find innovative ways to enable student learning. I am finding that there is a need to change teaching and learning practices to meet the changing demands of education and students needs.The impact of ICT's on society in general and the changes it has made to so many areas is creating opportunities to challenge and make changes to teaching and learning.
It is this aspect (change) that I spend most of my time with now beside my teaching and learning responsibilities. I also have a passion for the use of ICT's in health care which is another challenging environment.
In my spare time I love spending time with my family and friends. I have 1 teenage son who does still like to chat and spend time with his mum! Some of my other interests and activites include reading, swimming, travelling, cooking and trying out new cuisines. My last travel trip I did was to Seoul in Sth Korea (June 2006)- it was at a conference but we still got to be locals for a week and really enjoyed it there even though it is not a big tourist destination. I would really have liked to have more time to see some of the rest of the country as it looked to have some really beautiful parts.
I am looking forward to learning and playing with lots of technology during my course.
Skype: jofoster99 kG: foster
FET8611 - ASSIGNMENT 2 PROGRESS REPORT
I have been passionate about gaming in nursing education for many years and have used some games such as Sim Hospital and other commercial software but have been wanting to do game, simulation and virtual reality developments to engage our learners, encourage safe, effective practice and to put some fun into what can be a very stressful learning environment. Therefore this Wiki is to gain some ideas, feedback, possible futures and also to discuss if it is really a feasible way to go.
Other Pages I have Contributed To
Clinical Skills Simulation in the training of Health Care Professionals
KeePad - your key to feedback in class
Second Life
Still have 2 pages to do yet. Having the difficulty in coming to grips with the KG/KJ has meant that I am not up to speed fully with all the work of other pages - ie in responding to or adding comments etc. I am currently undertaking this and will complete over the next couple of days. I have found that one needs to do a bit of thinking in relation to the page content and needs and feel that the time invested in thinking and reading is critical.
Strategy for facilitating
1. Have asked all health students to become a group to support each other and have input on each others pages
2. Lure of humour as a reward
3. Attempting to have some provocative statements to stimulate discussion
Again here the problems of getting to grips with KG has had me a bit slowere in development than what I would have preferred but at least I now feel comfortable in the environment and feel as if I can really contribute now.
Even though there has been some difficulties on relection I have actually learnt a lot. It has really made me think about many issues of on line edcation more deeply as well how these new environemnts may be used in my own educational practice. It has given me some pointers to what I may undertake as my project and that I may also be able to extend the project in my future units in this Master's course. As we are currently implementing a new curriculum for 2007 and I am revamping the units I coordinate at both undergradute and post graduate levels I think this is timely.
Any Problems you Forsee
1.So many pages needing input from other students
2.Trying to keep up to expectations and levels being set by peers - I am hopeful that this challenge will be met over the next few weeks.
Hopefully not many as I am now comfortable in the KG/KJ environment and am looking forward to updating and significantly improving my Wiki pages and blogs etc over the next few weeks.
It is a bit frustrating that I feel I have almost used up half the semester in just getting to grips with the environment and feel this is one negative aspect I would attempt to change next time I encounter a similar problem. Experiential learning is always great once you come out the end of the najor part of the learning process!!
Other Important Aspects
Not at the moment.
Info. 
Wiki
.