My name is Kathleen Morris and I am a teacher at Leopold Primary School in Victoria, Australia.
In May 2012, I was honoured to win the Victorian Teachers Mutual Bank Outstanding Primary Teacher Award.
I currently team teach grade four with Kelly Jordan (left in above photo). Our 2012/2013 class blog is http://4kmand4kj.global2.vic.edu.au
Tech Tools for Teachers:
I produce a free e-newsletter with Simon Collier and Matt Limb called Tech Tools for Teachers. Each fortnight we review a free online tool and provide step-by-step instructions on how to use it. Visit our website to sign up and find out more www.teachgennow.com.au
Aim of this blog:
I use this blog to discuss various issues around technology integration.
Two of my particular passions are educational blogging and global collaboration. These are topics you will see me blogging about regularly.
Here is a bit more about me…
Teaching history: 2013 is my tenth year of teaching. Prior to teaching grade four, I taught grades one, two and three.
Conferences: I have enjoyed presenting at many conferences over recent years including ISTE12, the DEECD Innovations Showcase, ICTEV, VITTA, ”RSCON” Reform Symposium Online Conference, Tech Talk Tuesdays online seminar, Technify Your Teaching and Integrated Catholic Online Network (ICON) Readiness Conference. I have also enjoyed giving guest lectures at Deakin University from time to time.
Favourite technologies in my classroom: blogs, global collaborative projects, Promethean IWB, iPod Touch, iPad and a wide range of web 2.0 tools.
Interests: I’m not a TOTAL computer geek 
I enjoy running, fitness, travel, reading, cooking and finding new ways to keep my life super organised!
Some online articles and publications:
You can find an article in The Age newspaper about my blogging program from April 2013 here.
In March 2013 I featured in DEECD’s Inspire magazine article about setting up classrooms for the start of the year.
In November 2012, an overview of my trip to the USA was published in Inspire Magazine (page 34).
I have appeared in the Geelong Advertiser newspaper January 31st 2012, May 18th 2012, and May 22nd 2012.
The Australian Financial Review wrote about my classroom blogging program in February 2012.
Click here to see my article in the Age newspaper about technology in the classroom from August 2010.
Click here to see my write up on blogging on the DEECD website, June 2011.
Good on you Kathleen for having a go and introducing interesting uses of technology to assist with the learning for your Primary School students. Thanks for including my blog in your blogroll. I’m honoured!
Thanks Jenny, I do enjoy reading your blog! Always some interesting topics!
Hi Kathleen,
What a fantastic blog! I’m a teacher at Camperdown College, and we are just getting started with blogging. I seem to constantly have questions that start out with “How do I…”. Thanks to your blog I now have many answers!
Keep up the great work.
Graeme Bennett
5/6 Team
Camperdown College
Thanks Graeme! I’m so glad you are finding my blog useful. I’d recommend you check out Sue Waters blog called the Edublogger too http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/
It has pretty much everything you need to know about blogging!
Enjoy!
WOW! You are so inspiring! I love your blogs. I have just created a website for our school which includes blogs and wikis. I have had a few questions- which I have found answers to on your blog! Thanks so much.
Natalie Dike
Myrniong Primary School
Excellent blog, keep up the great work and I look forward to following your future endeavors.
A wonderful blog. Love the way you are using technology with the younger students, very inspiring!
Hi Kathleen,
I’d like to let you know about Intodit, a free and flexible hosted Wiki service that allows users to drag and drop content, including text, photos, and videos with a focus on ease of use. I think readers of PrimaryTech would be interested in what it can do.
Our main goal was to create something that people could use to share information in a flexible and easy way. Most of our users state that they prefer our Wiki service to others because it is user friendlier and provides the best of both a Wiki and a social networking service.
One of our users sums it up best: “With other services it’s too difficult for non-members to contribute to the conversation or just not user friendly enough. Intodit on the other hand, seems to be very simple and provides the best of both worlds.”
If you like to play around just visit http://www.intodit.com or http://example.intodit.com with username test and password test.
Thanks,
Maurice
http://www.intodit.com
Kathleen you are doing a fantastic job and I know teachers are finding your newsletters really useful. I also use your blog of an example of what teachers can do. Well done – you are an inspiration to others
@Wendie, thanks for your kind words! I’m glad the newsletter and blog are proving useful. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Kathleen,
My name is Brooke Clark and i am in my fourth year of teaching at the University of Ballarat. Myself and three other girls are in the process of developing a project for a unit called team enterprise. Our project is to develop a booklet for teachers that allows them to effectively incorporate ICT into their classrooms. We have called it ‘Going that Extra Mile: How to incorporate ICT into your classroom’. We want it to be easy to use and something that will give teachers the confidence in using ICT. We have developed a wiki that is based on our project and we would love it if you would like to join and help us in developing our booklet. There really is an endless amount of information that we could be included but obviously we just want to focus on programs that are successful and will encourage teachers to use more ICT. Your feedback would be much appreciated!
Thank you for developing this site, being a university student it is fantastic to know that there are real teachers out there who have taken the time to create such websites to help us. I am sure in no time at all we will be hooked too!
Thank you.
@ Brooke, thanks for stopping by and I’m glad you’re finding the blog useful! I find educational technology quite addictive and lots of fun…and of course it is such an important part of teaching and learning. I’m very glad to hear your uni is supporting ICT integration! I will happily check out your wiki!
Thank you Kathleen, it is http://goingthatextramile.wikispaces.com
We have just started it so there is not much there at the moment, any comment or feedback would be much appreciated.
Thank you again : )
Hi Kathleen,
I love reading your blog!! I too am in my 7th year of teaching and have always had a interest in all thing technological. I have just started blogging and your blog has introduced me to some new and exciting things to expose my students to. It has motivated me to try new things and my colleagues are commenting all the time on my enthusiasm for technology. I look forward to reading more about how I can use technology in my classroom.
@ Angie, thanks so much for taking the time to leave such a kind comment. I’m always glad to hear that there are people out there who are finding my blog useful! Keep up your excellent work in your classroom!
Hi Kathleen,
Your blog, both this one and your class blog, have been an inspiration to me. I can certainly understand how addictive it can become! We have recently set up a classroom blog and I am always looking at your blogs for some great ideas so thank you. We have recently started looking at how to comment and your ideas were perfect!
Check us out @ http://misscashen.global2.vic.edu.au/
You will see lots of your influence!
Melinda
@ Melinda, I’m so glad you’ve found my blogs useful. Blogging certainly is addictive! I look forward to checking out your class blog. Thanks for you comment!
Kathleen
Hi Kathleen
I have just stumbled upon your fantastic blog and resource. Thanks for all that info… it will take me a while to get through it.
I am a teacher in New Zealand of a Year 7 class of 30 kids and have signed up for your email.
Wondering if you could help me. I run a news website for NZ school children called Kiwi Kids News – http://www.kiwikidsnews.co.nz and have just started a world wide site called Global Kids News. – http://www.globalkidsnews.com
The idea is to provide a safe site where students can view interesting and relevant news article.
If you could have a look at the resource, suggest any improvements and pass on the link to others that would be fantastic.
Cheers
Shem Banbury
Hi Shem,
Congrats on your new ventures. I might also suggest that Twitter is a great way to spread the word about new initiatives if you’re not already using it.
Good luck,
Kathleen
Hi Kathleen (and others),
I am currently teaching in WA and going through the Level 3 Classroom Teacher process. If you have a spare 5 mins I am canvassing teachers for their opinions on student engagement and ICT. Please answer the 2 questions in the following doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tHp2JBADAM11lcq8bT-2J8-NLEugLvtIfTZpLfTVv44/edit
Hi Kathleen!
Thanks for sharing the art of educational blogging! I wrote to you earlier this year to thank you for your guest post in Free Technology for Teachers this summer. Your guest-post encouraged me that I was on the right track with my work with my pupils and our blogs. It also gave me inspiration to step it up when it comes to using the blog as a tool for developing of literacy.
Last week I held a talk to a group of language teachers in a literacy network here in Uppsala, Sweden. I talked about blogs and literacy. I used my own experience of my work with pupils and blogs and blended it with inspirations from you, Linda Yollis and Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. It felt really good to be able to inspire and challenge these teachers to use a new tool in the classroom.
In this blogpost you can see my Power Point from that day: http://elisabetsiktblogg.blogspot.se/2012/10/las-och-skrivutveckling-med-blogg.html (it´s in Swedish…)
Here you can see and download a poster of great commenting tips (in Swedish and in English)
http://elisabetsiktblogg.blogspot.se/2012/10/kvalitativa-kommentarer-del-2.html
Ones again: Thanks for sharing!
Regards Elisabet Jagell, Uppsala, Sweden
Hi Elisabet,
That is fantastic to hear! Thank you so much for sharing.
Linda and Silvia are real role models to me and it’s lovely to hear they also inspired and challenged your colleagues in Sweden.
Thanks again for your kind words,
Kathleen
Hi Kathleen,
With your permission, I would like to spotlight your blog in a post discussing the value of teacher vision in their integration of technology. Please let me know if this would be ok with you.
Thanks,
Jill
Hi Jill,
Of course! That would be great.
Many thanks,
Kathleen
Hello Kathleen’,
We are all jumping into blogs this year….every class! Some of us have some experience, and we are supporting each other each week as part of our staff meeting. 2 of our staff attended your day in January.
We are discussing blogging guidelines and hope that you will give us permission to use yours until we formalise our own. Would that be ok?
You do such inspirational work..we love Primary Tech.
Margaret Bergin
Hi Margaret,
How fantastic that every class is jumping in to blogging this year! Sounds like you’re at a great school – you’re very lucky. You’re more than welcome to use my class blog guidelines. I just ask that people acknowledge the source and link back.
Thanks!
Kathleen