Title:

How Am I Enhancing Inter-connections with ICT?

Title of Paper - Weaving webs and creating connections

Authors & affiliations:

Mairin Glenn, University of Limerick

Abstract:
(Your abstract must use Normal style and must fit in this space)

I am a primary teacher in a small rural school on the west coast of Ireland. I am also a doctoral student with Jean McNiff at the University of Limerick and I am exploring ideas around inter-connections in education and how technology can assist in the nurturing of such connections. Basically I am looking at my understanding of the relationality between my work with my class and how this is connected to the community outside the school, to the environment, to others in far-flung lands and the wider cosmos in general. I am using technology such as video, e-mail, sound recording, web design and so on with my class to support such relationality and am investigating how it allows my students the opportunity to engage with both the creation of their own knowledge ( see http://www.iol.ie/~bmullets/Lanslide/index.html for one example) at one level and the representation of their knowledge at another level (see http://www.iol.ie/~bmullets/beach/index.html ). I can see connecting webs or the 'web of betweenness' as described by John O'Donoghue (2003, p 132) in 'Divine Beauty' between my students and their environment in the work we undertake in class. These webs are further connected when others who view my students' work on the internet engage us in conversation through email.