paulathomas07

Snapshot Bio intrepid sailor and explorer, innovative and enthusiatic educator, passionate about digital technologies, creative thinker, princess of positivity , Apple Distinguished Educator, lifelong learner Extended Bio Paula is an innovative, creative and passionate educator who has worked in the K-12 sector as an eLearning Coordinator and classroom practitioner specializing in Digital Technologies and in the tertiary sector as a guest lecturer in Digital Media for pre-service teachers at QUT. She has been recognized as an Apple Distinguished Educator and is part of a global community of education leaders doing amazing things with Apple technology in and out of the classroom. She assists teachers and students to harness the power of social and digital media to make global connections and partners in learning. Her philosophy of the new role of an educator in the 21st Century is to provide challenging opportunities that enable agile learners to ‘learn how to learn’. Agile learners utilise high levels of creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking skills to connect globally to solve real world problems and become responsible digital citizens positively contributing to a knowledge society. “Students who are encouraged to explore their passions become intrinsically motivated and develop a high degree of learning independence. They persevere to explore deeply, research meticulously, reflect critically and locate global learning collaborative partners for their projects long after the school day is over. The role of the teacher is to facilitate opportunities for students to engage in extraordinary learning tasks and produce creative and original ideas and solutions.” Paula delivers professional development workshops and in class assistance for teachers and students to empower them with skills and confidence to explore the affordances of Web2.0 technologies and mobile applications to enhance and enrich the curriculum and to engage learners. She has presented at many educational conferences on digital technologies that promote higher order thinking skills and powerful ways to utilise multimedia in the classroom. Publications on Multimedia and Film Festivals. Paula has articles published on Higher Order Thinking Tasks Utilising Web2.0 Tools for QSITE Magazineand Multimedia in the Classroom for Screen Australia Paula shares her expertise globally and contributes to digital technologies in educational issues on her edublog paulathomas07.wordpress.com, on Twitter @paulathomas07 and can be contacted on Linked In or by email paulathomas07@gmail.com.