Dr Patricia Connely
Occupation: Lecturer Age: 53 Institution: IOE
Gender: Female
Patricia has been lecturing at the IOE for over 20 years, starting as a
researcher, a full-time lecturer and now a part time senior lecturer.
She didn't have a particularly good experience with school when she was
growing up, which is why she is so driven and passionate about
providing a good education for herself and others.
Patricia's interests are mainly centered around researching and documenting
pedagogical practices. She uses MS Office applications daily, using
Word extremely well, Powerpoint for basic slideshow presentations and
rarely uses the Excel spreadsheets and Access database applications.
Patricia is an extremely hard worker, but also knows that time is her biggest
issue so she tries to prioritise her time well, trying to avoid
'distractions'. Therefore she only uses the internet for searching the
library journals and the general web, as well as using the web to
access the VLE and her email. On occasion she will use the discussion
boards to gain a wider perspective on people's opinion on certain
subject matters or issues.
Patricia has heard of web 2.0, but technology isn't really her thing, she is
more involved in the theoretical side of e-learning. She has an open
mind about web 2.0, and can see that some on the tools can serve a
purpose, whilst some can just appear to be distractions, but has never
delved too much into the tools herself. She has heard of networking
sites such as Bebo and Facebook as well as Google Docs and Twitter,
from her research and colleagues (who appear to have a new tool once a
month!), but she has never found the time or interest to look beyond
her existing technologies.
She enjoys working with computers, and has all the mobile devices for a
busy individual, such as a laptop and a standard mobile phone, but she
isn't really interested in all the other gadgety things, as she likes
to keep her life as simple as possible. Her husband has a desktop
computer at home, which she doens't really use (as she has her laptop),
but if she has any problems with her computer she just asks her
husband, who works in IT, to sort it out.