Incredibly important for innovation. We need people with different. Hi Kim, can you give readers an overview of what it is you do?
Right now, I’m doing a few different things. I work as a part-time classroom teacher and digital learning coordinator at a primary school in Esperance, Western Australia. I’m also building my own business, which provides digital technologies training to parents, schools and business owners. These training sessions range from social media marketing to web design to cyber safety. Recently, I’ve just launched two new projects; a podcast, “Learn Digital with Kim Maslin” designed to help teachers better integrate ICT into the classroom, and an illustrated children’s book, The Tweeting Galah, which is all about cyber safety.
How did you arrive at this point in your career?
I’ve always had a passion for technology and education. I pursued these interests at university, and have done a few different jobs all within these fields. From this, I developed the experience to establish my own business, but it was squeezed in around full-time teaching. It was actually my recent move to Esperance that allowed me to drop back to part-time teaching, giving me more time to focus on the other projects and areas of interest.
Can you talk readers through your book and how it came about?
“The Tweeting Galah” is a collection of four short stories about growing up in the digital age. Australian animals – led by a very cheeky galah, Gabbo! – are the main characters, and each of them experience a different cyber safety issue; posting inappropriate content online, cyberbullies, online predators and the effects of too much screen time. I wanted the book to be entertaining as well as educational, so apart from these quirky characters – and the incredible illustrations that John Field drew – I also included reflection questions and Zappar augmented reality components. This means families can scan pictures in the book with their smart device, using the free Zappar app, and cool stuff happens on their device screen!…Click HERE to read full interview.
